(Minghui.org)
Greetings, Master!
Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I am a board member and executive vice president of a company I joined in 1998, one year after I began practicing Falun Gong. I’d like to share with everyone how I maintain a stable cultivation environment in which to do the three things smoothly and persistently.
Reestablishing My Cultivation Environment after Illegal Imprisonment
Master warned us in “Fa Teaching on World Falun Dafa Day”:
“At first, many people had short-term thinking. They thought that they would just need to put in a great deal of effort for a short while and it would be over. They’ve now realized that things are not happening that way. A Dafa disciple must do everything steadily, put his heart into it, not be attached to time, and not think too much. You have to give your very best in whatever you are supposed to do, and it will go well. Under the pressure of the persecution, many people were always hoping that the persecution would end sooner, and so they put in a great deal of effort for a while. But that’s not how things are going. It should be said, of course, that your media have indeed had a major impact in saving sentient beings.”
I was among the practitioners who thought they just needed to put in a great deal of effort for a short while and the Fa-rectification would be over before they knew it. Due to my shallow understanding of “assisting Master in Fa-rectification,” I went all-out to work on Dafa projects, all the while ignoring my wife and my work obligations.
The old forces exploited my loophole, and I was sentenced to prison in late 2002. I learned a lesson that passion and enthusiasm are just motivations for everyday people, and “reason and wisdom” are what Dafa cultivators really need.
I was willing to devote the rest of my life to “assisting Master in Fa-rectification” if that was what was required of me. However, I learned from my arrest that “assisting Master in Fa-rectification” is not just paying lip service and that we must have a stable job and a normal living environment to sustain our truth-clarification efforts.
My company's CEO came to pick me up on my release day and invited me to be his top lieutenant. I was just a branch office general manager before my arrest, but he skipped rungs on the corporate ladder to elevate me directly to Executive Vice President. I knew that nothing happened by chance, and I was immensely grateful that Master gave me another chance to reestablish my cultivation environment.
So I remarried and started a new family. I also reminded myself to give my best to my company as the new executive vice president.
Maintaining a Stable Work Environment
Though my CEO held me in high regard, he still had bias against Dafa. I knew the CCP's lies were to blame, but I was also aware of the financial losses my imprisonment caused to the company.
I understood that he worried about my continued practice of Falun Gong, so I made up my mind to help him see why I held firm in my belief.
When I learned he was scheduled to visit Canada in a few days, I emailed him a copy of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party before paying him a visit in his office the next day. To my surprise, he flew into a rage when I suggested he watch a Shen Yun Performing Arts show while in Canada.
He blurted out many unpleasant words and even asked me to leave the company in the end.
I suddenly felt the compassion from the deepest part of my being to save him, and tears ran down my face. I said to him, “I have no trouble quitting the job. I’ll make proper arrangements before I leave. I’ll also return all the company stock granted to me.”
He seemed moved by my willingness to give up all my vested interest in the company. He turned to comfort me, “We’ve worked so hard together to build the company to today’s scale, yet you can give up everything just for your belief. Forget about what I just said. I didn’t mean to push you out. I was just concerned you’d get into trouble.”
He concluded our conversation by saying, “Thanks for your efforts to save me!”
I followed up with all kinds of other opportunities to let him know the evil nature of the Chinese Communist Party. The Bo Xilai incident became a catalyst that completely changed his attitude about the Party.
Witnessing the CEO's change, even our finance manager gradually softened his stance on the Falun Gong issue. He used to have trouble seeing through the CCP's evilness in persecuting Falun Gong, and I was happy with the ripple effect of our CEO.
Once I accompanied the CEO to a golf outing and met one of his friends, who was the chairman of the board of regents for a private university. As soon as he heard my name, he yelled, “I know you! So-and-so [my CEO’s name] talks about you all the time. You practice Falun Gong!”
Some caddies turned around to look at me, and I acknowledged his assertion with a smile, “Yes, that’s me.” The friend asked to ride in the same golf cart with me. The whole time we talked about how corrupt the CCP was. He even had two college classmates who practiced Falun Gong. One was sentenced for his belief, and the other (vice president of a real estate company) was still holding firm in his belief, just like me.
Resisting the Temptation to Jump Ship
I am one of the veterans in the industry I work in. I even published a book on my industry. Thanks to the wisdom bestowed on me by Dafa, I have strong analytical and communication skills, and I am also very efficient and effective at getting things done when compared to others.
My industry has undergone some dramatic changes these past few years, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. Despite the unpredictable market conditions, I was still able to steer my company in the right direction and develop new products in demand. As a result, my company has seen steady growth in the soft economy today.
All these achievements, however, invited headhunters and the like, who tried to persuade me to jump ship.
Once, another company’s CEO flew in to invite me to be his partner. After I declined, he offered me a hefty salary to work as his consultant. He wasn’t deterred when I turned him down for the second time. He wondered if I would like to serve as an expert analyst for a particular project. I again said no.
It is commonplace in my industry for veteran employees to take away the clients list and start their own business. Some of my former colleagues have been running their own companies for years. I was aware that my CEO was concerned, so I assured him on various occasions that I’d stick around until the day he wanted me out.
It was my understanding that all these temptations were actually traps set up by the old forces, which gave practitioners some carrots before whacking them with a stick. If I indeed quit my current job to join another firm or start my own business, the old forces would conclude that I was not appreciative of my CEO's unusual promotion of me, and they could use it as an excuse to cause trouble for me. Instead of being able to launch a new stellar career, I might even end up with having trouble making a living.
I knew that as a cultivator, I am not after material interests in the human world. More importantly, I did not want to see my stable work environment damaged in any way. Therefore, I turned down numerous offers and was determined to work in the same company so I could do the three things without interruption.
On a side note, my CEO has received blessings for his support of me and Dafa. He turned over daily operations to me a while back and now enjoys life with no worries. His son excels academically and is a young man who treats his parents well. Many people are envious of my CEO's good life. He is also content with what he has. I know all too well that it’s all because of his support of Dafa.
Making the Best Use of My Talents to Cooperate in Dafa Projects
Master taught us in “Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference”:
“What this means is, a large portion of the Dafa disciples came with those cosmic bodies, and everybody formed karmic relationships. Once you've reached Consummation and returned it'll be almost impossible for you to see each other again, even if you want to. So, you should treasure this part of your karmic relationship. And what's more, those karmic relationships of yours have been intertwined with each other, and different karmic relationships were formed over every lifetime--it hasn't been easy. So, cooperate well when you do things. Each Dafa disciple's thing is everybody else's. Don't create distance and disharmony between each other over some little, trivial thing. You can't do that, and you should treasure all this. And also, you need to cooperate in Dafa things, and you should do a good job of cooperating.”
I gained a deeper understanding of the above passage of Fa after doing a few projects that called for the use of my talents.
Thanks to my stable work environment and my talent in analytics and communication, I was able to find time at work to write articles to submit to Minghui.
However, I gradually reduced my production after some of my articles were turned down by Minghui editors.
Things changed when I ran into a Minghui reporter by chance. He urged me to take part in a project to write summary reports of persecution cases gathered by Minghui. My first reaction was to get myself out of it using all kinds of excuses. I told him that there may be security issues if I downloaded too many Minghui reports using anti-censorship software.
I reluctantly agreed to give it a try upon his insistence, but I didn’t contact him again until about one month later. I was still unwilling to participate in the project, but I knew I had to keep my promise.
He soon responded by giving me a job to analyze persecution cases in a certain southern province. I checked all relevant information on that province on Minghui and found that most “summary reports” lacked a database approach and standard statistical analysis. So I downloaded all Minghui reports pertaining to that province since 1999 and began to build my own database.
I sorted the cases by different criteria, including age, gender, region, and time and nature of persecution. Getting each individual case to the different categories was a tedious process, which at times tested my patience.
While working on the database, I saw from Minghui that the correspondent was arrested and sentenced to prison. I enlightened that cooperating with Minghui to compile databases was an urgent mission Master arranged for me.
I finished building that province's database in about two months, and spent another month or so writing the summary report of the persecution cases. My first draft had about 200,000 words, but Minghui editors requested I shrink it to around 40,000 words. I saw that I had an attachment of doing things on a grander scale, so I revised the report accordingly.
With that province’s database in place, I was able to extract a few other summary reports, including one on the persecution of female practitioners at the women’s labor camp in that province.
I began a more arduous effort when I realized there was not a single comprehensive report analyzing the torture-death cases gathered by Minghui.
It was not easy doing such a comprehensive report. I had to download all relevant data and build my own database. Every day at work I squeezed as much time as I could to work on the data. At night, I continued my database work after my family went to sleep. I also canceled almost all of my social functions.
The extended use of a keyboard and mouse caused a lot of pain and numbness in my hands, most of all the fingers on my right hand.
It took me about seven months to finish building the database. During that period, my company went through a lot of personnel changes, which resulted in clients’ dissatisfaction. I had to spend a lot of time putting out fires, but I was able to handle all the issues properly.
Another three months passed before I completed writing the six-part series of the investigation report of the CCP’s torture death of Falun Gong practitioners.
I wasn’t too happy when Minghui editors had some different opinions about my first draft. Then I remembered Master instructing us to cooperate with one another unconditionally, so I revised the report per the editors’ suggestions.
I had a dream the night I submitted my final version to Minghui: two Minghui reporters came to interview me with their video cameras. I knew Master was praising me for doing the right thing.
Through doing this project, I came to see the importance of determination and persistence, as well as that of cooperating with other practitioners unconditionally.
When I read the report of how a group of lawyers in a northern province were arrested for defending practitioners detained in a brainwashing center, I got the idea of doing a report of persecution of practitioners in that brainwashing center.
I next came to see that the huge profits these brainwashing centers raked in were the main driver of their continued existence, so I wrote another four-part series, “A Close Look at the Brainwashing Industry in China: Policies, Funding, and Scale.”
The Key to Successful Truth-Clarification is Persistence
Master said in “What is a Dafa Disciple”:
“As for saving sentient beings and clarifying the truth, a lot of people haven’t done it in depth. They’ll say just a few words to people, thinking “Listen or don’t listen, just do whatever you like. You don’t want to listen, fine!” and they’ll go on to find the next person. In whatever you do you should carry it through to the end, do it well, and if you intend to save someone, then go ahead and save him.”
I had trouble “carrying it through to the end” when it came to clarifying the facts. I set short-term goals but quickly gave up when I realized I wasn't able to save that many people by a certain time. I made some new goals, only to abort them again.
I was like that for several years straight. I wanted to save people, but had trouble keeping up with my goals.
Later I realized I should just focus on doing what I was supposed to do, without worrying about the outcome. As I put my heart into what I was doing, I had better outcomes in my truth-clarification efforts. Below I give three examples.
Connecting with People in My Hometown
There were very few practitioners in my rural hometown, so I was always thinking of how to reach residents there. The trouble was that some people didn’t know me well, since my busy work schedule prevented me from returning there that often.
I decided to build relationships with my hometown folks first. Whenever I returned to my hometown, I bought gifts to visit my long-separated relatives and even people I didn't know yet. I chatted with them about my job, and they were impressed with my successful career. It was then a no-brainer for them to share their contact information with me.
Upon returning to my own city, I dialed their phone numbers to play pre-recorded truth-clarification messages. Little by little, more and more people in my hometown began to understand the the persecution of Falun Gong. The next time I visited my hometown again, I heard people talking about quitting the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
Now, even many elderly people in their 80s know to recite “Falun Dafa is good” and have begun to listen to Master’s Fa lecture recordings.
My experience of connecting with my hometown folks helped me see one thing: saving sentient beings is an urgent matter, but we need to allow people time to understand Falun Gong and change their attitude.
My in-laws used to have negative opinions about Falun Gong, but I just kept talking to them about Falun Gong whenever there was a chance. They are now big supporters of my practice.
Using Truth-clarification Currency in My Daily Life
I once had doubts about the effectiveness of using bills printed with messages about Falun Gong and the persecution. After all, I used credit cards most of the time. So what was the point of using a few truth-clarification bills here and there?
Later I realized that as a cultivator, I shouldn’t be obsessed with the quantity of truth-clarification bills I used. My heart matters more than the quantity.
Now it’s been several years since I began to use truth-clarification bills on a regular basis. Be it dining out, taking public transportation or shopping, I always make sure to have some cash in my wallet. My non-practitioner family, including my wife and in-laws, sometimes use truth-clarification bills as well. They even save change for me to make truth-clarification bills.
Playing Truth-Clarification Messages Over the Phone
I didn’t have very good results when I first started dialing phone numbers and playing recorded truth-clarification messages. Out of safety concerns, I did this project only outside my work and home.
I was only able to dial a few dozen numbers at the beginning, and very few people finished listening to the messages. No one ever expressed interest in quitting the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
I wanted to give up, but again realized my heart was more important than the number of phone calls I made. My job was to give people on the other end of the line a chance to listen to truth-clarification messages. They may decide to quit the CCP the next time another practitioner reached them.
Now I use my commute to make calls with three mobile phones. I can cover more than 300 numbers every day, and about one third picked up the phone. Many finished listening to the message, and some wanted to quit right away.
I dreaded traffic jams in the past, but now it's a golden time for me to reach out to countless sentient beings by making phone calls.
Through my persistence in doing these projects, I deeply feel that doing the three things is not an assignment but the fundamental meaning of my life.
A Meaningful Cultivation Routine
Now my routine includes the following: making truth-clarification calls on my commute to work, squeezing time during work to compile databases, using truth-clarification bills in my daily life, getting up every morning to send forth righteous thoughts, practicing the exercises and studying the Fa, and grabbing every possible opportunity to talk to people about Falun Gong.
There is interference at times, but I work hard to improve my xinxing and overcome the obstacles.
Such is my life - natural, peaceful and fulfilled. I know I will keep going even if it means taking the rest of my life to do the three things.
In retrospect, I stumbled along the way and failed to pass many tests well. Had it not been for Master’s compassionate salvation, I wouldn’t have come this far. Words cannot describe my gratitude to Master.
Thank you, Master!
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