(Minghui.org) Dearest Master and fellow practitioners,
I once heard a coordinator saying to another coordinator, “This project is not your baby.”
For some reason, this sentence echoed in my ears through the following years. It also helped me overcome many disappointments when I left certain projects and continued working on others. I felt at times that others did not allow me to express my abilities and leverage my potential in clarifying the truth in some projects. I thought I was doing it very well. However, I found that self-validation was secretly hiding behind all the hard work and determination. I forgot that all my abilities were given to me by Master, in order to fulfill certain tasks!
One day, I realized that I must help Master save the people I grew up with. I decided to hold an evening of truth-clarification in the kibbutz where I grew up.
Although I felt somewhat uncomfortable, I was determined and had complete confidence in my ability to do it. I also had in my mind a picture of how to carry it through. I planned something short and to the point, allowing some time for discussion and Q&A afterwards.
Some difficulties came up in arranging the event, but they all melted away, because my thoughts and intention were clear. For instance, the club where I planned to hold the event wanted to charge a lot of money. After my sister explained the event to the owner and said that it was not for making profit, the owner decided not to charge us anything. That was before I even opened my mouth. The person in charge of cultural events at the kibbutz also cooperated after I clarified the truth to her, and asked me to provide her with a few possible dates for scheduling the event.
After thinking it over briefly, I decided that it would be better if another practitioner accompanied me in case I missed anything, to make the truth clarification as successful as possible.
I approached a few practitioners, and things started to get complicated. Some said that they couldn't participate on certain dates. Others raised doubts about my personal ability or authority to do it, and others had doubts about their own capacity to do it.
I couldn’t understand–why did I encounter these obstacles? I only wanted to clarify the truth, so what could be the problem? Cultivators should be supportive, shouldn’t they?
My fellow practitioners' words had touched my fear of rejection and abandonment, and I suffered. I removed judgmental and critical thoughts about others, and consulted with a fellow practitioner from a cultivation perspective. I asked her, “Why does no one trust me?” She told me that it was I who had started a storm in a teacup, and that the other practitioners reacted that way so I would realize it. She said, “It is you who were not counting on yourself!”
I was shocked, as deep inside I was certain that I could do it, and could even do it well. So why did I really want others to accompany me? I started carefully examining my apprehensions and discomfort. I found that I had a strong need for external approval. I also had a certain amount of laziness when it came to learning and memorizing new facts, such as dates and events that took place in China.
However, I had full faith in Master and was sure that Master would guide me and allow me to offer salvation to those people.
I decided to let go of the technical details and focus solely on the righteous thought of wanting to save sentient beings.
The one body of cultivators goes through a lot of dynamic changes simultaneously. Immediately after I came to that realization, I was asked to translate experiences about promoting Shen Yun. These practitioners' experiences encouraged me, and I quote one cultivator’s understanding, “If our hearts are devoted to saving people, our human notions will not restrict us, and these are reflections of believing in Master and Dafa. As long as we believe in Dafa, Master will strengthen us.”
While translating these experience sharing articles, my understanding of truth clarification became stronger: The various projects are very important, and we should strive to save everyone. However, what blocks our projects from growing are not the specific details and difficulties of the projects themselves, but the ego of validating ourselves. When that mindset of self-validation manifests, we do not cooperate well with one another, and our collective will as one body is also lacking. Although we might truly have the heart to save people and help Master rectify the Fa, that shortcoming cunningly hides inside many of us. I realized that I should expose it in myself.
I found further encouragement in another experience sharing I translated. The writer said that we can promote Shen Yun well only when we base everything on the Fa and have righteous thoughts and righteous actions.
Yet, there was still no harmony between me and the other practitioner who agreed to come with me to the kibbutz. I felt blocked and unsupported by him, while he, honestly sharing his feelings with me, said that I was inconsiderate towards him and towards his needs, and that he found it difficult to communicate with me. I was shocked and did not understand. I tried hard to accommodate him. I gave up on the way I wanted the evening to go and accepted his plan, so what was he talking about?
I listened and tried to offer a few solutions, but really couldn’t understand what he meant. It exhausted and confused me. When I looked inward, I saw that his grievance was actually related to another issue. I found that I had not addressed certain difficulties that he had raised, and that might have been the problem. The following day I apologized to him for my misunderstanding. I admitted that I was too judgmental, not attentive, and not compassionate enough towards him.
Although we didn’t ultimately decide on how to go about it, and it aroused my concerns about our ability to cooperate, I decided to let go of my yearning for harmony and security. I decided to trust him and make it easier on him, have faith in myself, and mostly in Master, and go with the flow.
In addition, another practitioner, who had agreed to bring lotus flowers for the event, didn’t contact me on time. I did manage to find a few flowers when I went to the big weekly Fa-study, but I forgot them on the ride back home.
I arrived exhausted at the truth-clarification event, even though I had prepared myself well by studying the Fa, doing the exercises, and sending righteous thoughts. I had publicized the evening by all means available, but I worried that people would not arrive, so I tried calling them in my mind. I told them in my mind, “We came from so far away only to reach this moment in time. Please do not miss the opportunity. Please come.”
Only 16 people turned up, half of whom were my family. Shortly before the evening began, the other practitioner arrived, and I could feel his wonderful energy field, light, and strength. Smiling, he was holding a big paper bag, filled to the top with beautiful lotus flowers, a gift from the practitioner who made them for me.
I don’t know how the event went by from the perspective of others, but I felt harmony, warmth, and interest flowing between the two of us and the small audience. I conducted myself confidently and smoothly, and we cooperated naturally and gracefully as one body. Although I wasn’t at my best performance when presenting the issue, something strong was flowing between us and the audience. It was also very important for me that my family could learn about Dafa from another angle, as was presented on this evening.
After the event, I thought that maybe I was too attached to bringing in people with strong predestined relationships, and maybe that was blocking them from arriving. I was happy for all who arrived, but felt sorry for those who didn’t. A very dear fellow practitioner enlightened me on the subject, saying, “You don’t even know which people have a predestined relationship with you. Your family has very special people in it, and it might be that the whole thing has nothing to do with the number of people who learned about Dafa that day. It might be a personal breakthrough that you’ve made, and along with you, numerous sentient beings underwent the same breakthrough.”
Another incident that taught me about the one body happened in my work with the team that organized this experience sharing conference. Communication between myself and a fellow practitioner was full of resentment, misunderstandings, and disharmony. It came up in our every conversation. It piled a lot of difficulties on me, but in the end she said to me, “I have no idea why communicating with you is so difficult for me. I should look inward.” I was amazed! It was so similar to what the practitioner who shared the evening at the kibbutz had told me when we had that disharmony in our communication.
After explaining myself to her, I started looking inward and realized what had happened. I called her, apologized for my impatience, and shared with her, “You know, I’ve found the root cause of the problem. I measure others with the same yardstick with which I measure myself. I demand of others exactly the same as I demand of myself, and that is completely wrong. Different people have different understandings, different paces, different personalities, and I expect them to react in a very specific way that suits me… That is actually going against the law of the universe.”
Following that conversation, our relationship became harmonious, and we cooperated well with each other.
I came to realize that being one body means being able to accommodate, support, and complement one another. It also entails being attuned to other people's needs and capabilities, instead of becoming angry with their shortcomings. We should cherish ourselves and our counterparts, in spite of everything.
One morning, while studying the Fa, I became enlightened to Sakyamuni’s enlightenment:
“Whenever he reached a higher level, he would discover that the Dharma he taught in the past was at a very low level in its understanding. He also discovered that the Dharma at each level is always the manifestation of the Dharma at that level, that there is Dharma at every level, and that none of them is the absolute truth of the universe.” (Zhuan Falun)
I once expressed one of my personal understandings on a practitioners' email forum, and received reactions from other practitioners. I actually thought I might receive some harsh reactions, but I posted my thoughts anyway, because it was important for me to express this particular understanding. I was especially pleased with my new ability to accept others' reactions. I examined more meticulously the things that I’d been told. Some of what people wrote led me to improve, and enlightened me to understand that in order to touch more hearts and inspire others, I should improve even more rapidly. In some of the reactions, I saw reflections of shortcomings of the person who gave the feedback. I looked at those reflections and courageously tried to find sparks of these shortcomings in me. Thus, I discovered a hidden struggle in my mind, taking someone else’s shortcoming as a personal attack or threat, and lacking compassion in accommodating others.
Responding to another person’s understandings by contradicting or justifying him does not result from cultivating Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
It’s no wonder that I kept coming across this reflection through similar reactions from other practitioners. I made up my mind to work harder on my tolerance and compassion.
It is interesting that ego or selfishness is not necessarily expressed in arrogance or selfish behavior; many times it is just a kind of defense mechanism. Arrogance can manifest in one's being unable to listen or see another person, their needs or distress, or their ability to accept certain things. Selfishness can also hide behind personal distress. However, beauty starts to show when you really see the other person, and Dafa then naturally leads to harmony and generosity. I realized that one should take the lead, regardless of outer reactions, accommodate other practitioners more and more, forgive, support, and inspire. I decided to act on this realization.
I also realized that whenever I upgraded my level and my understanding makes breakthroughs, my previous understandings and thoughts might be totally different, because the Fa has different understandings on different levels. For example, maintaining such flexibility and lightness, continually flowing with Dafa’s wisdom, not insisting on or defending my own ways of doing things (on the contrary, I can agree to do the exact opposite now)–that is truly making breakthroughs in levels.
This experience is exactly like that of Sakyamuni:
“Whenever he upgraded himself to a higher level, he looked back and realized that the Dharma he just taught was all wrong.” (Zhuan Falun)
What modesty that is!
I imagine that if we can set aside all the thoughts we had a moment ago, cherish ourselves and our fellow practitioners, and lean on Dafa’s wisdom instead of leaning on regular people’s methods, then we may also be able to bring Shen Yun to Israel.
I thank everyone who’s been with me, for helping me realize and awaken to it, even though it was a little painful. Thank you, Master!
(Shared at the Israeli Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference)