(Minghui.org) It's hard to believe it has been twenty years since I began being involved with the materials production site in my area. I wouldn't be where I am today without Master's compassionate protection. I also owe thanks to my fellow practitioners, who have been encouraging me to keep walking well on my cultivation path.
At the beginning of the persecution, we set up a large production site in a rented house with very limited resources. With Master's requirement to break large materials sites into smaller ones, we closed the large site and set up smaller, home-based ones.
One practitioner bought a few computers and asked me to teach other practitioners how to use them. I wasn't a computer expert and only knew how to browse the Internet and download files. Encouraged by her, I taught two practitioners how to download files from Minghui website and print them. After they learned the basic operations, we brought printers from the original site to them. One after another, the home-based materials production sites were established.
Working with fellow practitioners on materials production provided me with ample opportunities to improve myself. Many of my attachments surfaced, such as zealotry, mentality of showing off, competitiveness, jealousy, complaints, and complacency. I sometimes grew conceited and appeared arrogant when talking to fellow practitioners. With their help, I was able to identify my attachments and eventually remove them.
Practitioner's Kindness Inspired Me
My 87-year-old mother broke her femoral head in 2012 and became bedridden. I had to take care of her around the clock. I was exhausted by the end of the day and couldn't keep up with my cultivation. Without enough Fa study, my xinxing level dropped.
One practitioner came to my home and asked me to design an amulet for local practitioners to print. I was very cold to her and went straight to the kitchen to prepare lunch for my mother. She followed me to the kitchen and tried to persuade me to take on the task, I continued to ignore her and did my things. After she left, my mother said to me: “She is a nice person.”
That practitioner didn't take to heart my attitude towards her. She came back a few times. I was touched by her persistence and realized my problem. I agreed to do it.
After a long day of work, it was difficult for me to calm down and work on the design at night. I wasn't proficient with the computer at all and it took me a long time to get things right.
Actually, I wasn't able to get everything right. Because the front and back of the design didn't overlap, it created a lot of extra work for practitioners to align them. But none of them complained to me. They paid close attention to detail and the final products turned out to be very beautiful and were very popular when they passed them out.
I felt so sorry for refusing to do it at the beginning and blaming the practitioner for not considering my family situation. Now I realized that Master had arranged for that practitioner to push me to move forward in my cultivation, and yet I resisted for nearly two years!
Becoming Complacent
When practitioners all talked to me and said how great the design was, my showoff mentality arose. I began to brag about managing to do a good job despite the difficulties.
Seeing that my cultivation status was going awry, that practitioner invited me to her home to study the Fa together. After rejecting her several times, I finally agreed.
There were several other practitioners in the room when I arrived. She played the recordings of Master's lectures in Guangzhou. As I was listening, I fell asleep. That practitioner lightly touched me to wake me up and brought me a popsicle. She was so kind and thoughtful. I was ashamed of my own behavior.
A Full-function Production Site
As time went by, the materials production site I managed with other practitioners grew very fast. In addition to printing regular pamphlets, we were able to produce DVDs, bookmarks, and many other things. The bookmarks were especially popular among students, which helped us to better clarify the facts.
To reduce waste, I suggested we re-use the extra paper cut off from DVD covers and turn them into bookmarks with truth-clarification messages on them. Fellow practitioners all liked this idea.
When the design for the Minghui desktop calendar became available, I coordinated fellow practitioners to get the corresponding materials needed for that. We leveraged the resources from other production sites and printed nearly 7,000 desktop calendars together in the first year.
A female practitioner delivered boxes and boxes of the calendars to different Fa study groups. Although it was very labor-intensive, she didn't complain but cherished the opportunity to make her own contribution to the project.
Delivering the Materials
After we finished making the calendars, we delivered the materials from door to door in the countryside and encouraged the villagers to quit the Communist Party and its organizations. We all worked very hard and skipped lunch, but we never felt hungry or tired. Many villagers expressed their gratitude for bringing them the information.
On a winter day, we encountered heavy snow and the sky was very bright from the light reflected off the snow. We waited until it was dark and walked in the snow to get to the villagers' homes. When someone fell, we helped her up and continued on. Our pants were wet and our faces were cold.
Despite the cold, the air was so fresh and I remembered a poem from Master:
“A Great Enlightened One fears no hardship
Having forged an adamantine will
Free of attachment to living or dying
He walks the path of Fa-rectification
confident and poised”
(“Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions,” Hong Yin Vol. II, translation version A)
Inspired and strengthened by the Fa, I felt proud to be a Falun Dafa practitioner, assisting Master in Fa-rectification.
The houses in the woods were far away from each other, but we didn't want to leave anyone behind. Male practitioners volunteered to go to the homes furthest away and on the worst roads. Sometimes a house seemed close at a glance but turned out to be far when we walked in the dark. I was so touched by the other practitioners' sacrifices and cherished the opportunity to work with them.
Overcoming Difficulties
After I learned how to install computer systems and fix simple problems with printers, I began to help local practitioners solve some issues when the technical practitioner wasn't around. Master often gave me hints when I didn't know what to do.
One practitioner set up a new production site at her home. She didn't have any computer knowledge at all and I had to teach her everything. It took me a long time to teach her how to browse the internet and print files as she kept forgetting things. I became impatient towards her. But she didn't mind. No matter how bad my attitude was, she never took it to heart.
In fact, it wasn't me teaching her how to use computer, she was helping me improve my xinxing.
After she learned the basic techniques, she bought another printer and provided all the materials needed for her Fa study group.
I used to go to the countryside with a coordinator practitioner to help fellow practitioners there fix their computers. After he moved to another city, I was left alone. Initially, I didn't feel comfortable going there by myself. But then I thought, Master was giving me the opportunity to walk my own path and I couldn't always rely on fellow practitioners.
At the end of 2017, one practitioner's printer stopped working while printing some New Year related materials. The weather was very cold and the big printing machine couldn't fit into a regular car, making it almost impossible for us to take it somewhere to fix. So I contacted overseas technical practitioners and traveled back and forth between my home and the countryside several days to fix the machine. In the end, all the materials were finished on time.
When I went to the countryside, I usually used the ride-sharing service. But the problem was, most drivers wouldn't leave if the car wasn't full. While waiting in the car for them to get more customers, I became very anxious and worried about whether I could make it back home around noon to prepare lunch for my mother, who is in her 90s. I knew Master was using these opportunities for me to cultivate away my impatience.
Usually whenever practitioners needed me, I always put aside my own things and responded to their requests immediately. I knew how anxious they were when the machines had issues.
At one time, it was raining outside and I still rushed out in the rain. I was completely wet when I arrived at the practitioner's home, and yet no one came to open the door for me. All kinds of human thinking and complaints began to pop up in my heart. It turned out that practitioner thought I wouldn't come in the rain, so she went to another place.
I scheduled another time to visit her, but she wasn't home when I went there again. I was very angry and thought she was untrustworthy. I blew up at her and said I would never come again.
Looking inward, I realized I was wrong and was still thinking about things from my own standpoint, without being fully considerate of others.
When similar situations happened again, I was able to calm down quickly. Instead of blaming fellow practitioners, I found myself becoming more understanding of them. This is exactly where we need to improve ourselves in cultivation.
Overseas Practitioners' Technical Support
When I encountered technical difficulties, I often turned to the “Tiandixing Discussion Forum” run by overseas practitioners. I didn't know how to post a question myself in the beginning, so I went over pages and pages of questions posted by other practitioners, looking for discussion related to my issue.
Although it took me a lot of time to look for answers, I ended up learning many computer skills by reading the posts. Later on I created my own account and began to communicate directly with the practitioners on there.
Practitioners in the forum are very kind. They often encouraged me to believe in myself when I thought it was impossible for me to solve a certain problem, which gave me confidence and strengthened my righteous thoughts to keep trying.
I really appreciate the opportunities to work with different practitioners, whether in China or abroad. Without Master's protection and fellow practitioners' help and support, I wouldn't be able to achieve anything. Only when we work seamlessly as one body can we fulfill our responsibilities as Dafa disciples.
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