(Minghui.org) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
It has been nearly 16 years since I joined the English language Minghui translation team in the fall of 2005. The first time I heard about this project was by chance when I met a practitioner who didn’t participate in the Minghui website at all. After we chatted he said, “You should join the English Minghui translation team. You have experience writing in Chinese and have a degree in English. That’s what you should do.” Soon after that, I met a practitioner who was part of the English Minghui translation team. It seemed like a coincidence that I joined the English Minghui translation team.
Just as Master said, “The fact is, you've learned what you've learned because you had that wish and accordingly arrangements were made for you back in the past since it would be needed in validating the Fa, that's all.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. V)
Let Go of Ego and Selfishness and Solidly Fulfilling My Mission
Because the Minghui website is unique, the requirements for security and confidentiality are exceptionally high. Participants in the project must keep a low profile and keep their names strictly confidential. Even in meetings, they can only use pseudonyms. Therefore, it seems that there is no one to talk to or communicate with. The only three other practitioners I have interacted with are my team coordinators. Over the years, this way of working and the requirements have become hardships of loneliness and isolation. Local practitioners often discuss each other’s projects. Because I could not talk about what I was involved in, sometimes there were misunderstandings, feelings of isolation, and pressure from fellow practitioners.
I didn’t feel the hardship of loneliness for the first two years, but year after year, there were times when I felt very, very lonely. I do not know what role my dedication plays in the Fa-rectification period. I sometimes asked myself why I wanted to be a Minghui translator and what it meant to be a Minghui translator. I sometimes wanted to work on a different project, where I knew who the team members were.
I had a few ups and downs like this, but in the end, I stayed because I felt responsible to the project. After I settled down I identified the attachments behind my thoughts of leaving the project and I eliminated them.
I realized that loneliness was an attachment that can wear down a cultivator’s will. Feeling lonely indicates a restless heart. The thought that there is no one to communicate with is also an attachment that looks outward and pursues shortcuts in cultivation. Behind this attachment is an unwillingness to look inward.
In addition, the idea of becoming more diligent by communicating with fellow practitioners is not righteous because we should have a firm faith in Master and Dafa from the perspective of the Fa. Master told us long ago, “Whether you want to cultivate or are able to cultivate depends completely upon how your xinxing is improved.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
On the other hand, no matter what difficulties we encounter, they reflect our attachments. If we have no attachments and do not seek to be valued, we would not encounter situations that stirred our hearts. Deep inside, it was the fear of losing others’ affection and attention.
I often think of those practitioners at the Falun Dafa material production sites in China. They face terrible hardship of loneliness and face the test of life and death every moment if their path deviates even slightly. In comparison, the loneliness we face is nothing.
Eliminating the Mentality of Being a Part-time Volunteer
For a long time, I translated one or two articles a week. I felt that this was the maximum I could do because I participated in other projects. I also had a busy job. On weekends, I usually participated in other truth-clarification activities. So even though I wanted to do more for a long time, no matter how strong my desire was, I could not break through. It felt like I was trying very hard to fly, but couldn’t.
I realized that without the power of the Fa, it is impossible to improve by just wishing to, and only the Fa can change oneself and completely change one’s cultivation state.
Master said,
“The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.” (“Drive Out Interference,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)
So I started to memorize the Fa. As I memorized, our compassionate Master revealed some Fa-principles to me every day. My cultivation state also continued to rapidly improve.
I first broke through the issue of lack of time. I realized that I pursued development in my career but I did not see this. Driven by this attachment, I became busier and busier at work. Working overtime became my daily routine. I came home late every day, and I could barely study a little bit of Fa and do a few sets of exercises before I sent forth righteous thoughts at midnight. It seems impossible to translate more articles.
After I detected my attachment to career development, I decided to remove it. I also asked Master for help. Master saw my heart and arranged the best, as he always does. The turning point came. A job hunter reached out and offered me an opportunity to work for a small company. However, tests came at the same time. Soon I also received offers with higher positions from large companies. Faced with two opposite career paths, I wavered. The cunning attachments thought, “Why not accept the C-level position offer? I would be able to interact with more mainstream people so I could better validate the Fa and promote Shen Yun.” I examined my intentions. I knew that my priority was to have more time to cultivate myself well and take more translation assignments for the English Minghui Website.
So, I joined a small company. I am now very glad that I made this decision because I have two more hours every day to help with translation. This is what I promised Master in my heart.
I found that the more diligent we are and the higher standard we need to live up to, the easier it is to walk out of tribulations. For example, for a long time I was torn between translating or doing the exercise after work. One practitioner said she gets up early to do the exercises so she can have more time to do Dafa projects and save people. I felt it was not a coincidence for me to hear this. I adjusted my sleep pattern immediately and did the five sets of exercises either after midnight or before I went to work. It was not easy, but I became more energetic and more efficient.
At the same time, I eliminated my feeling of not belonging to the project by making efforts to participate in daily group Fa-study. Again, it was not easy to do in the beginning. Once I became determined to make it part of my daily routine, I became more aware of my mission of doing translation for Minghui during the Fa-rectification period.
Only By Cultivating Well Can We Do the Project Well
It is easy in translation work to fall into a mechanical repetition: receive an assignment, translate, submit, receive another assignment, translate again, and submit again. If our mind is not in a good cultivation state, the process becomes a repetitive and boring task over time. To break through this, we have to remember that we are practitioners at all times. In fact, Master uses every opportunity to expose our attachments so we can detect them and remove them.
Sometimes, I came across articles with many details that I felt were unnecessary. In some pieces, the logic did not seem to make any sense. I often silently complained while translating. For a long time, this mindset of criticizing others and looking down on others became natural, and I did not even realize it.
Once I translated a short article with less than one page. The author was trying to break through his status of slacking off. I read it repeatedly but I still did not understand what he was trying to say. My impatience and dissatisfaction became stronger and stronger. I even wanted to ask the team leader to change my assignment. I barely managed to translate it. I did not even dare to review the polished version. When I finally got up the courage to read the polished version, no surprise, it was full of revisions. I realized that it was time to look within and change myself.
I knew that looking down on others comes from jealousy. I wanted to eliminate these thoughts, but I couldn’t seem to get rid of them. I realized that I hadn’t made any efforts to eliminate them at all even though I thought I wanted to. It is not enough to just have the desire to improve. What counts is our righteous deeds and how we implement our wishes.
I realized that jealousy motivates our attachment to self. Because I was self-centered, I could not see the strengths of others and did not always look at others positively. When I looked inward further, I realized that this is the nature of the old universe. By holding onto the selfish notions of the old universe, how could I become a being belonging to Master’s new universe if I did not eliminate selfishness?
After I realized this, I could better understand Master’s teaching on cultivating ourselves well in order to do a good job of saving people. Gradually, I learned to grasp every thought that came up, to see where that thought came from. This way, I could detect many hidden attachments, distinguish them from my true self, reject them, suppress them, not follow these bad thoughts, and gradually eliminate them.
Our cultivation states affect the quality and efficiency of our translation. When we are in a good cultivation state, the translation is usually quick and well done, with few changes from the polishers. A bad cultivation state results in interference. For example, when I slacked off, my brain did not function at all. I was sleepy and tired, and I could only translate word by word, and the quality was not good.
I also eliminated the attachment of looking outward and being strict with others. In my translation team, the only three fellow practitioners I have interacted with are my team coordinators. From them, I have experienced the power of compassion, and I understand that only the power of compassion can change people.
Over the years when I slacked off—when I was impatient or made mistakes, I sometimes thought, “I’m going to be criticized this time.” But whenever I was ready to be blamed, all I heard from them was understanding and encouragement. Every time I received these emails, I was surprised and touched. I was then determined to stay in the team no matter what difficulties I encountered.
One day I asked myself why I was surprised by the way the team leaders spoke and acted. I knew if I were him/her, I would not have handled the team members’ mistakes this way. How would I have dealt with the problem? I would measure others with the standards that I thought were right, and I would criticize them without hesitation if they did not meet my standard. I would say, “Don’t you know how and what? “Didn’t I tell you this?” or, “Why are you doing this again?”
They all speak peacefully and gently and never raise their voices. I learned to use their righteous words and deeds as mirrors to detect the Party culture in me and to gradually rectify myself. As I did this, my mind became calmer, and my translations became more efficient.
In addition, as I got rid of more attachments, I became more cooperative and more considerate of other practitioners. I learned to read the translators’ checklist carefully, and I began to read through the article a few times before I started translating it. If I felt that the readers of the article are non-practitioners, I would pay attention to rewriting so that they could understand the wonderfulness of Dafa. After translating, I no longer have the mentality that I can finally submit my work. Instead, I read my draft at least twice to see if it makes sense to the readers. I look for better ways to express it.
I also discovered another bad habit, that is, I am impatient. I am a fast-paced person who is used to the fast-paced work environment. I speak and walk fast. Most of the time my fingers are quicker than my brain. This habit is also reflected in my translation. I start translating as soon as I get an assignment and do it in a hurry. I never had the patience to read the translators’ checklists carefully. As a result, I often made some common sense mistakes, which wasted fellow practitioners’ time. I looked within and realized that impatience was also rooted in Party culture. I have not completely removed this impatience yet, but I have been paying attention to removing these bad substances, and I believe I will do better.
Improving Translation Skills
When it comes to improving my English skills, I have to admit that I did not improve for a long time. Or rather, I did not make any efforts to improve my skills at all. I thought I did my best—I stayed up late, and skipped meals. During holidays and special anniversaries, I even took days off from work to meet tight deadlines. I thought to myself, “I’ve done my best, and I cannot improve the quality of my work and my skills overnight, and it is really out of my control anyway.”
However, after I improved in my cultivation, and when I held myself to a higher standard, I no longer dared to say that I did my best. Because I realized I did not try and was not willing to spend a little more time and effort to improve my professional knowledge. I did not read the polished version carefully, and I often did not read the English Minghui website. If I had, the quality of my translation would have been much better.
I realized that my reluctance to spend time to improve my English skills was out of selfishness. I also realized that the quality of translation is also related to whether we have consideration for others. If the translator does a good job it naturally saves a lot of time for the polishing team, which in turn saves the time of Dafa disciples as a whole body.
I would also like to remind all fellow practitioners in other projects to improve our skills professionally, no matter what projects we participate in. I often hear the statement, “I’ve done my part anyway, so they can edit or revise whatever they like.” Or some comment like, “I am in the project to cultivate instead of learning ordinary people’s skills.” But in fact, this also reflects a lack of responsibility for the project and laziness. As long as we want to improve professionally, we will sharpen our skill sets quickly and easily, as Master will give us wisdom.
Benefiting from Translation
During the past 16 years, I read the Chinese Minghui website every day. It is like participating in an experience-sharing conference daily. I benefited a lot from reading fellow practitioners’ sharing articles.
From the stories of how fellow practitioners break through the tribulations with a firm belief in Dafa and Master, I deeply understood righteous thoughts and righteous deeds. I witnessed Master’s boundless compassion again and again.
No surprise, many times, my assignments were articles about how fellow practitioners went through the exact tribulations that I was having. By translating the articles, I was able to look within and saw my loopholes. I picked myself up and walked on the path of cultivation again.
Conclusion
Looking back, I felt from the bottom of my heart that the path of cultivation that revered Master has arranged for me is most suitable for me.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank fellow practitioners who work on the Chinese Minghui website and all other fellow practitioners for the other languages’ Minghui websites. The practitioners working for Minghui cannot share their experiences with other practitioners. The Chinese Minghui workload is especially heavy during holidays and special anniversaries, when congratulations, sharings, and reports from all over the world pour onto their desks. Many of them work long days and nights during those times.
Thank you, dear fellow practitioners. Let’s remind each other to study the Fa well and do well at our positions to live up to Master’s expectations. No matter how long the path ahead is, let’s work hard to repay the mercy and suffering of our Master.
Thank you, Master, for protecting us in tribulations, for giving us hints when we were confused, for encouraging us when we were depressed, and for guiding us on our path of returning to our true homes. Thank you, revered Master, for providing me with such an opportunity to cultivate myself and do my part in the Fa-rectification period.
(Selected from the 2021 Minghui Fa Conference)
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