(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
For over a decade, the English Minghui Radio team has been producing experience sharing and news podcasts every week. The diligent and persistent efforts of practitioners established the English podcast programs as a model for all the other non-Chinese language radio programs.
I joined the English Minghui Radio team about six months ago, not knowing anything about podcasts or the project. With Master’s guidance and fellow practitioners’ help, I have since undertaken the responsibility of coordinating the project. The following are some of my experiences on this project.
Accepting Master’s Arrangement
I am a very quiet and introverted person. In my daily life, I prefer to keep attention away from myself and work alone. So when the main coordinator of Minghui Radio asked me to coordinate the English radio team, my first response was to decline the position. I said that I had no prior experience with radio and I had never coordinated any long-term Dafa projects. Nevertheless, she asked me to reconsider.
I have been part of the English Minghui (EMH) team for many years, translating and rewriting articles. I have benefited tremendously from these articles over the years and I feel privileged to be part of the team; however, I have also grown complacent about the work. Sometimes, one article just seems like another.
Master said,
“The entire cultivation process for a cultivator is one of constantly giving up human attachments.” (Lecture one, Zhuan Falun)
I knew my attachment to comfort had to be removed. When I spoke with my team lead about this opportunity, she was very supportive. So without knowing much about the project at all, I decided to shoulder the responsibility.
I sometimes still cannot believe I agreed to it. It was totally out of character for me to jump into something unknown. But at the time, I just felt that it was the right thing to do. I think, deep down, I knew Master had arranged this opportunity for me to make further progress in my cultivation.
“Master is Giving You a Lot of Help”
Minghui Radio’s mission has always been to bring news and stories about Falun Dafa to our audiences. But to take an article and make it into a podcast, and then publish it on different platforms, and on the Minghui website is not as simple as I had imagined it would be.
I learned that narration is a professional skill. To make stories sound compelling and effortless, a narrator must develop his or her skills, just like one must develop writing skills to be a good writer. Professional broadcasters use breathing techniques and voice exercises to hone their skills. I also learned that producing and publishing podcasts takes many steps. Simply put, it takes a lot more work and resources than I had thought.
We needed to recruit narrators, editors and producers. I was at a loss as to where to find these people. After the EMH coordinators sent out a recruitment announcement, I only received a few responses. But I soon started to get referrals from current narrators and other practitioners.
As I talked to each new recruit, I saw how his or her experiences and background had led them to this project. It seems that many arrangements were made long before.
When we needed an editor, a translator recommended her college-aged daughter. When we needed a producer, a practitioner who had originally wanted to narrate happily agreed to produce podcasts. She happens to have her own studio and has a background in audio processing.
Each time when we needed someone with a specific skill, the person showed up as if it was planned. One practitioner said to me, “Master is giving you a lot of help.”
I was contemplating different types of programs we could produce one day, and I had a thought about producing a music podcast. I made a mental note to put the idea on my to-do list so I wouldn’t forget. Two days later, I got an email from a fellow practitioner asking if we could produce a podcast for an experience sharing and a song written by an Australian practitioner for World Falun Dafa Day. I felt like someone had read my mind and dropped a Christmas present in my lap.
In the past, I had an attachment to fear, in particular, a fear of responsibility. I never liked to make decisions in my life, no matter how big or small. Even though I made some progress in removing this attachment, taking on the responsibility of coordinating a project still feels like a heavy burden. What makes it bearable is all the help and encouragement I get from fellow practitioners and knowing that Master is watching over me.
When I first joined the project, an editor spent hours walking me through the process of producing a podcast and later fixed many of the mistakes I made publishing podcasts on the website. A narrator from NTDTV provided much-needed narration training and created training materials just for our team. I also regularly receive encouragement and positive feedback from fellow practitioners, especially our team members.
Cherishing Fellow Practitioners and Opportunities to Work Together
A practitioner once commented that many of the experience sharing articles on EMH are similar and not particularly well written. I explained to her that the original Chinese articles may be written by practitioners in China who don’t have a high level of education and the translators are also mostly non-native English speakers. In the back of my mind though I was thinking, “Do you know how much work and how many hours our practitioners have put into translating all these articles and publishing them for all the people outside of China to read? Can’t you have some appreciation?”
I later realized that I also often forget to appreciate others’ efforts. For example, a narrator recorded the same article six or seven times on three different microphones to get the best recording. An editor spends hours shortening and creating scripts for news podcasts each week.
In addition, many practitioners have written about similar experiences and feelings, whether it is getting rid of illnesses or improving their character, which is a reflection of practicing the same Fa and following the same Master. In such a rotten and chaotic world, Dafa still fishes people out of hell and turns them into moral and good people again. Have we cherished this and been grateful? If Dafa can only make some individual persons well and improve their minds, then maybe that is not “being repetitive,” but that is not what compassionate Master wants to see (only a few practitioners benefiting). Is it our own curiosity, not wanting to be “bored,” and the pursuit of gain without effort that make us despise “repetition?”
As for me, I sometimes ignored others’ efforts, and my focus was always on what else needed to be improved within the project. After realizing this, I started to pay attention to the improvements everyone on the team has made. I noticed more steady pacing, clearer enunciation, and increased expressiveness in the narrations. I noticed the better and more consistent sound quality of the podcasts’ production. I noticed that more interesting and varied articles were being selected and edited for our podcasts.
Over the past six months of working on the Minghui Radio project, I have developed a much deeper understanding of Dafa disciples’ responsibilities.
Master said,
“Your process of personal cultivation and Consummation was actually laying a foundation for your safeguarding the Fa and validating the Fa later on. This is because you have to have certain qualities, and you have to have a deep understanding and grasp of the Fa; at the same time, in your own cultivation process you have to fully meet the personal standard that you are able to reach. Only then can you truly validate the Fa and do what a Dafa disciple should do at critical moments. So a Dafa disciple’s responsibilities aren’t for the sake of personal Consummation, but to save sentient beings while validating the Fa—that is a Dafa disciple’s historic mission, and that is why Dafa disciples are truly magnificent.” (Teachings From a Tour of North America)
More than ever, I feel the enormous responsibility that each Dafa disciple shoulders; the responsibility to one’s own cultivation, the responsibility to one’s family and society; the responsibility to the projects one is involved in; the responsibility to the world’s people and to all the beings that have placed their hope in us.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
(Presented at the 2022 Minghui Teams Experience Sharing Conference)
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