(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I participated in the promotion of the 2022 NTD Television International Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Competition and the 8th International Chinese Vocal Competition this year. In addition to learning how to use traditional culture to save sentient beings, I went through a process of improving my character. I went from being negative, complaining, and avoiding problems to becoming positive and making righteous breakthroughs. At this Fa conference, I would like to share my cultivation experiences to report them to Master and encourage fellow practitioners.
Breaking Through Illness Karma
I took on the task of independently visiting martial artists in early May of this year. During the previous competition, I had only been responsible for telephone interviews, and then visited martial artists with a fellow practitioner who had some specialized knowledge. However, during this round, the fellow practitioner had an illness karma tribulation. With no one to help me, and without much specialized knowledge, I had to visit the older generation of martial artists alone and ask them to recommend students to participate in the competition.
It went well the first day. When I woke up the next morning, I felt weak and uncomfortable. I immediately sent out a firm thought: I must do what should be done! It’s time to do the exercises, so let me do the exercises. I thought if I do the meditation exercise right now, I will definitely pass out, so let me do the second exercise for one hour. (It had been a while since I had practiced the second set for one hour.) So I struggled to get up, turned on the exercise music, and raised my hands vigorously. After the exercises, I felt normal. I visited the martial arts instructor at his home at the agreed time that morning.
We were meeting for the first time. This martial artist is a national coach at Kaohsiung Zuoying Sports Center. He teaches competitive gymnastics in line with the national direction, but he privately accepts students to teach traditional martial arts. Because he often led sports teams to compete in mainland China, he hadn’t interacted with us for more than 10 years, but he had sent some people to participate in the competition in the early days. It took me a lot of effort to make an appointment with him.
During our two-hour meeting, I tried my best to use the media, news and current events, from the tragic situation of the lockdown in mainland China to how NTD broke through the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) censorship and delivered true information. He listened attentively. When he asked me where the working capital came from, I played commercials and feedback from vendors about NTD. I talked a lot about the situation in China and did not describe the martial arts parts in detail.
I mentioned to the instructor that it was hard to say whether China would be able to host the Asian Games next year, but NTD was not affected by the pandemic and has insisted on holding the martial arts competition this year. At a time when traditional martial arts are declining, more martial artists with a sense of mission are needed to work with us to promote traditional martial arts to the world.
Just as I was about to leave, the instructor said, “Some of you have visited me in recent years, but they didn’t make it as clear as you did. You have cultivated well.”
Not long after I left, my colleagues told me that they received his registration materials that afternoon. Several martial artists I spoke with were touched when I talked about the competition’s mission and the passing down of martial arts. The promotion of the martial arts competition achieved a positive effect, but the vocal competition did not go so smoothly.
Taking Responsibility and Getting Rid of Fear
The vocal competition was actually postponed for a year. After working for a few months last year, we were unable to promote it widely and there was no progress in promotion. Vocal musicians were mostly indifferent, did not respond, or dared not contact us for fear of affecting their future development in China.
My righteous thoughts gradually disappeared and my fear arose. I even felt resentment, thinking that it was hard to find people in Taiwan because the competition is in New York, so New York practitioners should take more responsibility. The competition was then postponed, and I was temporarily relieved.
At the beginning of this year, I learned that the vocal competition would be held, and I felt that this responsibility was like a heavy burden. I didn’t know how to shoulder it. I dodged it for a few months, and when the martial arts competition ended, there were only two months left.
At a global meeting for the competition, the words of the general coordinator woke me up. She said she had been the local editor of The Epoch Times in one area in 2005. She had been very troubled by the issue of newspaper thefts for some time. She reported the issue to the police, who declined to take action because the newspapers were free. The coordinator looked inward and said that since then, she told herself that no matter how difficult things were, she should face them with the principles of a cultivator and take responsibility.
After listening to her sharing, I saw the gap in myself. What the fellow practitioner was able to do 15 years ago, I found excuses for in 2022 and would not take responsibility. I was so behind on this issue.
So I made up my mind to find my human attachments. It was a shock when I confronted my resentment seriously.
Master taught us,
“When a person harbors resentment it’s because he has grown fond of hearing pleasant things and having things go well. And then when things don't go that way, he resents it. You can’t be like that, if you think about it. You can’t go about cultivation that way, can you?” (“2018 Fa Teaching Given in Washington, D.C.,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XV)
“So to cultivate you have to look at things in reverse. But if you always push away and reject the difficulties and unpleasant things that come your way, then you are refusing to cultivate through your tests and turning down chances to make progress, aren’t you?” (2018 Fa Teaching Given in Washington, D.C., Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XV)
It turned out that I had a misunderstanding in cultivation. It could even be said that I had improper expectations. I hoped that the more I cultivated, the less difficult the tests would be. So when facing difficulties, I could not pass them and resented them. After trying to get rid of this resentment, and with the assistance of my supervisor, I began to try different promotional methods.
Direct visits did not work, so we tried to use a model of cooperating with ordinary people to contact vocalists. Starting in July, NTD offices began to hold tea parties, hoping to invite outstanding vocalists to sing at a paid rate upon the recommendation of local vocalist associations.
My supervisor assisted me to clarify the truth to the chairman of a vocalists association again, and the chairman readily agreed. At the tea party at the end of August, the vocalist who came to sing performed really well. We also found a sponsor for her. The day of the tea party, we made an appointment to visit her the next day and I asked my supervisor to assist me. We were full of confidence.
Unexpectedly, the next day my supervisor told me that he could not go because an urgent matter had come up. I almost lost my righteous thoughts for a moment, but I quickly pulled myself together and told myself that I had no choice but to completely get rid of my reliance. I had to shoulder this responsibility myself. I believe in Master and the Fa, and must fulfill my mission.
It might have been that the thought complied with the requirements of the Fa. In the end, the vocalist agreed to participate in the competition. She also asked for leave from her school, and a substitute teacher was arranged. It was all successfully completed. Thank you Master for your painstaking arrangements.
Cultivating Well to Save Sentient Beings
During the promotions, my cultivation state was directly reflected in the registration status of potential participants. I was communicating with a fellow practitioner one day and was concerned about the reduced number of staff working on promotion. I had hoped that more people would share the pressure. I then realized that this was also an excuse, and I still wanted to push responsibility to other people.
Just one hour after our sharing, the promotion team sent us good news. A vocalist from Taiwan who is studying for her PhD in the United States asked if she could participate and asked us to sponsor her transportation. After contacting her, a consensus was quickly reached and the sponsorship amount was negotiated. She happily told me that the registration process would be completed the next day.
But things didn’t go smoothly. I could not reach her, and she didn't call me back even after I left her a message. She later left me a message saying that she was discussing the repertoire with her professor, but I couldn’t get in touch with her again. My mind was unsettled with it like this.
The weekend before the deadline, I decided to go to our local Fa-study to study the Fa so that I could immerse myself in the Fa. Thanks to fellow practitioners' selfless sharing, my mind became much calmer. The next day, a fellow practitioner sent me a page of Master’s teaching.
Master said,
“There is something you must pay attention to: you are validating the Fa, not validating yourselves. A Dafa disciple’s responsibility is to validate the Fa. Validating the Fa is cultivation, and what you remove in the cultivation process is none other than the attachment to self; you can’t, instead, go and exacerbate the problem of validating oneself, even if you do it unwittingly. When you’re validating the Fa and cultivating, that is a process of removing self, and only when you do that are you really validating yourself. That’s because ultimately you have to let go of all your human things, and only after you’ve let go of all your human attachments can you step out from the throngs of everyday people.” (Fa Teaching Given at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Practitioners, Collected Teachings Given Around the World,Volume VI)
Looking at this passage of the Fa, I knew that Master wanted to enlighten me, but I felt like there was a thin veil-like layer, like a force blocking me and preventing me from thinking and looking inward. I was concerned about how many people had signed up. I knew this state was wrong, so I told Master silently in my mind: I want to practice solidly, and I don’t want to use ordinary thoughts to do a Dafa project. I want to find my misunderstandings.
On the afternoon of the deadline day, I went for a walk outside the office and received a call from a college student who was planning to participate. He said that his school would not allow him to ask for leave to participate because he was a government-sponsored student.
I actively communicated with him, emphasizing the significance and value of the competition. The more I talked, the stronger my righteous thoughts became. He said that he would check with his school again. I suddenly felt peaceful in my mind. I didn’t have any thoughts or worries about whether the vocalist in the United States would sign up, but I felt that Master would help and she would come.
In the evening, I decided to make a last effort and called the vocalist, but she didn’t answer. She replied to my call later by leaving a message, and her tone was not good. I responded calmly and aside from apologizing, I asked her if there was anything that I didn’t do well. In that instant, her attitude changed. She explained to me that she would definitely sign up. Thank you Master for helping me pass the test again.
It wasn’t until my flight to the United States that I realized that these vocalists were fulfilling the vow they had signed with Master by participating in the competition. But I didn’t get rid of my attachments to fame, gain and reputation. Due to my incorrect starting point, I had missed opportunities to help more vocalists fulfill their vows.
Participating in this vocal competition was full of challenges and frustrations, and led to relatively fast improvement. Now, I have a deeper understanding of the following passage of Fa:
“You put in the effort and your teacher will handle the rest.” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun)
The above are my cultivation experiences while promoting the competitions. I hope that fellow practitioners will correct me if anything does not conform the Fa.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners.
(Presented at the 2022 Taiwan Fa Conference)
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