(Minghui.org) At the beginning of April, my country began organizing an experience-sharing conference, and practitioners began writing articles. Minghui.org also posted a notice, calling for submissions for the 2023 World Falun Dafa Day. I had the opportunity to assist some practitioners in writing their experience-sharing articles.
Being in the media and a regular reader of Minghui.org, I knew the basics. I also recently enrolled in the training for Minghui’s reporting team. The most important part of writing experience-sharing articles is the essence of what practitioners want to share.
The person is not fluent in English and needs help composing and organizing what they want to say. An elderly practitioner wasn’t tech savvy and said he can’t really express his views in writing; so I asked him to audio record his experiences and I then helped him organize them and write them down. Another elderly practitioner wrote an amazing sharing and asked me to help polish and format it. One person read hers out loud on the phone and asked how she could improve it or what could be added. She told me about her amazing experiences and asked me to help pick what she should incorporate in her article.
Every one of them presented me with a different way to help them organize information and complete their articles. But in the end, I’m the one who felt I benefited immensely.
Helping write and edit these moving experience-sharing reports helped me examine my cultivation. I saw while I was stuck at one cultivation level for too long and indulged myself in the attachments of qing (emotion) and complaints, while others were progressing so diligently: They spoke less but did more; they had their own problems, but they gave priority to the Fa; and while they lacked in skills, their hearts were rooted in the Fa — and no wonder, miracles happened. I realized it is the heart that matters. Efforts in cultivation are needed, but those efforts must be guided by solid cultivation and strong faith, and proper intention, without any attachments. I felt ashamed that I knew these principles for years, but failed to put them into practice. I clearly saw how poorly I was doing! I really was not cultivating at all.
I was truly inspired by the humble sharing of one elderly lady who is shy and seldom spoke during the discussions after Fa study. I always felt she had a very good heart. She is my mother’s age. When I helped edit her sharing, I could see she had been cultivating herself so well, quietly and diligently. In comparison, I saw that I lacked in many areas.
Helping my fellow practitioners write their experiences has helped me as well. Those days I felt a sense of calm, compared to how I usually felt. I was not led so strongly by emotion or negative thoughts. Even if I experienced bouts of depressing thoughts of worry and emotional pain and grief at times, I was able to control myself and not mess things up. I felt like I took a deep dive into Dafa’s pure ocean and came back to the surface, renewed. I was not helping them to write articles at all, but I realized, they came forward to help me! I am so grateful!
I realized it was not a coincidence that I got the opportunity to assist them in writing their experiences—it was Master Li’s (Dafa’s founder) compassion. Master was helping me see through my own thoughts as I read and worked on their articles. It was an amazing experience. I helped a couple of them submit their articles to Minghui.org on April 14, 2023.
When I finished doing that, my heart again told me to write my own sharing as there was still one more day. I am truly thankful to Master for this opportunity and compassionate reminders. I should have done this years ago.
Learning to Recognize Master’s Compassionate Guidance
My life has never been easy. But these last few months, especially since my father passed away last year, it felt like life became a struggle on another level. I also skipped Fa study and doing the exercises for quite a long time. I just did them on and off. No wonder my cultivation state was not good.
I began reflecting after my father died. I wondered if I ever truly cultivated myself and if my faith in Master and Dafa was genuine and unshakable. When I asked myself these questions, I couldn’t face myself – I knew in my heart that I had not been holding firm to my faith recently, even though I practiced for almost 21 years. I had been letting my thoughts go wild and away from the Fa and I fell into despair. I could see my deep hidden thoughts so clearly.
I found that I was extremely moved when I suddenly faced life’s hardships, which are actually all tests of qing to family and my inability to take hardship as joy.
Instead of looking inward, I looked for a shortcut to solve these hardships. I also repeatedly complained in my heart, “Why is my life so unfair?” Every time, I said this, surprisingly I was aware and I knew it was wrong and it was karma pushing down on me. Eventually, I decided to stop being led by this thought karma.
During this time, Master also published the article. “How Humankind Came to Be,” where he reminded us all about the Fa principle that the universe is just and fair.
Master said,
“The universe is fair. Those who do good are blessed for it, while those who do bad things will face payback—if not in this life, then in the next. For this is an immutable law of the universe! Heaven, Earth, the Divine, and the Creator alike are compassionate toward all lives. Heaven and Earth, just as with man, were made by the Creator, and it is never the case that He plays favorites with some lives and shortchanges others. The reason some people lead happy lives and others do not all comes down to rewards and retributions for past deeds.” (“How Humankind Came to Be”)
I fully knew the difficulties I experienced were because of my karma. The old forces saw my loophole—I hadn’t been cultivating diligently. They latched onto this, inflicted endless harm, and isolated me further from the other practitioners. They pushed negative things on me to strengthen my thought karma. But I knew it would be a sin if I did anything inappropriate.
I pushed and forced myself to look within more. I found the list of my attachments was endless, the most prominent were: Selfishness, fear of hardship, resentment, emotion, lust, jealousy, and the pursuit of fame, and ego. I was worried about what would become of me in the future. How will I take care of my elderly mother and my brother who had some mental disorder? I was alone and a single woman.
Out of the need to avoid “imagined” hardships, I began resenting my family and relatives. I started acting selfish, thinking about how I should leave this home and start life anew, somewhere far from this place. My relatives, who are all non-practitioners, also suggested that I should leave my mother and brother and move to the U.S., as I work remotely for the media. I was not able to do this, as I knew I would be too selfish to leave my widowed elderly mother all alone to take care of her disoriented adult son.
My mother read out loud Master’s new article, and I listened. She took long pauses while reading, sharing what she understood, or asking me to clarify if she couldn’t understand some words. She is a very religious and traditional housewife and has very strong faith in her gods. But she could relate to the article so well. She knows Dafa is good, and she read Zhuan Falun in the past. My heart knows that she is one of the chosen sentient beings. I understood I can’t betray her for my own selfish wants when life suddenly seemed to turn upside down.
As I’m writing this, a sudden thought popped up in my mind: I am simply trying to run away from my own karma. I am ignoring the fact that this karma will follow me, no matter where I go. It can be transformed into anything, any being, any person – it won’t stop chasing me until I face it like a true cultivator and transform this black matter of misfortune into the blessing of De (virtue). I need to cultivate and eliminate my attachments and improve my xinxing based on Fa’s standard of Zhen Shan Ren (Truth, Compassion, Forbearance). I realized Master was guiding me and helping me to understand the forgotten basics of cultivation through writing my experience-sharing article.
Master has constantly reminded me to be compassionate, to cultivate the immense compassion that is rooted in Dafa because Dafa can harmonize everything and rectify all that is abnormal.
I now feel that I am supposed to restart my cultivation. I am now trying to get back on track and do what I am supposed to do. There is still a lot of room to improve as the karma I created due to my non-diligence isn’t small.
Recently, I wrote the following questions for myself as a reminder to do better: “Am I really doing the correct things? Am I taking real, concrete steps to improve my xinxing? Do I face hardships properly, based on the Fa? Am I true to my faith?”
I understood that all these hardships are nothing but delusions. They are aimed at testing my faith. I must be clearheaded and do well, follow Master closely and learn and remember to recognize the moments when Master is guiding me through various means. I must not slack off.
Please point out if my understanding is wrong and not on the Fa.
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
Category: Improving Oneself
