(Minghui.org) Greetings, respected Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Our social media project recently faced many difficulties. From the end of 2025 to the middle of this year, we experienced another challenging period.
Starting from the end of December 2025, significant changes occurred on various social media platforms. First, platform A began limiting the reach of our promotional posts; then platform B underwent a major algorithm change. There were other changes as well. It became extremely difficult to promote Gangjing World on social media, and the previous methods were no longer effective. This led to a sharp decline in traffic, and the entire project once again entered a challenging period.
Many fellow practitioners felt confused and bewildered. Some became passive and hesitant, while others quit the project. I also felt intense pressure. Seeing the continual decline in traffic, a heavy feeling arose in my heart: If this continued, how could I face the coordinators and the efforts of my fellow practitioners? If I took up resources without achieving the purpose of clarifying the truth and saving people, then I would be deviating from the righteous path of a cultivator. I realized that I must look inward and adjust myself.
Because I felt this internal pressure, I experienced some health issues, and I couldn’t even attend the evening meetings. I often felt anxious, and sometimes I couldn’t maintain my xinxing when I interacted with other practitioners. My tone was sometimes accusatory, as I even harshly criticized people. The way I behaved was far from peaceful.
An Exchange with a Veteran Practitioner
The project was in a slump, and I knew since I was the technical lead, this must be related to my cultivation state. But where exactly did the problem lie? I spoke with an elderly local practitioner. I hoped she would frankly point out my problems. She was very tactful, and said that my righteous thoughts were insufficient. The project was severely constrained by the concept of “traffic restrictions,” yet we accepted this concept and didn’t believe righteous thoughts could overcome it.
“Why not use righteous thoughts to negate it?! Send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate this interference!” she said.
Her words prompted me to think deeply. Reflecting on the past few months, every time I attended the group meetings, I heard fellow practitioners repeatedly say that social media was changing—it was restricting our postings, and having a negative impact on our efforts. My thinking had been influenced by this. I thought, Yes, it’s normal for social media to change. When we clarify the truth using ordinary people’s media, our methods must conform to these changes. This restriction might be temporary; perhaps it will recover after a while.
The traffic continued to decline. Was there really a problem with my cultivation?
Finding a Way Out
In his lecture at “Fa Teaching Given at the NTD Meeting,” Master said:
“What has been given to you is the most righteous of paths, but it is a narrow one. When your intention is wrong or there are issues with how you go about things, the path will be difficult. The path is very narrow, and it may look like it can’t be traveled. But in fact, you can do it.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the NTD Meeting,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume IX)
My understanding is that we have a path that may look like it can’t be traveled, but we can do it. So where is my path?
We cannot wait for this path, nor will a turning point come by itself. In early February, I decided to find a way, beginning with Twitter, where traffic had significantly decreased. I tackled several issues simultaneously: First, I started using short, engaging videos as my main posts; second, to avoid triggering Twitter’s traffic-limiting mechanism, I made a series of adjustments to all promotional URLs; and third, I researched how to automate short video editing, posting, replying, and efficiency analysis using software. After about three weeks, my Twitter account seemed to begin to improve, with a significant increase in followers and post views.
However, when I explained the progress to the Twitter team, the feedback was lukewarm. A few individuals tried my method and said that it caused a significant drop in clicks recorded in their system, so they reverted to their original approach.
A few weeks later, in mid-March, I developed a complete method and created a simple, easy-to-use video editing tool. I also demonstrated that my own account was gaining an average of 1,000 followers every two weeks. This finally got some of my fellow practitioners on the Twitter team moving. After a while, some accounts achieved similar results to mine, which boosted everyone’s confidence, and more practitioners started participating.
However, having only a few accounts successfully overcome the traffic throttling wasn’t enough, as the traffic generated was still limited, and the daily traffic target remained difficult to achieve. Therefore, we developed a breakthrough strategy again, providing one-on-one guidance to specific practitioners, helping them break through the limitations one by one, persuading them to change their mindset, showing them how to do it, and demonstrating the effects of the correct approach. In this way, practitioners’ traffic began to increase, and little by little, overall traffic recovered. This process was truly arduous. Because elderly practitioners are the main force in our project, many of them in their seventies and eighties learn new things relatively slowly, and require repeated explanations. They might forget what they’ve been told, then it’s explained again, and problems constantly arise, which we then address one by one.
While there has finally been significant progress on A, B is still experiencing throttling on many pages. People are hesitant to post, fearing their pages will be restricted or even banned. The entire Facebook team was stagnant, with very low traffic.
Waiting won’t bring about change, so I decided to find another solution for B. Starting in May, I created my own B page, adopting the same posting approach as A. To save posting time, I also developed a posting tool to simplify the process. This allows users to upload posts from A to B with just a few clicks, thus generating two benefits from one effort. In practice, I discovered that B doesn’t have as many limitations as I had imagined. On the contrary, B is actually very suitable for promotion, especially since it’s relatively easy to get started. When we first started working on this page, I found that it reached or even surpassed the traffic of some of our previous pages within two to three weeks. The B team followed suit, and the results were remarkable, with a significant increase in overall traffic.
After months of continuous effort, the team overcame various obstacles, changed their mindset, and finally found a way forward. The project’s traffic has reached its highest level ever.
Having faced such a significant challenge, where exactly did the problem lie? I reflected on myself. For the past year or two, I’ve primarily focused on platform construction and tool development: I did not personally post anything. Instead I delegated tasks and let the team figure out solutions themselves. As the project’s technical lead I was being irresponsible.
Looking back, the most crucial factor was the restrictions imposed by social media on our promotional accounts, communities, and pages—even account and page bans. This created a severe psychological impact on the entire team, leading to a lack of righteous thoughts, negative attitudes, and even fear. For cultivators these are all attachments. When our fear was particularly strong, it severely impacted our efforts to save people.
Digging deeper, why do people lack righteous thoughts and even experience fear when they encounter such situations? I feel there’s still an attachment to ego, such as fear of having their accounts or homepages blocked; fear of losing years of effort on these accounts and homepages; fear of being held responsible; fear of being looked down upon if problems arise, etc... Such notions can easily turn solvable problems into difficult issues.
Furthermore, in clarifying the truth and saving people among ordinary people, I’ve found that sometimes certain practices, experiences, tools, and methods have become established and proven to be effective. However, things rarely remain unchanged; these established practices may become outdated or ineffective at some point. If one insists on maintaining old practices, and is unwilling or afraid to make breakthroughs and find new ideas and solutions, this will also create an obstacle, hindering or even halting the work of saving people.
In his lecture at “Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting,” Master said:
“The bigger you perceive the challenges to be, the harder things will be to carry out, since “the appearance stems from the mind.” And so the task will become increasingly burdensome. When I say “the appearance stems from the mind,” by that I also mean that the difficulty stems from your overstating the importance of the matter itself and seeing yourself in a lesser light. Don’t take any such things to be a big deal, for with something as significant as saving sentient beings you should just do what you are supposed to do, going about it in a composed manner. When you encounter things that don’t sound so good or that aren’t what you hoped for, don’t take it to heart, and just nobly and confidently do what you are supposed to. If you don’t let the evil’s interference sway you, bad factors won’t arise from you, the evil will become trivial, you will become towering and massive, and your righteous thoughts will be ample. That’s truly the case.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume X)
In fact, Master has already taught us the principle of “the appearance stems from the mind”, and explained how cultivators should approach difficulties and troubles. It’s just that we often forget what Master taught. So, we stumble and fall along the way.
Conclusion
During my cultivation, I sometimes felt like I was walking into a desert, surrounded by difficulties, unable to see the way forward. This might be a crucial opportunity for me to improve my cultivation: a test to see whether I have righteous thoughts, whether I can persevere through difficulties, and whether I can remain steadfast. Because we are Master’s students, Master has always watched over each and every one of us. Therefore, there will definitely be a way out! The key is whether we can have 100% unwavering faith, whether we can calmly and diligently search for this path, and whether we dare to let go of our old, ingrained notions and forge a new path.
Master said,
“Back in my days of practice, more than once a teacher told me, “Nothing is truly unbearable or impossible.” And it really is so. It’s an outlook you only stand to benefit from. So the next time you are going through a real trial or tribulation, try to keep this in mind, and see if you can bear it. Or when faced with what seems impossible, and even if others say so, try to keep this in mind, and see if it might just be possible. I believe that if you can do that, you will always find that there is light at the end of the tunnel.” (Zhuan Falun 2018)
When we encounter difficulties the key is not how difficult or seemingly insurmountable the problem itself is, but whether we possess righteous thoughts and the determination to find a path forward. We should remember: “nothing is truly unbearable or impossible.” No difficulty can stop us in our path of cultivation and saving people.
These are some of my recent cultivation experiences. Please kindly point out where I need to improve.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
(Presented at the 2026 Canada Fa Conference)
