(Clearwisdom.net) There is a story behind the title of this article "Light from the Candle's Teardrops." When I was little, my family was relatively poor. During my teens my family could finally afford candles and no long had to us use the oil lamp. I cherished the candles very much. Every time we lit the candles I would collect the wax drips, mold the still pliable, half-solidified drips I called "tears" into a ring, and put half a match in the center. I could light it, just like using a candle, only the light was less bright. I called it "light from the candle's teardrops."
A few days ago I had a dream where I sat on the bed, my wife beside me. With my right hand I pulled a white piece of string from my mouth. It seemed to take forever to pull it all out. Fellow practitioners often use the analogy that coordinators are the thread that strings the pearls together. I also thought about my wife sitting beside me. I thought, "Master is asking me to relate incidents from my cultivation experiences as a coordinator and making truth clarifying materials from my wife's point of view, the point of view of a person who has not stepped onto the cultivation path."
On the afternoon of July 19, 1999, I left home and rode a bicycle toward Beijing. Local police stopped me during the night. My wife was home and realized I was absent all night. She was very worried. Early the next morning she went to the county capital. When she inquired about me she found out that I was illegally detained in the yard of a government agency's office in our township. I was held for more than ten days. My wife kept looking for people to help her send me food. She had trouble eating and sleeping well during that time. Because my son had cultivated with me since childhood, he also very much wanted me to return home. The incident instilled in them a constant fear. My wife couldn't get it out of her mind. She knew the state of my cultivation and my mind, and that I was steadfast in Dafa. However, she was influenced by the ruling regime's indoctrination, and I had studied the Fa and cultivated at home by myself until the fall of 2004.
Because coordinators had been needed since the second half of 2004, I got in touch with other practitioners. As soon as I read the truth clarification materials, I followed the instructions to access the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net) and got the software to break through the Internet blockade. The articles written by practitioners on Minghui, the large quantity of truth-clarifying videos that fellow practitioners had provided shook my mind and made me understand the responsibility that I shouldered.
First, with fellow practitioners' help I overcame my fear, wrote down the mistakes we had made in the past, published a solemn declaration, and sent it to the Minghui website. Soon, other practitioners and I established our own materials production site, beginning with copying a single page to copying the weekly publication. We didn't have a fixed location to get on the Internet. Instead, I went to the county, found a place to get on the Internet, used the software to break through the Internet blockade, then downloaded "Minghui Weekly." I then went to a practitioner's workplace, edited the weekly publication to a single page, and did the printing. (Back then I didn't know how to directly print from the computer.) Then I took the Minghui Weekly to the home of a practitioner who had a copy machine, copied it, put it together, and put the copies into practitioners' hands. Every Thursday afternoon I had to figure out whose home to visit to download the weekly publication. Sometimes I was unable to fall asleep because I was thinking about the right place to go download the weekly publication. We operated like this for a very long time, and fellow practitioners were assured of seeing the weekly publication on time.
Because the situation was stable, the copy machine functioned well for a long time without needing to add toner. It lasted much longer than indicated in the owner's manual. My maintenance skills also improved. I was initially only able to copy, but eventually I could maintain the equipment, My computer skills also had greatly improved, and I could solve general equipment problems. After about a year, that practitioner's family suddenly wanted to remove the copy machine from their home--they no longer wanted to do the printing. An older practitioner agreed to be temporarily responsible for making copies.
On one occasion, five of Master's articles were published, and we needed to print and distribute them. The two of us made copies and bound them from the evening to early in the morning the next day. He didn't sleep at all, and then he drove to the market to sell his vegetables. I rested on his bed for a short time and then rushed to work.
A few practitioners were eventually able to print the materials. We gave them the copy machine, and the older practitioner temporarily stopped doing the printing. I still needed to tutor others in how to print. Not only that, I still needed to buy them the printing materials. My bike was often fully loaded with toner and paper. I shuttled between my family, the county, and the practitioner's home. This went on for over a year.
Because we often got new helpers, there were frequent technical troubles with the machine. When a problem arose, the practitioners waited for me to fix it. I had to take the time and make repairs at my earliest convenience.
Because the practitioner coordinating in the county had some problems, I felt that all of us practitioners should immediately act as a whole body, so I was busy running about again. I indistinctly felt a problem gradually appear in front of me. Many practitioners just wanted others to get things ready for them, and they didn't want to contribute or take a step forward. For example, they could get on the Internet themselves, but they asked me to publish the "three withdrawals" statement for them. They could download the weekly publication from the Minghui website but still asked me to give them the copy. They could distribute the handwritten materials in the past to clarify the truth, but ever since I handed them the materials they didn't write anymore, and they would only distribute what I gave them.
A few days ago one practitioner's dream provided me with an insight and woke me up. She dreamed of having gone to her vegetable garden to pick vegetables, and on her way home picked two carrots from her neighbor's garden. She said that she had never taken advantage of others, so why did she do that? After I heard this I was shocked. She has a computer and printer in her home, and she could get on the Internet and print, but she still asked me for the Minghui Weekly every week. Wasn't her dream a reprint of reality?
I examined other practitioners' and my cultivation and realized that I had spoiled them, and had developed their mentality of dependence, and unconsciously contributed to their being self-centered. I should have let them take their own paths and have them solve their problems on their own. The Minghui website mentioned many times that the materials production sites should blossom like flowers everywhere, and the coordinators should not restrain them but should create the conditions for the fellow practitioners and let them walk their own cultivation paths.
This is what Master had taught,
"Some people who started studying the Fa in the earlier period say that they read the book at home and that they won't go out and do the things that Dafa disciples must do. I'm thinking that those people are not too far away from having a wicked understanding, and they are lucky if they haven't begun to stray. Over the past few years, Dafa disciples have been validating the Fa amidst the persecution and saving beings through clarifying the truth. Those people won't improve at all, no matter how much they may read the book at home. If you don't do the things that Dafa disciples should do, not only won't you improve, but you will only slide downwards. 'Dafa disciple'... 'Dafa disciple,' what does being a 'Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciple' mean? It is the foremost title and the most magnificent being in the cosmos. If you only care about your own salvation, will that do? How could that be called being a 'Dafa disciple'? What is a 'Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciple'? Have you validated the Fa? You came when Dafa benefited you, yet you hid out and didn't dare to speak up for Dafa when it faced danger. You have shown yourself to be less worthy than an ordinary person, so what's the point of 'studying the Fa at home'? All beings are being poisoned in the persecution, so how could you feel at ease being in hiding? Why are Dafa disciples clarifying the truth and saving beings? Because that is Dafa disciples' duty. That is the kind of being that I, Li Hongzhi, want, and a Dafa disciple is that kind of cultivator." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York")
"On one occasion I had my mind connected with four or five great enlightened people and great Taos from extremely high levels. Speaking of high levels, their levels were so high that everyday people would find it simply inconceivable. They wanted to know what was on my mind. I have practiced cultivation for so many years. It is absolutely impossible for other people to read my mind, and other people's supernormal abilities cannot reach me at all. Nobody is able to understand me or know what is on my mind. They wished to know what I was thinking. With my consent, therefore, they linked my mind with theirs for a period of time. After the connection, it was a little unbearable for me because no matter how high or how low my level is, I am among everyday people and still doing something purposeful--that is, saving people--and my heart is devoted to saving people. But how peaceful were their minds? Their minds were tranquil to the point of being scary. It is possible for one person to reach this tranquility. But with four or five people sitting over there with tranquility like that, it resembles a pond of still water with nothing in it. I tried in vain to experience them. For those several days, I really felt mentally very uncomfortable and experienced a unique feeling. Everyday people could in no way image or feel it; it was completely free of attachment and empty." (Zhuan Falun, 2000 translation version) (verified)
It's true that some practitioners realized that when they used other practitioners' money to save sentient beings, they felt that it wasn't right. Only when we use our own money to create the conditions and environment to validate Dafa is it really establishing our mighty virtue, and there is no further need to comment on the tendency to depend on others.
We had no electricity on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival in our town, and I found a half-burned candle and lit it along with refreshing incense, as a tribute to Master.
After burning candles for several nights, wax had dripped down the candles. Last night I remembered the method from my childhood. I collected the wax drips, put half a match in the middle of the wax, turned off the light, and lit the "candle." By its pale light I had some deep thoughts, thinking over my cultivation path, which brought me to tears.
Perhaps one cultivator is like a single candle, sometimes insignificant, but when this one light illuminates many other candles, it can then form a bright Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance beam of light that will light up the entire universe.
