(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings to Master!
Greetings to all fellow practitioners!
We are practitioners from Beijing and we would like to share our experiences of how we put Master in our hearts to cooperate with fellow practitioners, and do so in Beijing, which is a special, but evil place.
1. To Validate the Fa and Save Sentient Beings, We Broke Through the Closed State in Beijing
Xiang (an alias) is my relative. We broke through the state of validating Dafa on our own, and started to cooperate with fellow practitioners. In Beijing, we tried to do the three things well. We were doing everything we could silently, as long as it could save people or validate Dafa.
We took each fellow practitioner seriously that we could contact, and we encouraged each other. Gradually, we did our Dafa projects more and more openly, and many practitioners' families became better and better.
To remain on the right path of cultivation, studying the Fa is key. We often shared and reminded each other to study the Fa and to recite the Fa. Some practitioners studied the Fa and cultivated well; some became more tolerant and always thought of others; some put down their things and took on a lot of things to do. We all found our shortcomings.
Early on, we realized that technical problems were a large obstacle which prevented us from doing the three things well. At that time, simple things like surfing the Internet, printing, or making recordings were difficult for many practitioners. Xiang and I took different aspects of the obstacle to overcome these difficulties. I started to learn technical skills and taught them to practitioners, while Xiang helped practitioners to purchase the appropriate equipment.
Master taught us the principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition. The evil city Beijing has its good aspects: computers and printers are very popular, and the number of people who surf the Internet is huge. We encouraged fellow practitioners to surf the Internet and to make materials independently. We made good use of such advantages, cherished Master's arrangement, and walked on a path of our own Fa validation.
Xiang encouraged practitioners to buy the needed consumables themselves. All the practitioners I know can now produce materials by themselves. They have even supplied materials to practitioners from some of the urban counties. We formed a whole body without being noticed.
Beijing is the city where Master has held the most lectures. The number of senior practitioners who personally attended Master's lectures is also large. Before the persecution began in 1999, various Fa study groups helped practitioners to become familiar with each other. So during the Fa-rectification period, practitioners have their own way to maintain contact with each other. My understanding is that all this was arranged by Master long ago.
2. Cooperating with Fellow Practitioners to Be a True Cultivator
The longer we cooperated with fellow practitioners, the more issues we would encounter. If I couldn't keep my cultivation in a good state, the evil would take advantage.
An elder practitioner always called Xiang to her home for any problem she encountered. Xiang solved her problem every time. However, once Xiang had something urgent to do, he went to the practitioner's home without notifying her in advance. The practitioner was cold to him, and then Xiang was sad. We started to look inside and remembered that Master said,
“For a cultivator, all the frustrations he comes across among everyday people are trials, and all the compliments he receives are tests.” (“A Cultivator is Naturally Part of It” from Essentials for Further Advancement)
He realized that it was a test; he had an attachment to wanting to be liked by practitioners.
However, several days later, Xiang continued to say that he wouldn't go to that practitioner's home again. This meant he hadn't dug out the root of the attachment. One day he mentioned it again. When we were sharing, one thought came out: “We had done nothing wrong. It was that practitioner who had the problem, but we must be tolerant.” Was this thought consistent with Dafa? Were we really looking inside ourselves?
Regardless of what we encounter, looking inside unconditionally is the real looking inside. Once I thought this, I felt that my mind was clear. Xiang also found the root of the attachment: “I didn't think about others. Before I went to that practitioner's home I didn't think about her, which must have brought her some pressure. I concentrated too much on what I wanted to do. This was selfish.”
For a while, my family had many troubles. I had more and more things that needed practitioners' help. So I was busy with doing things and reduced studying the Fa and sending forth righteous thoughts. At that time, a practitioner who always worried about surfing the Internet kept asking me to re-install the computer system. I was so busy, and even though I knew that I needed to study the Fa more, I just couldn't study with a peaceful mind. Later my project was canceled.
I knew it was because of myself; I didn't meet the requirements for Fa-rectification. However, I couldn't stop blaming the practitioner who kept on bugging me to re-install the computer system, “This practitioner's disturbing me led my project to be canceled.”
Holding such thoughts, each time when I was trying to help this practitioner with computer things, I appeared very patient, and this practitioner was also polite. However, after I went back, I saw that they always worried about their computers. I tried to look inside myself with a peaceful mind, “I haven't put myself in other practitioners' shoes; instead, I blamed them irresponsibly. It was my cultivation problem; I didn't take study Fa seriously enough.” When I enlightened to this, later on when I helped the practitioner to solve a computer problem, he/she appreciated it sincerely.
After having cooperated with practitioners for long time, I saw the qualities of the Beijing practitioners and felt the distance in cultivation states between them. Many of the practitioners had obtained the Fa a long time ago. They had built a solid base for cultivation and were very steadfast toward Master. They were stable on the path of Fa-rectification. Some practitioners we knew have stepped out to validate Dafa since July 20, 1999. In the evil's center, they broke through the interference themselves, having learned from practitioners outside of Beijing. We benefited a lot from them.
3. Always Remember What Master Wants and Help Master to Rectify the Fa
With the Fa-rectification progressing, Beijing--the center of the evil, has also rapidly changed.
Clarifying the truth to people who could stay in Beijing in this life are not easy. Regardless of whether they have a high ranking level, have lots of knowledge, or even are from other places but work here, they are all independent and have their own thoughts. How can we break through the inhibitions and enclosed states of mind they have and help them to learn the truth of Falun Gong and thus save them? Practitioners from Beijing and practitioners from all over the world are doing so. Several years ago, it was not easy to distribute materials in a high level residence. However, many people in these types of residences have said they have received phone calls from Falun Gong. In recent years, a lot of people have received messages which told them the truth of Falun Gong.
As we are in Beijing, the progress of cooperating with fellow practitioners is also a test of how well we understand Master's Fa-rectification and if we can put aside our self-interest to help Master rectify the Fa.
One practitioner distributed materials all over the urban city and also provided materials to other districts. Xiang cooperated with this practitioner and helped to buy equipment for him/her.
This practitioner was in contact with many other practitioners. Gradually, he/she didn't pay enough attention to safety. For a while, several practitioners who knew this practitioner were arrested. And this practitioner also appeared to show symptoms of illness. Xiang reminded him/her about safety, but he/she still didn't pay attention. Xiang felt some pressure because how could he cooperate if there was no guarantee of safety?
Xiang shared these experiences with me several times. We both thought the practitioner's heart for saving sentient beings was very pure. It was just that some things he/she did became habit, and as time went by, he/she didn't realize this had become a problem. We should have communicated more with him/her and improved our cultivation together.
After many times of sharing, the practitioner found the reason for his/her “illness” and realized that he/she should pay more attention to safety. Later, Xiang told me that one of the reason behind the “illness” was that one of his/her {{xinxing} problems had not been improved for a long time, and this problem was also Xiang's problem, “It was Master who let me see my own attachments.”
During this period, there were some unexpected ordeals. However, as long as we remember what Master wants and put the three things first, all the ordeals were actually steps to improving ourselves. Master said,
“No matter what it is you have encountered as you've gone about validating the Fa, it is all, I will tell you, a good thing--and that's especially so in these years of persecution--for those things have come about specifically because you do cultivation. Those ordeals and the suffering, no matter how great or harsh you find them to be, are good things, because they take place solely on account of your cultivation. A person can eliminate karma and shed human attachments when he goes through ordeals, and through ordeals he can improve.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2008 New York Conference”)
Once, I did a very difficult project and needed to work together with a practitioner from outside of Beijing. The practitioner didn't work well with us and got worse and worse. Sharing experiences didn't work either. Without choice, we had to hold on under great pressure to finish the project. We thought that with Master and Fa in our hearts, we could go through the tough time.
Finally, the project was done. However, that practitioner was still blaming us. When I heard this, I could not fall asleep. What the practitioner said was so harsh to the ear that it woke me up again and again. How could the words be so harsh? I couldn't sleep the whole night. The next morning, I was aggrieved and told Xiang my feeling. He looked at me calmly and said, “Do you think a god would think as you do?” Then he left.
I was feeling very down, and picked up Zhuan Falun. I opened the book and saw the part, “...as long as a person upgrades his xinxing in conflicts, his gong will increase. It is that simple.” “It is that simple” dropped into the bottom of my heart. At that moment, my heart became limitlessly broad. Dafa is so great! It purified my heart.
Soon Xiang came back with an unhappy face, and he said, “I heard what you said, and I also felt that practitioner is too much.” I almost laughed. Weren't you just telling me, “Do you think a god would think the way I do?” Now you feel the same as I did? I showed that paragraph in Zhuan Falun to him and repeated it several times. He smiled.
A few days later, I had a very clear dream. In the dream, Xiang and I moved into a very big, new house. On the glass of the windows, there were many plums.
I very much appreciate Master giving us Dafa and giving us the mission of saving sentient beings!
I'll continue to purify myself on my cultivation path.
Master told us in “What is a Dafa Disciple”,
“The only path that lies before you, the disciples of Dafa, is one of real cultivation. There is no other path.”
I'll remember Master's teaching to be a true cultivator in the Fa-rectification period.
Heshi to Master!
Heshi to all practitioners!
