(Minghui.org) Greetings to revered Master! Greetings to fellow practitioners!
I began practicing Falun Dafa after the persecution started.
Master said:
“That’s why I often think, 'What is a Dafa disciple? Who is worthy of being a Dafa disciple?' If one doesn’t have the requisite predestined relationship, he really cannot come in, and this is the case for those who have just come in, as well. ” (“What is a Dafa Disciple”)
I am extremely fortunate to be a Dafa disciple and be able to assist Master during the Fa-rectification period. The honor and glory given to practitioners by Dafa is unprecedented.
I would like to report to Master and share with fellow practitioners my cultivation experience as a Minghui correspondent.
Master Paved the Way For Me to Validate the Fa
Shortly after I obtained the Fa, Master opened my Celestial Eye and allowed me to see scenes from my previous lives. In all of them, I was either a cultivator in the Tao School or a literati.
Many people are interested in the topic of past lives and reincarnations. As cultivators, however, we shouldn't become attached to this issue, because it isn't important. We have learned through studying the Fa that we have endured great sufferings in our past lives to obtain the Fa now. No matter who we were in the past, it was to prepare us for this life. As practitioners, whatever talent we have should be used to validate the Fa.
I decided to write about the stories of my previous lives, and they got published on the Internet. Since then, Master has unlocked my wisdom, and I feel inspired to write.
My “new found” talent in writing surprised my wife, who is also a practitioner. She encouraged me to use my talent to validate the Fa. I started writing stories that I knew about, such as other practitioners' cultivation experiences, stories related to the topic of karma and retribution, and reincarnation stories. All of the articles I wrote were published.
When I ran out of stories to write about, I began to read the articles on the Minghui website more thoroughly and frequently. Practitioners' experience-sharing articles truly touched me, especially the ones in the “Opinion & Perspective” section. The articles broadened my mind and gave me many ideas of what I could write about. My writing skills also improved.
Afterwards, I wrote several articles about the “1,400 Death Cases” and the “April 25” incident from different angles. These articles were published on Minghui.org, and some were made into audio files. I became more efficient and was full of inspiration. Deep in my heart, I knew that Master had laid the foundation and paved the way for me.
Cooperating with Others and Promptly Exposing the Persecution
Exposing the persecution, the perpetrators involved, and the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) evil nature is part of clarifying the truth and resisting the persecution.
In our region, the persecution was very severe. Several practitioners formed a group to collect information on the local cases to expose to the public. However, it didn't have that much impact, because no one in the group was able to write reports on a professional level.
Many severe cases and evil persecutors were never exposed on the Minghui website. Furthermore, practitioners in our area didn't feel confident using the truth-clarification periodicals that were published locally, as these lacked new and interesting content, and had many errors in typesetting and editing.
When our coordinator learned that I was good at writing, he immediately called to ask me to be the regional Minghui correspondent and write reports on local persecution cases.
When I joined the group, a trial was being held against a local practitioner. According to the information provided by our coordinator, the judge was a wicked person—he bullied the practitioner's lawyers in court and was very hostile toward the family members. I wrote a news brief on this case right away, and it was soon published on Minghui.org.
We also edited the article, printed it, and distributed it widely in our region. I also wrote truth-clarification letters to the officials of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee. Our local practitioners worked together to mail them out. This frightened the organizations and individuals involved in the case, and the persecution lessened.
In order to broaden my knowledge, I studied many local cases and wrote many in-depth reports on all of these persecution cases to meet the needs of our regional truth-clarification progress. I wrote reports about practitioners who had been sentenced to prison terms of over 10 years, held at mental hospitals, repeatedly sentenced to forced labor camps, or became disabled as a result of torture.
When a practitioner was arrested or tortured, or an individual who participated in the persecution received karmic retribution, I immediately wrote an article to report the facts and expose the evil. Our coordinator then double-checked the information before sending it to Minghui. If the practitioners weren't released after some time, I would write another article from a different angle.
Exposing the Evil Systematically and Thoroughly
From reading persecution articles on the Minghui website, I realized that practitioners in other regions had done a great job of compiling and exposing local cases. They had approached it in a systematic and comprehensive manner.
Inspired, I downloaded all of the information related to our local cases, including lists of the local perpetrators, from the website. I carefully looked through and categorized all of the cases.
I selected the more severe and typical ones to write about, since it clearly showed the true nature of the CCP, evoked people's indignation toward the Party, exposed those involved, and frightened the evil. I edited the selected reports by getting rid of unnecessary details, restructured the paragraphs, and added additional information. I made sure the main points of these articles were emphasized.
I categorized these cases according to city, district, and county. I then further classified them according to the persecution types, such as death cases, sentencing, forced labor, and severe torture. The tortures were sub-categorized to force-feedings, being shocked with electric batons, severe beatings, and administration of unknown drugs. I also classified the detention, extortion, and missing cases.
I grouped these cases according to age, family background, and social groups. For example, I grouped together the cases of highly educated practitioners, government officials, educators, families, children, or the elderly who had been persecuted. I also grouped all of the cases of practitioners who had suffered a mental breakdown due to the persecution together.
After I systematically sorted and categorized the information, I got to know all of the local persecution cases that happened in the past 10-plus years. This laid a solid foundation for me to write summaries of the persecution in the future.
These in-depth reports provided an advantage to expose the evil comprehensively. The coordinator also provided me with written information about our local practitioners' persecution experiences. With their safety in mind, I made some edits to the information and then categorized it before writing individual reports for each case.
Most of these reports were published on the Minghui.org after being checked and edited. Local practitioners in charge of truth-clarification materials then printed these articles into brochures and distributed them to the public.
When writing reports and summaries, I can stay neutral and rational for the most part. I do my best to remain objective when reporting on an event, because we need be considerate of everyday people and what they can accept.
Only when they are able to accept what we write about can we achieve the goal of exposing the persecution. Only when people learn about the greatness of Dafa and the severity of the persecution will we be able to save them.
Thus, when writing a persecution report, we must pay attention to the structure of the article, write it with the public in mind, and start with ideas that are easily accepted by people.
Producing Truth-clarification Periodicals for Another Region
Master has told us:
“Exposing the wicked policemen and bad persons and publicizing their evil deeds is extremely effective at shocking and restraining those irrational, wicked people. At the same time, by clarifying the facts to the people on a local level it most directly exposes, and generates public awareness of, the wicked persecution. It is also a great way to save the people who have been poisoned and deceived by the lies. I hope all Dafa disciples and new students in mainland China will do this well.” (“Comment on a Student’s Article” from The Essentials of Diligent Progress Vol. III)
Besides writing persecution reports for our local truth-clarification periodicals, I also did my best to help practitioners from other regions.
One time, when I shared experience with a practitioner from my hometown, I learned that they had stopped producing truth-clarification materials in their area. They also didn't make their own version of the Minghui Weekly. In addition, many practitioners had been arrested, detained, tortured, and sentenced to prison or forced labor, and their cases weren't exposed in a timely manner.
After our conversation, I thought: “Why did I hear about this? Didn't Master hold a 9-day lecture series there twice? Yet, the old forces still have a tight grip on this city, despite the fact that there is a large number of practitioners there.”
I made up my mind to familiarize myself with the persecution cases in that city. I carefully searched the Minghui website and downloaded all of the relevant information. I found that practitioners there had actually created a truth-clarification newsletter in 2009, but this effort only lasted less than a year.
I thought: “Dafa disciples must form one body. I must harmonize with the region that needs help.” I wanted to resume the newsletter that had stopped two years earlier. However, problems soon presented themselves to me. Writing articles was not difficult for me, but I had never done typesetting and didn't know where to start.
To solve this problem, I downloaded the edited version of the Minghui Weekly and compared it with other versions from different regions. I also researched how to do editing and typesetting. Master strengthened my resolve, and I soon learned some basic techniques, such as how to insert text boxes and images.
After some effort, I was able to put together the first issue of the Minghui Weekly for that region. It was later published on the Internet. Now I can produce an issue of the Minghui Weekly almost every week for that area.
Upgrading My Xinxing While Working on Dafa Projects
Many practitioners have brought up the question of how to improve the quality of our truth-clarification materials in recent years. As a Minghui correspondent, I felt that the only way to reach people's hearts was to write articles that are clean, rational, and without the influence of the CCP culture.
Only when ordinary people accept our articles can they learn the truth about Dafa. I cooperated well with other practitioners in searching for and sorting information, writing reports and summaries, and typesetting for print. Even when there were conflicts or problems, we always looked inward to examine ourselves and then harmonized the group. To me, it was truly a period of time when I tempered myself.
When I had first begun submitting articles to Dafa-related websites, almost all of them were published. At that time, not many people knew about my efforts, so it didn't bother me if my articles were not published, and also didn't affect me much if they were published.
Once I became the regional Minghui correspondent, however, I suddenly started to feel pressure and worry whether my articles would get published. If an article got published, I was really happy. If it didn't, I felt so disappointed that I sometimes even doubted the editors at Minghui.org.
After some observation, I realized that the requirements for publishing articles on the Minghui website were actually very basic. No matter what type of article was submitted, as long as it was well reasoned, factual, presented the information in an orderly and clear manner, and effectively clarified the truth, it would be published. Then, why didn't some articles get published? There could be several reasons, including not having a clear main idea, not having enough substance, or having content that had been published before.
I didn't realize this at the time, however, and became more attached to the thought of having my articles published, even though I knew my thinking wasn't right.
I was afraid to lose face in front of practitioners because everyone in our group knew that I was good at writing. Even the coordinator asked me: “You have submitted the persecution report to Minghui a few times now. Why hasn't it been published?” His question made me feel even more embarrassed, and I didn't know how to respond.
My wife pointed out to me that my cultivation state wasn't right. She pinpointed my attachment to fear and to doing things, and the mentality of showing off. She also noted that I didn't take criticism well, and that I was arrogant. She told me that as a practitioner, I should look at problems from a cultivator's perspective and rectify my cultivation state immediately.
I realized this as well, and knew that my problem was rooted in my attachment to doing things and not studying the Fa well. When I shared this with the coordinator, he reminded me that the key to doing Dafa projects well is to study the Fa well. He told me that I should always make time to study the Fa well, no matter how busy I was.
I wrote articles to expose the evil and validate the Fa, yet I had a strong attachment to validating myself. If I validated myself instead of the Fa, I could have gone astray from Dafa.
No matter how busy we are, we must study the Fa with a clear mind. How could I think that writing articles was cultivating? Through studying the Fa, I gradually got rid of my attachments and human notions, and was no longer attached to whether my articles got published or not.
There was a period of time when I spent much of my time writing articles and not enough time studying the Fa. I could feel that my field was not pure, and had fear of being persecuted. I also had the attachments of criticizing others and completing tasks, resentment, mentality of retaliating, the notion that if I didn't tell, no one would know, jealousy, and lust. All these bad substances accumulated in my field and made me feel oppressed.
During a sharing with other practitioners in February of this year, a fellow practitioner suddenly questioned an argument I had made in one of my articles. Another practitioner chimed in and commented that my truth-clarification letters lacked compassion and tolerance. He said that everyday people wouldn't be able to feel a practitioner's kindness.
It was a big blow to my ego. I immediately felt resentment toward them. I had done so much, but my efforts weren't recognized by my fellow practitioners. All of the articles I had written were approved by the coordinator and the editors at Minghui, so how could there be any problems?
My human notions got the best of me, and I started to argue with the practitioners who criticized me. More and more practitioners then joined in; some were on my side and others pointed out my problems.
I felt wronged and was bothered by it for a long time. I completely forgot to look inward.
Master said,
“But normally when a problem arises, if it does not irritate a person psychologically, it does not count or is useless and cannot make him or her improve.” (Zhuan Falun)
At that time, a practitioner who was in charge of a Dafa project visited me. He began to talk about a persecution report published on the Minghui website that I had written. He didn't know that I had written it. He was very upset and said that the article was poorly written. I didn't know why he felt so strongly about it.
I felt embarrassed and wished that I could just vanish into thin air. I felt so much pressure that I couldn't take it anymore. After he left, I angrily said to my wife, “I quit! I don't want to be involved anymore.”
That night, I told the coordinator that I was quitting. He started to laugh and said that I was acting like a child. He asked if I was confident that I could find another project to work on—one where there would never be a problem. If problems came up in the new project, would I quit as well?
My wife also pointed out that my thinking wasn't correct. She said it was an opportunity for me to improve myself. When criticized by others, we should always look inward. How was I going to improve if I always looked at others?
After hearing this, I became clearheaded and re-adjusted myself through studying the Fa. The coordinator also opened up to me and shared his experience of overcoming different tests.
I realized that problems arose because my field wasn't righteous, allowing for the bad substances and evil from other dimensions to interfere. I eliminated the bad thoughts and apologized to the practitioners who I had argued with.
It was the mighty power of Dafa. Through sharing and cooperating with others, we became more clear on the meaning of the Fa. No matter what type of problems we ran into later on, we were able to share based on the Fa and help each other improve.
The persecution in our region has now lessened, and the environment has become more relaxed. Lately, there haven't been any arrests or persecution cases to write about.
Master Has Paved the Way, We Just Need to Do It
I have not been able to see much through my Celestial Eye since I started to practice. The only exception is being able to see two Faluns rotating in front of me whenever I felt discouraged, slacked off in cultivation, or had poor enlightenment quality. It was truly wonderful. I knew it was Master telling me to cheer up, be diligent, and truly cultivate.
Master has paved the way; I just need to do it.
Besides writing articles and editing a truth-clarification newsletter, I also work with my wife to operate a material production site. Our site has been operating smoothly for several years now, thanks to Master. My wife does the three things well, especially clarifying the truth in person. I see many of my shortcomings when I compare myself to her.
Many practitioners think that I must have an advanced degree, or I wouldn't have been able to write many “good articles.” Actually, I had dropped out of school a long time ago due to family reasons. In fact, even after I joined this project, I didn't read books on how to write because I didn't have time.
Dafa is truly extraordinary. All of the abilities and skills I accumulated throughout history were meant to be used in this lifetime to validate the Fa. Without Master watching over me, without the wisdom that Dafa has given me, and without other practitioners' help, what could I possibly do?
All of my abilities were given by Master, and Master has paved the way. Everything is set, and I just need to do what I am supposed to.
Compared to practitioners who have obtained the Fa early on and those who are diligent, I've realized that I don't know the principles of the Fa as well and have not done the three things well. Looking back on my cultivation path, what I have done is insignificant.
Master said,
“The path a Dafa disciple takes is a glorious history, and this history has to be created by his own enlightening.” (“Path” from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
This is true for every practitioner, and everyone has their own path. Everything has been arranged by Master. As long as we cultivate in Dafa, we will succeed no matter which path we take.
The above is my understanding and experience in cultivation. I ask fellow practitioners to kindly point out anything that doesn't comply with the Fa.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
