[Croatian Minghui] What Does It Mean to Be a Dedicated Member of the Minghui Team?

(Minghui.org) Since the Croatian Minghui was launched, it has been, for me, one of the most important places for cultivating xinxing, for expanding insight, and for continuously working on clarifying the truth in different ways. When I first got involved with Minghui, I couldn’t even imagine how detailed Master’s arrangements were regarding being involved in this project. This also reminds me that every aspect of my life as a Dafa practitioner is arranged carefully so that I can cultivate and satisfy the vow I made to Master.c

A recent Fa conference was held in a European country. This was an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen cooperation among local practitioners. Also. all activities that took place a few days before the conference, such as the first visit of the Tian Guo Marching Band, were a great opportunity for clarifying the truth to locals. Although I live outside that particular country, I dedicated myself enthusiastically in organizing some of the events. I believed that my vow included my participation in some events and that notions such as distance were no obstacle. It was easy to overcome them.

After all the events, my observation is that all the truth-clarification activities, as well as the Fa Conference itself, were very successful. However, a few things happened related to working on Minghui that were not so successful, but were an extraordinary opportunity for improving one’s xinxing.

Writing Reports for Minghui and Opportunities to Look Within

When getting ready for the Fa conference, as responsibilities and some organizational issues had to be defined, I was very focused and paid attention to details. I asked fellow practitioners if they could accept assignments and I maintained a flexible state of mind. The whole process was natural, and I experienced a lot of cooperation. However, regarding the reporting for Minghui, it happened that I did not elaborate the plan in such detail. Namely, in the exchange of messages with team members, I asked one team member to take pictures and writing down details from activities, as well as from the Fa conference. I asked him to write reports that we would forward to the Chinese and English Minghui. Then, we continued to communicate concerning various details about the activities. Recalling the issue at hand, I understand that I somehow accepted that he would be in charge of reports and pictures from the associated activities and the Fa conference. We are a small team, and we don’t have a dedicated person for reporting on live events, so this was also a new issue for him.

The day after the Fa conference, he informed me that he was too busy with different types of tasks, and that he would not be able to write reports for Minghui during the next few days given his schedule. He suggested that the reports for Minghui could be written as a collection of insights from all those practitioners who participated. Besides, we could use quality photos taken by a local practitioner. I was taken aback after reading his message, became angry, and resented his changing how we would go about things. I could understand that he was busy, and I didn’t really blame him for that, but my resentment came from thinking: “Why was he so irresponsible? Why did he say he couldn’t write anything only the day after all the activities?” I was disappointed.

When we held our regular meeting, he repeated something to the effect that a member of our team does not necessarily need to be the one writing the report, and that it is okay to make a report from the collected insights of everyone who participated. Hearing this, I felt that it was true on one level, but that it might also be an excuse. I thought: “Of course, in countries where they don’t have their own Minghui team, they can approach the report in such a way, but we have a team. If we are not up to the task now, what is our purpose? Why do we even have a Minghui team if we don’t play a major role in reporting practitioners’ activities?”

During the meeting, I spoke in a somewhat cold tone, and I had the desire to discuss it further, but at the same time I understood that there must be some lesson for me, so I stopped myself going overboard as much as possible. Later, I looked inside and recalled the reason for reporting on the events. Why did I ask him to write the reports? Because he is a veteran practitioner, he was instrumental in starting our Minghui team, and he also lives in a different country. Therefore, I thought that he would certainly not have as many obligations during all the activities as the local practitioners, so he could take photos and write. He was, on the surface, and according to my understanding, the best candidate to write all the reports. I didn’t see any flaw in that logic, so I continued to look within myself.

I soon realized that I had only “allocated” that responsibility, and I did not discuss it further with him. I remembered that when it came to solving some issues during the organization of the Fa conference, communication with practitioners flowed from both sides, and I was careful to encourage newer practitioners to get involved. This situation with the Minghui colleague, the human notion that he was a veteran and that he should "simply complete"  the task, over rode everything else.

Besides, for such a big thing as reporting for Minghui on the Tian Guo Marching Band’s first visit and the country’s first Fa conference, shouldn’t I be more responsible myself? I needed to check if we had the same understanding about how to proceed, if he would be able to cover both the activity report and the Fa conference. I could have asked him if he needed any help, if he had any ideas on how to approach everything, if we should divide up responsibilities such as photography, interviewing and writing?

I realized that I was irresponsible when it came to the preparation of the reports. Also, I held the notion that my colleague is a veteran practitioner whom I somewhat kept on a pedestal, so I did not check whether he could really do all that – I just assumed. The resentment I felt earlier towards him, or better said, towards the situation, then disappeared completely. However, there was still a question - what about the reports for the Chinese and English Minghui?

Article Quality and Cultivation

Another practitioner took over the writing of both reports. First, he wrote a report about the activities and sent it to me for review. I made a few changes, and it was sent to the Chinese Minghui, along with photos taken by a local practitioner, who is not a member of the Minghui team. Before sending it, I thought that the article was quite basic and that it lacked more content to really have the power to save people, which is what I said to him. Then, he commented that sometimes “pictures speak louder than words.”

As a few days had already passed since the activity, we sent that article to the Chinese Minghui so as not to be too late. The article was soon published, and after a few days, I received feedback from a Chinese practitioner that the article about activities in Croatia needed to be corrected. Since working at Minghui is accompanied by the need for secrecy and security, it was a little strange to talk about the issue under discussion, because I couldn’t ask her about her work, i.e. whether she is a member of the Chinese Minghui team, and at the same time I didn’t want to define my role at the local Minghui. Somehow everything was communicated ultimately.

Basically, her feedback was that the article was written with incorrect information about the number of members of the Tian Guo Marching Band. I was surprised and objected, stressing that the article did not contain untruths. She remained calm and asked me to review the article, especially the part about the number of band members. She also said that the cover image in the article is half in the sun and half in the dark. She also added that the article did not contain details about conversations with locals.

I felt as if I was personally called out and I was embarrassed because I also knew that the article was somewhat deficient in terms of content. Then the following thoughts appeared in my mind: “If the person who was originally supposed to write the report had written it, everything would probably have turned out well. The report was written by another person, we did it all together in a hurry and now we have to patch things up.” Then my thoughts turned to Chinese Minghui: “Those at Chinese Minghui are so strict. In fact, when they write articles for a Western audience, their articles are also strange and illegible to us, with confusing logic and elaboration of the topic. The Chinese style of writing and the Western style are quite different. How is it that they only notice our mistakes and don’t see their own?” I felt that I was having a discussion with everyone in mind.

I tried to suppress all negative thoughts and turn the situation to a positive one, because practitioners should look at everything positively and learn something from it, primarily by looking within themselves. It took me a while to calm down, but I did. Sending righteous thoughts helped me. Then I looked at the published article about the activities and, indeed, the number of members of the Tian Guo Marching Band could be misinterpreted. I assumed that the real mistake occurred in the translation of the article into Chinese, but I admitted that our version was also a bit ambiguous and needed to be edited. I realized that the practitioner was right. I was grateful to her because she remained calm and encouraged me to revise the article, even though I reacted defensively, commenting that they were the ones who made a mistake. She showed me what it means to maintain compassion at all times.

A little later, I opened my Facebook and saw that the same article about the activities had already been published on our Minghui’s Facebook page, but the title was misspelled. I thought, “This is incredible! Such a small article, and so many problems!!” In the title of the article, instead of Tian Guo it was written Tain Guo by mistake. I was really confused. When I checked in more detail, I realized that the mistake in our article was that we had written “ai” instead of “ia.” “Ai” is exactly how the word “I” is pronounced in English.

I realized that a lot of aspects related to that “I” appeared in the whole story with the Minghui reports. From the fact that I should have done more in the organization of the work to being attached to my own reputation because the articles about our local activities were so messed up. I had the feeling that it was a bad reflection of our team, and at the same time of me. Another big insight that came out of that “ai,” and I would say perhaps the most important one, is that I should no longer see my work on Minghui as something from which I receive benefits in cultivation, or how much “I” invest in working on Minghui. I should take working at Minghui as an opportunity to better serve others because Minghui is a sacred environment to save others. All those mistakes on Facebook posts were an indication that I must improve in cultivation, truly get out of selfishness, and into a selfless being who unconditionally serves to save other beings.

But, it didn’t stop there. When another practitioner later sent another report about the Fa conference, the comment from the coordinator for the multilingual team was that the article needed to go through considerable changes before potential publication on Chinese Minghui. He emphasized that topics about lust and health benefits should not be singled out as examples of experiences from the conference. The article was edited in accordance with these instructions and sent to Chinese Minghui. However, Chinese Minghui didn’t publish it until a month later, with additional editing. The article only published summaries of experiences whose main theme was saving people. At the end of the article, they also added background information to give readers a more comprehensive picture of Falun Dafa. I thought that in doing so, they put the readers first. We had not done that.

Then. I came to realize that at Chinese Minghui, they edit the articles very diligently, take into account many aspects, including the current state of Fa rectification. We are no longer in the stage of personal cultivation, and our Fa conferences in this final time should be focused on validating the Fa and saving people, on deep, true character cultivation in the process, and not on matters of one’s own health benefits and perceptual insights. On a deeper level, I felt the sanctity of working on Minghui, and that the principles of good editing stem from active, diligent cultivation of the main consciousness that keeps up with the needs of Fa rectification. Therefore, the questions about the light on the photos used for the articles, about the colors, about the angles, about the information to be included in the reports, and above all what would be interesting to the Chinese people who read Minghui, all this is for the purpose of saving people and leaving an example for the future. This is not about editing articles in accordance with personal preferences. It is about responsibility towards the new universe. I realized that I really needed to expand my capacity, and become a truly serious member of the Minghui team.

Photograph as a Reflection of the Wider State of Affairs

The final lesson was again related to the first article about the activities. Specifically, it was about the photo published at the end of the article. Namely, we received feedback from a Chinese practitioner that the photo was inappropriate and that it should be deleted. It was a photo in front of the Chinese embassy, in which the practitioners were standing smiling, looking at the camera, their backs to the embassy, while holding the sending righteous thoughts hand pose. Since by then I had already realized that the comments about the articles were related to our improvement, that comment did not upset me at the time. I immediately tried to figure out what it was about, and was ready to remove the photo immediately.

However, some fellow practitioners objected, commenting that the photo was not inappropriate. Some even started discussions, sharing numerous links to published reports in which practitioners in other countries also took pictures outside Chinese embassies. Observing these discussions, I was very calm and came to an important realization, which was that the comment was actually completely on point. The practitioners in the photo posed with a hand gesture for sending righteous thoughts, with open eyes and smiles, and the Chinese embassy stood as a decoration in the background. I thought, “We need to face evil and eliminate it decisively and clearly, and not pose next to it, with a smile on our face. We don’t do it to show off on the surface. The evil needs to be truly eliminated.”

In the feedback, they further told us that if ordinary people in China looked at the photo, it would appear that Western practitioners are happily, smilingly posing next to the Chinese embassy, which send a completely wrong image. Practitioners in other published reports look towards the embassy and send righteous thoughts towards it to eliminate evil. That is an obvious difference. One member of the Minghui team later commented. “Well, yes, we really should have understood that ourselves and not included that photo in the article.” My insight then was that we really needed to be clear about how and why we do something, that is – why we publish something, because we are cultivating our master consciousness!

I must emphasize that I did not think that the practitioners in that photo did anything intentionally bad, and I did not condemn them at all. There are no coincidences, and if it weren’t for that photo, the discussion wouldn’t have started. I realized that the photo was a very good hint for looking within. It is as if it was a symbol of the fact that both as individuals, and as a group, we need to advance in cultivation, truly eliminating evil, and not just posing thinking that we are doing well enough.

Detailed Arrangements

Given all the situations mentioned above, I felt deep gratitude to Master for all the opportunities he carefully arranged for us to improve. I am also grateful to the Chinese Minghui team for the opportunity to improve in my cultivation. Such attention to detail in the articles is an indication of the devoted cultivation that is depicted in their work, and it is based primarily on the needs of Fa rectification. Our work on Minghui, like everything in this world, should be based on true cultivation in Falun Dafa, and the arrangements are so detailed. I really need to appreciate that more.

I would like to end with Master’s Fa:

“My admiration goes out to some of the practitioners working on Dafa projects, such as Minghui.org, who aren’t able to join in a lot of activities like other practitioners do. They often cannot participate in other events or activities put on by Dafa disciples. Even when they do participate, they can’t disclose what they are working on, since these are unique times, after all. Others can speak about working as a reporter for The Epoch Times, or being a news editor at NTD, and so on, and there’s a sense of pride that comes with these great responsibilities that Dafa disciples assume. But the ones I’m talking about can’t say such things, and have to keep to themselves even the great things they may have achieved. Maybe that wouldn’t be a big deal if it were just a day or two, or even a year or two. But already it’s been twenty years. (Applause) There are actually a lot of practitioners who have worked quietly on Dafa disciple projects or other things, and all of them are truly extraordinary. Divine beings really have great respect for you. And I, too, have a lot of respect for people like that.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XV)

Thank you Master, and fellow practitioners.

(Presented at the 2022 Multilingual Minghui Teams Experience Sharing Conference)