[Singapore Fa Conference] Solidly Cultivating in Life and at Work

(Minghui.org)

Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners! 

I started cultivating in December 2015 when I was living in Australia and looking for a natural method to help with my skin issues. Since then, my health has improved dramatically. My relationships with others also improved, as I worked on my character according to Falun Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion- Forbearance.

But the path of cultivation isn’t easy, especially to view things from the perspective of a cultivator instead of lapsing into ordinary ways of thinking.

Viewing Issues from the Perspective of a Cultivator During the Pandemic

When the pandemic struck, people were fearful of getting infected with COVID. At the time, my thinking was that the virus had nothing to do with me since it was targeted to “...weed out members of the Party and those who have sided with it.” (“Stay Rational,” Team Yellow Translation) 

And since I started cultivating, my health and energy levels have improved and I haven’t gotten sick. So I carried on with life as normal, but I also observed the mask mandate and other safety measures required by the authorities to allay the fears and concerns of those around me.

I also saw the pandemic as an opportunity to tell my colleagues, friends and relatives about the benefits of practicing Falun Dafa, and how it can boost the body’s immune system and prevent illnesses. For those who didn’t practice, they could recite the nine true words, “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” which would help if the words were recited sincerely. When I could, I also gave people Dafa amulets with the nine true words on them, or cards prepared by our local practitioners with the phrases and QR codes of related Dafa articles.

Many who received them were appreciative and thankful. I feel as long as we approach people with sincerity and concern, they can feel it and most won’t react negatively.

Then the vaccines came. As I was following the news regarding the pandemic and subsequent rollout of the vaccines closely, I was wary of being vaccinated, especially with what I read about its safety and efficacy. Besides, I have no issues with the virus, so why should I risk being vaccinated and contaminate my body with a foreign substance?

But as days passed and more and more people got vaccinated. My colleague told me that my name was mentioned as one of those few who were still unvaccinated during the meetings that management had regarding the pandemic. In general, people viewed the vaccination favorably and the country’s political leadership was also taking an increasingly strict stance against unvaccinated people.

On November 18, 2021, Master’s lecture “Wake Up” was published on Minghui. I was shocked when I read it. What Master described as those who “have adamantly refused to get vaccinated” described me exactly! That was a rude awakening for me. I realized that I should see things from a cultivator’s perspective instead of from ordinary people’s perspective. Master mentioned that if you treat yourself as an ordinary person, aren’t you an ordinary person?

As cultivators, we should put others first and consider the impact our actions have on others. My refusal to be vaccinated was inconveniencing my colleagues and causing anxiety amongst others. 

My unvaccinated status was also starting to affect my daily activities. And as Master pointed out, I am a cultivator of Dafa, the very Dafa that is the “...bedrock of creation” (Lunyu, Zhuan Falun) everything in the universe owes to it, including viruses and the vaccines; why should I be affected by this?

So in the end, I went to get myself vaccinated. My family was happy with my decision, and I could sense that my colleagues were relieved, too. I did not experience any significant side effects after I got jabbed. 

COVID Positive and Looking Within for Gaps

In the later half of 2022, after the pandemic travel restrictions were loosened, my wife and I planned to travel to Malaysia with my sister and her husband to visit our relatives. This would be our first trip overseas since the pandemic started, and we planned to take this opportunity to introduce our spouses to our relatives.

While preparing for the trip, my sister mentioned to me that we should check if COVID was included in our travel insurance in case we got it while we were in Malaysia. I didn’t think too much of it then and thought it was a good idea. However, COVID was not covered by the standard travel insurance package, and I had to specifically include it as an additional rider when I bought it.

We planned to fly on Wednesday, August 3, but around Friday just the week before the flight, I felt sick. The next day I was feverish. When I tested myself for COVID, I found I was positive. Shortly after, my wife tested positive as well. In the end, we had to cancel our trip to Malaysia.

We did not expect to get COVID, as both my wife and I are practitioners and were healthy all along. And over the close to seven years I have been cultivating, I haven’t fallen sick with fever before. 

Even after our tenant got COVID a year ago, we did not get it. Thus when we tested positive, we were surprised; we did not know where we had fallen short. So while we were isolating ourselves, we focused on the fundamentals: studying the Fa and looking within, doing the exercises, and sending righteous thoughts.

My fever was initially around 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Each time after I did the exercises, although it was harder than normal, my temperature fell. I also felt better after Fa study and sending righteous thoughts. After a few days, my fever was gone.

Later, after discussing with my wife, we felt the main gap was because I decided to include COVID in our travel insurance. The underlying reason was because I feared we may get COVID, but isn’t fear itself an attachment? If COVID had nothing to do with us, why would we even consider it?

There may be other reasons as well, such as pride. In a discussion I had with my brother later, he talked about how his student was so proud when he answered questions correctly. The phrase my brother used to describe his student was a Chinese phrase that talks about feeling pleased with oneself. It was the exact same phrase used in Zhuan Falun to describe pride as an attachment. And here’s what’s unusual: usually my brother prefers to use English instead of Chinese, as English is his main language.

Then it struck me, could this be Master indirectly pointing out my own shortcoming? Wasn’t I also proud myself when I noticed other people around me getting infected with COVID while I was not?

Getting sick also made me more compassionate and understanding of others who were sick as well, instead of being dismissive or looking down on others who were suffering.

Conducting Myself as a Cultivator at Work

There are no coincidences in life, as I understand from Zhuan Falun and Master’s lectures. And our lives as practitioners are arranged for us to help identify and cultivate away our attachments. In recent years, I felt this was especially so at work.

I joined my company in August of last year as part of a new two-person team to support the company’s growing business activities in the region. I was selected primarily because I was experienced in a computer language that the users were using, and the company was moving to a new platform in the cloud that mainly used that language.

My teammate, who had relocated from London to lead the team, did not know that language but was skilled in another language. The rationale was, we would complement each other in supporting the users.

As it turned out, I ended up doing most of the work as the users tended to approach me instead of him to solve their issues.

Some of my colleagues mentioned this to me, as they thought this was unfair. As for myself, I thought it was fine as I liked helping users and did not mind being busy. I was paid a salary to do work, after all. Besides, the universe is fair; if I was being taken advantage of, I would be compensated with virtue. I thought I was conducting myself as a practitioner should.

But later, another colleague of mine told me that while I was away on leave, an issue occurred. So the users asked my teammate for help, and he in turned asked her. She was annoyed as it was a known issue with a solution, yet my teammate had no idea what was going on.

Then it dawned on me that I was actually being selfish for not considering the wider implications of my actions (or inaction, in this case) on others. By turning a blind eye to my colleague and not at least trying to keep him up to date, it was affecting others in the company, such as my colleague, my teammate, and our users as well.

And to be fair, my teammate had taken on other responsibilities and tasks apart from mine, which I did not participate in. Later this year, after the company’s yearly performance review, my teammate also became more proactive in keeping abreast of the issues that our team was handling.

Cultivation is indeed strict, and these incidents highlight the areas that I was unaware of or had not paid sufficient attention to. 

There are still areas that I am still working on, such as being attached to specific foods, clarifying the truth with compassion instead of treating it as if I’m checking off a box, looking down on people less well-to-do than me, etc.

That said, I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to encounter Dafa and take up this great cultivation practice.

My colleagues compliment me on my patience in helping others and my work ethic. When they heard I was forty-two, they were surprised. Some thought I was a fresh graduate, and some thought I was in my twenties or thirties. I told them this was because I was practicing Falun Dafa, a holistic body-and-mind practice. For those who expressed interest, I gave them more information on the practice and encouraged them to try it themselves.

Thank you, Master. Without you imparting Dafa to us, I would still be hopelessly lost in this maze of delusion.

Thank you, Master!Thank you, fellow practitioners!

(Presented at the 2022 Singapore Fa Conference)