(Minghui.org) I’m 56 years old and have cultivated in Falun Dafa for more than 20 years. As a cultivator, I treat hardship as joy. While cultivating myself well and saving sentient beings I faced hardship and difficulty. However, I mostly felt fortunate and happy to be a practitioner. I’d like to share how I cultivated myself through learning computer skills, so I could assist Master Li (Dafa’s founder) in Fa-rectification and save sentient beings.
I live in a small city. Most of the practitioners around me are elderly. They received very little education, and they could be considered illiterate. Some of them are from the countryside. I’m a few years younger than most of them and better educated. Beginning on July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Dafa, I was learning the technical aspects of computers at the time. Even though I had no understanding of computers, software, drivers, or networks, I put on a brave face.
To have access to Master’s new articles, I learned to browse the Minghui website. At that time, I didn’t have a computer. But, I went to the homes of my colleagues and friends who had computers so I could go online. One time, I helped out a friend who operated a computer company. The computers in his stores operated fast, and the Internet he used was also very fast. After I finished helping him he let me use his computer to check on some things.
It took some time to figure out how to open the Minghui website to look at it. While I was trying to understand the technical aspects, my friend’s sister found out about it and gave me a dirty look. I knew that it would feel good to log onto the Minghui website for even just a few minutes. Later, I bought a computer. After I started using applications like Freegate to break through the Internet blockade, it became much easier to browse the Minghui website.
It was around 2001 when I went to the bank to deal with an issue. I saw a small photocopier to copy I.D.'s that looked portable and convenient. So I paid the 3,000 yuan and took it home.
After my family left for work, I took out the template that I got from a practitioner. I closed my windows and doors and made photocopies. As soon as I turned it on, my heart started pounding. I was afraid to get caught. I was also worried that it would break down as I did not know how to operate it.
I asked Master’s help to get rid of my fear. After I pressed the button on the photocopier I had no problem and it began to work. The quality was also very high. The next day, when I turned it on, I heard very nice music. I thought that my family had come home and turned the TV on. When I checked the computer room there was no one there. Master was encouraging me. For quite a while, this little photocopier worked well while also playing nice music.
I have an introverted character, I am not eloquent, nor enjoy interacting with people, but I’m very diligent. When fellow practitioners wanted to do something and couldn’t figure out what to do, they’d come to me for help. When they wanted to hand out truth-clarification DVDs, I learned how to make them, and then taught them. When the Minghui website published how to make congratulatory cards to Master, I also learned how to do this.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2009, when the congratulatory card from our Fa-study group was first published on the Minghui website, the senior practitioners were so happy that they began to cry. They all said: We finally had an opportunity to express our gratitude to Master! I also encouraged other practitioners to learn and showed them how to go about it. One year, the congratulatory cards made by two practitioners were selected by the Minghui website for the Congratulatory Cards Collections in a video format. They were so thrilled.
A Canon printer used by a practitioner from the countryside suddenly started flashing and wouldn’t print anymore. She couldn’t find anyone to help her, which worried her. I looked it up both on the Minghui website and technical forums. I learned that it just needed to be reset. After that, I downloaded the application and tried to use it. A few minutes later it worked again. The other practitioner exclaimed, “Wow! It only needed to be pressed down a few times to make it work, that’s it! I had thought it was broken and was going to buy a new one. See, you’ve helped me save a few thousand yuan.”
Another practitioner from the countryside, who was uneducated, but never lagged behind in saving sentient beings, had two printers to print Minghui desk calendars. When a light continuously flashed on one of them she didn’t know what to do. So she had to take it to the printer shop to get it fixed, where she was told that it needed to be reset. They did that for her, however, one week later, the same thing happened again. She was facing a dilemma: It would be too obvious, and unsafe to take the printer back so soon. I went to the technical forum to study the relevant course and then downloaded the dedicated software. Then, I went to her home to help her reset the printer. “Please rest assured. Whenever you need to reset it again, I’ll be here.” It turned out that from then on the printer operated smoothly for a long time.
Gradually, practitioners have set up material production sites. They print, hand make, and hand out all sorts of informational materials, as well as making DVDs to save people. Given the persecution, practitioners take a risk in making these materials. Our machines are used intensively, thus, the odds of problems occurring are comparatively high. So the regular maintenance is very important. As long as things are required for clarifying the facts and saving sentient beings, I do what needs to be done as long as I come across it. When I didn’t know how to do something, I learned how, and have never refused to help fellow practitioners.
The most unforgettable experience for me was installing a computer system. In the beginning, my goal was to learn to install the XP Universal Colon system. However, based on the teaching materials, I couldn’t install the first laptop. Not sure why, but I had trouble turning it on. So I had to send it back to the owner.
When the time came to have Windows XP upgrade to the Windows 7 system, we were short on technical practitioners. However many practitioners waited to have the system upgraded. A practitioner passed on her laptop to me, to have me learn how to upgrade the system. By referring to the training materials, I had tried for a few days, but still couldn’t figure it out. I was so frustrated. After I found a technical practitioner, I learned that my problem was that I didn’t know how to back up from the original driver. It took him quite a while to search for that from the official website and re-install. I watched it for more than a day, it was full of unintelligible English and technical terms, and I didn’t remember much.
Gradually, I went from not knowing the computer at all, to learning to go online and download and print materials, make DVDs, amulets, seal films, make Dafa books, including the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, and fix simple printer problems. I also learned how to install and upgrade systems.
One year, I was too focused on learning the techniques, yet lagged behind in Fa-study, and xinxing improvement. When I didn’t learn quickly enough, I became impatient. Two of my printers were also broken. When I rarely went out, practitioners said that I had a strong fear, and was afraid of clarifying the facts to people face-to-face.
I felt wronged and thought to myself: Do you think I enjoy sitting in front of a computer every day?! No matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t help anyone quit the CCP, but I wanted to.
When it came to handing out Minghui desk calendars, I went to the streets with another practitioner, and we were outside for a little over a month. It felt great! When people saw us, they were all open. Many also agreed to quit the CCP and its youth organizations, and I only had to say a few sentences. It only took an hour or two to finish handing out between a dozen and a few dozen desk calendars. Meanwhile, I could help between a dozen and a few dozen people quit the CCP. This was marvelous! However, the good times didn’t last very long.
During those couple of years, our overall local cultivation state was good. A large number of practitioners stepped forward to clarify the facts to people and help them quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. The informational Dafa materials were in high demand. One time, I happened to run into a practitioner. After I was certain that she was a practitioner, I allowed her to take away all my desk calendars and copies of Minghui Weekly. She said, “Please give all of them to me. A few of us don’t have any materials.”
At that time, the practitioner who said that I was afraid earlier said, “Senior practitioners didn’t know how to make materials. You were so young, but you didn’t make materials. So many of them were short of materials, but you still insisted on going out to talk to people.”
Hearing that, I felt so unbalanced in my heart: No matter what I do, it’s never right in your opinion! Afterward, I understood that she helped me improve my xinxing. It was supposed to be that whatever saving sentient beings required of me to do, I should do it, as opposed to doing whatever I felt like. So I went home, continued to fix machines, and made Dafa materials.
When it came to installing the system for practitioners, based on the manual, I warned them about what needed attention. But soon enough, they would forget. When their computers had issues, they complained about me for not having their system installed properly. Or after it took me quite a while to have a very old computer installed with a new system, they complained that it took too long to start the computer, and so on.
Over the years I have studied the technical side of computers for truth clarification. I considered myself low-key, humble and didn’t seek any recognition. However, when I did my very best, practitioners were still not very happy and complained, I felt so down and couldn’t help but reason things out with them. I complained that when I studied the techniques, they used the time to study the Fa. In terms of Fa-study, of course, I was behind compared to them. My strong zealotry, resentment, attachment to my own ego, not wanting to be criticized, and other attachments all got exposed during the process.
I should have really seriously looked inward! Why would I study technical things? It was probably because I signed this vow with Master eons ago, which would allow me to complete my mission. If I were to fail to do that, would it do? Would it do if I didn’t help other practitioners? When practitioners complained about me, why did I feel so unbalanced? When they were not happy, why couldn’t I be like other practitioners, and sincerely make apologies to them. So, I took the initiative to make up for it, until they were happy.
Over the years, every time I stayed up to learn a technique or complete a project when I had success, I tended to blurt out: Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners. True! Without Master’s empowerment and enlightenment, without the wisdom bestowed by Dafa, and without the detailed and extremely patient instructions from the forum practitioners, I couldn’t have learned so much about computers.
Early this year, a senior practitioner said to me, “I had a dream. There were all kinds of fabrics in your home, you could use them to make anything you like.” I felt a bit funny and didn’t take it to heart. Later I had a similar dream. There were rolls and rows of fabrics in my dream, one after another. Thinking back over my experiences, I can also make some sense of that.
Master said: “Everything down through the ages, all came for Fa,” (“A Play,” Hong Yin II)
The resources, wisdom, and fortune that a practitioner possesses are bestowed by Master and for the Fa. If they can be used to assist Master in Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings, then it is a great honor for that being.
Master is omnipotent. With Master’s empowerment and endorsement, what am I afraid of? Whatever Dafa requires us to do, I’ll do it; whatever saving sentient beings requires us to learn, I’ll learn it. It’s as simple as that.
Falun Dafa is truly a pure land. Dafa cultivation is a smelting furnace. I’m willing to temper myself into a pure element of the Fa, and happily immerse myself in Dafa.
Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners!