Face Criticism, Let Go of Attachments, and Cultivate Diligently Together

(Minghui.org) I participated in various Dafa projects in the region, including distributing Falun Dafa materials, clarifying the truth face-to-face, sending righteous thoughts, and so on. Sometimes I would visit the homes of other practitioners who were suffering from illness karma and study the Fa with them. For being busy with many things, I had become complacent. 

I was diligent, but, I couldn’t calm down when sending righteous thoughts. A practitioner suggested that we watch the video of Master’s lectures and write down our thoughts after watching. My mind did calm down in the process and I could maintain concentration while sending righteous thoughts and studying the Fa. I wrote down my experience during the time after Fa study and asked the coordinating practitioner to help me revise it. That was great, as I had been unwilling to be critiqued. I was inoculating myself along the way, thinking that no matter what revisions other practitioners would put forward, I would accept and correct whatever it would be.

Perhaps the coordinating practitioner had long noticed that my recent cultivation state had been deficient, so she sharply pointed out many of my problems after briefly glancing at my paper: “What I only see is a showing off and jealousy mentality in this paper. Why are you trying to show off? You said that other practitioners are jealous of you, isn’t that caused by your own behavior? You have been interrupting others, and your speech has carried a strong desire to show off. Can others feel comfortable listening to that?”

Since the coordinating practitioner and I often worked together on projects and are relatively close to each other, our communication has been direct. However, facing her tense facial expression, blunt words, and a series of rhetorical questions, I felt it was unbearable even though I was prepared. She kept moving around, going to the kitchen, or to the toilet, and I was like a student who was left in the room to reflect after being lectured to. 

I felt embarrassed, thinking about leaving, but my rational side persuaded me to stay: “I can’t leave, I knew that I had been jealous, but I often felt that I couldn’t do anything about it. Now she had pointed it out, I finally had some insights into the problems. I must face it squarely, and I cannot leave.”

I suppressed my face-saving and asked her to elaborate on my problems when she returned. She said angrily: “Do I need to elaborate more? Isn’t it obvious? Your paper kept talking about superficial things and doesn’t address your rather big jealousy.”

It was already one o’clock in the morning when I left her house. The street was very quiet on my way home, I kept thinking of the experience at the practitioner’s place. Her tense facial expression and serious tone made me murmur in my mind, “You call yourself a cultivator? Look at you, having such a long face, with no trace of any kind thoughts.” I tossed and turned after getting home, feeling the “jealous” part of me that I was trying to disintegrate struggling and making me restless.

The next day, my thinking seemed to be stuck, my brain was in chaos. I wanted to follow the practitioner’s criticisms and rectify myself, but I couldn’t remember any details. There was always a strong emotion in me, I felt I had been wronged, even wanting to cry out loud. I knew that it was not me, but the “jealous” spirit in another dimension that was causing trouble.

I decided not to do anything for the day and just stay home and get rid of this “jealousy”. This “jealousy” wanted to make me think bad things about the coordinating practitioner, so I would go against it and think good about her. How could I get rid of the attachments hidden deep in my heart if it were not for her rhetorical questions? If no one exposes me, how can I improve? Today is the day to eliminate the “jealousy”! 

While thinking about this “life” I could feel that my head was swollen, as if it was pressed by a millstone, and it was difficult for my neck to turn. I was firm that I would hold onto my own thoughts, never following the thoughts of the spirit of jealousy. I asked Master in my heart to help me destroy that bad stuff.

Miraculously, this uncomfortable and stuck state of mind disappeared after one day. I felt refreshed and my thoughts were clear the next morning. The feelings of resentment, grievance, and injustice were all gone. I felt like crying, but that kind of crying came from gratitude. I was amazed that Dafa could cleanse my complicated and turbid thoughts. I thought of the help the other practitioners had offered me, and I felt that everything was so mysterious, I could not describe the beauty of that feeling. 

I have made changes since then. For example, I visited a practitioner an hour later after she was late for our appointment because she had gone to the wrong place. In the past, even if I wouldn’t say anything, I would have complained. But, things were different now. While waiting for other practitioners on another occasion, I was calm and took the time to think about our cooperation. I unconsciously had a special feeling: During this Fa-rectification time, practitioners are fated to do things together. The Dafa project is grand, the Gods are blessing us and the universe is focusing on us. I can no longer think about problems from my own point of view and find others’ fault over trivial things. I should open my mind and cherish this cooperation.

I used to feel tired when distributing the Dafa materials and I would not feel wanting to go out. But now I feel like crying when distributing the materials, and I feel that the wisdom and compassion from Dafa are everywhere and life can be saved by just accepting a copy of the materials. The thoughts of being self-righteous no longer existed.

In recent years I have been visiting the homes of some practitioners who suffered from illness karma; studying and discussing the Fa with them. I used to be very anxious when I saw their illness symptoms lingering for a long time, and I would become impatient, complain, and blame them. A particular practitioner with illness karma wouldn’t listen to me as a result, and she wouldn’t even allow me to go to her house. Later, I often took the initiative of going to her place to send righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil’s persecution when her situation worsened, and I sometimes would stay overnight at her place to take care of her. Gradually, her attitude towards me softened. 

Once, the coordinating practitioner and I went to her home to study the Fa. During the process, I shared my heart-wrenching experience with “jealousy”, and they talked about their experiences. Unexpectedly, she became inspired after hearing our sharing and sighed: “Oh, so this is how to look within oneself. I finally know how to cultivate.” She used to refuse to see us when the coordinating practitioner and I suggested getting a few more practitioners to study the Fa with her, but this time she readily agreed.

In addition to visiting other practitioners with “illness karma”, I also joined a local group that distributes Dafa materials. The group was established to help some individual practitioners work together as one body and to expand the distribution area. 

The group had six to seven practitioners when it was established at the beginning of 2022. They took the materials from me and distributed them to different units and buildings. Now after over a year, we consistently have four people.

Someone in our group would need to plan the distributing area to prevent overlaps or misses and also to avoid surveillance monitors. Every week I would need to visit the site in advance and take other practitioners to the site to get familiar with the terrain. In addition, I would take care of other Dafa projects as needed. The operation gradually stabilized after a year, other practitioners began to pay attention to surrounding communities that meet the requirements, and they would provide distribution plans during the gathering. I gradually took a back seat. 

With Master’s blessing, we have operated in an orderly manner, even during the epidemic. Every time we finished distributing the materials, the lockdown began. After the lockdown was lifted, new materials would arrive and we would distribute them in a timely manner. Some practitioners sighed: “Although they locked us down from time to time, it did not delay our things at all.”

Over the past year or so, my impatience and ego have gradually faded away, I have become calmer when encountering problems, and I have become more comfortable cooperating with other practitioners. One practitioner in the group works as a caregiver in the homes of paralyzed people. Some practitioners are housewives who take care of their children. There was a time when my mother was hospitalized and needed my company, but no practitioner was absent when we distributed the materials together. 

This made me feel deeply that we are a one-body, and the operation of a group corresponds to the operation of a system in another dimension. Master has laid out the mechanism of the Fa and each of us is a link in the mechanism. Dafa projects do not need a team leader, because everyone plays a coordinating role. 

As a particle of Dafa, we only need to hold on to our thoughts and stick to our projects, dissolve into Dafa, and dissolve into the mechanism that is constantly operating. We are being refined during the process while those notions that do not conform to the characteristics of the new universe will be melted instantly like sawdust in molten steel.