D. S.

Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioner! Today, I’d like to use this precious opportunity to reflect on my cultivation. Through doing it, I hope I could adjust my cultivation state and become more diligent in my future cultivation so I could fulfill the sacred mission of assisting master in Fa rectification.

After I decided to write a paper this time, for a while, I felt I didn’t know where to start. I could tell there was something wrong with my cultivation state, but couldn’t figure out what it was. After constantly looking inward, studying Fa and listening to others sharing, I slowly came to understand where my problem is. For quite some time, I lost the sincerity and diligence that I had at the beginning of my cultivation. I have been doing three things, but I no longer hold the sacredness and humble attitude toward Dafa. Among conflicts, I was able to look inward but, in the mean time, I tended to find faults of the other party as well. The scariest thing is, even after I found those problems of myself, I wasn’t able to call up the energy to become diligent again. I know this state is wrong; I need to wake up and get back to the initial state as I just obtained Dafa. I hope through writing this sharing paper, it will help me achieve that. I also hope everyone can help me to find where I fall short of and point them to me so that I can quickly catch up.

Obtaining the Fa brought me ultimate happiness

I obtained the Fa in 1995 right before I came to the states. Over that time, I had quit my job and was preparing to study abroad. I remember one morning after I got up, I didn’t have much to do and roamed around at home while my parents already left for work. I suddenly saw there was a book placed on top of the refrigerator. I took it down and saw the book title Zhuan Falun. The name drew my interest. Zhuan means rotating and it is a verb. Falun seems to be related to Buddha school. Naturally I started to browse it, and quickly I found myself drawn to the content of Master Li’s teaching. There were some parts of the teaching that were a little over my head, but it didn’t bother me. I just kept on reading from one chapter to another until I finished the whole book. I felt it answered many questions that had puzzled me for a long time. Almost immediately my view of the world and universe was transformed. Later, I found out it was my dad who put the book over there. When I was young, he was seriously ill and received a major surgery. In an effort to gain health and fitness, he kept on trying all kinds of Qi Gong practices that were popular. By the time I saw the book, he was trying out Falun Gong. After my dad came back from work, I was excited to tell him my feelings about the book and asked him to teach me the exercises. Later, I asked him to purchase a copy of Falun Gong exercise tape. So, when I left China to further my study in US, I took the Zhuan Falun book and the exercise tape with me.

In 1995 after I came abroad, I found no one around me ever heard of Falun Gong. But things quickly changed in 1996. Almost around the same time, students and scholars from different cities of North Ameria came across Falun Dafa on Internet. Many exercise sites were formed in all major cities in US. Just around that time, I joined the group exercise site in Dallas, Texas. The happiness to join a cultivation group was beyond what I could describe. I remember we were doing exercises in the park near a library. After exercises, we would read Zhuan Falun together. I remember a lady from Taiwan who became a practitioner around that time through our Hong Fa effort. In one of her sharings, I remember she said it was the scene of the practitioners reading Fa that touched her so deeply. Everyone was so serene and focused while reading the Fa. It made her believe the Falun Dafa’s teaching must be very righteous and powerful, and she thus became a fellow practitioner.

Everything in our cultivation is arranged by Master

In the past so many years, I have stumbled so many times. In the process, I was able to see different attachments and human notions. There is one thing that I have been doing relatively well is when facing choices of loss and gain, I was able to choose Dafa over personal gains.

I was majored in computer science in school. At the time of my graduation, the economy was pretty good. I landed a job rather smoothly. I was confident with my technical capability. I believed, if given a job, I would do very well. The first assignment at work was to study a 1,000-page technical manual first and then I needed to write a database migration script to migrate data for our client with half million users. I remember I was reading that thick book nonstop for two whole weeks. My manager didn’t show up at my window to give me some pressure but I felt pressure nevertheless. I told myself that I was not hired to sit here doing nothing. I was hired to get the job done. Fortunately, I started to write code shortly after. And I made to finish the migration script on time. After that I started to write 10, 000-line database code for the new database system. After that, I started to take on database administration tasks. Our client was a major telecom service provider in South America. When we were about to launch a new system, many times I could be woken up at midnight by phone calls from South America. I was called to solve some issues in the field. I can still clearly remember that, many times, my mind was not clear from sudden wake-up, the questions from the other side of the phone was sometimes tough, and I had to offer some solutions by speaking English. Most of the time, I could manage to help resolve the issues but it made me wonder why they used me as a rookie so hard.

After about two years at the job, one night, there was a big emergency issue from our South American client. Their system crashed and the database was damaged. The worst thing was there was no database backup found. The system was in a halt and it was a live system. I was called to the office at midnight to help resolve the issue. Some of my coworkers from different departments walked in and out my office talking to different people on the phones. Some were giving updates to our clients, some were calling their managers and the big bosses. Everyone was waiting for me to fix the issue. At that time, I saw one of my legs shaking unconsciously. Without data backup, what can I do to make up the user data? Finally, someone on site located a tape backup with a month old data. By using that old data, I was able to at least recover the system to a working state. Everybody was relieved after that. This is what happened to me before Fa Rectification period. It became an important part of my cultivation. Through all kinds of troubles that I had at work, I grew from a person who could easily get nervous when there is pressure to become mentally much stronger. Eventually when some urgent situations happened again, I was able to keep my composure or sometimes I could even crack a joke with coworkers when taking on the task at hand. Also through solving some issues, I started to earn the respect from my peers and bosses. When looking back, I realized it was Master who arranged my whole cultivation path. In the years of my personal cultivation period, the challenging tasks at work tempered my endurance and built a solid foundation for me to contribute to technical Dafa projects in coming years.

After the persecution started in 1999, the cultivation for oversea practitioner entered a different stage. I became busier and busier with all kinds of truth clarification work in the weekend. Almost every weekend, I drove to nearby cities to Hong Fa and doing truth clarification work. Over that time, I felt it was clear in mind that I no longer should be busy with my everyday work. My everyday work should not affect me to do Dafa related tasks. Because my thought was righteous, Master made arrangement for me. In Zhuan Falun, Master said: “We have said that good or bad comes from a person’s initial thought, and the thought at that moment can bring about different consequences.” Amazingly, after Fa rectification period started, I was no longer very busy at work. My understanding of Dafa is that in the period Fa Rectification time, our main mission is to save people. Nothing should be in the way to affect our truth clarification work. If we become too busy at work for too long, that will for sure affect the only real thing we came here for.

After a few years at my work, there was a change that affected my daily duties. The part I have been doing will be transferred to our UK branch. I had two choices. One is to find a job somewhere with the skills I built, the other is to pick up another skill and start from scratch. I knew for the skills I have built I should be able to find a well-paid job. My wife kept reminding me that so and so had found a job in a different company and salary had jumped. It meant to remind me that I should not choose to stay at the same place forever, as it won’t help my salary increase. I knew if I constantly hop around, the salary would be increased the fastest. When the thought of my human desire to prove myself emerged, I felt itchy to test market and prove to others and myself that I was very capable. But if I think of it with cool head, I knew what I had was precious. I had a stable working environment, the company I work for is close to my home, and I had my own office and many vacation days. If I quit and find a new job, everything would have to start over. What Master provided me for the convenience of doing Dafa work will be destroyed by my pursuit of material interest. After some struggles, I decided to stay at the same company and eventually I stayed at the same company for 13 years. From time to time, a thought to change scenery could pop up but never materialized because I was clear what is more important in my life.

Fast forward to 5 years ago, by coincidence, I learned there was a new Dafa project that needs some practitioners with software developing skills and it will pay some salary. Even though the salary from the project will be a fraction of what I could have from everyday job, I feel it is such a wonderful opportunity. To be able to work full time for a Dafa project is so enticing. My wife and I don’t have any children and we have some savings from more than 10 years working in our own industries. So it didn’t take me long to persuade my wife, sold our house, and moved to a different city to join that project. The technical skills that I’ve learned from work became very handy in the high tech startup.

In the past few years when there were some conflicts between personal interests and Dafa needs, I might have hesitated but, almost always, I would pick Dafa over my personal gain, especially for some big decisions. When looking back, I found I really didn’t lose anything. When our mind is in the right place and on Dafa, Master will arrange everything around us in a perfect way.

Master has talked about “takes the format of cultivation that conforms to ordinary human society to the maximum extent”. From my personal understanding, the key is still on ‘cultivation’. Our current mission is to utilize every single moment to save sentient beings. If we spend too much time on everyday work and family life but very much less time in fulfilling our real mission, when the truth is manifested in the world, we will regret forever.

Being diligent vs. being radical

Since 1999, after entering Fa rectification period, all kinds of truth clarification projects emerged. Naturally, I became increasingly busy with some Dafa projects.

Every night after work, I usually stayed up very late. In the weekend, I would often drove to other cities to clarify the truth. When I read articles about practitioners who risked their lives to validate Dafa in mainland China, I would be moved to tears. I would even have the urge to go back to China to join them.

Sometimes in the weekend, we had to travel from one city to another after a long day of truth clarification. While driving on the road, I could become very tired and almost fell asleep. I remember one time, a practitioner who drove behind me told me that he saw my car was swinging on the road and it was very dangerous.

In the early years after the persecution started, my wife was not a practitioner. She would give me a hard time every day. I treated it merely as a test to my determination on cultivation. “How could it be possible to deter me from such kind of small tests?” I thought to myself. For a long time, I chose to completely ignore her words and emotions. I deemed her blocking me to attend weekend activities as evil interference. It made the family conflicts ever fiercer. My wife happened to be a very likable person; she had lots of everyday friends. Our family conflict slowly got to spread to her friend circle. It made quite a few everyday friends not viewing Dafa in a positive way.

I’d like to share another story. When we Hong Fa to the Western society in the early years of Fa Rectification, we met a lady who was very interested in learning Falun Gong. One day, she suddenly asked me, “How does Falun Gong’s teaching think of being a gay?” It happened to be the time that Master’s teaching on gay issues just came out. Without any hesitation, I used my understanding of the teaching to tell her that we thought it is wrong to be a gay. She immediately became very angry. It turned out she was a lesbian. Later I heard that she actively told people around that Dafa was bad. Only then, I realized the serious damage that I might have caused and started to reflect on what is the proper way to clarify truth.

Since I was young and could speak English relatively well, I joined the VIP project as well. I remember one year, a Western practitioner from another state joined me to visit a congressman’s office in DC. We were able to meet a legislative assistant of the congressperson. In the meeting, I saw the Western practitioner was not very proactive, so I started to take charge. I clarified the truth to her on the atrocity of persecution on Falun Gong. After we stepped out the office, the Western practitioner told me in a very kind way that, when we clarify truth, we should watch their reactions. From the body language, the lady we met was a little nervous and protective. In that case, we should take it slow instead of go right at it with bloody truth of the persecution. I have to admit I was a little embarrassed because I didn’t know that I needed to watch the body language when clarifying truth.

There was another incident that happened more than 14 years ago but felt just like yesterday. One night, several active practitioners from different cities in Texas gathered at a practitioner’s home at my city. We had a meeting to discuss a truth clarification project and it started very late. The meeting was very long. After it was over, it was almost dawn. A couple from another city in Texas took a brief rest and went on driving back to their home city. They left in the morning. Sometime in the afternoon, my cell phone suddenly rang. I picked up the call and was told the couple had an accident and the wife was dead right on spot. I was so shocked that I couldn’t believe it was true. It was a Sunday. I immediate jumped into my car and drove to the city where the accident happened. I met the husband and he couldn’t accept the sudden loss of his wife and dearest fellow practitioner. He asked several of us to drive to the morgue. We stayed outside the building sending forth righteous thought for the whole night to try to get his wife’s main soul back but to no avail. In the morning, I needed to drive back to work. Another practitioner who came from the same city rode with me in my car. We both didn’t sleep at all. We had to take turns almost every half hour to finally drive my car back to my city. In the next couple of days, I felt like there was a huge stone on my heart, feeling so heavy. I remember Master phoned the Falun Dafa association coordinator in our state and asked him to pass the message to other practitioners. From Master’s message, I knew there was a reason for the loss of her life. But it was big loss for Dafa. She was a very diligent practitioner and was very respected by fellow practitioners in our state. This incident forced me to reflect deeply on many things I have done.

From the surface, I was very diligent. But is it diligent or is it radical? I kept asking myself. Many practitioners in our area couldn’t understand some of our behaviors as well.

I asked myself, do I need to keep working in a half-conscious state? By doing those things, was I trying to show to myself and others that I’m diligent or I am truly diligent? Was the result good? Could everyday people understand some of my behaviors? Sadly, the answer was no.

Although I didn’t live in Mainland China for that many years, but some of party culture, such as the mentality of fighting with heaven and earth, not respecting the authorities, extreme behaviors, only thinking of the self but not others, were so prevalent in me. Even after I came to the states for more than 20 years, some of that still remain. But in the mean time, through those lessons, I started to make changes little by little. I started to be able to sense how the people from normal society think and handle things.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell if we are diligent or radical from surface. But by nature, they are totally different. One is to keep putting down ego and try to get closer and closer to the law of universe, the other is to use extreme behavior to express ourselves and validate ourselves. Today I’d like to share my lessons with everyone and hope there is something you can learn from.

We can only achieve our mission by genuinely looking inward and studying Fa well
Recently through experience sharing with fellow practitioners and through looking inward, I was able to realize that I needed to wake up from an alarming state. Master asked us to do three things, but I wasn’t able to do any of them well.

When I was studying the Fa, many times I wasn’t very focused. I didn’t feel much even not studying Fa for one or two days. Master said in “Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa - Fa Teaching Given at the 2011 Washington DC Metro Area Fa Conference”, “Do you know what has become of Fa-study in many places? In some areas it has lapsed into a formality. When some people read Zhuan Falun they are not concentrating, but rather, thinking about other things, and not able to focus their attention on cultivation. It thus amounts to wasting time. And not just wasting time—instead of it being the time when they are to be elevating, they are using their minds to think over issues and things that they shouldn’t concern themselves with, and thus, not only aren’t they elevating, but on the contrary, they are often dropping in level. If you don’t study the Fa well, there are many things you will not be able to do well.”

When sending forth righteous thought, I couldn’t concentrate very well. Since I was never able to see anything in other dimensions, and my enlightenment quality was rather poor, in the beginning, I was quite serious with sending forth righteous thought, but later I cared less and less.

I have participated in the truth clarification projects all the time. However, since I didn’t study Fa well and didn’t truly look inward when meeting with tribulations, I didn’t do the truth clarification work very well.

Talking about looking inward, I found that I was able to do relatively well with two situations. One is to see a practitioner who is cultivating much better in certain area, it helped me to see my shortcomings. Recently I met a practitioner from New York. He is a partner of a very successful IT company in Manhattan. He is also a member of coordination team to promote Shen Yun in New York. I noticed that he treats cultivation very seriously; he strictly follows the schedule to send forth righteous thought and study Fa very diligently. What impressed me the most is that he is very humble. When interacting with other people, he was sensible to others’ feelings. From him, I saw my shortcomings. I sometimes looked down upon other practitioners. I didn’t achieve anything special, but somehow tended to feel superior of myself sometimes.

I tend to be able to look inward when observing conflict as a third party. When seeing the conflict between one and another, I wondered why not look inside more while in conflict. Then it made me to think of myself, did I have the same attachment as one of them? As I looked at myself, no surprise, many times I found I had the same attachment as I see on other practitioners. Master said in 1999 on “Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference”, “If a third person witnesses the conflict between the two, I would say that it’s not accidental for that third person to see it, and he too should think it over: “Why did I see their conflict? Is it because I still have some shortcomings?” Only in this way can it be good.”

What was the most difficult is when I am having conflict with another practitioner. Many times, I tend to use my understanding of the Fa to judge the other person, often times I drew a conclusion that the attachment the other person was too obvious, the other person has way more issues than I do. Of course, as a Dafa practitioner, I know I need to look inward while in conflict. But just because I was in a conflict, the negative images of the other person would crop up in my mind from time to time, making it difficult for me to concentrate on finding my own issues.

I know cultivation is to cultivate myself, not others. Usually in a while, after my mind became calm, I was able to look back and find more clearly what my issues were. Many times I found what other people said of me was correct.

Through looking inward, I realized that I was narrow-minded, not able to listen to critics. Sometimes, I looked down upon others. For a fellow practitioner, when she directly pointed out where I didn’t do well, I could immediate get angry. Not only I refused to listen to her, but blasted back with anger. After several interactions, she became hesitated to challenge me any more.

I am hoping after I see those issues of mine, in the future, I will look inward more seriously and pay no attention to others fault. I am hoping fellow practitioner can still help me by kindly pointing out where my problems are when you see them.

In the past 20 years, there were many stumbles on my cultivation path. In the process, lots of my human attachments were exposed, and I was able to work off many of them along the way. I know Master has suffered a lot for the improvement of my cultivation because of my poor enlightenment quality. I don’t know how to express my gratitude to the Master. I could only ask myself to hold a humble heart, cultivate as diligently as when I just obtained Dafa. Only through doing that, I might be able to pay back part of what I am indebted to Master’s suffering in saving me.

Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioner!