Steve S.

Greetings, revered Master!
Greetings, fellow practitioners!

Today I would like to take this opportunity to reflect upon my recent cultivation experience over the last two years, entitled "Cultivate myself through coordinating Shen Yun projects."

Look Inward in Interpersonal Conflicts

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Two years ago and for the first time, I took on the role of coordinating Shen Yun projects in the city where I live, and we planned to host first Shen Yun symphony concert, and then Shen Yun show for that year.

As we were going into a critical moment of promoting Shen Yun symphony concert, suddenly, one of the fellow practitioners on our coordination team called me saying that she was under enormous pressure, with trouble falling asleep. After a few words into the conversation, I kind of got the picture of what was happening: she was actively engaged in promoting and selling tickets, while some practitioners by her side kept saying:

”Steve S., just like one of the former coordinators, can hardly listen to the viewpoints of others, and has been spending a lot carelessly. He is obviously going on a wrong path, so what is the point of blindly following him? Your hard work would end up in vain."

She was little affected initially, but later became a bit upset as she kept hearing such negative comments.

Still a bit puzzled, I asked her: “Why are you having trouble falling asleep?”

She replied: “We lost money before, but cannot afford to lose again. I hope you can assure us that this year's symphony concert will not end up with any financial losses.”

Totally caught unprepared, I did not know how to respond to such a request at the moment. From what I knew, many hosting cities in North America still have to deal with financial losses sometimes, a seemingly inevitably dilemma faced even by those with hosting experience. A lot of thoughts started going through my mind: on the one hand, we had to find ways to promote the concert and sell all our tickets; on the other hand, I was asked to guarantee no financial losses. How could I possibly make such a promise, with so many critical factors being beyond my control? For example, how could I possibly ensure that each and every participating practitioner be entirely dedicated? and that uncooperative practitioners would suddenly improve xinxing and no longer disturb the morale of other team members? How could I guarantee that our ads would lead to immediate ticket selling in large numbers? But without any or enough ads, could we sell all tickets by relying solely upon our own efforts from local practitioners? …With all these on my mind, I suddenly felt a great deal of pressure and uncertainty that I could hardly get rid of quickly.

In the course of the phone conversation, I tried to remain as calm as I could, making efforts to understand her main concerns and purpose of this call. I believed that she definitely did not mean to give me a hard time, but things that made her feel distressed or worried about could have something to do with me. Later on, I finally was able to see her purpose: to persuade me to do a better job controlling our budget, and to avoid spending too much on advertising.

As far as promoting Shen Yun symphony concert is concerned, I do not think advertising is something that can be avoided entirely, although advertising has been shown to be not effective in many other cities. Then what should we do? I could not think of any good solution, but had to say to her that in case advertising did not work out, I would be willing to personally cover for the resulting financial losses. With that she agreed.

After the phone call, a combination of mixed emotions appeared strong within me: I felt unfair and even furious as it happened at such a busy moment of our promotion efforts, but at the same time, sympathetic to the stressed fellow practitioner for what she went through. As I calmed myself down, I realized I had to look inward while encountering a problem. I then asked myself: did I actually have an omission or issue in dealing with the project budget or spending?
Master mentioned on multiple occasions at the Fa teaching conferences that the monetary issue associated with a Dafa project is very serious, and must be treated as such (not in the original words).

If I had such an issue with budgeting or spending, it would not be a trivial matter. Being alerted by its serious nature of the matter, I meticulously re-examined the entire project budget planning and spending details, and indeed found that some of the expenditures had not been included in the budget planning. As I dug further, I identified one of our ongoing ads appeared large in expense compared to its less than desirable outcome, and should be put to an end if possible. With that finding, I immediately went to the ad agent, explained our situation and the need to cancel the rest of the ad because it was not being effective, and asked for a partial refund. Finally, they agreed to the refund I requested. Even though my request for a refund may not meet the business norms from the perspective of everyday people, I felt it was necessary for me to rectify a mistake I made previously. After all, wasting Shen Yun’s fund is, by no means, a matter of little importance.

From this experience, I have realized that nothing happens by accident in cultivation. Often times, when an interpersonal conflict occurs, we as practitioners must look inward for our own shortcomings, even when we can clearly see the other party’s attachments revealed in the conflict. Through such conflicts, Master exposes our attachments that we must face, including those that we are not even aware of.

For the first time, and when it finally came to our city, the symphony concert was well received by our local audiences, although the attendance rate was not very high. I felt that our hard work got paid off, and we ended up with a surplus in profit.

“Cultivation Depends on One’s Own Efforts, While the Transformation of Gong Is Done by One’s Master”

Master mentioned several times in "Zhuan Falun": “Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s Master”.

From time to time, I felt very strongly the power of the above-mentioned Fa in coordinating Shen Yun projects over the last two years. I believe that if we focus our minds on what Master wanted us to do, treating ourselves as practitioners with righteous thoughts, we will find a lot of things fit nicely into place in the process, as they are actually arranged by Master.
In the first year when I was a Shen Yun coordinator, we decided to host both the symphony concert and the show, and in that order. From the very start, I felt the difficulties I had to face. First of all, I did not know much about many of the local practitioners; Secondly, I had not been involved in promoting Shen Yun for the last several years, all of sudden, it would be challenging for me to assume a coordinating role for both the concert and the show; To make matters worse, I could not avail myself of the former coordinator of the previous year, for the much needed relevant data or advice, meaning I had to start from scratch.

Around August that year(2015), as we were about to simultaneously promote Shen Yun concert and the show, a practitioner, who used to live in our city with multi years of experience promoting Shen Yun here locally, came back for a two-week visit. He shared with me what he knew from his experience, and offered to assist me while he was in town, including going to local media companies with me to negotiate advertising deals, etc.

It was almost around the same time that another fellow practitioner, who had been out of town promoting Shen Yun in other cities for many years, took the initiative to assist us. He kindly offered to help contact Costco to sell our concert tickets there. Later, with his persistent help, we were able to get into the Costco stores in time. For the following two months, we sold at Costco more than 50% of all sold tickets combined. From the surface, it appeared as if our success at Costco resulted from the help from that fellow practitioner, but I felt deeply that everything was actually arranged by Master.

The following Shen Yun show, on the other hand, turned out to be less than ideal for the year. We conducted an audience survey during the show, which then provided the data to help us better understand our audiences for more effective marketing going forward. In addition, we learned from other cities, especially from those that demonstrated good record for selling tickets well in the early promotion months. Armed with all this information, an improved work plan for the next year started coming together in my mind. But, at this point of time, I found that I would have two difficult issues to deal with, if I’d continue to coordinate Shen Yun full time in the following year.

As for the first one, I would have to face increasing pressure from my family members. Five to six years ago, both my wife and I gave up our jobs of ordinary people in order to join a team working full time on a Dafa project. As a result, our income was reduced by more than 2/3. Five years later, as I left that project to assume a full time role as Shen Yun coordinator, our family income was thus further reduced. My parents also expressed their concerns about my future plan and the prospect of going back and finding a job among ordinary people.

The second issue, while more important and urgent, had a lot to do with myself. I came to realize that I did not have much experience or required skills for negotiating sound business deals with ad agents. For example, what price should be considered as a reasonable ad price? How much marketing efforts would be enough to ensure that all tickets are sold? While all these urgent questions had to be addressed in a timely manner, time did not wait. Besides, the cultivation state of local practitioners apparently was closely related to every step of the way, and eventually, to the success of the Shen Yun project.

At this very difficult moment, a practitioner with years of experience promoting Shen Yun elsewhere, came to help out, owing to Master’s arrangement. All of a sudden, I felt much relieved from the intensive pressure on me. Upon his arrival, things started going relatively well. He patiently taught me everything in his knowledge and capacity about how to promote Shen Yun via different media, and I learned a great deal from him.

In addition, at a following Shen Yun meeting held in New York, we learned that fellow practitioners from another country developed their own way of promoting Shen Yun using online media. Interestingly, their online media lead happened to be someone I had made acquaintance with. So I had the opportunity to tap on their online promotion experiences, and learned a lot from him about promoting Shen Yun over the internet.

Later on, I was able to get help from yet another experienced practitioner located in a different state. Dedicated to promoting Shen Yun via social network, she earned a good track record in multiple cities across North America. Reinforced by the participation and aid from these experienced practitioners from outside of our city, we quickly became one of the strongest teams promoting Shen Yun using various media in North America, and all this happened from a humble start. In the process, I had the privilege to learn a lot from these fellow practitioners, and was grateful for their much needed participation and full support. Furthermore, I strongly felt that Master ingeniously arranged everything along the way, and my gratitude to Master was indescribable.

When it comes to cultivation, a project coordinator is no different from any other ordinary practitioners. Nonetheless, the coordinator’s cultivation state can directly affect the entire project because of his or her role in it. At times, I was not diligent studying the Fa, due to my laziness and tendency to follow a path of least resistance. I always had fellow practitioners promptly remind me to keep up with Fa study at those moments, and they even made efforts to study the Fa with me around my schedule. As a result, I was able to maintain a sound cultivation state over the last two years. I felt grateful for the practitioners’ patience and their help, and for Master’s arrangement.

In Fa Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival, Master said:
“Everything I've been doing during the Fa-rectification and everything I want, to spell it out, are the choice of the future cosmos and the needs of the future cosmos. So for the beings of the old cosmos, and this includes all the elements of beings, when it comes to the Fa-rectification and what I choose, all beings' harmonizing and completing things according to my choices and contributing their best ideas and approaches--not to change what I want, but to harmonize and complete things according to what I've said--is the best thought a being in the cosmos could have.”

I have realized that if we are able to constantly treat ourselves as Dafa practitioners, and dedicate wholeheartedly to what Master wanted us to do, a lot of things are actually arranged and done by Master. It is because “Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by the Master”( "Zhuan Falun"). On the other hand, if we become attached to our own ideas and concerns in carrying out a Dafa project, we will find interferences from the old forces. And if we fail to rectify the situation by removing these attachments in time, they will become obstacles to Master’s arrangement, creating additional difficulties along the way. So, it is critical that we cultivate ourselves well while working on a Dafa project.

Coordinating vs. Cooperating

Going into the second year as Shen Yun coordinator, I focused my efforts on coordinating and cooperating roles working with team members across different states. In addition to cooperating with an out-of-state veteran practitioner to conduct and monitor our promotion efforts via various media platforms, I had to coordinate local participating practitioners as well. Our team efforts finally resulted in a great success.

In retrospect, at the very beginning of the project, I made an initial phone call to that out-of-state practitioner, our primary external resource to help handle our media promotion, but it did not quite proceed the way I expected. At the very start of the call, he immediately made inquiries about our local promotion status, and about leading individuals in charge of each and every media area. He asked me to provide their relevant information. Being essentially the only local resource for media promotion, I thought that he would like to break the media section into a few pieces, with each piece having a practitioner in charge, working separately with him. So, after the phone communication, I suddenly felt a bit empty or disappointed, as if I were pushed to the sidelines with little left to do. However, I quickly realized: wasn’t my desire to insist on playing a particular role a human attachment? Our ultimate goal was to make the Shen Yun project a success, thus saving pre-destined local sentient beings. If I simply insisted on doing more, and consequently put myself into a personal conflict with him, wouldn't that equate to allowing myself to negatively affect Dafa project because of my selfishness? With that, I was determined to let go of my attachment that I had to play a role of some sort, and I said to myself: from that point on, I was going to do whatever I could to fully cooperate with him. The next day, ready to fully cooperate, I called him back and calmly asked: Did you mean that you would like me to group a local team to work with you? To my surprise, he said that was not what he meant, ideally, he would prefer to work with a single point of local contact instead. Not until then, did I realize that I had misinterpreted his intention. From this incident, I learned what I needed to do: namely, be cooperative unconditionally.

Finally, I would like to share one small episode, which happened during the first year when I started coordinating Shen Yun in our city. As I mentioned earlier, I was grateful to have that experienced practitioner help me with Shen Yun promotion. Throughout that year, I was able to stay in touch with him, and with his advice, went through some difficult decisions. Being relatively strong opinionated myself, I sometimes ran into disagreement with him on certain issues, and found that he was able to quickly adjust his position and take a step back to focus on cooperating with me instead. Currently he is a coordinator himself responsible for promoting Shen Yun elsewhere in another country. I knew he has his own independent ideas and ways of doing things, yet in the face of different views, he can immediately put himself down to complement the ideas of others. From his example, I saw my shortcomings. If I were in his position, I would certainly be unable to totally detach myself to my own ideas and become fully cooperative for the sake of successful completion of an ongoing job.

In summary, I feel honored to have had the opportunity to reflect on and report my recent cultivation journey to Master, and share it with you here. If you find any of my sharing not aligned with the Fa, please kindly point out to rectify accordingly.

Thank you, Master!
Thank you, fellow practitioners!