PureInsight | July 5, 2004
[PureInsight.org] After my entire family and I read a Western practitioner's paper titled "Harmonizing in the Work Environment" together, all of us were filled with regret and shame for our own cultivation practice. My family and I share two thoughts in common:
I. Searching Inward
The author remembered that she is a cultivator and is able to consider everything happening around her as a test to tamper her mindset. For example, when she heard her boss continuously verbally abusing her children while talking to them on the phone, she realized that perhaps it was a reflection of the degenerated opposite/corresponding elements in her own cosmos.
She wrote in her paper, "All along, I was learning many lessons about my environment, because I started to enlighten to the fact that everything outside myself was only a reflection of things within my own cosmos that needed to be addressed and rectified. I thought to myself, 'Maybe there are several tiny worlds within me where people are very sexually degenerate and where they constantly abuse one another. I must clean this up!'"
It is our common pitfall during the Fa-rectification period to conclude that all obstacles we encounter are the old forces' interferences when we should actually and sincerely search inward. When we do search inward in face of tribulations, we do so superficially in order to quickly go to step two: blame the tribulations on the old forces and start sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate these tribulations. We are not truly willing to unconditionally change ourselves for the better.
II. Making the Environment the Best It Can Be by Cultivating From Within
We felt the disparity between the Western practitioners and ourselves when we read that she successfully corrected her work environment by cultivating herself. After diligently cultivating herself, her work environment has fundamentally improved in terms of both morals and work ethics. She wrote, "Gradually, the entire work environment changed. Whereas, in the past, our whole work environment was disorganized, inefficient and prone to error, our work environment gradually improved. It became peaceful, people were in conflict less often and things went more smoothly."
It reminds my family and me of an example that Teacher told us, "One practitioner works in a textile factory in X city of Shandong Province. After studying Falun Dafa, he taught other coworkers to practice. As a result, the factory has taken on a new look. He used to take home pieces of towels from the textile factory, and so did the rest of the employees. After practicing Dafa, instead of taking things home he brought back to the factory what he took home before. When others saw his actions, nobody would take things home anymore. Some employees also returned to the factory what they previously took home. This situation occurred throughout the entire factory." (From "Upgrading Xinxing" in Lecture Four of Zhuan Falun)
It's obvious that the practitioner that Teacher talked about didn't cultivate in Falun Dafa in order to improve the work ethic in the textile factory. It is because he cultivated himself according to the requirements of Falun Dafa and thus naturally benefited himself as well as his work environment and the society.
"The Buddha-light illuminates everywhere, and rectifies all abnormalities." (From "Energy Field" in Lecture Three of Zhuan Falun)
A genuine Dafa practitioner should be able to automatically correct and harmonize the environment he is in. Before July 20, 1999, we have either heard of or personally witnessed situations where one or more Dafa practitioners improved the work ethic and morals of large corporations. Since the persecution against Falun Dafa began, though, we seem to have lost confidence or faith in our ability to improve or harmonize our environment. We don't even seem to be interested anymore in harmonizing our environment through cultivating ourselves.
Take my father's work environment as an example. My father works for a large private business that hasn't been doing very well for the past two years. We often attributed the declining business performance to his boss' lack of entrepreneurial skills. After reading "Harmonizing in the Work Environment," my family and I thought of my father's company and we started to review the business performances and my father's cultivation practice for the past few years. We were shocked to find that his company's performance seemed to correlate to my father's cultivation state. When my father studied the Fa more diligently, he was able to conduct himself according to what Dafa requires of him. Thus, he was able to give feedback on his boss' inappropriate decisions with kind intentions. His boss would be very receptive to his feedback and often reminded himself of conducting his business with a code of morals. At times such as this, his company's business performance would rise miraculously. On the other hand, when my father slacked off on his Fa study, he would often lose his harmonious frame of mind and would feel disgusted with his boss' immoral business conduct and despise his boss. It did appear that his boss was able to feel such negative messages, although my father would try not to show it, because his boss would stop consulting with my father on every major business decision as he usually did. Sometimes his boss would even become defensive or peevish towards my father's feedback. Many wrong decisions were made under these circumstances and caused the company expensive problems.
Without giving enough details of the story, this example might appear to be somewhat unconvincing or even pretentious. For my family and I who knew the details of my father's story, we felt quite at loss and regretful when we realized that for years my father's work environment had reflected his personal cultivation state all along and he didn't even realize it. We saw a large disparity between the author of "Harmonizing in the Work Environment" and my father and us. We finally felt the tremendous impact that a Dafa practitioner who genuinely cultivates himself may have on all of his environments.
I also think that we should apply this lesson on a larger scope. Many fellow practitioners are suffering tribulations on a number of different levels. Whether it is an economic, family or interpersonal relationship problem, each problem may hamper us from clarifying the truth about Falun Dafa to others, or it may become "a black eye" for our personal reputation or image which compromises common people's receptiveness to what we have to say for Falun Dafa. We have already seen a lot of articles where fellow practitioners talk about their cultivation loopholes making them suffer from various tribulations. If we start to cultivate ourselves and search inward to correct our own behavior first, like the author of "Harmonizing in the Work Environment," we should be able to correct and change ourselves as well as all of our environments. We didn't cultivate in Falun Dafa to rectify our environments, but it is abnormal to fail to harmonize our environments if we are truly cultivating ourselves. Besides, we should also validate the Fa through our personal cultivation practice, "The Buddha-light illuminates everywhere, and rectifies all abnormalities." (From "Energy Field" in Lecture Three of Zhuan Falun) When it is particularly evident that degenerate matters in our environments have already substantially compromised our truth-clarification work, we really should face this problem and truly start to change ourselves correctly.
If we can all cultivate ourselves like the author of "Harmonizing in the Work Environment," one day people who haven't started to cultivate in Falun Dafa will discover that where a Dafa practitioner is, there is beauty and righteousness. We will leave awe-inspiring legends for future generations to come.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/6/20/27719.html
