PureInsight | July 19, 2004
[PureInsight.org] I remember that when we celebrated Falun Dafa Day in the Boston Public Park, a practitioner who is close to me encouraged practitioners from Rhode Island and myself to write down their cultivation experiences. In fact, practitioners in Boston spent a lot of time thinking about and arranging the Dafa experience sharing conference. They asked most of the practitioners in our area to join the conference. No one was left out.
When I thought about this, I found that I did have a lot of things to share with other practitioners. Many things which filled my life have been changed significantly. [I thought] communicating with others about some of my experiences would be beneficial to me and other practitioners. In addition, it would enrich our experience sharing conference and make it more successful.
I obtained Dafa after the persecution started. Cultivating myself during Fa-Rectification is the path that I have chosen to take. In my life, the past few years have been the most beautiful yet most difficult years for me. Before cultivation, I always thought that I was a person who had willpower, was wise and full of plans. But, after I obtained the Fa, studied the Fa, and learnt about the persecution, I started to understand the real meaning of "tolerance". Whenever my weaknesses and shortcomings were revealed, I started to realize that every aspect of my life was filled with selfishness and desires. I found that even when I was very nice to other people, I was doing that just for myself. I was not really willing to sacrifice my time, energy and speech without any payback. This happiness would usually be the best reward. For example, I think highly of myself. Therefore, I often place myself higher than other practitioners. I often ignored them and thought about how much they needed me, how important I was, and so on.
A lot of these tenacious, ignorant and stupid thoughts and behavior have been removed now. However, we all know that cultivation is a long-term process that requires diligence in every detail. Just like Master said "Your mind must be right". Through this process, I understand the importance of this special point. In order to keep a righteous mind in such a complicated and sentimental environment, one needs to have enormous tolerance to do righteous things while cultivating himself to a higher level.
I want to become a useful and righteous particle of the universe. This idea is always the main driving force for me. Everyone can contribute his or her part. When we contribute, we must listen to others' opinions, give our ideas, and communicate with each other about our understandings. I think that we are all individuals with different skills and different strengths. Some people are good at one thing and other people are good at other things. But, Dafa and the desire to contribute to the Fa-Rectification has united us as one body.
During these beautiful but sometimes confusing years, I was very honored to participate in many projects and activities. I admit, at times, especially in the beginning, I was not mature and my heart was not right. I had many selfish thoughts. For example, I wanted others to listen to me. I wanted them to think that my idea was good. Sometimes, I was jealous of other practitioners. Therefore, please accept my apologies. I respect every practitioner now.
I realize more and more how to make better use of time to do what I should do. I also appreciate the opportunity to clarify the truth to the public together with other practitioners. In the past three months, I have been a volunteer in a project. This project encountered many difficulties, but it is now getting better and better. At the beginning, I feel that many of us did not treat the project seriously. To some degree, I myself did not treat it seriously either. There are so many things I need to pay attention to, even now.
At the beginning, I placed this project as the second, least important one in my heart. However, after communicating over the Internet with other practitioners involved in this project, my motivation became stronger. I started to realize the broad effects of this project. It was truly an important part of clarifying the truth. The legal team needed this solid, detailed information to proceed with the lawsuit in a better way. Ordinary people will also benefit by reading organized information about the persecution. And media, researchers, new practitioners and the future people would all benefit - more and more people would benefit. A practitioner working on the project felt regret that we did not start this project earlier. He even felt that we should have started this two years ago. Considering the great amount of effort involved in finishing this project and its effect, I agree with this practitioner's point of view.
This project is going very well now. All members of the team treat the work seriously and feel happy to be involved in establishing this project. We try to have an Internet meeting every week to discuss our progress. We also check our own cultivation state and the relationship between this project and others. Of course, the website design team has done a lot to help the editors, implementing feedback and increasing the flexibility of the system. We wish this project a success.
While balancing Fa rectification work, personal cultivation and daily life, I also started to learn how to be a good father and husband. It is not easy for me. But there is happiness [in learning to do this]. My wife and I have a beautiful daughter. Now she is almost two months old and very lovely. She is a kind and nice baby.
In my family life, it is very easy for me to lower my standards for being a [good] person and fall into a state where I lack righteous thoughts. I am not sure if other practitioners have had similar experiences. However, sometimes I find excuses for myself and feel that I do not need to use very high standards to discipline myself. I feel really terrible about this. Master has talked about this but I often found myself selfish, picky and impatient towards my wife and other family members. However, I already realize this and I will totally correct these with compassion and tolerance. I hope this sharing can help in this respect.
I also hope that [my sharing] can benefit other practitioners. Those who live with us and have given us strong support deserve our respect. We should always treat them with truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/6/11/27438.html
