PureInsight | August 31, 2012
Experience Sharing at the 2012 International Fa Conference at the U.S. Capitol
[PureInsight.org] Greeting Master! Greeting fellow practitioners!
One year ago I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to move to New York and join in the cultivation environment there because I saw a recruitment notice by the New York New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Headquarters. I had worked in ordinary jobs for the last 10 years and I felt that it was time for me to use what I learned to contribute to Dafa and save more sentient beings. So about one year ago, I resigned from my job in Australia and moved to New York to work full-time for NTD. The following is my cultivation experience in the past year.
Bringing NTD to mainstream society by participating in ordinary people’s events to widely meet sentient beings with pre-destined relationships
Master said NTD will become the largest television station in the world, and we will need to be more professional in management, sales, and marketing. How do we do better in sales and marketing? Master already answered this question in the “Fa Teaching Given at the NTDTV Meeting.”
“What I think is, [these two media] are interfacing with different kinds of businesses. If a business is rather large, it will definitely be interested in doing television advertising. But if it is smaller, it’s possible it will only be interested in doing advertising in print media. This should be quite clear. If a restaurant were to use television advertising, for instance, they might feel it’s like bringing out the heavy artillery to kill a mosquito. (Everyone laughs) Whereas larger enterprises have a wider business scope, and the effect that television advertising has befits them. So, when doing advertising you need to think a bit about what kind of commercial entity is suited to your medium.”
I have enlightened that Master has given a requirement for NTD—our clients need to be from mainstream established corporations. This is a good opportunity to bring NTD into mainstream society, using the method of selling advertising to meet and save more predestined people in society.
Going to trade shows is a good way to find decision-makers of advertisers or sponsors. If we found out about these opportunities, we would try our best to go. For example, we went to America’s biggest food trade show in June to promote NTD’s International Chinese Culinary Competition in Times Square in September and to find sponsors. During the four-day trade show, I worked with another NTD salesperson from 10 a.m. in the morning when the show opened until closing time. We walked non-stop from company to company. We did not even have time to stop for lunch. During this process, we paid a lot of attention to the cooperation between us and tried not to hold on to our own views so the process was relatively smooth.
At the trade show there were many CEOs and Marketing Managers in attendance. For example, there was America’s fastest growing beverage company, which was recently acquired by the world’s largest beverage company. At the food show, we met their CEO and Vice President of Marketing. After our introduction and truth clarification, they got to know more about NTD and praised our efforts in contributing to China’s freedom of press. They were also very interested in the Culinary Competition event in Times Square, and indicated that they would offer sponsorship support. There were over 2,000 companies exhibiting at the trade show, and through four days of continuous effort, we contacted over 200. During the process of seeing these potential clients, I felt a sense of joy, and that it is an honor to assist Master in rectifying the Fa and saving sentient beings during this Fa-rectification period.
Studying the Fa and cultivation are the basis of doing Dafa work well
Because we are cultivators doing Dafa work, not ordinary people doing Dafa work, we need to reach the standard of a cultivator and be in the state of mind of divine beings. Then we can do Dafa work well. This requires us to study the Fa more. As Master said in “Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa:”
“When you don’t keep up in Fa-study sometimes, you will have many ordinary human attachments, and all sorts of human thoughts might even emerge. If you use human thinking to approach, or do, whatever it is that you’re faced with—including even things of great importance—it will, with time, be hard to have success with the projects that you are doing. If you don’t study the Fa, the number of ordinary human attachments that you have will grow, and become increasingly pronounced, just as you will come to resemble an ordinary person more and more. And the impression that you give others will not be that of a cultivator. No matter how busy you may get, you still must study the Fa. This is why I am recommending that the Dafa disciples who are immersed in our various projects find time to participate in the local Fa-study.”
So we have a number of NTD sales people now waking up at 4 a.m. every day to study two lectures and then practice the five sets of exercises. When we arrive at the TV station, we send righteous thoughts for half an hour before we start working. We send righteous thoughts for an hour at 9 p.m. at night. We feel that we now have more power when we go to see clients, and the results are getting better. In the past when we made cold calls we could only leave messages. Now many times we can directly talk to the relevant person and there are more appointment opportunities.
Also recently I have a better understanding of the importance of looking within. There was a time when I had some xinxing conflicts with another salesperson because we could not let go of our egos and to our own views. At that time one of our clients originally was really interested, but then we could not get in touch with him for a long time. Then I looked within and found a lot of competitive mentality, showing off mentality, human attachments, ego, and inability to think of others. After finding my attachments, I decided to let go of my ego, share with that practitioner, tell her about my gaps, and share about how we could harmoniously cooperate from then on and have no gaps between us. After looking within, a miracle happened within a day. We received an email from this client and he said that he had tried to send us emails a number of times but we didn’t receive them. This is like what Master said in “20th Anniversary Fa Teaching:”
“As I have always said, as Dafa disciples your historic missions are simply huge, with you shouldering the responsibility of saving sentient beings. So for sure there is a path that you will be able to walk through to completion. It is a path that has to meet the requirements, and only that way will the sentient beings of the cosmos admire you and not be able to interfere; will your path be free of problems; and will your journey go smoothly.”
So studying the Fa and our cultivation are the basis of doing Dafa work well.
How to do well in both Shen Yun and my NTD work during the Shen Yun promotion period
In this half year of promoting Shen Yun, we have had many sharings about how to balance the work between promoting Shen Yun and NTD work. I enlightened to that Shen Yun is a project directly led by Master, so it is every Dafa disciple’s responsibility to do well in Shen Yun. But NTD is also a project in Dafa and it is also something Master wants to see done well. So how can we balance the two well; this is a test for all NTD practitioners. I enlightened that only if we improve in our cultivation will we be able to do well in both areas.
In order to do well, the first thing I decided to do is to have a higher requirement on my own cultivation. During the time of Shen Yun promotion, in order to do well in both areas but considering that we only have 24 hours in a day and I didn’t want to reduce time studying the Fa and practicing the exercises, the only thing I could reduce was the amount of sleep I have. Wanting to sleep more is also a desire for comfort. I must discard this attachment. So I started to sleep for only three to four hours a day. I woke up at 4 a.m., studied the Fa and practiced. I would spend the morning finishing NTD work, then in the afternoon I would go out to promote Shen Yun to corporations or do Shen Yun presentations or Shen Yun media sponsorship. When I got back from this I continued to finish my NTD work. As I broke through my own obstacles, and tried to be in the state of mind of divine beings at all times, then it was easy to do both areas well. During that time, I regularly recited “Tempering the Will” from Hong Yin:
“To consummate yourself, reaping Buddhahood,
Let joy be found in hardship.
Physical pains count little as suffering,
Indeed, cultivating mind is hardest.
Each and every barrier must be broken through,
And everywhere does evil lurk.
Abundant troubles rain down together,
All to see: Can you pull through?
The world’s miseries endured,
One departs the earth a Buddha.”
The second thing is to promote Shen Yun in everyday life, not just the few hours that we do the promotion. There are a lot of opportunities to promote Shen Yun in our daily lives. In the past I saw many practitioners who have done well in clarifying the truth in their daily lives and I felt that I didn’t do well in this area and didn’t save many people around me. This time in New York there was an Everyday Life Platform. I got a lot of inspirations from listening to the sharing of many practitioners. As I’m working in the TV station and have lots of opportunities to contact Vice Presidents and CEOs in corporations, these people became my target of promoting Shen Yun.
For example, I met someone who knows a manager of a large building. I went to see him with another practitioner. Because the cooperation between me and the practitioner was very good, after introducing Shen Yun, the manager was very moved by it. He was deeply moved by the profoundness of Chinese traditional culture and the beauty and purity shown on the Shen Yun promotional video. He immediately asked us what he could do to help. We thought that since he is the manager of a building, he could let us put a table in the foyer to promote Shen Yun. There are 150 companies in the building; this was a good opportunity to promote Shen Yun to the mainstream people who work there. Also, the building has a conference room where we could give a Shen Yun presentation and invite these companies to attend. After listening to our suggestions, he agreed to all of them, and also agreed to help us promote the presentation in the building and send notices to all 150 companies. We were very happy for him as he had positioned himself well. One day before the presentation, I went with another practitioner to visit all these 150 companies, encouraging them to attend the presentation or to buy Shen Yun tickets. The presentation went well and was a success. We sold about 10 tickets inside the building, including two $200 tickets bought by the manager of the building.
Master taught us in “20th Anniversary Fa Teaching:”
“We all know that it was hard before when you were selling [Shen Yun] tickets. But however hard it was, there was still a path for you to walk. It was just a question of whether you sought it out. Some people suggested that it would suffice to just send righteous thoughts. But if you were to just send righteous thoughts, and not do anything, how could that be called cultivation? It’s similar to how some people treat reading the book. They just read, and don’t do the things that Dafa disciples are supposed to do. In that case, do you count as a Dafa disciple? That’s not Dafa cultivation. If everything could be taken care of by sending righteous thoughts, you wouldn’t even need to do it—I could just organize a group of Dafa disciples in New York to send righteous thoughts and we’d be all set, and everything would be taken care of. You have to get personally involved, cultivate, and go and put things into action. Working hard is part of your cultivation. You need to think of ways to find the people that you are meant to save.”
Because I always thought about finding predestined people to save, I discovered that opportunities were automatically arranged to happen in front of me. For example, my friend invited me to a function, where I met more than 10 Lions Club Presidents and got many presentation opportunities. After the Shen Yun presentation to one of the Lions Clubs, I followed up and one Lions Clubs member bought four tickets. After seeing Shen Yun he was really moved by the lyrics in the music. He felt a sense of peacefulness that he had never felt before, so he wanted to find out what is the meaning of “Dafa” in the lyrics. He started reading Zhuan Falun, then practiced the exercises, participated in Dafa activities and now has become a new practitioner. Later on he told me that it was because of my presentation that he had the opportunity to see Shen Yun. This was a turning point in his life, the most wonderful thing that happened in his life. After hearing his story and seeing the changes in him, I felt the power of Dafa and the mighty compassion of Master. People are saved after seeing Shen Yun. Master said in Zhuan Falun, “Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master.” Thinking at this point, my tears came down. I felt it very fortunate and a supreme honor to be assisting Master in the Fa-rectification period.
I feel that every minute and every second is very precious right now. I hope that for the remaining short time I can strive forward vigorously, save more sentient beings, and not disappoint Master and sentient beings in what they expected of me.
Lastly, I would like to share with fellow practitioners “Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions” from Hong Yin II:
“A Great Enlightened One fears no hardship
Having forged an adamantine will
Free of attachment to living or dying
He walks the path of Fa-rectification confident and poised”
Above is my cultivation experience in the past year. If there are any improper understandings, please point them out to me compassionately.
Chinese Version: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/111852
