PureInsight | August 25, 2013
[PureInsight.org]
My name is Normunds and I am from Latvia.
We had the “Zhen Shan Ren” Art Exhibition in Riga in April. Preparation for the exhibition took a couple of months, but I did not participate in this process at the beginning. Just before the exhibition, I felt strongly I would like to help.
Since I do not live in Riga, I thought to myself that the only way I could help was to inform people about this exhibition in my hometown. Having such a thought in mind, I went to Riga to join the group study session and I said to the coordinator that I wanted to help in some ways. After studying the Fa together, the coordinator listed the tasks that should be done before the exhibition.
Making phone calls to organisations was one of the tasks. In the coordinator’s opinion, it was a task I could do, as one can make phone calls from any location in Latvia. But it was not what I expected, so I declined the offer. Another practitioner took up this task. After a while, I found it was not right with my xinxing, I asked myself why I did not want to do it. As I have always considered the importance of practitioners working together.
Our Master emphasises it in Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa: “As you realise, with the many projects that Dafa disciples have initiated in order to counteract the persecution, clarify the truth, and save sentient beings, what is most important is that Dafa disciples cooperate together well, and that only when people work together well will things go well.”
I had an idea of what I could do, and it prevented me from accepting other suggestions. Besides, I had never done such kind of work before – making phone calls – so it was something new and unknown to me. However, that was exactly what made it a wonderful opportunity to ascend in level. I went to see the practitioner who took up the task and offered my help.
The first step was to find organisations on the Internet and look for their phone numbers and email addresses. We decided to call the largest companies located in Riga District.
The next step was making phone calls. We agreed that I would call the organisations starting from top of our list, and the other practitioner – starting from the bottom of the list.
After sending righteous thoughts together, we started making phone calls. I made the first call that an international art exhibition would take place in Riga and that I could email some information to, the employees of that organisation who might be interested in the exhibition and before I could finish talking in the phone, the employees gave me a positive reply.
I was surprised how easy it. In a joyful mood, I made the next phone call. It did not go so easy this time. I was told they usually charge some fees for these kinds of emails to be distributed in the organisation. However it would be all right if I sent it to them and they would consider whether they could forward it to all their employees.
I made the third phone call and received a rejection. I realised that I had to send forth righteous thoughts before each phone call, to eliminate all the factors blocking people from getting to know about the exhibition. My own self need to be purified from all bad thoughts, so that my heart would be calm before I make the next call.
While making phone calls I had the opportunity to notice many human emotions and desires within myself – joyfulness when things went well, desire to convince, disinclination to receive rejection, pursuit of result, desire to appreciation, desire to compete, lack of confidence, selfishness, and fear what others would think of me.
In the afternoon, the other practitioner called me. She asked me how I was doing with phone calls and which organisations I had made. It was important for her to know, otherwise, we might make repeated calls to those organisations. It turned out she had more calls than I did. I was surprised, because I thought I was working faster. Now, the desire to compete appeared. I hurried to make calls and spent little time on sending righteous thoughts and purifying myself. Since I was in a hurry and my heart was not calm, resulting in receiving a negative replies. I realised that it was better to stop making phone calls that day, as I could not calm down my mind and heart.
The most significant conclusion from this experience was that after each call I could notice some attachments I had. And then, before making the next call, I would eliminate the attachments and I purified myself by sending forth righteous thoughts. In this way the process of ascending in level, would be faster.
Before, when I started making phone calls I had no confidence in myself and worried about what people would think of me. Now I do not have this thought anymore. If there would be a need to help with Dafa projects by phone calls again, I would surely do it well. If we get involved in a project, we must be able to cooperate and be coordinated. If we coordinate well, the power of Dafa will be great and the result of any Dafa project will surely be good.
For some period of time, which was approximately half a year, I did one-hour sitting meditation very rarely. I could not coerce myself to do it. Thanks to the exhibition that had changed me. When I came home after being in Riga for two days to help with the exhibition, I started doing one-hour meditation regularly resulting in a significant ascension in endurance, and thanks to the art exhibition -"The Art of Zhen, Shan, Ren".
Thank you all!
(Speech at 2013 European Falun Dafa Experience-Sharing Conference in Copenhagen)
