PureInsight | September 17, 2014
[PureInsight.org] I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. I work as an employee disciplinary officer in a company in China. As the moral standard spirals downward very quickly in today’s society, people are becoming more and more difficult to manage. Prior to my employment as a disciplinary officer in my company, there was not much emphasis on this particular disciplinary role at all. As a result, some people had got used to being slack at work. These people simply did not care too much about discipline and they had become very difficult to manage.
Right after I started to work, I immediately took notice of those who had been slacking in their responsibilities at their positions. I decided to talk to these people, asking them to please correct their behaviour. However, most of these people didn’t listen to anything I said at all, and instead made all kinds of excuses for themselves. They even started to fight with me, which then placed me in a very difficult position.
For a short period of time, I felt that there was nothing I could do to change the situation. I felt helpless and was very confused, to the point that I even wanted to quit. I said to myself, “These people are tough to discipline, why should I bring trouble upon myself? I don’t want to hurt people; I’d rather be a nice person to everyone. Society has already degenerated to such an extent, what else can I do?” Later, I realized that my initial reaction was not right; I had been hired to work as a disciplinary officer, it was my duty to discipline people. If I didn’t do a good job, things would only get worse, due to the ever declining moral trend in society. Master has always taught us how to live righteously in the degenerate society of this world; a Dafa practitioner should always try his best at work.
In Teaching the Fa and Answering Questions in Yanji, Master said, “Practitioners should be good people in every situation, and when we are working, we should do it well, for this is not an attachment. Why do I say this? Because you are contributing to the benefit of others and creating value for more people in society. At the very least you are doing it for your workplace, not for yourself.”So I came to realize that I should do a good job, otherwise I would fall short of the requirements placed on every Falun Dafa practitioner.
I then started to work very hard to perform well in my disciplinary work. I began to push for disciplinary rules that everyone had to obey. I myself set an example and took the lead in following the rules. As soon as someone broke the rules, I would punish the individual without any leniency. A certain group of people in the company got very mad at me as I began to touch upon these people’s interests. Some of these people began to fight with me a lot for no reason. At the very beginning, I managed to keep calm and talk to them nicely; however, I later found that it didn’t seem to work. I then began to lose my patience. I became bad-tempered when I ran across people who just didn’t want to correct their mistakes; I would yell at them and slam my office desk. In short, I had resorted to using brute force to control people. In the end it did seem to work, people started to yield to me under my forceful control. I came to understand why Master mentioned in Zhuan Falun that “People will be sarcastic and cynical, and so it is not easy even to be a good person.” In today’s China, the moral standard has declined so much that it is quite difficult just to be a good person.
I then began to reflect on myself. Yes, my hard-line approach did seem to work, yet I had lost my temper on numerous occasions and I had become very temperamental. Falun Dafa practitioners are supposed to follow the principles of “Zhen Shan Ren”; I was not showing any sign of “Ren” at all. Master said in Teaching the Fa and Answering Questions in Guangzhou, “Practicing Ren doesn’t mean you practice Ren after you have become upset; rather, you should not become upset in the first place.” I immediately understood that I was failing in this regard. I was not practicing Ren at all. I was hurting others as well as myself when I lost my temper.
I decided to change myself and my approach. I began to ask people to come to talk to me about their concerns. From those conversations, I gradually came to understand some of the problems that had existed all along in the company. I would look at things from other people’s perspectives; I would try to help find solutions that would satisfy both the company’s requirements and the employees’ situations. I stopped yelling at people, and noticed that people were beginning to accept my opinions willingly. People also began to acknowledge their own shortcomings, and promised that they would correct them. The overall morale in the company began to go up. I felt very relieved as if a brand new world had just opened up in front of me.
From this particular experience of mine, I have realized that frustration and anger can only block one’s rationality. Only through exercising “Ren” can one think wisely. In Teaching the Fa and Answering Questions in Guangzhou, Master said, “If you have the Fa in your heart and show compassion towards everything around you, you may be better able to handle the things you encounter.” In today’s society, there are definitely many tough issues. An ordinary person might just avoid facing such an issue, but we are Falun Dafa practitioners, we should try not to avoid such issues. In the end we have to face up to the problems anyway, because such an issue is a test for us, and we have to pass the test. How can we succeed in the midst of going through such a test? My understanding is that we need to study the Fa a lot, especially whenever we are confused. We have to look inside ourselves and read the Dafa books again and again, and then we can definitely make our way through the ordeal. Master said in Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Europe, “I’ve written into this book everything that I can give you and everything that can enable you to improve and transform yourselves—all these are compressed into this work of Fa.”
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/130184
