PureInsight | October 21, 2002
August 28, 2002, Tuesday
Weather: Sunny
Last Saturday, a fellow practitioner and I left to attend the Great Britain Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference in Edinburgh. The conference lasted the whole day on Sunday. I felt that this year's conference was much better than last year's in its organization and the practitioners' cultivation states. While listening to the speeches given during the actual conference and doing informal experience sharing with fellow practitioners before and after the conference, I felt a field of kindness and peace. When I came back to the hotel, it was almost midnight. Some of us continued sharing our experiences till 5:00 am. When I returned to my room, my roommate was very talkative, and we did not go to sleep until 6:30. At 8:10 am, we woke up and felt very energetic and refreshed.
This surprised me quite a bit. In the past, I was always worried that I would not be able to handle myself well if I do not get enough sleep, and yet I always have so much to do. I did not know how to handle this issue. That evening, it seemed that I finally got over this attachment with help from Master and fellow practitioners. After the conference ended, there was a discussion session centered on a project that I had very little involvement with and I was not really needed at the meeting. But some practitioners had asked me if I would like to do more work in this area. And actually I did want to do more, except that I worried about my cultivation situation and abilities. Finally, I decided that it would be good to attend this meeting, which did not end until 3:00 am. During the meeting, I noticed a new practitioner who was so tired and sleepy that his eyes were almost closed. At the end of the meeting, he left to go to bed immediately while the veteran practitioners who came to this conference with me were very energetic. I did not feel sleepy either, though I did realize that it was late and that it would be good for me to go to bed. However, when we passed by the large kitchen area of the place where we had held our meeting, we found some other practitioners had cooked some gruel in another large kitchen, and were talking with each other over their meal. The practitioners who were with me joined them without hesitation. And one practitioner said laughingly that we moved from one kitchen to another! I have not had lots of chances to visit with fellow practitioners at night before. I hesitated over whether I should stay or go to bed. At the same time, I wondered why they had no concept of time. On one hand, this friendly, peaceful, big family-like environment attracted me. On the other hand, my human notions told me that I should go to bed. I put the things in my backpack in order, while deciding what to do. I thought that if something happened to bring me back, then that would be the arrangement of Master to keep me here. I went back to my hotel room, and found that the door was locked. So I came back to the kitchen. The sharing among the practitioners was very interesting. I quietly listened to what they said.
The following Monday afternoon, I was neither tired nor sleepy on the drive home. There were five people in the car. Two took a nap. I told the two who were awake that it was Master who made me understand it was OK for me to have only one or two hours sleep at night.
They asked for my opinion regarding the experience sharing that we just had. We talked it over for a long time. What impressed me most in our talk was that, since we each have different personal characteristics and levels of Fa cultivation, only we ourselves can solve our own problems. Though we talked a great deal, we did not solve particular problems that any one practitioner had. But I felt that we were a family, although we still had lots of problems that we could not see solutions to, as well as things that we did not do well. But we were so cordially and peacefully trying our best to illuminate the problems of other people, that I felt we were truly members of a family. Several times, I tried to tell them what I was feeling, that we were a unit, in a sense, and that the force of the entity we were forming would be strong and indestructible.
Although I got back home very late and I had to get up early to work the morning shift, I still felt very light and energetic. Later, while doing housework, I thought about the experience sharing the last day in the car. Foremost in my mind, at this point, were my many faults, wrong acts and wrong words. I had new views on some issues. These helped me understand why our yesterday's sharing just stayed at a certain level.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/8/30/18360p.html
