PureInsight | June 7, 2004
[PureInsight.org] Back in December of 2003, some fellow practitioners and I were put in charge of organizing a chorus to sing "Coming for You" (Wei Ni Er Lai) at the Chinese New Year Gala in Washington, D.C. This cultivation experience was so difficult yet wonderful, and each step along the way I could feel Master giving me the knowledge and strength I needed to complete the task, as well as helping me to overcome my attachments and shortcomings. My biggest lessons were learning to overcome the fear that I did not have what it takes, having faith in Dafa and overcoming xinxing frictions with other practitioners in order to validate the Fa. When I was doing well, I was studying the Fa and looking inside, and when I was doing poorly, I did not place Fa study as the priority, and did not examine myself for problems.
When it was decided DC should have a choir, I was pretty muddle-headed at that time. I was put in charge, but didn't quite feel up to doing it, and my attachment to relying on others prevented me from taking a leading role. The time flew by quickly, and DC was only having casual group practice. It wasn't until 3 weeks before the Gala I realized my omissions, and that everybody was basically waiting on me. So at that point through overcoming my fear of not being qualified, my thinking become clear and my wife and I made a list of the things we needed to do. I distinctly remember telling my wife, "What we are about to do is impossible! In three weeks, to arrange a new piece of music, gather 30-40 singers from different places, train them to sing (because the majority of practitioners might not be trained singers), have everyone memorize the music and then have it up to performance quality. It's impossible! It could even end in total failure. So I'm just going to have to give up all of my human notions and thinking, and have faith in Dafa!" I knew that if we had righteous thoughts, Master and Dafa would allow us to do the impossible. We had to do our best.
In the beginning there were lots of difficulties. The singers were in different cities across North America. The fear that I didn't know what I was doing and would fail came up again and again; it tried to make me give up. While I have been in choruses my whole life, and have been in different types of music and singing rehearsals, I had never led any of them. I also knew I couldn't waste our practitioners' precious time. At the first formal rehearsal in DC, I did my best to make up a rehearsal outline. I got lost on the way to the rehearsal and was late, making the tension in my body even greater, and what's worse I missed most of the Fa-study at the beginning of the rehearsal.
I had no chance to calm myself before the rehearsal started, and felt very anxious. The other music director was there, and happened to be a trained vocalist and knew how to train others to sing. When I asked the other director to run vocal warm-ups, they agreed. Even though we never got to anything on my rehearsal plan, it was totally fine with me, since the other director was more experienced anyway. I saw a principle manifest concretely here: If we put our hearts into doing something, even if we don't have the ability, Master will help us. Since I had made my best effort to make the rehearsal a success, even though my skill wasn't that great and my plan for the rehearsal wasn't that good, Master made it all work out by arranging for the other director who had the skills to run the whole rehearsal.
During this rehearsal, I really saw how much heart the singers in the chorus had. During the vocal training, all of them had to sing solo in front of the others, so that the other director could teach them individually. Each practitioner had to overcome his or her fear of failure and attachment to reputation as they sang in front of the others, considering most did not have a lot, if any, singing experience. For an ordinary person, this would have been a very painful experience. It was very touching to see these practitioners doing their best for Dafa, as well as to see them smash through their barriers and truly cultivate. I felt that way about the entire "Coming for You" chorus process. The practitioners involved were truly cultivating.
After that rehearsal we had about 2½ weeks left. I had to go down to North Carolina for one week to work. My employers allow me to work from home in Washington DC, and this was the only time they asked me to come in to work at the office. I felt like it wouldn't be conforming to society if I turned down their only request for me to work at the office, but at the same time it was very bad timing. I was very much needed for music rehearsals. The other director agreed to run rehearsals while I was gone. The choir also still needed a musical arrangement, since currently we were only singing along with the main melody of "Coming for You."
Things in North Carolina were extremely difficult. I had to work full time at my job, yet getting the music done was a top priority so the chorus would have sufficient time for practice. The fear that I didn't know what I was doing arose again. I had to figure out a way. Each day after work, I had to visit with my mom or do some other work related things that also took up a lot of time, only leaving me one or two hours a night to work on the music. Every day, I was getting e-mails from other music coordinators asking me where the music was, what was taking me so long? When I read those e-mails, I had a huge feeling of panic in my stomach. I almost stopped checking my e-mail. I wanted to cry. I've never felt this kind of huge pressure before. A lot of practitioners had helped me up to this point. I had gotten a lot of good input from the practitioners that ran the European "Coming for You" chorus that performed in New York, as well as suggestions from other practitioners with musical experience. Even with all of this help, though, I still lacked confidence and righteous thoughts.
I had written lots of music before, but they were only solo pieces and not for a chorus. I felt so many practitioners were relying on me, so many practitioners need this to practice with, but I'm already behind schedule and I don't know what I'm doing. I felt like I might throw-up. I did my best to calm down, study the Fa and remember that Master would help me to do it. Master said:
When it is difficult to endure, try to endure it. When it looks impossible and is said to be impossible, give it a try and see if it is possible.
(From Lecture Nine in Zhuan Falun) I thought to myself, I don't know how to write choral music. OK. I got on the Internet and read about choral music. I looked up the voice ranges for the different voice parts. Other practitioners made suggestions that I contact those practitioners that knew how to write choral music, but I didn't want to burden them, or I couldn't get through to them. After calming my mind down and studying the Fa, I felt like I could do what I had to, and asked Master to help me. On the last night I was in NC, I spent a good 4 hours with a piano and finished the majority of the song. I came up with an idea for a climactic ending, to leave the sentient beings with a profound message. I wrote it down very quickly so as not to forget it before the music building closed. At that time I felt the music was sounding pretty good, and some attachments to showing off or fame appeared in my mind. I completely denied those thoughts and the old force arrangements, and reminded myself I was doing this to save sentient beings. Since I had the righteous thought to do what I should do, Master helped me to do it. Again I felt the power of Dafa, and I realized that Master really would help us to do something if we couldn't do it ourselves.
When I came back to DC, a lot had to be done, and the tension between myself and the other musical director was also growing greater. We were having xinxing frictions more frequently, and we didn't always agree in approaches to take in rehearsal or how to handle certain situations. The "behind-the-scenes" practitioners who helped the directors with music and coordination were also under lots of stress. After the all day rehearsals they would stay until midnight or 1 AM and continued working each day. It was definitely an environment for our xinxing to be tested, and a test for how well did under so much pressure. In addition, just days before the performance, there were some crucial issues that the other director and I hadn't yet been able to resolve yet, like what the piano score would be, who was going to conduct, and who was actually in the chorus! The feeling I had at that time was the feeling one gets after having a huge conflict with another person, where the knots in one's stomach are so large, painful and uncomfortable. I had that feeling all day every day, and it was very difficult to endure. The only moment I would feel relief was when I made some time to study the Fa or practice the exercises. During this crucial period, I didn't study the Fa enough, and this caused unnecessary losses.
All of these things combined led to serious tensions between the other director and myself near the end. Because we were both under such a large amount of pressure, and because we were spending so much time together, we often had xinxing tests. This is when I should have been the most aware of the importance of guarding my xinxing. Instead, often I let human emotions get to me and could not stay calm, and I didn't handle my xinxing well, and would not be compassionate or tolerant like practitioners are supposed to be. I think the three big problems that allowed this to happen were obvious ones: Not reading and exercising enough, and not looking inside enough. Although we would usually study the Fa for 1 ½ to 2 hours each day before rehearsal, I should have studied more when I got home. I often skipped the exercises, making excuses that I didn't have enough time. Later I realized this impacted my ability to keep my body calm, and with my body feeling so tense and shaken up, how could I keep my mind calm? In addition, whenever I got frustrated, I would never ask myself, "Why do you feel this way? Isn't being upset an attachment?" If I had looked inside more at that time, I could have stopped myself from acting like an ordinary person.
One of the issues the other director and I didn't agree upon was that of who would conduct. The other director wanted me to conduct because I am Western (he is Chinese), and I wanted the other director to conduct because he had the experience. When we talked about conducting, I usually did not handle my xinxing well, especially at the end. I would get frustrated and upset, and not be understanding or try to think from the other person's perspective. Deep down, I was scared to conduct because I thought I didn't know how and thought I would fail, but covered it up by saying the other director was scared to conduct and was afraid of failing. I even said he was dodging Master's arrangements for him to cultivate.
Actually, my attachments were all being shown, and they were pretty big. How could I possibly know what Master's arrangements were for another practitioner? How could I never look inside during a conflict?
While working, your tone of voice, your kindheartedness, and your reasoning can change a person's heart, whereas commands never could!
(From "Clearheadedness" in Essentials for Further Advancement)
I become so attached to my own ideas, and did not reflect on my tone of voice or how I was communicating with this practitioner, so obviously the result was usually not good. So how did the conducting issue work out in the end? I ended up conducting the chorus. So in reality, it was arranged by Master for me to conduct the chorus, and so it turned out to be the exact opposite of what I had been saying. Also, later others said it was good a Westerner conducted, because if a Chinese person conducted, Chinese people who were poisoned by the evil propaganda might think that Chinese practitioners were forcing the Westerners to say a good word about Falun Gong. The root problem I see now was I was always trying to find problems in others and not myself. In "A Dialogue with Time" in Essentials for Further Advancement, Master wrote:
It would be good if they could manage to search within themselves for the things that they have been able to find in others.
A few days before the performance, all of the out-of-town practitioners arrived in DC. We held two all-day rehearsals on Tuesday and Wednesday, before the Gala on Thursday. I frantically practiced my conducting skills, because before I had been basically just waving my arms around and not really conducting. I was now leading a very large group of people. In the beginning, the other director and I split leading the group about 50/50, but now, since I was the conductor, I lead the rehearsal most of the time. Over the past few weeks it felt like Master had been forging me in Dafa through the hardships, and in just the past few days I developed a sense of calm I had never experienced before in my cultivation. I didn't always know what exactly needed to be done or how to do it, but I felt that Master was guiding me and giving me the wisdom to do it. My words and movements even became very slow sometimes during a tense moment, as if my divine side naturally knew how to counter-balance the intensity of the situation. I was really surprised at the difference in myself, and that it was occurring naturally without much intention or effort on my part!
What I would call a miracle occurred the day before the Gala. Although I had never conducted before, and had only been practicing for a few short days on conducting technique, I suddenly knew how to conduct. I didn't really have to think about it, my arms just naturally knew what to do. I was truly amazed. Master had given me the ability to conduct! This was concrete proof of the power of Dafa.
Looking back, something I regret is not putting enough emphasis on Fa-study. I think my omission in this area negatively affected our chorus. In particular, I remember the day before the Gala we had the rehearsal space for less time then usual. We normally started with studying the Fa as a group. This time however, I felt like we should make good use of the rehearsal space to practice, and we could study together during our break. One or two practitioners quietly told me they thought it wasn't a good idea, but I felt like it made sense. On the surface maybe it seemed to make sense, but it was actually not putting Fa-study as the top priority. When we tried to study during our lunch break, we didn't have a place to study as a group, and so we each had to study individually in a public place. It was noisy, it wasn't concentrated, and it wasn't as one body, and that was a loss. I think I should have put more emphasis on Fa-study in general.
The day before the concert, the atmosphere was extremely serious. Every practitioner was concentrating very hard. I required of them the highest level of professionalism in a music rehearsal, and the fact that they tried their best really amazed me. The last time the chorus sang through "Coming For You" on the rehearsal the day before the Gala, I was truly moved. It was so beautiful and touching, the quality was very high and all of the practitioners' hearts were in it. None of what they did was for ordinary people's selfish reasons; they did it all to save sentient beings.
At that moment, I realized the things I thought were impossible, such as learning how to conduct and training such a large choir in such a short period of time, had all come true. The practitioners had overcome so many hardships, like learning how to sing in a choir, traveling long distances and taking time off of work, memorizing the new choral arrangement quickly, getting tuxedos and dresses, and working so hard for this chorus. They had all done it for the Fa, and had done it to save sentient beings. I felt it was extraordinary, and that ordinary people could not accomplish that. I felt it was accomplished because everyone worked together well, cooperated with each other and overcame the xinxing frictions that limited us at the beginning, and at the end we truly acted as one body and so could succeed in our mission.
The chorus performed on Thursday at the Gala and did a great job. I want to thank Master for giving me this wonderful cultivation opportunity, and for helping me to break through my notions and attachments. Let's not let any of our fears or doubts stop us from validating the Fa! I would like to quote again a passage from Lecture Nine in Zhuan Falun that helped me to strengthen my righteous thoughts and resolve:
When you are overcoming a real hardship or tribulation, you try it. When it is difficult to endure, try to endure it. When it looks impossible and is said to be impossible, give it a try and see if it is possible. If you can actually do it, you will indeed find: "After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!"
