PureInsight | June 7, 2004
[PureInsight.org] I originally did not think I was prepared to write an experience to share at this conference. I felt this for two reasons, one was that time has been very pressing for me lately, and the other was that I really did not feel that I had much to share with everyone. I did not feel like I have been doing a particularly good job with the things we should all consistently do as Dafa disciples and so why should I write an experience if it does not come from my heart to improve us all as a whole?
This feeling quickly dissipated strangely enough the last week before this conference was to be held. I received the e-mail message that not enough experiences had been received; actually, I believe none had been received when I read the message. I remember during the Falun Dafa Day celebration in Boston Common that a practitioner who I know fairly well really encouraged others and me from RI to write an experience to share. Actually Boston Practitioners really worked so hard to schedule this conference on a day that the most people in our region could attend so that no one would be left out.
When I began thinking about it, if found that I did indeed have many things to share with the group and that many things that permeate the existence of my being had undergone many changes, and that it would be helpful for others and myself to share some of my feelings and experiences, which would also help to enrich this Fa Conference and to add to its success.
I am a Disciple that obtained the Fa after the persecution began, so the matter of personally cultivating while in the midst of this great Fa-rectification has been my path. These past several years have been the most wonderful, and simultaneously the most arduous years of my life. In the past (before cultivation) I had always thought of myself as a very enduring and resourceful person, a survivor you might say. But after I found the Fa and began to study it persistently while simultaneously researching the persecution, I began to understand what TRUE endurance is. Everywhere my weaknesses and shortcomings were revealed to me, I began to realize that every aspect of my life was full of selfishness and desire. I found that even when I was being "nice" to people it was only for me in the end, I was not really willing to sacrifice my time, efforts, or words without a "reward" of some kind. The mental thrills were usually the best "rewards", like being able to think highly of myself, thus mentally being able to place myself above others and look down on them thinking how they needed my help and how important I was, etc.
All these stubborn, ignorant, and rather foolish thoughts and behaviors have faded to a great degree, but, as we all know, cultivation is a long process that requires meticulous attention. As Master said "Your Mind Must Be Right." Throughout this process, I have come to understand the importance of a particular point. To keep one's mind right in this environment, this most confusing, complicated and intensely sentimental place, it requires an immense amount of tolerance to do such a thing as keeping your mind right while ascending in cultivation.
Another thought occurred to me, deep inside I felt as though no others throughout history have had to bear an environment as complicated as this one while cultivating a Fa as high as the one we have been taught by our Master. Yet another thought came to me, this lofty endurance level that we must reach will certainly greatly benefit the cosmic space, in fact it will perhaps be a major component of this cosmic space after the Fa rectification process is over, thus acting to preserve the standard of the cosmos.
This thought has been a great motivator for me. I would like to be a useful and positive component of the cosmos. We all have something to contribute and we must all listen to others ideas, offer our ideas and share and enlighten while doing so. I feel we are all distinct individuals with a variety of skills and strengths, some of us are better at one thing, while others are better at another. But one thing binds us as one body, this great Fa and the wish to contribute positively to this Fa-rectification.
Over these wonderful and sometimes confusing years I have had the great honor to work on many projects and participate in many events. I will admit that during some of them, especially at the beginning when I was not mature, my mind was not right. I had many terrible selfish thoughts, such as wanting my idea to be heard and to be thought highly of. I also sometimes harbored lots of jealously against some of my fellow cultivators, please accept my apologies for this, I respect all of us.
More and more I have learned how to cherish the time to do what is required of me and to be thankful for the opportunities I am given to clarify the truth to people and work in harmony with my fellow cultivators. Over the past 3 months I have been a volunteer for the online Global Rescue web editing project. This project has certainly met with many difficulties, but things have been getting better and better. In the beginning, I felt that many of us did not take this project too seriously, myself included to a certain degree. I had, and still have, many things that my energy required, and in the beginning put the project next to last in my mind. Through sharing with the web design team and fellow practitioners working on the project, my ambition for being involved in this project quickly matured. I began to see the wide range of usefulness this project covered. This project is truly an important part of the Fa-rectification. The legal teams will need this extracted, detailed, and organized data to better make a case, regular people can also benefit from seeing the persecution facts organized this way, as well as the media, researchers, new practitioners, people of the future, the list could go on and on. One practitioner from the web design team expressed his regret that this project was not initiated earlier. He feels as though we should have been working on this a couple of years ago. Thinking about the tremendous effort needed to complete this project and all of its practical uses, I definitely agree with this practitioner's view.
The project is well under way now and the team members that are serious about the work and happy to be a part of it have solidified. We try to have an online meeting once per week if possible and share and discuss the progress of the project. We also reflect on the state of personal cultivation and its relationship to the project's success. The web design team certainly has done a great job motivating the individual editing teams, accepting feedback, and being flexible. We are highly anticipating this project meeting with complete success, but still need more dedicated volunteers to help us see this project through. If anyone would like to participate in this project please post a message to NEVIP and I will respond and provide the contact info for the web design team.
Along with my Fa-rectification work, personal cultivation, and work in ordinary society, these days I am also learning how to be a good father and a proper husband. I'll tell all of you this has not been easy for me, but it has been a blessing. My wife and I have a beautiful baby girl. She is about 2 months old now and is a very sweet and good-natured child.
I feel the family environment has sometimes been an easy place for me to unwittingly lower my character standards and fall short of having a right mind. I'm not sure if this is true with other practitioners, but sometimes I make excuses why it is OK to not hold myself to the same standards as I would in ordinary society, this makes me feel terrible. Master has spoken about this, but sometimes I find myself being selfish, judgmental, and impatient with my spouse and others in my immediate family. I know this is truly shameful behavior, but I have come to see it at least, and I must be firm with myself to maintain the Compassion, and Tolerance to make a permanent change to correct it. I am hoping that sharing with all of you today can help me in this area, and I also hope that it helps others also. Those we spend each day with and help to directly support us vigilantly, certainly deserve our respect, they deserve to be always treated with Truthfulness-Compassion–Tolerance, just as everyone else we encounter throughout the remaining years of our lives in the human world and beyond.
