(Minghui.org) Greetings, benevolent venerable Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Eliminating My Low Self Esteem
I was fortunate to begin practicing Falun Dafa in 2002. I grew up in the countryside and I was introverted and lacked self-esteem. My mother was bedridden and needed to be taken care of. My father often had to take her for treatments. People said that she was so ill because she caught a cold after giving birth and never fully recovered. When I was only seven years old, she passed away.
My dad spent all our savings to cure her illnesses. In order to support us four children, he worked very hard. He frequently had to go out of town to work. My sister married when I was in the 5th grade. My older brother left home and became an apprentice as soon as he graduated from primary school. When my younger brother attended high school, he rented a place and worked part-time. Only my dad and I stayed at home.
I had many chores, including planting vegetables, rice, mushrooms, and taking care of household chores. Because I was so tied up with work, I often had to be absent from school. My classmates teased me saying that I was a child without a mom. The teachers asked, “Why are you always absent?” They made me feel inferior to others. Concerned that a step-mother wouldn’t treat us well, my dad never remarried.
Because he was under so much pressure, shouldering responsibilities for the family, he was very strict with me. As soon as I saw his angry face, I became scared, which resulted in my introverted character after I grew up. I didn’t dare to chat with others. I was concerned that if I said something inappropriate, the other person would get upset with me. Whenever anyone ignored me, I stopped talking. I grew up overly concerned about other peoples' opinions of me.
After I began practicing I understood my mission was to save people, especially mainland Chinese. But because of my introverted character and low self-esteem I lacked confidence. As I looked in the mirror, I was in tears but said very firmly: “I must learn how to call people to save them.” Encouraged by fellow practitioners I joined the RTC platform, an online group that makes phone calls to China to clarify the truth about the persecution and help people quit the Communist Party.
I was given opportunities to improve. Even though it was still very hard for me due to my strong attachment to fear, I thought: “Practitioners have helped me. If I still don’t do my part, I not only would lose the chance but also fail to fulfill my historic vow. No matter how bumpy my path is, I must persevere.” I gradually improved and joined the platform every night to form one body with fellow practitioners around the globe.
In order to help more practitioners learn how to call China to save people, the RTC platform set up a training team. When the coordinator asked me to be in charge of coordinating it I didn’t feel I could do it. I was worried if I didn’t do well, it would negatively impact our efforts to save sentient beings. The coordinator encouraged me. I realized that everything happened for a reason—this could very well be part of my vow. I also realized that this was an opportunity to improve. I finally decided to take it on and I’ve been doing this for a few years.
Letting Go of My Ego and Cultivating Compassion
Because of the onset of the CCP virus (coronavirus), we couldn’t go to tourist attractions to clarify the facts to people. Therefore, calling people in China became very important. Since I was a coordinator I was also responsible for training registration. Initially I felt it would be simple—helping practitioners fill out registration forms. But because so many countries were locked-down, several practitioners began signing up for the training.
Besides making arrangements for training, I also had to answer questions from practitioners all over the world who came on the platform at different times. I ended up answering the same question multiple times, sometimes to the point where I almost lost my voice. I thought, “Why didn’t I just prepare a document and then send it out to everyone?” Then I thought, “I’ll wait until everyone comes online then I'll explain it to all of them. But the reality was that they never were online at the same time. Thus, completing the registration for one person could easily take an hour.
Every time after finishing the training for the big group, as soon as I logged on to the platform, there would be practitioners looking for me to sign up for the small groups. I was tied up with work every day.
What gave me the biggest headache was splitting teams. Their desired time slots were all different. I had to maintain the same number of people in each team, so this task became very time-consuming. Practitioners didn’t see the work behind the registration. But, they all wanted to be assigned to the group where the person in charge was in their favor. Some of them didn’t follow the groups that I assigned to them, but rather checked out this group today and another one tomorrow.
If several didn’t go to the groups they were assigned to, it messed up the overall training plan. Thus, I had additional and difficult work to do, which was: to persuade these practitioners to go to the groups they belonged to, to take training, even though it might offend them. But for the sake of maintaining the overall training plan, I still had to do this.
During the process I ran into some conflicts. One time, in front of several people, one practitioner said to me loudly, “Why are you always at odds with me?” I smiled and said, “I don’t even know you. Why would I fight with you?” Then she challenged me and said loudly, “How did you divide up the groups?” I thought, “This is testing my xinxing.” I told her, “Please look at it from my perspective and be understanding.” She calmed down.
This training was arranged for newcomers. One practitioner joined the training before and already knew how to make calls, but she wanted to take the training again. With so many newcomers, I had to tell her, “You joined the training before, please leave this opportunity for the newcomers. We could arrange you to go to the No. 2 broadcasting room, where there are some practitioners providing training.”
She was very upset and said, “Ok, I’ll go to a smaller conference room to call instead.” I lowered my voice and said, “Take it easy. We shouldn’t separate ourselves and fall into the old forces’ trap. We should form one body and save the people we are supposed to save, right?” I heard her weep. She said, “You're right! Doing the things we are supposed to do well is most important.” I also became teary. She sent me an apology text message the next day. Both of us managed to rectify ourselves and maintain our xinxing. Now sometimes we were on the same shift and worked together to make the calls. Master said,
“Accordingly, in your future cultivation you will run into all kinds of tribulations. How could you cultivate without these hardships? If everyone is good to one another without conflicts of interest or interference from the human mind, and if all you do is just sit there, how can your xinxing improve? That wouldn’t do. One must truly temper and improve oneself through actual practice.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
There have been many cases like that. For a period of time, my cultivation state was poor. I felt upset because I took care of many petty details and I felt I was being complained about. I felt exhausted. When I heard fellow practitioners praise the training host, I felt even more upset. My attachment to being wronged, complaints, and jealousy all popped up. I even thought, “Am I a coordinator?” I felt I was only running errands. I couldn’t even find the time to make one call, but still, practitioners showed no understanding towards me. When I was about to give up, I remembered what Master said,
“The same is true for everyone, and one will not make it if one falls short even a bit. But a junior monk who cooks meals might not be of poor inborn quality. The more the junior monk suffers, the easier it is for him to achieve the Unlocking of Gong. The more comfortable the senior monks’ lives are, the harder it is for them to reach the state of Unlocking Gong since there is the issue of transforming karma. The junior monk is always suffering and tired. He will repay his karma and become enlightened more quickly. Perhaps one day he achieves the Unlocking of Gong all of a sudden.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
Indeed! As a coordinator, it was difficult to elevate one’s level, but through working as hard as a junior monk, one could truly eliminate one’s attachments and improve one’s level. I felt as though I peeled off a layer and calmed down. From then on, I’ve been more dedicated to assisting practitioners. I hope we form one body through working with one another as well as a more powerful field for saving sentient beings.
Making Use of Every Moment to Save People
When seeing the other practitioners making calls every day, I was worried that I would fall behind. I thought, “This won’t do. I must find some time to make calls.” The next day, after I finished handling the registrations for practitioners, I quickly made a call to a predestined person. He decided to quit the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) right after he finished listening to me. When I asked him, “Do you have someone with you?” He told me there were three other people with him. I also helped them to renounce their CCP memberships. Through that one call, four people were saved. As soon as I hung up, I was asked to attend a meeting. I was very excited and thanked Master for his encouragement.
Since practitioners from all over the world signed up for the training, local practitioners felt encouraged to join the platform to make phone calls. I invited a nearby practitioner to join the training. Because he was very busy with work I gave him the training materials so he could learn on his own.
One day, he said he wanted to come to my home to learn how to make calls. He came with a thick notebook in hand. When I opened it, I saw it was full of notes. He said that he preferred to write notes which was easier for him to remember. He had written down information about Falun Dafa, the staged “self-immolation incident,” even what practitioners said word for word. Then he used paper slips to mark different topics. His dedication touched me and I felt a bit ashamed.
When he came back, I encouraged him to make calls. On the very first call, he followed the materials in his notebook to talk to the other party. In the end, the other party asked, “Is Mr. Li Hongzhi doing well?” This deeply moved him. He felt that Master was encouraging him the very first time he made a call. Every time he called he could save some predestined sentient beings. He also joined a few practitioners to make calls together.
One new practitioner also participated in the training. Since then, he has logged onto the platform to clarify the facts to people and became proficient with it within a few months. Especially when he ran into people who had misconceptions about us, he still managed to use the materials on hand to help them quit the CCP.
The platform started to adopt a new way to make calls recently. For the purpose of forming an overall one body, it went from having practitioners from five areas in Taiwan taking turns in shifts, to all Taiwanese practitioners taking turns in taking shifts. The first time it happened, I was in charge. As most of them were new to the new system, I had to help them and I was pretty tied up with that, so I didn’t make any calls. I thought, “Besides helping other practitioners, I also need to find time to make calls.” The second time I was on the shift, I noticed a practitioner logging on, so I helped him get set up.
The minute I moved him to another room, I suddenly heard him saying, “Falun Dafa is wonderful! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is wonderful! Assist Master in Fa-rectification! Save sentient beings! Righteous thoughts and action.” This caught me off guard. After I set everyone up, I figured it was the time for me to make calls. I remembered what that practitioner just said, so I said it. I immediately felt my body surrounded by energy. Then I picked up the phone and began to dial.
The call went through. I finished clarifying the facts to the man and I used a pseudonym to help him quit the Party. I asked, “Was the lady with you your family member? Is she also a Party member?” He said she was. I asked if I could use “Shenglian” (sacred lotus) to help her quit the CCP. She didn’t like “Shenglian” but rather “Meihua” (plum flower). I said, “Of course.” She agreed.
In August, many Vietnamese practitioners logged onto the platform. What really moved me was that the majority of them didn’t know how to speak Chinese, but in order to save sentient beings, they learned Chinese. In addition, they logged on to the platform to join the training every day. When I assigned groups, I had them team up with Chinese practitioners to help them.
One Taiwanese practitioner told me that she had to work during the day, her evening time was limited. Since she was still learning to help people quit the CCP she didn’t want to help the Vietnamese practitioners. Later another practitioner shared that after she saw Vietnamese practitioners painstakingly learning Chinese just to save them, she purposefully logged onto the platform early in order to help them learn the informational materials.
After hearing her sharing, the practitioner who initially didn’t want to help them, left me a message saying that she shouldn’t be so selfish. She should help the Vietnamese.
One time, a Vietnamese practitioner sent over 200 numbers for me to remove from the system—she had helped all of them quit the CCP. I was shocked. I thought to myself, “I speak Chinese! I should seize the time to save people!”
Looking Inward and Balancing Family and Dafa Work
Because I was busy on the platform I spent less time with my husband. In the past, he was never against what I did. But I noticed recently his attitude changed and he became very rude to me, to the point where he even swore at me. He also spent a lot of time on his cell phone.
I didn’t look inward. I thought it was because he was attached to looking at his cell phone which changed his character, and I started blaming him. I recently asked him where he went to do home renovation, which was what he did for living. He told me that he went to my classmate’s home.
I said, “Oh, you went there.” He wasn’t very happy and said, “She asked me why my wife did not come.” I said, “Why do I have to be there? I'm so busy. I hardly interact with her.” My husband said, “You’ve been sitting in front of your computer every day. Is that cultivation? How much time do we spend together?” I didn’t maintain my xinxing and said, “Don’t you understand why I have to practice? Our daughter and I had health problems. We only became healthy through Dafa cultivation.” Then I kept going on and on.
We stopped talking to each other for a few days. Then I began to look inward. What he said was true. Every night I spent hours on the platform, and I had no time to chat with him. But we need to save the people around us. The next day, I changed my attitude. After he came home from work, I walked up to him with a bowl of dessert. I gently said, “Are you hungry? Why don’t you have dessert first? Dinner will be ready shortly.” Now before I log on to the platform, I always try to prepare him a cup of tea and chat with him.
His attitude changed and now we chat. Before, I even complained about my old classmate as I thought she was the one who triggered our conflict. Now, thinking back, my notions were to blame. I should really thank her for helping me identify my attachment.
The above is my sharing, please kindly point out anything inappropriate.
Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners!
(Presented at the 2020 Taiwan Fa Conference)
