(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
When the persecution began in 1999, I had already been cultivating for three years. I understood that as a practitioner of Dafa, we needed to safeguard the Fa. I knew of Fa-rectification from Master's lectures, but wasn't quite sure how that related to the persecution--all I knew is that I needed to safeguard the Fa. Not long after the persecution began, I felt it was important to do something that directly related to the persecution. But what? At that time I had the notion that I would not read anything in ordinary people's media about Dafa, because I thought the public didn't understand it and it was a waste of time to read that stuff.
I received an email from a fellow practitioner saying that a Dafa website was looking for practitioners to help out. At first, I wasn't that interested, mostly because I didn't want to deal with explaining what Dafa and the truth of the persecution was actually about. For a while I was in such a bad state. I wanted to safeguard Dafa, but didn't know how. I would often go to the Minghui (Chinese version of Clearwisdom) and Clearwisdom websites to read the understandings of fellow practitioners. Then one day it clicked. Of course! Working on a Dafa website can help clarify the truth to people and that will be safeguarding Dafa. Not only that, but the Dafa websites also reminded me of going to conferences, and listening to fellow practitioner's sharings and all the understandings and improvement I gained afterwards. Reading the websites each day was like going to a conference each day.
Looking back, many of us may find that story rather funny, as the importance of clarifying the truth and sharing experiences seems so clear to us now. But then again, I look back at the situation at the time, and not all practitioners had the understanding that we needed to safeguard Dafa--many were still focused just on individual cultivation. I believe the Dafa websites were a leading force that helped practitioners move from the individual cultivation mentality to the mentality of Fa-rectification Dafa disciples.
On the surface we all know that Dafa websites can clarify the truth of Dafa to save sentient beings, and at the same time act as a way to communicate understandings and improve together for practitioners all over the world. What does this mean for practitioners that work on the websites though? How should we look at and take responsibility for the jobs we do? This takes more conscience thought and understandings from the Fa.
I sometimes think of our Dafa websites as being like the Falun. They are constantly turning and rectifying incorrect situations, whether these are internal problems, or outside interference. Also, like the Falun, representing the different parts that make up the whole universe, the Dafa websites too have parts that can be for all different kinds of people. We have cultivation experience sharing for practitioners, the truth of Dafa for everyday people, and even exposures of the evil to both eliminate the evil and give those that may have done evil a chance to see their faults and change their ways. When I see our Dafa websites, I see an all encompassing, harmonizing mechanism of the Fa.
Those practitioners that work on the websites are directly part of the rotating mechanisms that keep the website continuously correcting and harmonizing, similar to the rotating mechanisms of the Falun. From this point of view, we can see that it is very important for the practitioners that work on the websites to study the Fa well and continuously improve themselves. Since the Fa is continuously rectifying and harmonizing, if we are not able to keep up with this current and just treat our work as work of the human world, then we are not only not doing well in our own cultivation, but we will directly affect each practitioner that reads the website--this is no small matter. At the same time, like the different parts of the Falun that need to rotate together, the practitioners that work on the websites need to work well together, and continuously upgrade together. Just like if one of the Taijis in the Falun would stop turning, if a practitioner working on the websites stops treating the work with a righteous mindset based within the Fa, then this will seriously affect everyone else and in turn the functions of the websites. One of the main ways to maintain this harmony among us rotating mechanisms of the websites is to share understandings and experiences, and help harmonize each other.
So then what are our responsibilities? Is it just to make sure that articles are posted on the websites each day? Well, of course the websites need to be maintained, but our responsibilities go far beyond maintenance. I think we have to realize that our websites are at the forefront of the Fa-rectification. Our websites are helping to blaze the path of Fa-rectification. What is posted on our websites must be the most righteous and at the forefront of Fa-rectification, as these are the primary sources practitioners go to for current updates and trends in the Fa-rectification. So our responsibilities go beyond just maintaining the site. Our understandings must not only keep up with the current state of Fa-rectification, but we must also be very clearheaded so as to convey these messages in the clearest ways possible. At the same time, as Fa-rectification changes, the websites sometimes need to change to reflect that. This may manifest in ways like having more articles on a certain topic, creating a new category for an important topic, the placement of articles, etc. It also has to do with the way that our websites are run. Perhaps for a certain period of times, doing things one way is a good, but then as the Fa-rectification changes, we may find a better way to change the operations of the websites to keep up with that. Therefore, all practitioners working on Dafa websites need to take responsibility to guarantee that the websites are keeping up with Fa-rectification, achieving the best effect needed at the time, and forging a path for the future. We need to be clear minded, so that wisdom from the Fa can comes to us more easily, and when this wisdom does come, we will be able to properly implement it.
At my current state, this is a summary of how I understand our Dafa websites, our responsibilities, and especially the ways that I, as a practitioner working on our websites, need to pay more attention to and make sure I do even better in.
Thank you Master for giving us these opportunities, and thank you fellow practitioners for the inspiration of all the great work everyone has done and is continuing to do.
