(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Dafa in 1999, and this year I am 61 years old. I got laid off from my work unit in 2010, and I have been working for a private company, collecting property maintenance fees and serving customers, ever since.
Cultivating Forbearance at Work
Property maintenance and customer service work is tedious and diverse and tempers one’s xinxing. When I first started this job, I kept in mind that I was a practitioner and followed Master’s teaching:
“When you have suffered all of this, you didn’t stoop down to his level, your heart was calm, so you did not strike back when hit or talk back when cursed at.” (Lecture Given at the Conference in Sydney).
When property owners had issues and came to me, I could maintain my xinxing most of the time. However, cultivation is like peeling an onion, and attachments have to be eliminated layer by layer.
Some residents’ water meters in the residential neighborhood are read at the end of the month to calculate their water bills. As I was tallying the water bills one time, I noticed that a certain household had used an unusually large amount of water—280 tons (75,000 gallons)—that month. When I asked the maintenance employee to check the meter again, he saw that it was spinning, which meant that a water faucet was likely on in the apartment.
I called the property owner and told him about it, but he was out of town and could not come back at that time, so he asked me to turn off the main water valve. The maintenance employee said that the valve was broken and could not be turned off and that property management was not responsible for repairing water valves for individual owners. I then informed the owner about the broken valve.
As I was going back and forth contacting the owner, the maintenance employee told me that, based on the meter reading, one ton of water had run through during that time. I thought to myself, “I shouldn’t let water be wasted like this; the more water that runs, the higher the owner’s water bill.” I found another maintenance employee and asked him to find a way to turn off the valve, which he was eventually able to do.
I later learned that there had been a water outage in that residential area, and the owner’s relative from out of town had come over and turned the tap on, then forgotten to turn it off because no water was running at the time.
The owner refused to pay his water bill. He said, “When I came home, there was no water running in my place.” As I explained the situation to him again, the manager happened to be present. When he heard that the owner was refusing to pay, the manager blamed me for shutting off the valve and told me in front of the owner, “If something like this happens again, just let the water run. Don’t turn it off at the valve.”
The owner later lost his prepaid electricity card and asked to have it replaced just as we were getting off work. I stayed late, processed the card, gave him my contact number, and waited for his call to ensure that his electricity had been restored before I left. When he called to thank me after his electricity was restored, he said that he would definitely pay his water bill next time.
Getting Rid of the Mindset of Looking Down on Others, Resentment, and Jealousy
Another coworker and I are responsible for collecting fees from the residents and for handling customer service. When the company hired her a few years ago, I patiently taught her how things were to be done and explained our business operations in detail, little by little. Whenever she asked me about a problem she had run into at work, I explained things to her carefully. She still cannot handle certain transactions consistently and sometimes makes basic mistakes. For example, the owner paid a 100 yuan-fee but she recorded it as 200 yuan, or the owner scanned 300 yuan but she recorded it as 200 yuan. So the accounts don’t balance, and after searching for a long time, we have either had to chase after the owner to ask for the money or refund what the owner overpaid.
When she ran into a problem, she called me frequently when she was on duty and I was off duty. Sometimes she called me four times before noon. I thought to myself, “She has been working for so long, but she still cannot handle the job. She’s incompetent. When I first started to work here, no one taught me step by step. I had to figure out everything myself.” The more I thought like this, the more I looked at her behavior negatively. We have four days off a month. She would stay home if it rained, be absent from work over something small without informing anyone, or find an excuse while she was working to go grocery shopping.
One time we had a lot of rain, and there was a power outage in the community. Our phone line was overwhelmed with calls from owners. The roof of the building leaked, so rain was seeping into some apartments, while the windows were leaking in others. Some owners called to ask when the electricity would be restored; some complained that management did not let them know about the power outage; and a few called to curse us. My resentment for her grew as I thought, “She doesn’t come in when it rains, leaving all the work for me.” I hid these thoughts, however, and didn’t complain to her. At work those few days, I was in an angry mood and didn’t like anything about her. I knew that it was wrong to be like that, but I could not get over it. The same thoughts would come back every few days.
I’d always thought, “I tried my best to help her. An ordinary person would not have treated her like I did; I didn’t do anything about it, because I’m a cultivator.” In reality, I did not truly look inward and realize that what I had done was wrong. Instead, I looked down on her and developed resentment and jealousy. I held an ordinary person to a cultivator’s standard and, in turn, compared an ordinary person’s behavior to my own. I thought that I was doing well and looked outward, staring at other people’s shortcomings and flaws. I wanted to change others or have others change themselves, instead of doing well myself according to the requirements of the Fa. Wasn’t this coworker’s behavior aimed at my attachments? I failed to be compassionate and kind to everybody.
After I changed my thinking, I thought to myself, “This coworker lives far from her job, and it truly is inconvenient for her to ride a scooter in the pouring rain. I know she really cares about doing the job well, because she has a little notebook and has written down special situations that might happen at work just in case.” When I take a day off now, she calls me less often. When she does call me, I patiently explain to her how to resolve the issue. When I looked at her again, I thought she was doing very well.
Getting Rid of Attachments to Self-Righteousness, Showing Off, and Seeking Comfort and Ease
In the 14 years I have been with this company, I been able to hold myself to the standard of a cultivator at work and be serious and responsible about my job. As a result, managers at different times have expressed their satisfaction with my work.
The assistant manager once decided that the receipts issued for a “late fee” would be called “fee for breach of contract.” He reasoned that the original name did not meet the requirements of the Civil Code. I thought to myself, “I’ve been issuing receipts like that for over a decade. It doesn’t matter what it’s called, as long as the fees are collected.” Although I agreed with the assistant manager verbally, my expression and heart did not. The assistant manager appeared a bit angry.
The assistant manager later told me that the manager wanted to talk to me. When I went to see the manager, he said, “Do you still practice Falun Gong? I heard that you talk to people about quitting the CCP. You should be careful.” The assistant manager also came over and said, “People who often report this to me. Luckily, the community does not know about it.” I said, “Yes, I know what to do. Nowadays there are a lot of natural and man-made disasters. I just want everybody to stay safe.” The manager said, “It’s not just you guys. A lot of high-ranking officials in the military know what it [the CCP] is really about. But I do highly approve of your work.”
Because we can take four days off per month, whenever my coworker is off, I clarify the truth to owners who come in for assistance. The surveillance cameras in our office are connected to the assistant manager’s phone. He checks his phone often and probably saw me clarifying the truth to the owners. My disapproving and self-righteous attitude regarding re-wording the late-fee receipts annoyed him, so he told the manager about me clarifying the truth to the owners.
I shared with a fellow practitioner a few days ago about my experiences of clarifying the truth at work. I said that I’d developed the attachment to showing off after doing it well for so many years. It is relatively easy for me to clarify the truth at work, because I’m familiar with the owners and most of them trust me. Sometimes I didn’t do it thoroughly but was able to convince them to quit the CCP organizations in just a few words. When I go out to clarify the truth, most of the people I run into are strangers, and explaining the facts to them is more difficult. I had become reluctant to clarify the truth anymore when I had time off, and had thus developed an attachment to seeking comfort and ease. I realized that, because I had attachments to self-righteousness, showing off, and seeking comfort and ease, I had not realized I had these attachments. But this minor incident about re-wording receipts and the assistant manager’s attitude reminded me to remove attachments and improve.
Not long after this, the assistant manager asked me to provide data for the houses in a particular neighborhood. I quickly did as he asked, printed the data out, and sent him an electronic version. I told him that I would review the data if there was anything not right. He was very satisfied with it and changed his attitude toward me. When his family made moon cakes, he brought some to work for us.
When I clarify the truth at work now, I try to do it where there are no cameras. A while ago, we hired a new maintenance employee. In the past, I would have called him to the office to clarify the truth to him. This time, I went to the maintenance department when he was on duty alone to clarify the truth and convince him to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. If good opportunities arise, I will still clarify the truth in the office, but I will first send forth a righteous thought: “The surveillance cameras are for office security and have nothing to do with me clarifying the truth.” The effect has been very good.
When I have had time off recently, I have gone out to clarify the truth. I try to maintain a calm mind and not stress over the number of withdrawals. When it goes well, I try not to develop an attachment of elation. When I face rejection, I am no longer angry or disappointed, nor do I fear challenges. I have truly felt that cultivation is serious. Thank you, Master, for letting me see my attachments and remove them!
Articles in which cultivators share their understandings typically reflect an individual's perception at a point in time based on their cultivation state, and they are offered in the spirit of enabling mutual elevation.
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Category: Cultivation Insights
