(Clearwisdom.net) Several practitioners came to our local area from other regions, though they don't all have jobs here. In the past, they did some hourly work to support themselves. In recent years, they have run into some difficulty in their daily lives due to the evil persecution. Therefore, local practitioners have been helping them by giving them money and other things.
As a Falun Dafa practitioner, we do not feel at peace when seeing these fellow practitioners in such difficult situations, so we often provided some support to them. However, it is also not that easy to provide them with financial support, because one has to save money in one's everyday life. On the one hand, one needs to spend money to do truth-clarification work. On the other hand, one has to provide financial support to these practitioners, yet one may not have much money oneself. Furthermore, some of those practitioners who are being supported have become lazy and have come to completely rely on the financial support of others. This situation has made me uncomfortable, yet I feel too embarrassed to directly point it out. Sometimes we have pointed it out implicitly, but the practitioners in question pretended they didn't understand. Without any other choice, I went job hunting for them. When I found some work for them, some of the practitioners rejected the work for reasons like the pay rate was too low, the work hours too long, there would be no time to send forth righteous thoughts and do Fa study and practice the exercises, etc.
Over these years, the fellow practitioners have accepted several thousands or several tens of thousands of yuan in financial support. However, I noticed that although these practitioners verbally expressed an unwillingness to accept the help, their true expression was that they looked forward to the money and things from others. Moreover, if you provided financial support to them, they would be quite nice to you. Otherwise they would treat you poorly. Actually, some of these practitioners were perfectly able to earn some money themselves, yet they still asked others to support them. In this kind of situation, a cultivator should try one's best to overcome their difficulties and take as little financial support as possible in order to reduce the burden on others.
I also noticed that these practitioners had strong attachments to food and drink. Sometimes they would spend lots of money without seeming concerned. Some practitioners seemed to make use of their not having a job and they used their free time to do some Dafa work at home. However, they thought, "Therefore, others are supposed to provide food to my family and pay the rent for my family." These all aggravated the financial burdens of other practitioners. Some of these practitioners constantly dreamed of opening a business to make a great deal of money. Firstly, they could pay back the borrowed money; secondly, their own standard of living could be improved. Therefore, they started to borrow money from this practitioner and that practitioner in order to start their business, but they hardly made much money and even ended up borrowing more money, which caused their reputation to drop among the practitioners.
Regarding the situation of practitioners accepting financial support from other practitioners, Master already gave an answer in a recent lecture (see below). We hope that practitioners who are having issues in this area will really think about it and correct themselves accordingly, to better achieve a state without omission.
Everyone's past was arranged by the old forces, until now. If one cannot do things according to Master's teaching and if one cannot do the three things well, then it would be very difficult to eliminate the old forces' arrangements. In other words, why is it that some of our Dafa disciples have jobs, some don't, some are wealthy, some are very poor? All this was arranged by the old forces, according to each person's attachments and other factors. If we want to deny it, to change it, we must follow Master's teaching, do the three things well and maintain righteous thoughts and righteous actions.
The following are Master's words in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York:"
Teacher: "Yes, I think that since all Dafa disciples are giving of themselves and you too are giving of yourself and clarifying the truth, if you rely on other people's financial contributions, then aren't you doing things conditionally? If others didn't provide for you, then would you not do it? When we take from others, don't we have a sense of indebtedness? Do we feel right about it? Sure, there are special circumstances, and we can't be absolute with this. It's understandable when students who have their own businesses give more and support certain projects by students. But under normal circumstances I don't think that seems right. Even when it's for doing things like clarifying the truth, I don't think it is quite right. If you can stay here long term, then find a job and do [the Dafa] things in your spare time--that works, too. In any case, ultimately you have to resolve your financial situation on your own. You can't depend on someone else to provide for you--that would be a problem.
"I'm talking about this in terms of the Fa's principles. In fact, the observing gods are glaring at you, so you shouldn't be borrowing from people. If circumstances really don't allow, then do other Dafa-disciple things at home. What I said was that those whose circumstances allow could stay here to clarify the truth. If your circumstances don't allow, then go back to your hometown and do truth-clarification things there, which is the same."
July 10, 2005
