By a Falun Dafa practitioner from China

(Clearwisdom.net) Since July 20, 1999, when the persecution of Falun Dafa began in China the Chinese Communist Party and the political scoundrel gang of Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan have been using the most inhuman and genocidal methods to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners. One of their methods is bankrupting practitioners financially. This has caused destructive interference for the practitioners in China, who can hardly make both ends meet. The practitioners cannot work and live normally. In the most serious instances they simply become penniless and live in extremely difficult circumstances. Some practitioners have to rely on other practitioners or relatives to stay alive. However, because the practitioners giving assistance only help them financially and fail to help them find the fundamental cause of the persecution, the evil forces have made use of this loophole and stepped up their persecution. This has resulted in serious interference and damage to the local Fa-rectification work as well as to the work to save sentient beings. Following are some of my experiences and personal understandings on this issue that I want to share with fellow practitioners. My aim is to upgrade our level from the perspective of the Fa together and to do a better job in rectifying the Fa and saving sentient beings.

Two elderly women practitioners in our city were willing to help those practitioners who were having difficulties or who were forced to leave home to avoid being persecuted. One practitioner who came from another part of the country and was good at computers came to our city. They arranged accommodations for him and bought a computer for him, hoping he could process some Falun Dafa materials. At the very beginning he did very well. However, after a few months he began to get picky about his food and then his desire for food became ever greater. As a result, to have a copy of truth-clarification material done, these two elderly women practitioners had to prepare good food for him. A few days later the practitioner would not do anything even though he was offered good food everyday. The elderly practitioners failed to share with him from the Fa. This practitioner was an unmarried young man about 30 years old. Everyday he browsed the Internet for pornographic contents and therefore was taken advantaged of by the demons of lust. He refused to process any truth-clarification material. Instead he was so desperate that he was ready to go to the police station to turn himself in. (He had never gone downstairs ever since he began to process the truth-clarification material.) The two elderly practitioners did not know what to do. They did not dare to share with other practitioners for fear that the material site would be made known. They had to close down the site and try something else. Thereafter, one of them was arrested and sent to do forced labor. The other broke her leg and lost her ability to look after herself and could not take part in Fa-rectification activities normally.

This happened a few years ago but left us an unforgettable lesson. In helping a fellow practitioner we must first of all help that person to find out the cause of the problem and his or her fundamental attachment. Only when the person upgrades xinxing can he or she truly take part in the the Fa-rectification. This is the right way to help practitioners. If we only help them financially or help them to solve their problems of livelihood and ask them to do things, then we can only solve the problem temporarily. When they are disconnected from the Falun Dafa cultivation environment for too long, there will be unexpected interferences and losses.

Another practitioner from another part of the country was released from jail on bail. Since the local practitioners thought it was unsafe for him to stay in the area, he was sent to our city. When he first came he developed good relations with other practitioners and studied the Fa and did the exercises all from his own free will. (He could not stand or walk for very long as the result of the torture he had suffered in prison.) Later, practitioners gave him a computer and a printer hoping he could make some truth clarification materials. The local practitioners tried to provide him with a variety of food. Later this practitioner developed a very bad temper, often got angry, and became picky about his food. The local evil forces took his life away when he was only 29 years old.

I have noticed in the articles published on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website that when local practitioners write their experience sharing articles, the content and the process are all about how well they have done, how difficult the situation was, and how hard the tasks were, but they fail to find their shortcomings or the fundamental cause of the problem in the serious lessons they describe. They have also failed to recognize that the very fact that the practitioners use human attachments and sentimentalities to help fellow practitioners during the Fa-rectification is one of the key factors of the evil persecution.

We must help other practitioners from the perspective of the Fa and improve together from the Fa. Only in this way can we really effect a very different outcome. Everything that appears before us is an opportunity for us to cultivate and the process for us to find our shortcomings. Only by overcoming our shortcomings are we really really cultivating ourselves.

There was an elderly practitioner who took out 300 yuan from his salary each month to help a young female practitioner that was unemployed. From the surface level it was not wrong for him to help a fellow practitioner. By saving on food and clothes he had enough to help others. However, we are cultivating ourselves in Dafa and shouldering an important mission of saving the sentient beings. Our aim is not just want to become a good person but a Falun Dafa practitioner whose mission is to save sentient beings. If he had used part of the money to help the practitioner find a suitable job, such as a small business so that she could have an income of her own, he would not only have truly solved the practitioner's financial problem but also created opportunities for her to save more sentient beings through her work. This is like killing two birds with one stone. Another saying goes like this, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Three hundred yuan a month could only help the practitioner maintain her existence. If this continued for a long period of time, negative aspects would emerge and create loopholes for the evil forces to make use of. It would also nourish the mentality of dependence on fellow practitioners or the mentality of loving ease and hating work. The best way to spend practitioners' money is to spend it on saving sentient beings. The help I mentioned above would contribute to the practitioners' developing loopholes, and the very fact of spending practitioners' money would aggravate the persecution by the evil forces.

Sometimes our starting point is good, but we are practitioners, so whatever we do we must be reasonable, we must use our wisdom, and we must consider both advantages and disadvantages. We should not help practitioners simply because of our emotions or pity; we should be line with the Fa.

Those practitioners who received help from their fellow practitioners continued to suffer from even worse persecution, partly because of the aspects I discussed above.

Some young practitioners have relied on their parents or relatives for their living expenses and that has increased the burden on their parents and relatives. If we can do what we should well, we will play a positive role in improving our surroundings of validating the Fa and saving sentient beings. Otherwise we might cause unexpected losses and interferences. We should not use the task of validating the Fa as an excuse for not finding a suitable job. It is not right for us to rely on other people for a living. We must live, cultivate, and validate the Fa in a normal living condition. This is the correct way for practitioners.

This is just my personal understanding. Please kindly help me understand any shortcomings I may have.

Posting date: 9/29/2007
Original article date: 9/29/2007
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 9/14/2007
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/9/12/162515.html

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