Learning from a Fellow Practitioner's Lesson

By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) Recently a local practitioner in charge of coordination was arrested by the Chinese Communist government and illegally sentenced to forced labor for two years. This had a great impact on fellow practitioners. Some thought: "She worked as a coordinator for many years and did a lot of things. She had cultivated so well, so how come she was arrested?"

Two years ago, this coordinator participated in a kind of "business." Some fellow practitioners thought that the business involved pyramid schemes. When this coordinator decided to join, one of her legs became severely injured, and she was bedridden for a week. At that time, a fellow practitioner advised her not to become involved and the reason that her leg was injured was because she did not walk a straight path. But she did not enlighten to it and still joined the pyramid scheme. Afterwards, fellow practitioners discussed the issue with her many times and asked her to think seriously and be responsible to her own cultivation. She insisted in following her own path, and between cultivation and profit, profit prevailed. In the following months, fellow practitioners spoke to her many times, asking her to quit. Right up to the time she was arrested, they were still concerned about her.

After joining the pyramid scheme, it often happened that she could not study the Fa with a calm heart, send out righteous thoughts, or enter tranquility when practicing the sitting meditation. She herself said that whenever she sent out righteous thoughts, what appeared in front of her eyes were all those bottles and jars filled with cosmetics.

In 2005, a practitioner launched this "business" here. In their training materials, they even publicly stole the name of Dafa, saying that we should emphasize "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." And they copied Master's poem "Wealth with Virtue" in the training materials, saying that this business could make a person a millionaire overnight, etc. The impression the training materials left with people was that Dafa could help people earn a fortune and go for fame and profit. When fellow practitioners pointed out that this was improper behavior, stealing from and damaging Dafa, instead of taking a responsible attitude and pondering whether she was walking a right path in doing business with the person who publicly damaged Dafa, this coordinator tried her best to defend that person. In the past in China, whoever used Dafa's name to draw in practitioners to go down an evil path and become attached to profit were usually controlled by the 610 Office and such agencies. Their purpose is to damage Dafa and ruin those practitioners who participate. But there are still many practitioners in my local area who cannot clearly see those people's improper behavior and want to get rich by following this path.

Now this coordinator has already compromised with the evil in the forced labor camp. I feel a great sadness for her, and I see more clearly the purpose of the evil who took advantage of her attachment, enlarged her attachment, and step by step pulled her down. I'm not blaming the practitioner here; we absolutely do not acknowledge the evil's persecution of her either. My intention in writing this article is to share with fellow practitioners that we should not see only the superficial side of anything. Only by measuring everything with Dafa, can we draw the correct conclusion. If we make a careful analysis, we will see the deeper reasons. Master said in Zhuan Falun:

"The issue of cultivation practice is not child's play, and neither is it a technique of everyday people--it is a very serious matter."

We should learn from our fellow practitioner's lesson and seriously follow our cultivation path. For major issues, we must be able to listen to other practitioners' opinions and use Dafa to measure our behavior. We should never be stubborn and set on having our own way that leads us down a crooked path and leaves us with everlasting regret.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/3/26/175149.html

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