Under the influence of communist indoctrination, which includes atheism, where people value selfishness, and lust and greed are everywhere, even practitioners can inadvertently fall into these traps.
Thieves murder for money; Party officials are excessively corrupt; siblings fight for family property; friends deceive each other for money; and relatives lure you into joining pyramid schemes for profit. And ultimately tarnish their souls out of ignorance.
Falun Dafa cultivators, on the other hand, regard worldly fame and wealth as unimportant. We follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and constantly improve our xinxing. Then Master will give us wisdom and help us to understand that we are here to help him save sentient beings.
However, some practitioners have deviated from this path and tried to take a short cut by using money as a means to make up for their deficiencies. That is, they donated money to truth-clarification material production sites. Some even secretly donated family money to the production sites to make up for mistakes or accumulate virtue for family members.
This has happened at our local material production sites. In recent years, in particular, many have donated money to these production sites, ranging from hundreds to thousands, or even tens of thousands of yuan.
Practitioners at these sites have repeatedly explained that they have sufficient funds and that there was no need for more donations. Yet some practitioners insisted on making donations, giving all kinds of rationalisations.
Some who gave in person would not give up when the site did not want to take their money. One practitioner said he was donating the money to materials sites to accumulate virtue for his family members. And some practitioners were even ready to kneel down to plead for their donations to be accepted.
The practitioners who work at the production sites kept telling those practitioners who attempted to donate money that they could not meet in person and repeatedly told them to stop donating money. But this still did not solve the fundamental issue and caused a great amount of undue stress.
Practitioners who insisted on donating funds included the retired, wage earners, and manual laborers. For example, someone donated a lot of money but did not personally help to distribute materials to clarify the truth to people. So this money basically amounted to a hollow gesture.
Two such practitioners are local retired officials who had been ill for a long time. Each even went to the hospital for treatment. They have been very generous in donating money to help with projects, but they basically did nothing to validate Dafa.
They often told fellow practitioners that they tried their best to practice Falun Dafa and asked why their health was still poor. Other practitioners had been trying to help them for many years, but they still could resolve their health problems because they only studied Zhuan Falun and not Master’s lectures.
Since July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been inundating the media with propaganda to slander Dafa and Master. Practitioners in China have no media outlets, and all we can do is create our own truth-clarification materials and then distribute them ourselves. The CCP has seemed very threatened by our material production sites, which are our media outlets. So we should all work together to maintain them well.
We had a very good, technically-skilled practitioner who was producing materials for many practitioners. Some practitioners saw this and wondered, “How can he find time to work for a living?” Then they wanted to cover his living expenses.
Soon afterwards, a number of practitioners offered to donate large sums of money to this site. Initially, this practitioner was very cautious on the issue of money, but gradually, the contributed money seemed to enlarge the desire of this practitioner.
He no longer cared about where the donations came from or why. He thought that, since he had no income, Dafa work was also a kind of job. Because he appreciated practitioners who donated money, he was desperate to make materials and handle all of the technical issues. However, he ignored studying the Fa and doing the exercises.
In 2009, this practitioner was given a three-year prison sentence. After he came back, he told other practitioners that he was persecuted because he handled the issue of money incorrectly and was very remorseful. Although he did not give up cultivation, he became fearful and could not go out to help save sentient beings. This is a serious lesson!
Many practitioners have been persecuted since July 20, 1999, in China. Some were so fearful that they dared not establish material production sites and relied on other practitioners for their materials.
Some practitioners wanted to do the three things more, so they found a less busy job to meet their living expenses but needed funds from other practitioners to operate the material production sites. They were responsible about limiting their acceptance of funds.
Master told us, “… nor do we keep money or property.” (Teaching the Fa at the Assistants’ Fa Conference in Changchun)
So I encourage technically-skilled practitioners in mainland China to make their own living, study the Fa more, and do Dafa work well. Our time is running out, so do not leave regrets in your cultivation! I also suggest that practitioners who provide funds should do so according to the needs of the production sites. Do not cause trouble for other practitioners and do not leave any stain on your cultivation due to selfishness!
Finally, please allow me to quote Master’s teaching in“Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference:”
“Each instance of human thinking during a test, each instance of inadequate righteous thoughts, and each attachment that a cultivator has will be seized upon by them as an excuse to drag you down and take you out from among the ranks of cultivating Dafa disciples. This results in our paths of cultivation being full of tribulations as well as danger.”
(Clearwisdom)