(Clearwisdom.net) Some of my fellow practitioners have suffered serious economic persecution. Most of them had their salaries or pensions stopped, and some of them were fired by their work units and lost their sources of income. They are being persecuted and hear such excuses as, "Don't you talk about being good people, taking money lightly, and not caring about personal losses?" Actually, such statements twist the truth. What we gave up was not the money itself. Instead we wanted to eliminate the attachments to money and personal interest.
Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,
"In our discipline, for the portion that cultivates among ordinary people, it's required that we cultivate in the ordinary world, and keep to the ways of ordinary people as much as possible. We're not asking you to really lose any material things. It doesn't matter how high your official rank is, and it doesn't matter how rich you are: the key is whether you can let go of that attachment."
The economic persecution caused practitioners to be unable to meet their basic needs. It also made practitioners focus on how to make a living. These practitioners used to have jobs or sources of income, and then the imposed persecution happened. Teacher said we should deny the persecution fundamentally. Therefore, practitioners acknowledged the persecution when they accepted being fired or their salaries being stopped as a fact. The evil further took advantage of some practitioners' attachments and forced them to write a "guarantee statement" promising to give up the practice.
Teacher said,
"We human beings should have the right to sustain our lives. So our living environment has to meet the needs of human living... That illustrates a point: we can't stop taking baths because of insects, and we can't look for other places to live just because of mosquitoes, just as we can't tie up our necks and stop eating and drinking because grains and vegetables have life in them. That's not the idea. We should keep these things in perspective and cultivate openly and with dignity. It's fine as long as we don't harm living things on purpose. At the same time, human beings need to have their living space and living conditions, and these need to be maintained and protected. Human beings need to sustain their lives and live normally."(Zhuan Falun)
In my opinion, as practitioners cultivate and validate the Fa in the ordinary world, we need living conditions in this world. Losing our jobs is not just losing an environment for personal cultivation. The most important thing is that the sentient beings of that environment lose the opportunity of knowing the truth of Falun Dafa. Teacher arranged this way for us to practice and validate the Fa. And we should not be persecuted to the point that we cannot sustain our lives just because we practice Falun Gong.
I suggested that practitioners who have been fired or had their salaries stopped look inward to see if they acknowledged the persecution imposed on them. Maybe they had attachments of fear and dared not clarify the truth using this opportunity, or maybe they didn't clarify the truth at their work unit before, so their work unit was deceived by the evil and persecuted them.
I wanted to share my experience here. I am an unemployed student. After my mother, a practitioner, was illegally detained in jail, it was difficult for me to support myself. In the beginning, I didn't think about it and just appealed everywhere for justice for my mother. I clarified the truth in many places. The supervisors of my mother's work unit talked to me and promised to help me out of my difficulty and give me an allowance. But they didn't keep their promise.
Afterwards some people suggested that I should apply for the allowance myself. I thought that I should not just apply for the money. Instead I should take this opportunity to clarify the truth. So I wrote down the whole course of my mother's persecution on the application, and in the end I applied for the allowance from my mother's work unit. I handed in the application to the supervisor and clarified the truth to him. I didn't think about it any more after I got home. Soon after that, I was informed that I was entitled to an allowance of 300 yuan per month for basic living expenses. Some people said, "Falun Gong practitioners are blessed, other people who were in the same situation didn't get an allowance."
I knew that Teacher was protecting and caring for me. I even got more allowance during festivals. The money was not much but was enough to sustain my basic living needs. I was so grateful to Teacher.
The authorities lied to my mother. They told her that my allowance was stopped. When I found this out, I thought that Teacher arranged for the allowance and nobody could touch it. I told my mother that the allowance should be mine. After that, I still got the money every month.
My experience showed me that Teacher gives us everything, but we can only get it by walking the path Teacher has arranged for us.
Please correct me if there is anything inappropriate.
01-04-2006
