(Minghui.org) Author’s note: This discussion focuses on phenomena in Mainland China, and may not reflect the situation in other countries.
Some practitioners are involved in, or own businesses to make a living. However, some of them have made money from other practitioners. This inadvertently complicated relationships between them, and caused the attachment to money to flare up in some practitioners.
Practitioners have differing opinions about this. They've discussed it and some are divided on this topic. This is a great interference to our cultivation and has compromised our efforts in doing the three things. These activities also caused damage to Dafa. These business activities have consumed time and resources that should be used to cultivate ourselves and save people.
All those who are involved should realize that they are responsible for this mistake, but those who took the lead in actively promoting sales bear a greater responsibility. The affected practitioners also have their share of responsibility. Remember, the main participants in this “market” are investors, promoters and customers.
If everyone had a clear understanding based on the Fa's principles, and pointed out to those involved that these activities might be inappropriate at the beginning, the damage could have been mostly avoided. These things shouldn't have happened, and there must be human motives behind what was done.
The practitioners involved don't believe they are causing any interference. They don't realize that they have violated Dafa's principles. In their minds, practitioners need to buy things anyway, and buying from fellow practitioners helps the sellers financially. What’s wrong with that? Since the human motive is so subtle, they can't see what they are doing wrong.
Dafa practitioner’s group activities should be dedicated to validating the Fa and saving people. Any additional activities introduced are interferences, and the ones doing this are trying to benefit by using Dafa's resources.
If you still don't understand this, if you are the customer, if you are still doing this or supporting these activities, it's time to wake up. If we hadn't created the environment for it, these things wouldn't have occurred.
I'm not criticizing any particular practitioners. Every practitioner has his own virtue which he's achieved through serious cultivation. But this involves important principles. If one doesn't stop, he may ruin his entire cultivation. Every one of us should think hard and find out where these wrong notions and ideas came from, and why did we get involved in this.
Master clearly told us the nature and consequence of intra-practitioner businesses in his recent lecture. We must examine our own behavior, and stop doing the wrong thing.
Let us reflect on Master’s teaching:
“Disciple: Some practitioners got to know many Dafa disciples around the world via Dafa projects, and then started their own businesses. Should that be considered interfering with Dafa disciples?
Master: Yes. If you use Dafa’s resources to make money for yourself, then what you are doing is no different than persecution. You will realize this in the future. This form of interference depletes Dafa disciples’ resources. Resources are limited, and they are meant to be used for Fa-rectification and saving people. In the future, there will turn out to be serious consequences for this.” (“Fa Teaching on World Falun Dafa Day”)
We should focus our energy on the three things, never mix our private life and work with Dafa activities. We must take every step well on our path. Hopefully we'll remind and watch each other, so we'll all complete the final leg of our cultivation journey well.
Please correct me if any of my personal understanding is not right.
Category: Improving Oneself
