(Clearwisdom.net)
I once owned a company with a large market reach and good revenue. In 1999, another company came to us looking for help to develop a market for their product. They expressed that they had been looking for a while without finding the appropriate people to assist them. Through referrals and market analysis, they came to know that I was a good person who practices Falun Gong, and had no bad habits, such as gambling, drinking or smoking. Because we also enjoyed good economic strength and rich marketing experience, the company was overjoyed with their discovery. They told me about the hardships they had experienced while their product was unsuccessful on the market for two years. Their enterprise had fallen into a semi-production state, and they were in serious financial trouble. The owners expressed to me their "sincerity" in cooperating with us.
To help them I closed several of my accounts that produced good revenue and became their general agent in our area. During business meetings, I introduced Falun Gong to them, and gave a copy of the book Zhuan Falun to the director of their office. I did my best. During that stage of developing the market, I worked about 17 hours per day. Their market in this region changed from annual sales of zero to annual sales of more than 60 million yuan. Their business transformed from a financial loss to extremely profitable. Simultaneously, beginning in 1999 through to March 2002, during the 3 years of cooperating with this new company, my company suffered a financial loss of more than 5 million yuan.
As I look back at my business relationship with this company, I realize I did not study Dafa well enough. I did not treat myself as a Falun Dafa practitioner, and only superficially understood the principles of Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance. My understanding was at an everyday person's level. Over that period of time, there were many differences and disputes between the two companies that always ended with my unconditional tolerance and deference. I misunderstood "compassion" as "tolerance without principles." I feel really ashamed now when thinking about it.
Teacher said,
"Zhen, Shan, Ren is the Fa! And it is the manifestation of the Great Fa of the cosmos at different levels. It is absolutely not some human theory or guiding principle for ordinary human living, as human beings take it to be." ("Beyond the Limits of Forbearance")
Since my mindset was at an everyday person's level, it allowed the evil the control people in the human world to brutally persecute me. Because I did not walk my cultivation path in a righteous way, those sentient beings that I should have saved were taken advantage of by the evil and committed sins against Dafa. The money earned by our company could have been better used to save all sentient beings.
Afterwards the other company did even worse and shameless things. When my wife and I were arrested and were suffering from persecution, they colluded with the local court. They claimed that we owed money to them that we didn't owe. They came multiple times to the jail to force me to admit the debt and sign the papers. They froze nearly 3 million yuan in accounts receivable that should have been collected from all our customers. Moreover, while I was in prison, they collected nearly 2 million from our customers, and took away all our deposits and cash, including the money for my son's education. The police stole an additional 200 thousand yuan. A personal account of 20,000 yuan plus interest was also completely looted. It has been difficult for me now to even make a living after being released from the forced labor camp.
Through studying Dafa, I realized that the experiences of the past few years were all because I was not diligent in cultivation. The most important realization was that I had not studied Dafa solidly and did not clearly understand the evil persecution, taking it as ordinary human persecution against human beings. I was also lax about a Falun Gong practitioner's responsibility to send forth righteous thoughts. All this led to my severe persecution. Teacher said:
"I have asked disciples to send forth righteous thoughts, because those so-called evil beings are in fact nothing. Yet because the old forces have taken advantage of Dafa disciples' mercy, the evil beings that are protected by the old forces have been deliberately persecuting, so what Dafa disciples are enduring is no longer just their own karma, but something they should not endure under the evil beings' persecution.
I thought of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners detained in prison as the persecution, and failed to eliminate the old forces' persecution in all of my thoughts and notions. I relaxed the requirements on myself while in a peaceful environment, thus a big loophole existed and was taken advantage of by the evil. I suffered from persecution as a result. At that time I had not enlightened to an important Dafa principle. The cultivation of Falun Dafa practitioners in the Fa rectification period is not to establish virtue by enduring the evil's persecution, but to establish one's mighty virtue in the process of denying the evil's persecution. Through calmly reviewing my cultivation path, and studying the Fa, I enlightened to this principle and my xinxing improved. Now I know that everything is arranged by the Fa rectification. I can now understand the Fa from the Fa.
This is just some of my experiences. Fellow practitioners, please point out anything inappropriate in this article.
