Ending the Habit of Taking Things Without Paying for Them

(Minghui.org) When I started to practice Falun Dafa, I realized I had many habits and ways of thinking that had become natural.

One was accepting gifts, or things that I didn’t pay for. Although I wasn’t really attached to getting things for free, I was delighted when I was given them, and I didn’t think the issue was that important.

In the book Zhuan Falun, Master mentions a practitioner who gave his son one yuan to play a lottery and the child won a deluxe bike.

“One practitioner in Beijing took his child to Qianmen for a walk after dinner and saw a commercial vehicle promoting lottery tickets. The child became interested and asked to play the lottery. He gave the child one yuan to play, and the child ended up with the second prize, a luxury junior bike. The child was overjoyed. At once an idea flashed into the father’s mind, “I’m a practitioner. How can I go for such a thing? How much de must I give away if I get something that isn’t paid for?” He said to the child, “Let’s not take it. We can buy one ourselves if you want it.” The child became upset—“I’ve asked you to buy one, and you didn’t do it. Now, you won’t let me keep it when I get one on my own.” The child cried and screamed terribly. This man could not do anything about it but take the bike home. At home, the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. He thought about sending the money to those people. Then he figured, “The lottery tickets are gone, so won’t they divide the money among themselves if I send it to them? I should donate the money to my workplace.”” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)

One sentence kept resonating in my mind “How much de (virtue) must I give away if I get something that isn’t paid for?” I understood that accepting material things caused you to lose de, and the loss didn’t equal what you were given. Although the benefit from receiving the material thing was convenient it would have harmed me. Besides, I’m a practitioner and I should follow Falun Dafa’s principles.

Now that I understood this, I only had to put it into practice in my daily life and end my notions and behaviors which were not acceptable. This took a lot of effort since circumstances happen suddenly so it’s easy to make mistakes if I’m not careful.

My Attitude Changes

I started by declining the money my mother usually gave me. I just told her I couldn’t accept her money anymore, since I was following a spiritual practice. But she kept saying “Come on. It’s just a gift from your mother. What’s wrong with taking it?”

It was true that it was a gift, but I couldn’t take it. I thought about a compromise: I would take the money and use it to buy food or something she needed and give it to her. I used the money she gave me to purchase things for her, and carefully avoided using it to pay for my stuff, even if it was just a few cents. It was difficult but I knew it was the right thing to do.

Then, I began paying the full price without asking for reductions at the counter. The free gifts at the supermarkets that I once happily accepted now turned out to be a problem.

For example, at Christmas I was given a bottle of wine. It happened so fast and seemed so natural that I felt it would be rude if I refused. So I took it, and thought I would give it to someone as a gift. And so I did. Of course the best thing would have been to refuse it and risk sounding “rude.” I decided to refuse all free gifts in the future.

I no longer accept any kind of goods for free including discount coupons. If I’m forced to take them, I give them to someone else or I don’t use them.

I feel the right thing to do is to pay for everything. This is not always easy and sometimes I have to explain why I won’t take the gift.

Sometimes the items stores give away are useful and I need it, for example: Calendars. Strangely, I couldn’t find one in the stationary shops, they were only given as gifts during Christmas and the New Year in shops and supermarkets.

The first year I took the one I was offered by the supermarket. I later felt uneasy and told myself it was not acceptable. The following year I asked if they sold calendars in a stationary shop, but they told me they only gave them to customers. I insisted on paying, but they refused. So I bought something and I took it.

But I still felt uneasy. So I decided the next time I absolutely had to pay for it. I said I would give them one or two euros to use for a coffee or charity, or put it in the tip box. I explained I couldn’t take things without paying for them. They accepted this and I took the calendar. I gave them flyers about Falun Dafa and told them I practiced it.

I sometimes explained about exchanging virtue for loss and most people understood it and said it was reasonable.

The issue was a little complicated to handle, because if you don’t go along with what’s acceptable in mainstream society things become tough.

The next year I bought a printer and simply printed the calendar, so as to not to get tangled up in these difficulties.

I also stopped taking promotional flyers from the letter boxes of buildings that I found laying in the street. At first I thought they were free and people threw them away, so I was doing a good thing. I suddenly realized this behavior was wrong and I stopped.

The Train Ticket

My sister and I went to a village by train. I had to buy a return ticket, but there was no ticket office, or ticket machine. The local shops did not sell train tickets. My sister bought hers on her cellphone but I wasn’t able to. I told myself I would purchase one onboard. After we boarded the train I didn’t find any personnel. It was just a fifteen minute journey.

I was not at ease and kept thinking about what I should do, since I had to pay for the ticket.

In the past I would have blamed the railway company. After all they didn’t give me an opportunity to purchase a ticket. I would’ve stopped thinking about it as soon as the journey ended. But now it was different.

I kept thinking about why it was “impossible” to purchase a ticket. There were so many obstacles. It seemed strange that there was no ticket machine at the station. I also thought that perhaps in the past I purchased a lot of tickets that I hadn’t used and I couldn’t get a refund for, this was a way to pay me back.

I was not at ease with this free journey and moreover as a practitioner I could not simply let it go and forget about it, even if it was a matter of one euro and few cents.

As I kept thinking about it I realized that it could also be a test—the easiest and most convenient thing to do was to forget about it. An ordinary person would have done this. But it was wrong. I could not handle the matter the way I did in the past.

I also identified an attachment to laziness: I wasn’t willing to make more effort than necessary. I thought of a solution: I would buy the ticket at the other station.

Then I thought the people at the ticket office might find it weird because I had to purchase the ticket to go back to my own village, plus the ticket for the past journey; two tickets for the same day sounded strange and explaining that one ticket was for the previous journey—wouldn’t that sound strange too?

I realized I had an attachment to saving face. I didn’t want to look “strange” and explain why I was doing it.

In the episode of the bike Master talks about in Zhuan Falun, the practitioner donates the cost of the bicycle to his work unit. “Fortunately, there were quite a few students of Falun Dafa in his workplace, and his supervisor could understand him.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)

When you fail to behave accordingly to mainstream maybe the girl at the ticket office would laugh at my “ridiculous honesty.” I could still see my attachment to comfort and not wanting to offer an explanation.

And I was right. The girl did indeed ask in surprise, “Isn’t this the second ticket you’ve bought today?” I said yes and didn’t offer an explanation.

Afterwards I felt at ease and said to myself that it was a good solution: I paid for the fare and in the process I overcame many difficulties and found my attachments.

The whole process was indeed tiring, but I found some stubborn mentalities. “Since you got away with it, if you don’t pay, it’s not a big deal.” In fact it is indeed. I did something that I was considered overly honest by most people.

When I later read Zhuan Falun I noticed a tiny part of one page was golden. I felt Master was telling me I did the right thing.

When it happened again I bought the ticket after the journey.

I felt this experience was extremely important because finding a solution was stressful, tiring and engaging. But I overcame it all and I also overcame the feeling of doing something overly honest or weird, and of measuring myself with people's judgment.

I feel that more than one notion was eliminated through this test. I no longer feel it’s too hard to go against conduct that’s acceptable in society. I don’t think I’m overly honest. I am more at ease when I bump into complicated situations and try to handle them following the Fa, no matter the effort required.

This experience is based on my level of understanding.