On Money

[PureInsight.org] I just learnt a serious lesson. After thinking over, I decided to share it with everyone.

My business has been running very well for years and I have saved up to 100,000 Yuan over the years. I had planned to use my savings to help Dafa projects. I asked a few fellow practitioners and they all told me that their Dafa projects didn’t need any extra money for support. I felt a little bit pressured and I said to myself, “Well, maybe, I only know so few fellow practitioners that I can’t find which Dafa projects might need support.” I then decided to temporarily give the money to a fellow practitioner named Mei as she was able to reach out to more practitioners. After a while, I asked Mei, “Hey, has the money been used to support any Dafa project?” Mei said, “Not yet, we don’t need any extra money right now.”

Later, Mei and another fellow practitioner decided to open a shop together. Mei needed some money urgently. Even though Mei didn’t ask me for help, I understood her difficulties as it was very tough to borrow money from ordinary people. I was the only person that could help her. I then said to Mei, “Well, you can use the money that I gave to you earlier.” Mei was very sensitive and asked, “Hey, didn’t you tell me before that the money was used to support Dafa projects?” I replied, “Look, it’s been so long, the money is still not used by any project, now you really need some money to help your shop, you can just go ahead and use it for now.” Mei said, “We have to make it clear, what is the purpose of your money?” I didn’t want Mei to refuse my help so I said right away, “The money is mine, I will make the call as to whom I’d like to give the money. When I gave that money to you earlier, I had two purposes in my mind: one is to be used by fellow Dafa practitioners, second is to be used to support Dafa projects. Now, the money is not used at all, you can just use it first, what’s wrong with it?” Actually, I just made it up that the money could also be used by fellow practitioners, I was afraid if I didn’t say it, Mei won’t accept my money. Mei hesitated and eventually, she accepted my request.

Soon after using the money for her shop, many troubles followed up. Mei’s business was extremely slow and difficult. Officials from the city commerce department, city tax department as well as local security stations came to harass her. The other fellow practitioner that partnered with Mei then ran into many tribulations, and conflicts on how to run the business popped up. At first, Mei was just relying on her partner to run the business, now she had become the major decision maker. She worked very hard day and night, and she didn’t even have time to study the Fa and practice the exercises. Mei’s shop was located right in the middle of a busy street, and her business should have been running fine. However, for no reason at all, not many customers showed up. Some days, Mei even couldn’t make anything to cover her cost. Right then, the property owner raised the rental fee from 100,000 Yuan to 150,000 Yuan, although it was eventually negotiated to a compromised price. Mei’s business, on the other hand, continued to run slow.

Everyone then started to look inwards to try to figure out what was going on. How could Mei’s business become so miserable? I once said to myself, “Could it be the money that I asked Mei to use for her shop?” but I immediately put aside such a thought because I still maintained that the money was mine, I could make the call as how to dispatch it, no other person should have the right to interfere with my own decision, so the money shouldn’t be the problem. I visited Mei’s shop several times. Every time I saw Mei, I found she was very worried about her shop. Her business was poor and she was afraid she couldn’t pay her debts. Mei sometimes even cried when she saw me. I told Mei: “If your business is not doing well, you don’t have to pay me back the money. We are fellow practitioners; we’ve been working together for so long; we are a single integrated unit and so don’t worry about my money so much.” After hearing my words, Mei became very resolute, “No, that’s not right, even if I sell this store, I will still pay you back, Dafa practitioners don’t owe debts to others.” Soon afterwards, Mei indeed sold her shop. When Mei gave back the money to me, it was almost like I just ran into a returning solider from a defeated battle field, Mei was very tired, she didn’t make any money from her business, the only relief on Mei’s face was that she finally paid back my money.

With such a conclusion on Mei’s business, I felt downbeat deep in my heart all the time, but I was not able to figure out what went wrong even though I decided it must have something to do with me as well. A few days later, I happened to read an article by a fellow practitioner on losing money in his business and I was shocked. The article talked about certain money that was initially meant for Dafa projects, and it mentioned that once the money was decided to be used for Dafa, no one should touch it because the money had essentially lost its ownership to anyone. If someone decided to use the money for personal purposes, the old forces would create interferences, as a result, one’s business would run bad, one would start to lose money, and one was thus committing a huge sin.

After I read over that article, I began to realize what had happened to Mei’s shop. Mei’s business failure was actually due to my money. I had already decided to give the money to Dafa projects, even though the money was not in use for a long period of time, it was still intended for any later possible project funding. It was almost like those stored emergency foods to be dispatched to possible disaster-stricken areas, even though no disaster emerged, such foods shouldn’t be touched by anyone.

Once the decision is made to use the money for Dafa projects, how can one easily change it? If someone changes it, the old forces will start to persecute and one’s business will start losing money.

From this incident, I realized that we must take a serious stand on Dafa resources. Even though I owned the money, once I decided the money to be used for Dafa projects, the money didn’t belong to me anymore and it shouldn’t be used for any other purposes.

This is just my understanding, don’t hesitate to correct me.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/139382