On the Issue of Collecting Funds

Over the past few years there have been people in mainland China collecting funds without permission. They have been collecting money from students with the excuse of helping New Tang Dynasty Television, The Epoch Times, and other media outlets run by students outside of China. This cannot be done. If a media company can’t operate normally on its own for a long period of time and relies on long-term support from students, that in itself is a serious problem. If more funds are then collected from students, that would be another mistake. I have spoken with the main media outlets about such problems multiple times, and they all clearly stated that they will not collect funds from students in China. If that’s the case, then who are these people that are collecting funds throughout China? What are they after? Back when the persecution first started, there were often agents of the CCP and bad people with ill intentions collecting funds from students using all kinds of excuses. It severely impacted some students’ daily lives and caused them to suffer severe persecution, by being implicated in [collecting funds]. In my previous Fa teachings I have addressed the matter of not collecting money from students. So why have you not complied? (It’s a different matter when students collaborate on their own for the purposes of making truth-clarifying materials.) Even students who are very successful in business and have the financial means must first get permission directly from me. Also, whenever students do something that they shouldn’t, the evil will exploit those gaps and have those students who were involved get arrested and persecuted. You need to learn from this! Looking at it from another angle, I want the media outlets to have a firm footing in society and become normally-operated companies. And only by operating with a positive cycle can they be more helpful in clarifying the truth. Otherwise, won’t such financial support lead them to have a longstanding mentality of relying on students, and thus not do well running the business? If things continue on like this, won’t that reliance drain those students’ resources? And mighty virtue will not be gained from it. I hope people won't encourage the mentality of relying on students, which some media outlets have. This concerns all of you: If you handle this well, it’s a good thing; if you handle it poorly, it’s a bad thing. I hope that you will learn your lesson from this, not continue to carelessly collect funds and to give financial support, and walk your paths of cultivation well!

Li Hongzhi
January 9, 2012