(Minghui.org) Sixteen years ago, I was in my early forties. I had practiced a variety of qigongs because I wanted to maintain good physical health and fitness. One day in April 1998, my brother called me from our hometown to say he had just found a very good qigong. I asked, “What kind of qigong?” He said, “Falun Gong.”
Somehow, as soon as I heard the name, I felt both a sense of novelty and a feeling of shock. I told my brother I was very interested, and urged him to find me a Falun Gong book.
I went back to my hometown several days later, and obtained all of Master’s published works, as well as the exercise tapes. I spent a week in my spare time reading through the book Zhuan Falun, and felt that it was not an ordinary book. I also wanted to learn and practice the exercises.
That was how I entered into Falun Dafa cultivation practice and became a Dafa practitioner. I consequently also turned into an honest and upright civil servant.
I was a mid-level technical cadre assigned to the prefecture-level city administrative unit. I have always been a conscientious worker, and received the "Great Merit" recognition from the local government, and was named an "Outstanding Intellectual."
Although I have never asked for any bribe, I had also never refused gifts, vouchers, etc. After I started practicing Dafa, I changed my ways in accordance with what’s required by Master Li. I no longer concern myself with fame, fortune, or sentimentality. I make sure that my behavior is always that of a good person. I no longer take gifts in any format from any unit or individual. I’ve also returned in kind the more valuable gifts I had accepted in the past.
An electric power unit once gifted me a microwave. I checked its price in the store. When a representative from that unit visited my office on business again, I handed him 1,000 yuan in ten 100 yuan bills.
I told him, “I practice Falun Gong now and no longer want to accept gifts. Your unit gave me a microwave. I priced it, and want to return the equivalent amount of money. If your unit respects me and my belief, please honor my wishes and take the money back.”
The representative took the money. He told me there are also people who practice Falun Gong in his unit. But, when we said good-bye and he got into his car to leave, he turned to me and said, “A hundred dollars will be enough.” He then took out a 100 yuan bill and dropped the rest of the bills through the car window on the ground in front of me and drove off.
I picked up the bills. I did what Master said in Zhuan Falun, and the example He gave of the Beijing practitioner, and donated to the responsible unit 600 yuan as contribution to the disaster fund toward building an elementary school after the flood of 1998.
The staff collecting monetary contributions for the flood disaster fund asked for my name. I didn’t want to give a name or take a receipt. The staff said, “You have to. We need to have everything recorded and accounted for.” So, I relented, “Just use the name Zhang then.”
The local newspaper later published a news article about the status of the disaster fund, which contained the sentence, “An anonymous lady with the last name Zhang donated 600 yuan to the fund.”
I donated the remaining 300 yuan to the Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, also anonymously, and never mentioned any of this to anyone.
I went to Beijing to petition after the persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999. The local 610 Office sent me and eight or nine practitioners to a brainwashing center where we were ordered to write something to slander Falun Gong. I wrote about how I had benefitted physically and mentally from doing the Falun Dafa exercises, and how Dafa improved my moral state. I referred to my anonymous donations to the disaster fund and to the city. I later learned that my workplace specifically went to my two donation targets to verify what I wrote.
In the course of my daily work, if I run into anyone offering a gift in any format, I try my best to politely refuse, saying, “I practice Falun Gong. I’ll gladly accept your kindness but have to absolutely reject your gift.”
The local court once requested that my office determine the value of some stolen cables. The value would directly impact the sentencing of the accused. The case was assigned to me and another colleague. We were responsible for determining the value of the stolen goods.
The defendant's lawyer sought me out and explained the situation. The suspect was a young man, a first-time offender, from a very poor family, with a sick mother at home.
The lawyer told me that a friend commissioned him to take the case. He himself also wanted to take the case. On the one hand, he wanted people to see he was a good lawyer so they would entrust him with more cases. On the other hand, he wanted his client to receive a more lenient sentence so that the sick parent would have less to worry about and more to look forward to.
The lawyer added sincerely that he had not received any benefit from his client, but he said, “I want to give you 200 yuan of my own money for you to have a nice meal when you have to travel.” So saying, he put the bills into my drawer.
I told the lawyer, “I believe what you said. I have sympathy for the family. Don’t worry, I will do my best as long as there’s no violation of the principles I work with and live by. But I will not accept the money. I’ll tell you why. You think about it. Can a person who truly believes in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance not be a good person?” The lawyer nodded in agreement.
On another occasion, a staff member from the credit union made an error and was unable to get an outstanding loan paid, resulting in a lawsuit, and some real property had to be mortgaged. Our office was assigned to determine the value of the property. The staff member was under a lot of pressure and bent on having us make our decision in favor of the credit union. So he came to pay a visit to our office with shopping cards to give to me and to our department chief.
I accepted the shopping card so as not to embarrass our department chief, who gladly accepted his. When the case was over, I sought out the credit union staff member to return the shopping card.
I explained to the staff member, “I accepted your card so our department chief wouldn’t be embarrassed that he accepted the card but I refused. Also, if we didn’t accept your cards, then you would be very anxious. Now that the case is over, I am returning your card. If you believe Falun Dafa is good, it surpasses anything you can give me.”
He answered, “Of course. Of course. I believe.” He happily took the card back.
There are many similar stories.
Every genuine Falun Gong cultivator looks at money indifferently. I am thinking, if every civil servant in the country practiced Falun Gong, would there be a need to promote anti-corruption campaigns? Having an inner law of the heart is the most powerful tool for self-restraint.
Before I practiced Falun Gong, I had received the largest number of honors and accolades in my work unit. One year, our unit was allocating apartments. We use points to decide who got which apartment on what floor. There was a rule for scoring points. The recipient of the provincial advance worker award got two extra points, the recipient of the prefecture level advance worker award got one extra point. The result was that I had the most points.
Interestingly, since becoming a Falun Gong practitioner, while my mental and physical health, my work ethics, as well as my moral standard have all improved, I have not received any more awards, but have instead been removed from my former position, got involuntarily transferred, had my wages withheld or deducted, and had other sanctions imposed on me arbitrarily.
Faced with these unfair treatments, I have no regret or complaints, because I know dark clouds will not always cover the sky. Besides, I don’t put much weight on these things at all. A genuine practitioner does not covet fame or profit.
In this life, I can be Master Li Hongzhi’s disciple, I can practice Dafa, I can have my body and soul purified, and I can return to my original, true self. These are good fortunes that usually take three lifetimes to attain, or ten lifetimes, or hundreds to an infinite number of lifetimes!
Being a Dafa practitioner is something no amount of money can buy!
Category: Improving Oneself
