(Minghui.org) At various community events outside of China, Falun Dafa practitioners often give out small lotus flowers bearing messages about Dafa as a small gift of kindness and blessing. They hope that the flowers can inspire people’s righteous thoughts, and help them to know more about Dafa.
In recent years, practitioners have designed many kinds of lotus flowers, and they are usually very popular. One can give out a large amount during one single event.
When some fellow practitioners pass out the flowers, they emphasize too much that it’s a “freebie” to attract passersby. Some people simply receive it because it’s free, but don’t care about the message written on it.
I’d like to remind fellow practitioners that spreading Dafa is a good and sacred thing. We should still pay attention to the way we distribute them and avoid some drawbacks. Even though Dafa is taught free of charge, it concerns one’s salvation and we need to handle it with due seriousness and dignity when we promote Dafa, without tempting people with profit. If people come for the sake of a freebie, then we may be harming them instead of helping them.
I even heard some people say things like “I will sign [your petition to end the persecution of Falun Dafa in China] if you give me a lotus flower.” Some just took the flowers and left without signing the petition. Some came back and asked for more flowers. If that’s the case, we may need to examine ourselves and see whether our giving out lotus flowers too casually caused people to behave this way.
We should not pursue superficial efficiency or overly rely on the free lotus flowers to get people to sign the petition. It’s not right to turn such sacred things into an exchange of interests. The main focus should still be solid truth-clarification.
Some fellow practitioners brought many lotus flowers to events and randomly piled them up on the table, making things look really cheap. When they shout out that they had freebies to give out, it is hard for people to take it seriously or value the message.
For people with higher social status, they may not like such a promotional method and be pushed away by it. That’s the situation we don’t want to see.
The little lotus flowers were made with fellow practitioners’ donations, for the purpose of saving people. They are priceless. If we do not cherish them ourselves, how do we expect ordinary people to do so?
Although most people are driven by profit and personal interests, many still have a pure and kind side. When we focus excessively on people’s obsession with profit, it may make incite their greed and desire to take advantage of Dafa.
Let us be responsible for Dafa and walk well on our cultivation path with righteous thoughts and deeds. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.
Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare in studying, compare in cultivating.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
Category: Improving Oneself
