Vol.10, No.4 (Winter 2000)
I was nodding my head while reading Mr. Kenneth Cohen's article on Qi (vol. 10, No. 2, 2000). I thought he had sufficient knowledge of Qigong and Eastern culture until I saw his personal opinion of Falun Gong. After I finished the article, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Cohen does not have a sufficient understanding of Falun Gong, not even superficially. I believe he took truncated sentences from a Falun Dafa web site and misinterpreted them at his own will. All his doubts are very reasonable. If I had not read all of Mr. Li Hongzhi's works many, many times... if I did not practice Falun Gong myself and had learned from self experience... if I were ignorant about all the facts discovered in the scientific world, I would definitely agree with him.
This is a most fearsome thing. Because I could have been misled to believe that Falun Gong was a mish-mash of bizarre beliefs that was created by a psycho and therefore miss the most precious thing I could ever encounter in my life. Yet, I could not blame Mr. Cohen, since perhaps he did not read the principle book of Falun Gong -- Zhuan Falun. This would explain why he could have such a deep misunderstanding. Did Mr. Cohen surf through a Falun Gong web site and read some pieces of Mr. Li's articles that were intended for Falun Gong practitioners? It is very easy for people to misinterpret these articles if they never read Zhuan Falun.
I would like to answer Mr. Cohen's questions with my personal experience. Hopefully this will help other readers have a fair understanding about Falun Gong.
Falun Gong is the best thing that ever happened in my life
My earliest memory about Qigong was when I was 4-5 years old. My grandfather used to take me to a park near our home in Beijing every morning. He would be doing slow graceful movements while I was playing around. I really liked to watch him. He told me it was called Tai chi. As I grew up, I was incessantly interested in learning different kinds of Qigong and always wanted to learn more about the mysterious human body. I knew that there must be a reason to why Qigong can cure diseases and there must be more things that a human body can do at its potential. As a consequence I studied biology and medicine. I explored different religions. Yet, I was disappointed and felt that I might never be able to find the answers to these questions during my lifetime.
One afternoon in December 1996, I received a book called Zhuan Falun that had been mailed to me by a friend. I had time to read it through continuously, finishing it that same day. It was a very good start for me as I later learnt most people could not stick with Falun Gong because of not being able to thoroughly finish reading Zhuan Falun to the end. Immediately, I knew I had encountered what I was searching for. Although at that time, my understanding of Falun Gong was still immensely shallow, I found the book had already answered many of my questions regarding diseases, mysteries of the human body, Qigong, religions, society, the origin of humans, and much more. This is why I wanted to learn Falun Gong.
Although I have been receiving the conventional science education for many years, I was still very open-minded to different things. I knew there must be more reasons than we could think of for something to exist. Millions of people have gone through the similar thinking process and have made their educated choice to practice Falun Gong. Even though I had doubts about many things in the book, just as Mr. Cohen had doubts about the articles, I made a fortunate decision to try it. During my years of Falun Gong practice, I have met and talked to hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners. For example, an elderly lady had gained her menses back after practicing Falun Gong (a sign of back-to-youth), a middle-aged lady who was hemodialysis dependant had regained her kidney function and returned to work, a young girl who had aseptic necrosis of femoral heads and was bed-ridden before practicing Falun Gong is now giving Falun Gong lessons... Stories are countless. Each practitioner can tell me a story about how Falun Gong changed his or her life in a very short period of time. I have also experienced changes: my skin became very smooth -- this effect can't be achieved on me through drugs or skin care products. I also became very energetic; my inter-personal relationships with relatives and friends became much better. Falun Gong carried me through the tough residency training. During most of those months, I was on-call every fourth day when I had to work more than 30 hours continuously in the hospital. After a sleepless night, I would come to group practice -- Falun Gong made me feel fresh again. When my work irritated me, Falun Gong's teaching reminded me about Ren (tolerance), so I could keep compassion for people around me. When my colleges asked for favors, I would try to follow the teachings about gain and loss; as a result I did not expect anything in return. All the things supposed to happen to a practitioner according to the book Zhuan Falun are happening either in me or to someone I know.
A bizarre philosophy or a true science?
During my 5-years of research experience at Yale, I learned that if important facts do not perfectly fit the mainstream, conventional science has a tendency to exclude them. We do not hear about these facts in school. For example, an NBC series called The Mysterious Origins of Man (1) has already overturned Darwin's theory of evolution with numerous excavated archaeological evidences. There have been case reports about reincarnation (2). Brian Weiss M.D. vividly described a genuine reincarnation experience of his patient who had changed his concept about life (3). His patient conveyed the messages from higher-level beings to him while she was in the between-life stages. He wrote that: "there are many dimensions", "each" plane "is a level of higher consciousness", "people are not all created equal", "we all must learn certain attitudes while we're in the physical state", "the reward is in doing...doing unselfishly", etc. All these raised questions -- Who am I? Where did I come from?
Last year, a paper published in Science revealed that the pineal concealed in the skull could respond to light (4). The pineal gland has been found to have the same photoreceptors as the eye (5,6) as well as a complete system for optical signal transudation (7,8). Could this explain the fact that some Qigong practitioners can see things that ordinary people can't? Experiments showed that plants can think and might even possess a more advanced thinking process than humans. (9). Various different ideas constantly appear in our minds, where exactly are they coming from?
Why does medicine sometimes work and other times not? Why can Qigong heal diseases? What is the true source of diseases? Chinese traditional medicine holds that "a clean heart and few desires" is the key to health. Why is that and how could anyone achieve that state? What did the words of the founders of all different religions really mean?
Falun Gong answered all these questions and much more. Pieces of puzzles were put together in front of me and became a map -- a multidimensional map of the universe. To me, Falun Gong is an extraordinary science that enables me to explore the truth of the universe. Doubts and disbelief often pop to my mind while I am reading Zhuan Falun. Sometimes I thought there were contradictions in the book. When I read it again, however, I often found that it was my conventional mentality preventing me from understanding the true meaning of the words. When I follow the law, my mind nature changes followed by body changes. I have read it over and over again and each time I found that my previous understanding was shallow and wrong. I think Falun Gong is the most amazing science.
What is Falun Gong
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, differentiates itself from most other Qigong practices because it goes beyond the pursuit of health and fitness to the goal of greater wisdom and enlightenment. The practice of Falun Dafa has two components: self-improvement through the study of the principles of the universe: Zhen (Truthfulness), Shan (Compassion), Ren (Tolerance), through Mr. Li's teachings (as articulated in two books, Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun) and doing Falun Gong's five gentle exercises. Beginners should start with Falun Gong.
Falun Gong's exercises are simple, graceful, and easy to learn. It is suitable for all ages. Yet it is very powerful. For example, three out of four Falun standing stances are in a high position (that is, the center of palms is higher than the shoulders) whereas none of the other Qigong Schools begin with a high position. This is because practicing like this can raise blood pressure and is therefore dangerous to high blood pressure patients. However, many people's hypertension was cured after practicing Falun Gong and they are off medicine now. Falun Gong's sitting meditation requires the full-lotus position (with two legs crossed and overlapping each other) whereas other schools only practice a sitting meditation after reaching a high level. The starting point of Falun Gong is at a very high level. Falun Gong's disease-healing effects are undeniable; yet, these are just Falun Gong's side effects. "The exercises are auxiliary means of achieving perfection in cultivation." (10) One who just practices the exercises is not a genuine Falun Gong practitioner.
Mr. Li revealed that Falun Gong's goal is to genuinely bring people to higher levels. He pointed out that Qigong is a prehistoric culture made for cultivation practice -- the way to achieve enlightenment. There are two reasons why many people have practiced Qigong for many years but fail to increase their Gong (cultivation energy). The two reasons are that without knowing the law (Fa or Tao) at higher levels one will not be able to practice cultivation and without cultivating one's inner self and one's Xinxing, one will not increase cultivation energy. He explains: "What is Xinxing? It includes De (virtues; a form of matter), tolerance, enlightenment quality, loss, the abandonment of ordinary people's various desires and attachments, as well as being able to suffer hardships, etc. It includes things from many aspects. Every aspect of Xinxing must be upgraded so that you can make genuine advancement." (11)
Zhuan Falun systemically elicits the law at higher levels. It explains the original meaning of words that had been passed on for generations among the community of cultivators, revealing many secrets that were not allowed to be publicized before and unveiling the root of all various cultivation practices (including in different religions) throughout history. Examples are: the third eye, heavenly circuit, and demonic interference. With simple language, the principles for how to be a good person to how to make advancement in cultivation are laid out in the book and can guide a practitioner every step of the way.
Lao Tzu said: "Tao is the way that can be followed, but it is not an ordinary way." (tao ke tao, fei chang tao) Falun Gong is for cultivation practice. Just doing the exercises can't do it. It has to be done by following the law and improving one's Xinxing. Is Falun Gong capable of achieving its goal?
Answering Mr. Cohen
I would like to answer this question by responding to Mr. Cohen's comment on "errors" in Falun Gong.
Falun is a unique feature of Falun Gong. It is formed in the Dantian (below the umbilicus) area, but it is not Dan. It consists of high-energy matter and is a miniature of the universe. Like the earth rotating automatically on its own and around the sun, like the galaxies rotating, Falun is constantly rotating. It is this kind of a rotating mechanism. The movements of Falun Gong are just for enhancing this mechanism. The function of Falun is to evolve Gong (high-energy matter), to purify the body, and rectify any abnormal state (like illness) for the practitioner. However, this does not mean that Falun Gong is an effortless practice. You can think of Falun as a factory that can produce Gong. It needs raw material and rules to operate. This material is called De (virtue, a matter) and the rule is the Xinxing standard. Falun Gong is a cultivation practice. "No cultivation way is easy." (11) Falun Gong has high Xinxing requirements.
Recently, I stayed in a hotel for two days for my medical board exam. I meditated and had 6.5 hours of sleep every day while my physician roommate took 4 sleeping pills and still had insomnia for two days. The reason for people to get irritated in a traffic jam or tax day is because they have attachments -- the attachments for personal benefits. Yeah, right, you would say, "who can be clean of ordinary human desires?" A genuine Falun Gong practitioner can. All Falun Gong activities are always free of charge. Falun Gong practitioners devote their own time and money to hold these activities. All books can be downloaded free from the Internet. I think Falun Gong is the easiest yet the hardest Qigong to practice.
Where did humans come from? All the existing scientific evidence suggests the theory of evolution to be wrong, because there were prehistoric civilizations, and humans can reincarnate. Many religions also provided some answers. Buddhism regards human life as an endless bitter sea (ku hai wu bian), and asks man to turn around for the land (hui tou shi an). Jesus said: "man has sins." Lao Tzu said: "The origin of the human has benevolent nature (ren zhi chu, xing ben shan)." We believe that the human body contains a soul (main consciousness, or Yuanshen) that originally came from a different higher dimension. The human body can die, but its soul will not. Our souls came to the earth because they had deviated from the characteristic of the universe (Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance). The plane of earth was created by high-level beings. It is a unique dimension because lives here can't see other dimensions, and can't see the truth of the universe. Man has to suffer pain from illness, tribulations, and even from love. Through suffering, man pays back sin. The purpose of a human being is not to live an ordinary person's life, but for the soul to awaken to the truth man needs to cultivate in order to go back to the original self. When a soul fails to realize this, as a result, it may continue to conduct wrong deeds. Then it will go through endless reincarnations, accumulate karma, and eventually be destroyed.
The difference between man and animal is that man has moral standards. Nowadays, this standard has slipped to the bottom. If you take a good look around you won't disagree that man is already too far away from truth, compassion, and tolerance. Some people do not even believe it if you tell them they are doing a wrong thing. What do you think is the reason behind the disappearances of many previous prehistoric civilizations? The earth was made for humans and when man gets bad so does the earth. Beautiful, original, and natural scenes are disappearing. Humans are in danger and so is the earth! However, like other religions, neither Mr. Li, nor Falun Gong has anything against the earth itself. Mr. Li never denied the earth's beauty. In fact, he has traveled extensively around the world and has written many poems to praise the scenes he saw (12).
Speaking about the issue of the birth date, I feel sorry for Mr. Cohen since he became the victim of the vicious media campaign brought about by the Chinese government. I can tell you many examples of people that I know that have had their birthdays (or other things) miswritten. This is quite common in China. I was born in Beijing, but my passport says I was born in another province. I just never bothered to go through all the trouble to change it back. I have attended his lectures and heard many stories about him from people who know him. I think Mr. Li is the most wise, kind, and respectful person I have ever know. Do I have proof that everything the Chinese government said about Mr. Li was false? No, but based on common sense I do not believe any of it.
Was Mr. Li implying that he was a Buddha by saying that he had come to this world to teach the law? If you think yes then you are using the premise that "anyone who is able to come to the world to teach the law is a Buddha". This is a wrong premise because I think one does not have to be a Buddha to teach the law. It is the law that we listen and follow. In fact, Mr. Li repeatedly said: "I am not Buddha Sakyamuni." (13), "I am not the Maitreya that Sakyamuni referred to", "you should take me as a human being. I am just a human being."(14) He asked the practitioners not to worship him, but to pay attention to the law -- "regard the law as your teacher"(15).
There is evidence that Aliens do exist. The CIA had conducted investigations of these cases, however, they were not released to the public. Some people had talked about their encounter with Aliens, but no one believed in them, although lots of information is available. Alien is a modern word, which cannot be found in religions. However, all religions talk about evils and demons. Where do you think these things exist? How do they manipulate humans? Again, like the other issues, we have no proof whether it is right or wrong. But I think one has to be ignorant to take it as totally ironic.
Speaking of Zen, I am glad that Mr. Cohen still remembered Bodhidharma's dying words. Then why do people who practice Zen still think that they can achieve enlightenment through this practice when their teacher already told them that he was unable to help them? Zen was based on the Buddha's words: "There is no Dharma that is definitive". However, similar to human societal rules, there is a different law (Fa in Buddhism and Tao in Taoism) in different levels of the universe. How can one understand the realm of Buddha with an ordinary human mentality? During the practice, we Falun Gong practitioners constantly find ourselves discovering new meanings in Mr. Li's teachings. After we advance ourselves to a higher level, we always find that our previous understandings were wrong and there is always a law at that level to guide us. Zen thinks there is no law that can be taught and one must become enlightened on his own. I wonder how they could do it (has anyone in Zen achieved enlightenment?).
What is the emptiness that Buddha referred to? "Free from the attachments is the true state of emptiness". "Non-omission is the true meaning of Emptiness. The universe is originally stored with, formed from, and inhabited by matter, how can it be empty."(16) How can an ordinary person attain the state of emptiness? "In the ordinary human society and in conflicts between one and another, you compete and fight for personal interest, all kinds of human sentimentality, desires, and attachments. If you do not give up these things and care less about them, how can you attain the state of tranquility easily?" (11) Whenever I encounter conflicts in my life, no matter whether it appeared to be my fault or not, if I follow Mr. Li's teaching to search within myself, I can always find my attachments. Only after I discard them, could I be able to reach tranquility during the sitting meditation. In China, Falun Gong practitioners were asked to sign statements to quit the practice. Even though they could sign it and still practice at home, they refused on behalf of the principle of Truthfulness. They lost their jobs, savings, and even lives (so far, more than 80 people died and hundreds of thousands were sent to prison). They are facing these losses calmly because they already attained the orthodox law and have achieved the state of ultimate emptiness.
What has Falun Gong made me understand about Medicine? I remember before the time that the microscope was invented someone proposed that microbes transmitted diseases. The scientific society thought this was mad. After we have seen the virus and bacteria, now we all agree that they cause infectious diseases. Then some people proposed that microbes caused peptic ulcers and cancer too. No one believed this until the causative agents were discovered. Now many more diseases are found to be caused by microbes. Despite these, our means to treat them are still limited microbes are changing with more variety, resistance, and new species. Western Medicine relies on detecting these microbes in order to treat diseases. However the medicine often has side effects. Although more cases can be detected using modern technology, new drugs were constantly developed; only a few of the diseases' mortalities can be reduced. Falun Gong made me realize that true causes of diseases exist in a more microscopic level (another dimension), Bacteria and viruses are just a manifestation of these matters. Traditional Chinese Medicine is different than Western Medicine in that the former is directly related to this microscopic disease source in another dimension. Chinese herbal medicines, acupuncture, and energy healing can affect this source by pushing it into a deeper microscopic level but can't eliminate it. Falun Gong can directly eliminate this disease source. However, after the source is removed, there still lies some black Qi (air) that was produced by the source and continues to come out. When the Qi travels to our physical body in this dimension, we will feel like we are experiencing the symptoms again. This is different then getting the disease. As long as one understands this mechanism and regards oneself as a practitioner, the symptom(s) will soon pass and the practitioner's body will be purified. This time the disease has been truly treated and eliminated. If a practitioner takes medicine or uses other means to treat the symptom as a disease, the black Qi will be pushed back into a deeper dimension again and his body can't be purified. This makes it impossible for such an impure body to develop Gong (the high-energy matter) and advance in cultivation.
It has been witnessed that at the time of nirvana, bodies of Lamas in Tibet are transformed into beams of light. There are also sarira (relics of a monk after cremation) collections in some temples. Why do cultivators experience such phenomenon but not ordinary people? Cultivation can extend human lives, but those people who have achieved this are not allowed to stay in ordinary human society. If all supernatural phenomenon were made public, human society would not be lost in a maze any more and ordinary people would all see the truth of the universe, making the earth a God's world. A person, who had gone to the mountains, told me about how he saw a cultivator who was 2-3 thousand years old. I believe that the Buddha had died for the same reason. He left this physical body and his soul had gone back.
Mr. Cohen criticized a survey done in Beijing, which I think is unfair. A survey is not a control study. It is a report of a possible trend by subjective findings and should not be treated by the standard of scientific study. As long as a conductor is using a valid method, it does not matter who the conductor is. As a matter of fact, the survey was conducted under the supervision of an official agency the Physical Education Bureau. It found Falun Gong's disease effective rate to be 97%. The reason for the quoted conclusion was because the results showed the disease effective rate to be in direct proportion to the length of practice and time devoted for law study. This makes sense, because our cultivation way emphasizes on the cultivation of Xinxing. The more time for study, the more one will understand the law and follow it to improve Xinxing. Did this suggest a placebo effect? If you can call a postmenopausal woman who regained her period a placebo effect, if you can call an end-stage cancer patient whose metastatic liver tumor disappeared on a follow-up MRI after several months of Falun Gong practice without other treatments a placebo effect, if you can call a lady with a history of paralysis for 14 years who started to walk after practicing Falun Gong a placebo effect, then I will agree with you.
I have explained what Xinxing is. Mr. Li pointed out: "matter and mind are of one thing" (11). During Falun Gong practice, after I have discarded some bad attachments and upgraded my Xinxing, I can feel my mind become pure and my body become lighter. Those practitioners who have diseases will become disease free. Just like Mr. Li explained: "If a bottle filled with dirty things is sealed tightly and put into the water, it will sink to the bottom. You pour out some of its dirty things. The more you empty the bottle, the higher it will float in water. If it is completely emptied, it will float completely on the surface."(11) Zhuan Falun systemically elicits the relationship between taking and not taking medicine in the course of cultivation practice. Mr. Li never asked practitioners not to take medicine. In fact, he has said: "If you think you have diseases, you should immediately go to the hospital."(14)
Falun Gong is conscious cultivation practice
Thousands of millions of Falun Gong practitioners have found the meaning of life. In China, most of the senior practitioners had experienced the Cultural Revolution as well as various political struggles. It will be very hard for them to be fooled. Practitioners are from different professions; many of them are doctors, scientists, and lawyers. Some of them had different religions before they started to practice. At the time I decided to practice Falun Gong, I was living a comfortable life in the United States. I was going through a strenuous residency and had little time. I do not believe in superstition. The reason we chose Falun Gong was not because we were despaired to find a spiritual believe to fill our mind, but because Falun Gong is a true science. Can 100 million Falun Gong practitioners be wrong? Possibly. Then again, they may have discovered "the land" that ordinary people can never be able to imagine. We hope that every one can practice Falun Gong and benefit from Falun Gong both physically and mentally like us.
Finally, all of my opinions outlined in the article are just my shallow understandings of Falun Gong at my current level. By no means could it represent the profound teachings of Mr. Li. In order to truly understand Falun Gong, one must read Mr. Li's teaching from cover to cover and practice it in daily life.
Lao Tzu said, "When a wise man hears the Tao, he will practice it diligently. When an average man hears it, he will practice it on and off. When a foolish man hears it, he will laugh at it loudly. If he does not laugh loudly, it is not the Tao."
Reference:
- http://www.bcvideo.com/
- Stevenson, Ian, and Samararatne, Godwin; "Three New Cases of the Reincarnation Type in Sri Lanka with Written Records Made before Verification." Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 176:741, 1988.)
- Many Lives, Many Masters (published by Simon & Schuster)
- Lucas, R.J., et. al., Science, 284:505,1999
- Faure, J.P., and M. Mirshahi, Current Eye Research, 9(Suppl): 163-7,1990
- Yokoyama, S., Genes Cells, 1(9):787, 1996
- Lolley, R.N., C.M. Craft, and R.H. Lee, Neurochem Res, 17(1): 81, 1992
- Max, M. et. al., J. Biol Chem., 273(41):26820, 1998
- Backster, Cleve: "Evidence of a Primary Perception in Plant Life", International Journal of Parapsychology, vol. 10, no. 4, Winter 1968, P. 329-348
- Great Perfection Way of Falun Buddha Law* by Li Hongzhi
- Zhuan Falun* by Li Hongzhi
- Hong Yin* by Li Hongzhi (a collection of poems in Chinese only)
- Falun Dafa Law Explication* by Li Hongzhi (in Chinese only)
- Mr. Li's lectures overseas (not in book)
- Falun Dafa Explication * by Li Hongzhi
- Falun Buddha Law (Essentials for Further Advances)* by Li Hongzhi
*All of Master Li's works are available in www.falundafa.org
Beginners should start with Falun Gong
Check the following websites for more scientific evidence.
Category: Journeys of Cultivation
