Hongzhi Li
1996

I don’t need to introduce myself, as all of you know me—I am Li Hongzhi. I have always wanted to meet with you, but owing to various reasons, I haven’t had the opportunity to do so. This time I came expressly for the purpose of meeting with you. This is because I know that here in Australia, there are more people who know about the Great Way than there were before. In the past, many of the people learning it did not focus on studying the teachings, and their understanding of it was rather shallow. I thought that now that you’ve understood what I am spreading, I could come meet with you. This is because many of the things that you want to know about are written in the [Falun Dafa] books. I have a tendency: I like it when others ask me about the things they don’t understand about spiritual practice. But when people who aren’t yet familiar with the teachings ask me what they are about, I just … how should I put it? If your understanding [of spiritual practice] is very shallow, it’s going to be very difficult to get you to understand things all at once. If you are able to first read the books, to study the teachings, attain a certain level of understanding of them, and then ask me about some things that are meaningful in terms of your improvement, then I think that regardless of whether you are just learning or are actually developing yourself spiritually, it will be beneficial to you. I think that the predestined opportunity is now ripe, so I have come.

I know that among those sitting here, there is a group that hasn’t started studying [the practice], a group that still only does the exercises and has yet to take studying the teachings seriously, and a group of people who has studied pretty well. Why do I require everyone to study the teachings? It’s because there is a relationship involved in all of this. It’s known that in the land of China, qigong has been spreading widely in society for over twenty years now. Qigong began to peak in popularity in the middle to late period of the Cultural Revolution. Yet no one has ever explained what qigong really is. No one has explained what the supernormal abilities or the phenomena inexplicable to modern science that qigong has produced are really about. What is the purpose of qigong’s arrival on the scene? Only a select few know this. Qigong never appeared throughout history, so why has it appeared now? Moreover, it is something spiritual that is spreading in society. Why would this happen? Very few people know why. Of course, when qigong began to spread widely in China, many excellent qigong masters came out to teach it. All they knew was that the purpose of doing this was to perform some good deeds by helping people get healthier. They had but a simplistic thought process and understanding of it.

Even though qigong has been spreading widely for a long time—for decades, in fact—there’s never been anyone who understands its true, deeper meaning. Therefore, in the book Zhuan Falun I explain some phenomena in the qigong community, the reason why qigong spread in society, and the ultimate purpose of qigong. So the book is a systematic work that can enable a person to advance in spiritual practice. Many people have experienced a unique phenomenon when repeatedly reading the book: No matter how many times you read this book, it will still feel fresh to you; no matter how many times you read this book, you will continue to gain new understandings of a particular passage; no matter how many times you read this book, you will still feel that there are many deeper meanings within it that you have yet to discover. Why does this happen? It’s because I have explained the things that can enable a person to develop himself spiritually, how a person is to develop himself spiritually, the defining qualities of the universe, and many other things that are considered divine secrets; I have systematically organized these elements into this book. It can enable a practitioner to attain spiritual perfection, because historically no one has ever done anything like this before. Many people have read this book and believe that it contains many divine secrets—many of which are the most closely guarded of secrets—that in the past mankind was never allowed to know about. I reveal all of these things in the book. Of course, I have my purpose for doing so. If someone were to carelessly and irresponsibly leak divine secrets, casually discussing these principles of lofty realms with the average person as if they were common theories, he would be leaking divine secrets and doing evil deeds, and he would certainly face retribution for it.

I am carrying out this undertaking with a purpose. One of my purposes is that, on a superficial level, I have seen that many people, through practicing qigong for so many years, have come to know that qigong is a deep and profound subject and can enable a person to reach a lofty spiritual realm, even spiritual perfection. Yet they have been held back because they have not been able to find a genuine spiritual discipline like this one. The average qigong practice, on the other hand, is useful simply for maintaining good health and cannot be used for spiritual practice. Many people have thus gone to temples to become lay Buddhists and have begun discipleships under monks. Of course, since we’re on this topic, I will mention that Buddha Shakyamuni stated that his teachings would not be able to save people in the Age of the Dharma’s End. This is something Buddha Shakyamuni said, and the reason for this is that many factors have brought about this situation. So for many people, no matter how they try to make spiritual progress, be it in a temple or through practicing qigong, they feel like they didn’t receive anything or spiritually ascend, and they in fact did not improve themselves. So I see everyone’s desire to improve themselves but also see that people suffer greatly because they have been held back from finding a way out of this situation. So I want to truly guide those who wish to take up the practice towards greater spiritual heights. This is a major reason [for my doing this].

Yet when an upright spiritual practice spreads, it requires that its followers improve their character and moral standards and become better people. A practitioner, then, is required to surpass the moral standard of the average non-practitioner. He will thus benefit society. Of course, there are many who won’t necessarily have what it takes to do spiritual practice after reading the book, but they will have understood the principles of proper human morals. From then on, these people may well become good people. Though they don’t have what it takes to do spiritual practice, they will be good people, and they will benefit society. This is the inevitable effect that an upright spiritual practice has as it spreads. Actually, the upright religions that have appeared in history, such as Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, and Taoism, as well as Judaism, are able to help society become kinder and to enable those who truly wish to advance in spiritual practice to obtain proper teachings and attain spiritual perfection. They enable those who don’t, for the time being, have what it takes to do spiritual practice to be excellent people in society, which will create opportunities for such people to do spiritual practice in the future—that’s the effect they have.

Though we are not a religion, I am spreading advanced qigong knowledge, and thus it is not an ordinary qigong discipline. To put it plainly, qigong is not a worldly pursuit. What is qigong? Qigong is spiritual practice. But it is the most rudimentary level of spiritual practice, the level that includes Tai Chi. Tai Chi, as you all know, is very good, and was spreading widely in China as early as the 1950s. It’s something that Zhang Sanfeng began spreading in the Ming Dynasty. Yet what he passed down were only techniques and movements, and he didn’t spread the spiritual elements of the practice. That is, he didn’t leave people the teachings that would guide them in how to progress spiritually and in how to improve at every stage of spiritual practice. Thus Tai Chi remains within the realm of maintaining good health, and it cannot be used to progress towards advanced stages of spiritual practice. Though the practice is very good, its spiritual elements were not spread. Those spiritual aspects were there in the past, but they were not passed down to later generations. The teachings that we are spreading today, on the other hand, systematically accomplish these things.

Of course, we have many new students here, and some may find what I am saying hard to grasp. As you all know, there are various religions that have their followers become better people and go to heavenly kingdoms. In Buddhism, the Paradise of Ultimate Bliss is of course also a heavenly kingdom. Throughout history, each great enlightened being or saint explained how to be a good person and that if a person wanted to go to a heavenly kingdom, he would have to reach a higher realm’s standard. Yet they didn’t explain the reasons behind it. This is because all of these great enlightened beings—be it Jesus, Buddha Shakyamuni, Lao Zi, and so on—appeared about two thousand years ago. The people of that time period were different from the people of today; they were more simple, honest, and kind, and their thoughts were not that complicated. Since the people of that time period had a different state of mind than the people of today, the teachings that [those great enlightened beings] taught were effective in that time period. At that time, the things they taught were completely capable of enabling people to attain spiritual perfection. Due to the passage of time, the thoughts of people today have become increasingly complicated and their ways of thinking have changed. Thus, people today cannot understand the things these great enlightened beings spread back then. So when people today read these scriptures, they have difficulty grasping their true meaning. Although I am spreading this practice using the format of qigong, you all know that I am spreading the Divine Way. Some people think, “The Divine Way that you spread is different from what Buddha Shakyamuni taught.” If I were to explain things to people today using Buddha Shakyamuni’s words, no one would understand it. The language of Buddha Shakyamuni was the language of the people of that time period, so people back then could understand it. So I now have to use today’s language to explain the Divine Way in order to have you understand it. Some people may also think, “What you are discussing isn’t from the Buddhist scriptures.” Was Buddha Shakyamuni teaching the same teachings taught by the Six Primeval Buddhas? If Maitreya descended to the world, would he repeat the things said by Buddha Shakyamuni? All of what the enlightened beings that save people teach are the Laws that they have enlightened to, things that they spread to man in order to save him.

I have written many things related to spiritual practice in this book. When a person first takes up spiritual practice, his realm of thought is the same as that of the average person. The teachings will guide your spiritual practice from the beginning all the way until the point at which you attain spiritual perfection. I have indeed done something unprecedented by spreading the fundamental Great Way of the greater universe, something that you will not find even if you read through all of the books in existence—ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign. The principles that I have explained are the defining qualities of the universe and the essence of the Divine Way, and through my words they have been accurately articulated. After reading the book, many people think or ask, “How much academic knowledge does Teacher Li have? He seems to have incorporated many academic fields [into the teachings], be they ancient, modern, Chinese, or foreign, such as astronomy, geography, history, chemistry, physics, astrophysics, high-energy physics, and philosophy.” People feel that my knowledge is profound, but I actually feel that it’s quite inadequate when compared to the academic knowledge of ordinary people. Yet you won’t be able to learn these theories even if you read all of the books or learn all of the academic disciplines in the world. Even if you acquire all the academic knowledge in the world, you will still be an ordinary person. This is because you remain at this spiritual plane, having merely acquired more secular knowledge than others—you are still an ordinary person. Yet the principles and things I am explaining do not belong to this secular dimension; they transcend it. Thus, the ideas in the teachings do not originate from secular knowledge. The Way encompasses the [entire] universe, which includes all of society’s knowledge.

I have used simple and easy-to-understand language as well as the most rudimentary form of spiritual practice—qigong—to express all of the principles of the Way of the universe, from the most basic to the most lofty. After reading the book for the first time, you will find that it teaches the principles of how to be a good person; if you read the book again, you will find that what it explains are not secular principles, and that it is a book that transcends secular knowledge; if you are able to read it a third time, you will find that it is a divine book; if you keep reading it, you won’t be able to put it down. In China there are now people who have read the book over a hundred times and who are still reading it, and they simply cannot put it down. The book has simply so many inner meanings, and the more you read, the more of them you will see. Why is that? Although I have revealed many divine secrets, non-practitioners will be unable to see them in the surface wording. Only when a practitioner continually reads the book will he be able to detect its inner meanings. This is because a person constantly ascends as he develops himself spiritually. When beginning [to read Zhuan Falun], why does it seem to you that the book explains the principles of how to be a good person? And yet when you read it the second time it’s not like that, as it ascended [to a new layer of meaning]? This is because if someone wants to take up spiritual practice, he must first begin from the starting point of a non-practitioner. Gradually he improves his character and meets a higher standard. When you meet the standard of the first level, the teachings at that level will be there to guide you in your practice; when you meet the standard of the second level, you will have the teachings at the second level to guide your practice in that realm. As you constantly ascend, this practice must be able to guide your spiritual practice in each realm. Put another way, regardless of which realm you progress to in your spiritual practice, you need to have the teachings at that realm to guide your practice, each step of the way until you reach spiritual perfection. My book has included all of these things, so when you want to truly work on yourself, you will see these things, and [the book] will be able to guide you as to how to advance in your practice. There is a vast amount of inner meaning in this book. Even if you read it ten thousand times, it will still be able to guide your spiritual practice all the way until you attain spiritual perfection.

Speaking of the issue of spiritual perfection, it’s known that Jesus said that if you have faith in him you can go to the Kingdom of Heaven. In Buddhism, it is said, “If a person becomes a Buddha through spiritual practice, he can go to the Paradise of Ultimate Bliss.” The [enlightened beings] obviously stated things in a simplistic manner, and did not emphasize the fact that you can only go [to those paradises] by doing actual spiritual practice. But as a matter of fact, religions also involve spiritual practice. It’s just that both Buddha Shakyamuni and Jesus saw the following situation: There is a saying in spiritual circles: “one only needs to put in the effort of practice, and the rest is in the hands of one’s master.” This is also something that people who don’t do spiritual practice aren’t aware of. People who don’t do spiritual practice think, “Through doing physical exercises I can develop great amounts of higher energy.” We find this notion to be laughable, as it’s an impossibility. Of course, if you want to make spiritual progress, you will only be able to succeed if your master truly takes responsibility for you, installs many mechanisms in your body, and, as if sowing seeds, implants many things in you. Moreover, you will only be able to ascend as you make spiritual progress if the master watches over you, protects you, eliminates your karma and helps you to evolve higher energy. In religions they don’t mention spiritual practice. Why not? Jesus knew that if you had faith in him, you could make spiritual progress, and in doing so, ascend. The reason people can no longer make spiritual progress through religions is because they no longer understand the genuine meaning of what [enlightened beings like Jesus] said. Many people think, “If I have faith in Jesus, I can go to the Kingdom of Heaven after I die.” Think about it: If we wanted to go to a heavenly kingdom, how would we get there? If you go about things with a worldly mentality, brimming with desires and emotions, and with your assortment of attachments, the attachment to competing against others, and the desire to show off—there are simply too many bad, worldly attachments—if you were sent up to where a Buddha is, you might start to argue and fight with the Buddha because you hadn’t gotten rid of your worldly attachments. When you see how beautiful a Great Bodhisattva is, you might have indecent thoughts. Could this be allowed? Of course not. Thus, you can only ascend to that realm after you get rid of these attachment-filled, dirty, and bad mentalities while out in the world. You can get there by developing yourself spiritually, and through faith, but you can only go to a heavenly kingdom if, after you confess and repent, you do not make the same mistake again, and this way become better and better and achieve the standard of a divine being.

Some people say, “As long as I have faith in Jesus, I can go to the Kingdom of Heaven.” I would say that you won’t be able to go there. Why not? Today’s people no longer understand the genuine meaning of what Jesus said. Jesus is an enlightened being at the Tathagata plane and at the spiritual realm of a Buddha. Those who don’t do spiritual practice cannot understand the deeper meaning of what he said. You can only gradually come to experience and discover the deeper meaning of what he said if you constantly make spiritual progress according to his methods. Take the example of Jesus saying, “Have faith in me and you can go to the Kingdom of Heaven.” Actually, if you want to truly demonstrate faith in Jesus, you have to live by the principles that he taught regarding how to be a good person—only then can you go to the Kingdom of Heaven. Otherwise, what was the point of Jesus saying so many things?! When you confess and repent, you think that you are doing very well [in your religious practice] and that your state of mind is very good. But when you exit the church doors, you act however you please and do even worse than non-believers. How can you go to the Kingdom of Heaven? You didn’t improve your state of mind at all. Recall that Jesus said, “If you have faith in me, you can go to the Kingdom of Heaven.” That is, to have true faith in him you have to act in accordance with what he taught, right? This principle also applies to other religions.

It was the generations that came after Buddha Shakyamuni who assembled some of his statements and made them into scriptures. As time passed, people began to consider how much a person read the scriptures or his amount of Buddhist knowledge to be the same as spiritual practice. In fact, in Buddha Shakyamuni’s time there were no scriptures at all. Moreover, the scriptures were not systematically assembled until five hundred years after [Buddha Shakyamuni’s time] and became completely different from Buddha Shakyamuni’s original words. But in that period of time [when Buddha Shakyamuni was teaching], people were only allowed to know so much; too much would have been unacceptable. This is an inevitable fact. Late in life, at the end of his years, Buddha Shakyamuni said, “I have not taught any of the Way (dharma) in my lifetime.” This is because Buddha Shakyamuni indeed had not explained the Way of the universe, nor had he explained how the defining qualities of Zhen, Shan, Ren manifest in the secular world or at his spiritual plane of Tathagata. He really hadn’t explained it! So what did the Tathagata Buddha teach, then? What he taught was what he had previously enlightened to during his spiritual practice in the human world, some descriptions of and stories about his spiritual practice during his past reincarnations, and his understanding of some specific manifestations of the Way. The scriptures were compiled piecemeal and are thus unsystematic in nature. So why did later generations see Buddha Shakyamuni’s words as the Divine Way? One reason is that this is a human understanding of things; another reason is that Shakyamuni is a Buddha, so his words are imbued with divinity. To humans, words imbued with divinity [express] divine principles at one level and are [part of] the Divine Way. But Buddha Shakyamuni really did not systematically explain the principles of spiritual practice, the defining qualities of the universe, what is it that enables a person to spiritually improve, and other such topics. He really did not explain these things! That’s why I say that I have done something unprecedented. I have opened an enormous door and have done something greater [than ever before]—I have explained all of the principles of spiritual practice and the factors related to attaining spiritual perfection. And I have explained them very systematically. This is why gods from lofty realms have said, “You have left humans with a ladder to heaven—Zhuan Falun.”

I am not trying to denigrate Buddha Shakyamuni here. I don’t have the intention of doing such a thing. I do not have worldly emotions, and I’m not attached to the fame and material interests of the mortal world. Since I have made this [practice] public, I will be responsible to you, and I will clearly explain this principle to you. I seek nothing from you, and I won’t ask you for a cent, as I am only asking you to strive towards goodness. Some people have asked me, “Teacher, you have taught us so many things and given us so many things—what do you seek?” I said, “I seek nothing. I am just here to save you. I just want to see you strive to become a better person and for you to be able to advance and improve yourself.” This is because we have seen that living a secular life is not the purpose of human existence. Nowadays, people are entranced by the false realities of the secular world and think, “This is how people should act.” This is especially the case since society’s moral values have drastically declined. Everyone is drifting along with the powerful currents of society towards decline, and society as a whole is declining. Thus, no individual can detect his own decline. Some think that they are good people by virtue of being a little bit better than others. Actually, you are using a declined standard to judge yourself, and while amongst people who are not good, you are just a bit better than others. If you were to make spiritual progress and return to a spiritual realm on par with how society used to be, even if that realm weren’t particularly lofty, when you then looked back at today’s society from that vantage point you would discover that it is terrifying! It’s really terrifying! You would find that the present mankind really is brimming with vices and sin.

The great enlightened beings in the heavens—be it the Buddhas, Daos, or Gods—no longer consider today’s people to be human. This statement seems a bit absolute, as there are of course still good people in the world. But what they are referring to is the overall state of mankind, the big picture, and it really is like this. In the past, when people went to a temple or to church to confess, they felt that Jesus or other beings from heavenly kingdoms were really listening to them, and they would hear echoes of responses in their heads, answering their questions. People today, however, do not experience this, and those who worship Buddhas can no longer see their existence. Why is that? It’s because mankind has become increasingly unable to spiritually discern things and increasingly corrupt. Thus, divine beings no longer bother with mankind. Because modern people’s karma is enormous and they are increasingly unable to spiritually discern things, when they receive retribution for doing something bad, they see it as a coincidence. I have seen that although mankind’s moral standard has drastically declined, people are unknowingly drifting along with this powerful current. Some people have still held fast to their divine nature and to their essential nature, and through these years when the practice [of Falun Dafa] has been spreading, many people have been able to progress in spiritual practice, and to a very advanced stage of spiritual practice at that. Some have experienced enlightenment, some are in a gradual process of enlightenment, and some have attained divine standing. This makes me very happy, as [it shows me that] I have not done this in vain. I have been responsible both to individuals and to society, and I have not disclosed the secrets of Heaven in vain, as I have enabled people to progress in spiritual practice.

The issue I just raised is that the purpose of human existence is not merely to remain a human. There are many people that perhaps still can’t quite understand this and think that people are meant to just live this way. True—everyone is the same after emerging from their mother’s womb; none of them can see that other dimensions exist, so they don’t believe in them. Moreover, people today believe too much in modern science, despite its being imperfect and flawed. Its understanding of the universe is very shallow—that is to say, very low-level—and that’s the kind of thing it is. So believing too much in it creates an immense danger for people: It will completely destroy human morality. Those in higher worlds consider a person without moral values nonhuman! This is because humans are not the only ones with a human appearance: ghosts, monkeys, and gorillas all have a brain and four limbs. People are called human because while living in the mortal world, they must follow human moral norms and standards and because they have a human way of life. When people depart from these things, gods no longer consider them humans. Yet people think that they should live and develop however they want to. But society is controlled by beings in higher planes, and mankind will never reach the realm of Buddhas through technology. Otherwise, intergalactic wars would really erupt! Thus, it is not allowed for human technology—which is imbued with the desire to compete with others, jealousy, and a variety of emotions and wants—to reach a higher standard of existence.

Seventy-plus percent of the human brain goes unused, and modern medicine has come to understand this. Why is that? Human wisdom has been restricted. So why do Buddhas have great wisdom and divine powers? Why are they able to know everything and have such great wisdom? It’s due to the principle I just explained. Some people say that my book “touches on such a wide array of scientific knowledge!” They ask, “Teacher, is it that you have a lot of knowledge and have gone to many universities?” No, I haven’t. Then how could [you have that kind of knowledge]? The difference between me and you is that my mind is completely open and your minds are not. People find fields like philosophy, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and human history to be very complicated, but they are actually very simple. They are just a smattering of secular things at the lowest level of the Divine Way—the level of humankind. [Those fields] all follow the same principles; that is, they are created by the form of the universe’s defining qualities and by the matter at this plane—that’s all they are. Yet the human intellect cannot absorb all of this knowledge because the human brain has been sealed off.  How should this situation be dealt with? Even if someone wants to learn more knowledge, his mind is unable to squeeze any more in, so then you have to go and study physics, chemistry, astronomy, high-energy physics, philosophy, history, and other fields. In his lifetime, a person cannot master all of the knowledge of even one such academic field, so human knowledge is very paltry.

I just mentioned that no matter how much knowledge you acquire, even if you are a professor or an advisor at a university and no matter how renowned you are, you are still just an ordinary person. This is because your knowledge has not gone beyond the secular realm. Also, the empirical science of today’s mankind is flawed. For instance, today’s science can verify neither the existence of divine beings nor the existence of other dimensions. It cannot detect the forms of life and matter in other dimensions; it does not know that humans have a material called morality that manifests on their bodies; it also does not know that humans also have a material called karma that surrounds human bodies. So everyone believes in modern science, but modern science cannot verify any of these things. Moreover, once you start talking about morality, good and evil deeds, and other things outside the realm of science, others will call these concepts fictional. Is this not in fact using modern science as a weapon to attack the most essential quality of mankind—its morality? Isn’t that what is happening? Since it won’t acknowledge and cannot verify the existence of [material] virtue, it says that virtue is fictional. If human moral values are really done away with this way, humans will no longer have an innate moral compass to restrain them and will no longer have moral standards. They won’t have any qualms about doing anything or about committing any wrongdoing, and this will push human morality into continual decline. This is the effect created by science’s greatest shortcoming.

I’ve mentioned before that an accomplished scientist would not have the kind of stubborn views that so many others have that are caused by substituting emotion for reason. Those views have imposed rigid and restrictive boundaries on modern science, as people think that anything beyond empirical science is unscientific. Just ask yourself: When we use scientific methods to come to understand something that mankind previously did not understand, isn’t that science? That discovery, of course would then be considered part of science. It’s because mankind is continually perfecting and rediscovering itself that science is able to develop and eventually come to genuinely understand the universe. The current manner in which empirical science has been developing is extremely clumsy and slow. It really is like a blind person trying to figure out what an elephant looks like by groping at it. It cannot see the material form of the overall universe nor the existence of the defining qualities of the universe. So when it touches one part of the elephant, it thinks that that part is the entirety of it. It has merely touched the elephant’s leg, but says, “Oh, this is how science is. This is the science that truly understands life and matter.” It cannot see what the whole elephant looks like. It cannot see that the universe is constructed of countless different time spaces, nor can it see other dimensions or other forms of life and matter, so [concepts like the existence of other dimensions] are branded as fictional by simple-minded and obstinate people. This is the most critical factor driving mankind’s moral decline. Many people use science as a weapon to attack the most ancient and fundamental virtues of mankind. This is dangerous! If humans lose virtue, gods will no longer consider them human. If heaven doesn’t consider mankind to be human, then mankind will be weeded out and will start over from scratch.

Some people think, “Mankind has been progressing. Our development from apes all the way to where we are today is a glorious achievement!” But you should know something: Throughout prehistoric times—be it 100,000 years ago, or much, much earlier, even over 100 million years ago—advanced civilizations always existed on Earth; it’s just that they were destroyed in different periods of time. Why were they destroyed? Though their material and technological development was very rapid, their sense of morality did not keep up or was ruined. They were no longer allowed to exist and were destroyed. From the understanding of modern science, the motion of matter follows laws. When the motion of matter brings it to a certain state, a shift into another state will inevitably occur. For instance, it’s likely that the Earth was destroyed by another planet smashing into it as it moved about in the universe. Regardless of how these things may have happened, scientists have in fact discovered that there are remnants of many different ancient civilizations on our planet, and these remnants date back to a long time before today, as some are from hundreds of thousands of years ago, millions of years ago, and even tens of millions of years ago. The remnants left behind by the different civilizations of each time period are all different, as they do not belong to the same time period, so some scientists are pondering this issue. Some scientists have proposed a hypothesis, saying, “There have existed prehistoric civilizations and cultures.” This is what some scientists have said. Those of us in spiritual and religious circles see things even more clearly, as [we know that] many different human civilizations have indeed existed before this one. Since these civilizations’ moral values became corrupt—and we have, of course, seen that this is what happened—they ceased to exist. From the destroyed ancient Greek culture one can see traces of the corruption and degeneracy of the people of that time.

Some people say, “We have evolved from apes.” You should know that humans actually did not evolve from apes in the least. Darwin’s theory stated that humans evolved from apes. When he first proposed this theory, he did so with much trepidation. His theory was flawed and full of holes.  Yet people accepted it and continue to accept it to this day. Bear in mind that you cannot find any evidence, over the course of millions of years, of the process of apes evolving into humans that he proposed—none at all. Why is there no intermediary species between ape and man? Other non-human species, such as the animals that he also claimed evolved, also lack intermediate processes. Moreover, why are the species that exist in the continent of Australia different from those of other continents? He could not explain these things. Yet people have accepted this theory of evolution that is riddled with holes. That is what’s so strange!

We have seen that humans are actually not descended from apes in the least; it’s just that there are different species for each time period. The Earth and the continental plates, upon which mankind lives, are shifting and changing. Geologists consider the continents of Asia, Europe, America, South and North America to be continental plates. These continental plates often shift, and the civilizations on them then sink into the ocean. Then perhaps a continent in a different ocean rises to the surface; things are constantly shifting this way. People have now discovered that the bottoms of the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and many other oceans have ancient, massive structures on them and have been home to civilizations. Yet it was found that these structures are hundreds of thousands of years old, millions of years old, or from even older epochs. At the very least, today’s mankind knows that the continental plates have not shifted for the last few hundred thousand years. Then when did these structures sink into the ocean? They definitely sank a long time ago, hundreds of thousands of years ago or even earlier. So when different continental plates shift, the species on them will be different, but they don’t become different through evolution. There are similarities between them, but they are not the same species. Absolutely not!

Of course, I am teaching the Divine Way, so [what I teach] will be different from secular theories, as we understand things from a higher plane and truly understand mankind. I am telling all of you that humans did not evolve from apes; they were created from within the universe. You all know that China has the Daoist theory of Tai Chi. This Tai Chi theory talks about the two energies (qi) of Yin and Yang. Before the creation of Yin and Yang, things were in a state of chaos. They call this the State of Emptiness (wuji). From that emerged the Supreme Ultimate (taiji). The two energies of Yin and Yang appeared, and then the Supreme Ultimate created all things. This is the Daoist School theory. I think it has a lot of scientific merit.  I’ve in fact seen a situation—of course, I’m not the only one who has seen this—that the motion of enormous bodies of matter in the universe can produce life. We cannot see this matter, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. For instance, human eyes cannot see air, but does it not exist? It does exist. Is there matter more microscopic than air? Yes, there is a lot of it. There’s also plenty of matter that’s even more microscopic than that microscopic matter. Why can these enormous bodies of matter exist in this manner? They are in fact lives. Every object has life; it’s just that [its life] doesn’t manifest in our earthly dimension, so you cannot see the existence of its life. In a moment I’ll explain why. Every object has life. These enormous bodies of matter produced life through their motion, and at more lofty planes of existence, these lives are mostly formless; a minority of them take on the forms of humans, animals, objects, or plants.

Then why did things progress to the stage of [there being] humans? In the beginning, it had not reached that point. The beings created by the motion of matter in the universe are in harmony with the defining qualities of the universe, that is, to the principles of the Way of the universe, to Zhen, Shan, Ren, since they were created from Zhen, Shan, Ren. Once a large number of beings had been created in dimensions in lofty realms, their living environment became complex and they created societies. It was just like our human society, where people form social structures based on how they need to live. Once [the beings in these lofty realms] established social structures, they gradually began to change and became complicated. Some developed selfish thoughts and began to deviate from the requirements that the defining qualities of the universe had for lives at that plane of existence. They could then no longer remain in that realm, and thus they had no choice but to descend to a lower plane. Then when they became bad again at that lower plane, they had no choice but to descend again. Over an extremely long period of history, these lives gradually worsened this way; they gradually descended from one dimension to the next, until they descended to the human dimension. From that point on they had a basic form of existence and used basic means to procreate.

Yet this human dimension did not originally exist. The enlightened beings and higher lives wanted to create a dimension for humans, a dimension full of delusion, to see whether people could hold fast to that remaining bit of their essential nature or not, and whether people would be able to return to where they came from. They created this dimension with these considerations in mind. At the time, [the creation of this dimension] was to give humans—to give lives—a final opportunity, and [higher beings who created it] didn’t take that many issues into consideration. But they later discovered that this dimension was simply unique: organisms in this dimension cannot see other dimensions or the lives in other dimensions, but [lives in] all other dimensions in the universe can see scenes from other dimensions. The lives in any other dimension can fly and float about in the air, and the lives in all other dimensions can make their bodies become large or small. Today’s scientists think that human thoughts are matter, just like electric waves. You, of course, would acknowledge that electric waves are matter. But in other dimensions you would find that the situation is not so simple. Human thoughts can produce [the physical manifestation of] things that a person pictures in his mind, so what he thinks about can become reality. Because humans don’t have energy, the [physical manifestations] that their thoughts produce dissipate shortly. But the things that the great enlightened beings, divine beings, and higher lives think about will exist concretely. That is to say that the things that [a divine being] wants will be produced as he thinks about them. Thus, people in the past said, “The Buddha can have anything he wants, and is completely free and at ease.” That’s how those beings live. But humans, having been forced into this dimension, have come to live in this [secular] manner.

Everyone came into this world from his mother’s womb and feels pretty good about himself. Some are successful businesspeople; some are high-ranking officials; some live carefree lives, and all of them believe themselves to be better off than others. Actually, they also suffer a lot! [They think they’re well off] because they don’t know how they once lived. For instance, some religions state, “Human life is full of suffering.” Why is that? When you emerge from your mother’s womb, you have a material body that is composed of molecules. Those in other dimensions don’t have a body composed of molecules, as the most surface level of their body is made up of atoms. Yet the surface matter made up of molecules is what composes this dimension, which includes the human body. You are born with this kind of physical body, and you are given a pair of eyes composed of molecules and which cannot see other dimensions. Thus, you live in a world of delusion. Thus, while in this world of delusion you cannot see the truth of the universe. Wouldn’t you say that your life is like someone trying to see the entire sky while sitting in the bottom of a well? Just this fact alone makes your way of life pitiable. In addition, with this body, you will have difficulty tolerating pain, and you won’t be able to handle too much cold, heat, thirst, or fatigue from walking—one way or another, there will be many things that will bring you troubles and suffering. You will also have to deal with the cycle of being born, aging, getting sick, and dying, and you will often get sick. You may think that you live a very carefree life, but actually it’s just that as you suffer, you are a little bit better off than others, and suffer a little less than them, so you feel like your life is very carefree. This is how humans live, so while living in this environment people have gradually lost their essential nature and believe in gods less and less. And with the addition of [the influence of] the flawed nature of the empirical sciences, people have lost their moral standards and have slid down into a most dangerous situation.

Yet the human world has an enormous advantage: because it is full of suffering, it can enable a person to make spiritual progress. Why do Buddhas always remain in the same realm of Buddhahood? Why can’t they elevate even higher? Why are Bodhisattvas unable to become Buddhas through spiritual practice? Even if [they] wanted to suffer a bit, there would be nowhere to find suffering. This is because the only way to make spiritual progress is to solidify your divine nature while living in a world of delusion. [Up in Buddhas’ realms] there is no delusion and they can see everything. If you could see everything, then your spiritual improvement wouldn’t count. Thus, spiritual improvement and enlightenment are the priority; being able to see [other dimensions] is secondary. Some people say, “I will do spiritual practice if I can see [other dimensions], but I won’t if I can’t see them.” If everyone were able to see [other dimensions], ordinary society would no longer be a human society; it would be a society of gods. One hundred percent of people—every single person—would do spiritual practice, including those who had committed all manner of heinous crimes and who are terrible people. Think about it: Would that still be a human society? Humans fell to this environment because they became bad. If you want to go back to where you fell from, you need two things: one is suffering, and the other is enlightenment. Speaking of enlightenment, Jesus used the term “faith,” whereas in the East they use the term “enlightenment.” If you lose these things you cannot spiritually improve. But why do people often feel that making spiritual progress is difficult? Actually, making spiritual progress itself is not difficult; the difficulty is when you can’t let go of worldly emotions. Throughout history, people were never told what the Divine Way is. People take what Buddha Shakyamuni taught as the systematic Divine Way. Bear in mind that this enormous universe is quite complete and is full of wisdom. Buddha Shakyamuni only taught a small portion of the Buddha principles, and he did not tell people everything that he knew. He only told people what they were supposed to know at that time. Thus, only a tiny portion of the Divine Way has been passed down to today’s society. I’ve mentioned that I have passed on many different things to society and have done something that no one has ever done before. The book that I wrote, Zhuan Falun, uses non-standard language because today’s standardized language cannot encompass higher and deeper meanings. Thus, I wrote it in a colloquial style.

I’ve covered a lot. Since there seems to be ample time today, I wanted to extend the length of my lecture. But there are some people here who might not be able to accept what I am saying if I were to talk about things that are too advanced. For instance, some people haven’t yet studied [the teachings] at all; they have a good feeling about the practice and want to come have a listen; others might be here to gain something or see me do some sort of performance. There are people with a variety of different intentions here. If I were to perform here today, it might be very entertaining for you, as if you were watching a magic show, but you wouldn’t take me or the teachings seriously. Spreading the Divine Way in that manner is prohibited.  My only purpose here is to explain the Divine Way to you, and whether you believe it or not is up to you. Yet its power is mighty, as I have infused into the teachings the things that I want to give people and that will enable them to make spiritual progress. As long as you watch [or listen to] my videotapes, audiotapes, and the book that I wrote, you will sense [these things]; as long as you read [the book], your body will be purified and you will be free of sickness; as long as you make spiritual progress, you will be able to see things that non-practitioners are unable to see; as long as you make spiritual progress, you will come to experience and enlighten to the things that non-practitioners are unable to enlighten to. As you elevate to ever higher spiritual realms, things will be more and more wondrous, and all of [what makes this happen] is contained in the book. But if you don’t make spiritual progress you won’t be able to see these things. You may want to be able to see things after one reading of the book, but that’s impossible! You will only be able to see the things that correspond to your spiritual realm and to the extent of your understanding. As long as you advance in spiritual practice, and as long as you continue to fully engage yourself in studying, making spiritual improvements, and reading, you will come to realize, see, and know more wondrous things.

If I discuss things that are too advanced, a lot of people will have trouble understanding it. Knowing this, I haven’t systematically explained the teachings for two years now. This is because I have completely laid out the teachings that I want to leave to mankind. I do not even allow people to record my lectures. Why? Many people seek novelty.  They focus on trying to find out what new things Teacher might have said and don’t make solid spiritual progress. Zhuan Falun is what I have given to people for spiritual practice, as it is the systematic teachings. Other things that I have said are merely explaining Zhuan Falun and are supplementary to it. A person who makes recordings and spreads them in society is interfering with those who are serious about spiritual practice. Zhuan Falun systematically [covers everything] from basic to advanced, while what I am teaching now is merely directed at today’s audience.

I also want to stress an issue: We practitioners emphasize sticking to one spiritual discipline. You should know that the phrase “taking the strong points from various different methods” is a worldly saying, not a practitioner’s term. When learning skills, there’s no problem with learning from whomever is good at that skill. But the principles of high-level dimensions are the opposite of the principles of mankind. The things mankind thinks are good might be bad, as everything is reversed. You see that here it’s daytime, but over there it’s nighttime; what you think is right might be wrong. Why is that? I will explain a simple principle to all of you. You all know that when people are in pain, they think it’s bad, or if someone bullies you, you feel uncomfortable and you think that the situation is bad for you. You should know that when people suffer a little and deal with a bit of hardship, it’s a good thing! You see now that what I teach you is something different [from what you’ve learned before]. Why is that? That’s because these principles are completely reversed once you reach high-level dimensions. Up there they don’t think that living as a human is the purpose of human existence. If you deal with a bit of hardship in the human world and repay the karmic debts you owe from a past life, you can return to a higher-level dimension, and you could even return to the place where your life was created, which is the most wonderful place. And even if you were unable to elevate, you would have fewer tribulations in your next life because you had less karma.

But if you don’t repay the karma that you owe, you will be unable to go to a high-level paradise. It’s just like the principle that I have described: If a bottle is filled with dirty things, no matter how tightly you seal the bottle, when you throw it into water, it will sink right down with a thud. If you pour out a bit of the dirty things, it will float up a little bit; pour out a little more and it will float up a little more; after you pour out even more, when after sealing it you try throwing it in the water again, even if you push down on it you won’t be able to make it sink, as it will float up on its own. It’s the same kind of situation when you work on yourself spiritually. Over the many lifetimes that your body has gone through, in every lifetime you might have taken advantage of, deceived, harmed or killed others, or perhaps done even worse things. Thus, you must repay the karma you owe because of these actions. This universe has a principle: You won’t gain anything without losing something, and if you gain something, you must lose something. You must repay the things that you owe, if not in this life then in the next life—that’s definitely how things work. Thus, nowadays when people experience painful situations, they think that it is a coincidence and that it was caused by others being unfair to them and acting badly. You should know that none of those situations are coincidental and that all of them are caused by the karma that you owe from the past. If you were to have no karma, everyone would smile at you as you walked down the street, and people you don’t even know would go out of their way to help you. You would be utterly carefree! But this type of person would absolutely not live in the human dimension, as he should return to heaven. That’s how people are: Because they have karma, if they cannot purify their minds, they will never be able to progress in spiritual practice. It’s just like the principle that I just mentioned.

It’s not, in fact, bad for people to suffer a little and deal with a bit of hardship. If you deal with a bit of hardship, you will repay your karma, and you really might go to a wondrous place where you will never again suffer. Regardless of how happy you think you are in the human world, how many billions of dollars you might have, or how high an official you have become, it will quickly pass, lasting only a few decades. Think about it: You came to this world with nothing, and you will leave this world with nothing. What can you take with you? Nothing. Who can you pass on [your possessions] to? You think that you have given them to your descendants, but when you reincarnate into your next life, they won’t recognize you, and even if you go to work and sweep the floors for them, you may not even get so much as a kind look or an extra tip from them. That’s really how things are! People are just lost in delusion here.

We are talking about the essential principles of human life here. [These principles] especially hold true for practitioners. Bear in mind that when you suffer, when others take advantage of you, cause trouble for you, or when you lose some material interests, as I see it that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s because there is a principle in this universe that those who do not lose do not gain, and if you want to gain, you must lose. It also holds true that if you gain and don’t lose, you will be forced to lose—that is the nature of the universe. All of the substances in the enormous universe are lives, and all substances are formed from Zhen, Shan, Ren. Thus, all substances—including stone, iron and steel, the air, any product created by mankind, and other substances—are, at their microscopic level, substances composed of the defining qualities of Zhen, Shan, Ren. Zhen, Shan, Ren form everything in this enormous universe, and they balance everything in the universe. When a person hits, curses at, takes advantage of, or causes pain to another person, he feels happy, as he is the party who has gained. Some non-practitioner might tell him, “Wow, you’re really impressive!” [This person] didn’t suffer any losses. But I think that he has suffered great losses. Why? When he commits bad deeds, he becomes the party that gains. When he takes advantage of others, it means that he has gained, and thus he must lose. Because the other party suffered and is worse off, then that party should gain something. How does he gain something? When you hit or curse at him, depending on the strength of your words or your blow, a proportionally-sized chunk of a white substance called virtue that surrounds your body will leave you and land on him. But he is also human and perhaps he does not understand this principle. “You hit me,” he might say as he gets really upset. When he gets upset, he is in essence pushing back the virtue. When he turns around and returns a punch and a curse, then he is throwing back the virtue. Now, neither person has lost nor gained; neither one has gained anything. The principles of the Way of the universe are fair.

If, as a practitioner, he can take the situation lightly and say: “Regardless of whether you hit or curse at me, my heart will remain steady and I won’t pay it any heed, because I am a practitioner. You are not a practitioner and I cannot look at things the same way as you do.” Consider a question, then: Hasn’t this person’s moral standard risen above that of an average person? When another person hits him, won’t that action give him virtue? And this virtue substance can evolve into higher energy. Your higher energy must be evolved from virtue together with some substances collected from the universe. Without virtue, you will be unable to produce higher energy in your spiritual practice. So when another person hits you, he gives you his virtue, you increase your virtue, and you can advance to a further stage of spiritual practice—isn’t that how this principle works? The compensation you receive is much greater than the pain the ordinary person caused you, right? Then when he hits you, curses at you, or causes some trouble for you, you suffer because of it. While you suffer, a black substance on your body called karma that you owe from your past lives will transform into an equal-sized portion of virtue, and the other party must also give you a piece of virtue that corresponds [to your amount of suffering]. Bear in mind that even a non-practitioner would be getting two things in one shot—“You caused me a bit of pain, but I have gained two forms of compensation.”

Yet a practitioner will receive four forms of compensation. When you have suffered all of this, you didn’t stoop down to his level, your heart was calm, so you did not strike back when hit or talk back when cursed at. Think about it: When your heart remained calm, didn’t your character improve through spiritual practice? How could you make spiritual progress if he didn’t cause you trouble and pain? The idea that you could just sit there comfortably, drinking tea and watching television, and ascend through spiritual practice, rising as high as you want to, is absolute nonsense. You can only improve your character and reach a higher standard and spiritual realm by being in this complicated environment, and through dealing with trials and hardships. Then, if your character didn’t drop to his level, didn’t it improve? And haven’t you gained three things in one shot? Then as a practitioner, don’t you want to advance your spiritual development and attain spiritual perfection as soon as possible? Then if your character improves, won’t the level of your higher energy also rise? Definitely! There is a principle that states, “The amount of one’s higher energy depends on how good one’s character is.” If a person has a character that doesn’t improve, could he increase the amount of his higher energy [without improving it]? That’s absolutely impossible! That kind of situation doesn’t exist and it will absolutely never happen. Some people think that others’ character isn’t as good as theirs, so why do those others have higher energy? They aren’t as good as you in one area, but they may have other areas in which they are better than you. Since spiritual practice is a process of removing one attachment after another, when the attachments that these people have yet to remove appear, they may behave like non-practitioners, but once those attachments are removed they of course won’t manifest anymore. As a practitioner, when you suffer pain, you are gaining four things in one shot. To put it in jest—where can you find a deal like this?

Some people get really upset and indignant when someone hits or curses at them. When someone takes advantage of them or makes money from them, they just get so angry! People highly value these [material] things and won’t be able to handle others taking even a little bit of what is theirs. Think about it: how sad this person’s life is! When he gets some trivial material things, he feels happy from the bottom of his heart, just for those trivial material things. That’s just how people are nowadays. He doesn’t realize what he has really lost—it’s the most frightening thing to lose! Why is virtue so precious? You may know that older people from the East say, “Only with virtue will one have blessings.” The idea of blessings includes many aspects: becoming a high-ranking official, making a great fortune, having a house and land, being well-off, and so on. All of these things are obtained by exchanging virtue for them. Virtue follows a person’s [eternal] being. When a person dies, it follows his Original Spirit—when you reincarnate, it goes with you. It’s not just virtue—the black matter, karma, that I just mentioned will also follow you throughout your lives. These two substances both follow a person. In the past, older people would say, “He who commits wrongdoing will face retribution.” Who administers the retribution? Who keeps such a ledger? Who would bother to deal with these matters of yours? Yet virtue is on your body and sticks tightly to it, and your next life is dependent on it. If you have a lot of karma, your life will have a lot of pain, illnesses, and disasters; with a lot of virtue, your life will have a lot of money, blessings, and high-ranking government placements. These [realities] are brought about by these [substances]. And for a practitioner, virtue is even more precious, for it can transform into higher energy—that’s the idea.

Modern science cannot see this issue because it cannot break out of this dimension. What is the form of the dimension in which mankind resides? You should know that the dimension in which mankind resides exists between two types of particles of matter. Those of us who have studied physics know that molecules, atoms, atomic nuclei, quarks, and neutrinos are all planes of particles, and they are the material elements that form larger particles. Amidst which plane of particles do we humans reside? The largest thing we humans can see with the naked eye is a planet and the smallest we can see with a microscope is a molecule. Actually, we humans reside precisely within the dimension between planets and molecules. We think that it is broad, vast, and incomparably large. I’d say that modern science is not advanced; no matter how high a spaceship may fly, it can’t go beyond our material dimension; no matter how advanced a computer is, it cannot compete with the human brain, as the human brain still remains a mystery. Thus, human science is very shallow.

Try to imagine something: Mankind resides in between planets and molecules. Since molecules are made up of atoms, what is the dimension between atoms and molecules like? Modern scientists have only been able to understand atoms as individual units and have only been able to understand their individual structures. Actually, the place where atoms reside is itself a plane of existence, and the material dimension formed by this plane is quite vast; it’s just that what they have discovered is restricted to a single point. Then how large is the dimension at this plane? We always base our standards for measuring distance on the perspective of mankind’s modern science. You need to step outside the framework and concepts of empirical science. You need to conform to the form of a dimension before you can enter it. Regarding the distance between atoms and molecules, science knows that it takes two million atoms lined up to reach the width of a molecule. That is, they’ve recognized that the distance is quite vast, so you can’t understand things from the framework and mindset of empirical science. Think about something for a moment: Isn’t the space between atoms and atomic nuclei a dimension? Then, how large is the distance in the dimension between atomic nuclei and quarks? Then, what about the distance between quarks and neutrinos? Of course, the smallest particles that today’s science can detect are neutrinos. They can’t actually see them; they can only use scientific equipment to detect them, and they know the form of their existence. Actually, neutrinos are still simply so far away from what composes the most original matter!

What I just described is dimensions’ most basic form of existence. All of the substances in the human dimension, including both the substances in the air that you cannot see and the substances that you can see, such as iron, concrete, animals, plants, other substances, and the human body, are composed of molecules. Humans reside on the plane of molecules, as if in a three-dimensional painting; you reside on this plane and cannot leave it. Human science is restricted to things within this small dimension and cannot transcend it. And yet people say that science is so advanced and reject all other theories. Human technology cannot reach a higher understanding of the universe. If it could really go beyond this dimension, it could see the forms of lives and substances in other dimensions and the structures created by their time spaces. Yet we practitioners are able to see these things, as Buddhas are the most advanced scientists.

I discussed this issue when describing the Celestial Eye. When people see things with the Celestial Eye instead of with their regular eyes, they are opening a channel that starts from either the spot between a person’s eyebrows or from a spot at the base of one’s nose (a spot that Daoists call the Base of the Mountain) and that connects directly to the pineal gland.  Medical texts use the term pineal gland, whereas Daoist practitioners use the term Niwan Palace. Yet medical researchers have discovered that the front half of the pineal gland contains the complete structure of a human eye. Modern medical scientists find this very strange: “Why is there an eye in here?” They think it’s a vestigial eye, as they still use the theory of evolution to explain these things. Actually, that’s just what it looks like, and it isn’t a vestigial structure at all. When people look at things without using their eyes … of course, when a person refines his eyes through spiritual practice, his eyes can also see through objects and can come to possess this kind of supernormal ability, as the Divine Way is boundless. Usually, when a person avoids using his eyes, that is, these eyes made up of molecules, to look at things, he can see past this dimension and observe scenes in other dimensions. That’s the idea. Thus, practitioners can see what non-practitioners are unable to see. Of course, at different points in their lives some non-practitioners can occasionally catch vague glimpses of a few phenomena whose meaning are unclear to them, such as seeing a person in front of you who suddenly vanishes, or seeing or hearing one thing or another. It’s possible that the things you saw or heard that were hard to make out were really things from other dimensions. That’s because those people whose Celestial Eyes or Ears are not sealed so tightly can occasionally hear or see things from other dimensions.

I just discussed the dimension in which man resides. Actually, the planet that we humans reside on is not the largest particle or substance. There are even larger substances beyond this planet! Thus, the eyes of Buddha Shakyamuni could, on an extremely microscopic level, see quite microscopic substances; in terms of the macroscopic, he could see quite large and macroscopic substances. But Buddha Shakyamuni still could not see how large the universe really was in the end, and thus he said, “It is so large that it has no exterior and so small that it has no interior.” How enormous this universe is! Think about how complex it is; it’s not like what mankind knows. Take this dimension of ours, and the form in which it exists—that alone is quite complex! In addition to this dimensional form, there are also vertical dimensional forms, and within these vertical dimensions there are many different individual worlds—it’s very complex. The individual worlds I am referring to are heavenly kingdoms and the like. Each dimension also has a different time space. Think about it: Could a dimension made up of atoms have the same time as our molecule-formed dimension? Its concept of space and its distances are different from those of ours, as everything changes. Why can alien beings’ UFOs appear and disappear without a trace, and why can they travel so quickly? They travel in other dimensions—it’s that simple. If mankind relies on the perspective of today’s science to understand inexplicable phenomena in the universe, or uses this method to try to understand spirituality or religion, it will never be able to understand these things. It needs to change its way of thinking and look at things from a different perspective. In mankind’s history, science was not limited to the so-called empirical science discovered and invented by today’s Europeans, and this wasn’t the only approach—there were other approaches. The processes of development undertaken by the ancient civilizations that were discovered to have existed on Earth involved different approaches to understanding life, matter, and the universe. The ancient science of China took a different approach. Of course, since Chinese culture has elements deriving from very high dimensions, and since man’s morality is not up to par, [the transmission of ancient Chinese science] has been restricted. Thus, [ancient Chinese science] wasn’t passed down, and what was passed down was this most rudimentary science of the West. So it is quite inadequate.

I just spoke about how man was not originally created in this material dimension and about the purpose of being human. If man continues to decline he faces elimination—complete elimination—which is called “the complete elimination of mind and body,” and it is a terrifying prospect! Thus, when Buddhas save people, it is to prevent you from having to face this dire peril and to deliver you from human suffering and to a heavenly kingdom. This truly, fundamentally resolves the issue of man’s suffering. Man’s starting point for believing in Buddhas is different now from what it was in ancient times. In the past, when man believed in Buddhas, he worshipped and venerated them and tried to become a Buddha through spiritual practice—there were no other thoughts involved. Today, man believes in Buddhas in order to ask them for something. Yet in the eyes of Buddhas, the mentality of trying to get things [from Buddhas] is the dirtiest, filthiest mentality. So consider the fact that Buddhas are trying to save you, and yet you seek worldly comfort and happiness. If you were really made to be completely happy and comfortable in this secular world, you really would not want to become a Buddha, as you would already be a Buddha. How could such a scenario be possible? If you don’t pay for the karma you’ve accumulated over many lifetimes and pay for the bad things you’ve done, and you just want a happy life, how could you possibly achieve that? There’s only one method that works: Begin spiritual practice, as only then can you eliminate the karma you owe. Even if you don’t want to become a Buddha, you must be a good person and do more good deeds and fewer evil deeds. This is the only way that you will be happy in the future and is the only way that the lifetime of your true self will be extended. Yet it’s possible that while reincarnating, a person will have his brain washed clean and then reincarnate into a bad environment, following the current [of society] towards the brink of destruction.

Just now I mentioned that Buddha Shakyamuni said that this universe is so large that it has no exterior and so small that it has no interior. Some people might still not quite understand this statement. That is, what was the issue that Buddha Shakyamuni saw? He lectured on his theory of countless worlds. Buddha Shakyamuni said: Not only do people with material bodies like ours exist in other dimensions, there are also countless worlds with human societies like ours. There are countless planets like that in our Milky Way. He also said that a single grain of sand contains countless worlds. He said that a single grain of sand contains countless dimensions similar to this dimension of ours where humans reside. But you cannot use the concepts of how to understand things that come from today’s science to understand the ratios of the size of humans [compared to other objects] over there, as they reside in different time space forms.

Some might find the statement I just made strange and cannot understand it. Try to imagine something: The Earth revolves according to a regular pattern. So what difference is there between an electron orbiting an atom and the Earth orbiting the sun? The form is the same. If you were to expand an electron so that it was as large as the Earth, would you find life on it? What kind of substances would exist on it? Buddha Shakyamuni said that the universe is endlessly small. How far did he see? He saw very microscopic substances. He said that a grain of sand contains countless worlds—one small grain of sand contains countless worlds. Then try to imagine something: If what Buddha Shakyamuni said is true, then wouldn’t there be rivers, lakes, and seas in the worlds in that grain of sand? And wouldn’t there be sand in those rivers, lakes, and seas? And wouldn’t a grain of sand there also contain countless worlds? Then wouldn’t there be countless worlds in the grain of sand in the grain of sand? Buddha Shakyamuni found after investigating further that this went on endlessly. Thus, he stated that this universe is so small that it has no interior. He hadn’t seen the deepest origin of matter. Of course, I have discussed the deepest origin of matter in the past, and I won’t speak more on it here. Since I have discussed highly advanced and profound things, and especially since a lot of people don’t understand Mandarin that well, I won’t talk more about these things. I think that’s all I’ll say for now. You can now bring up questions that have come up during your spiritual practice and studying the teachings, and I will answer them for you.

 

Student: We’ve read Zhuan Falun (Volumes I and II), and there is a phrase that I find hard to comprehend, because I used to be a disciple of Tantrism. There is a topic in there that seems to say that the dimensions where Boddhisattvas and Buddhas reside are currently in the midst of calamity.

Master: This is a very advanced question. You will be able to see and to come to understand these things only after you ascend to a higher plane through spiritual practice. I’m obviously only able to discuss the broad outlines of this issue. The Way at this dimension of man no longer works because morals in society are in decline and because the moral values in man’s heart have become degraded. When people have no upright thoughts, the Way ceases to work. When the Way of human society no longer works, mankind drifts downward. If the Way stopped working in a place other than human society, and if deviation [from the Way] began to occur in very high-level dimensions, substances and lives would have begun to fall. They would have become bad, so they would have fallen. So if this problem begins to occur on a large scale, it wouldn’t be an issue confined only to the human world. For instance, the Way permeates downward from the top to everything below it, so if the dimensions above deviate a little then the dimensions below will become completely different. It’s just like when you shoot a gun, if your aim is off a little when you fire, the bullet will end up way off the mark. So why do such great changes occur at lower dimensions? Society has become horrifying! Drug abuse, drug trafficking—people commit all kinds of evil deeds. A lot of people have committed numerous bad deeds, such as being in underground criminal rings, engaging in homosexuality, acting promiscuously, and so on, all of which behavior falls below the standards for human beings. How do Buddhas view these issues? Your governments allow [this behavior], and the laws allow it, but that’s just humans allowing it—the principles of Heaven don’t allow it! In the past, mankind sought out beautiful and nice things. But now, when you look at the toys people sell and the paintings that people paint, they’re all a bunch of random smears, and these are now considered works of art. What do they depict? No one can say clearly. All of man’s values are heading in the opposite direction [of what’s proper]. A pile of garbage can be a master sculptor’s work of art. This is the trend throughout society. Even toys in the shape of excrement are being sold in stores. In the past, people would only buy dolls if they were pretty, but now skulls, vicious-looking people, demons, and goblins have been made into toys and sell quite quickly, as people with no good thoughts are willing to buy them. What does this show? That man’s values have drastically declined! In the past, singers needed to have a beautiful voice, to have graduated from a music conservatory, and to carry themselves gracefully, because their music needed to give listeners an experience of beauty. Nowadays, men with long hair who don’t look quite like men and who yell loudly become stars when television promotes them. Everything is being ruined and everything of mankind is in decline. There are many other situations that are just terrifying! You won’t notice them if you don’t take up spiritual practice. Man’s understanding of religion has also changed. He treats it as politics. Some people blaspheme Buddhas as if it’s nothing, and now restaurant menus are written with a dish called “Buddha Jumping Over a Wall.” That’s slandering Buddhas! What’s wrong with today’s society? You won’t know about these things if you don’t engage in spiritual practice, but once you do so and look back at these things, you will be astonished! Bear in mind that society falling apart to this extent is not an isolated phenomenon. It happened because problems occurred with the Way in certain dimensions. It was caused by a number of substances and lives deviating from the Way. I can only explain it to you like this because if I go too deep into it, many of the people here won’t be able to understand it. I think that if I explain it this way you should be able to understand it.

 

Student: I feel embarrassed to ask this question, but I know that this opportunity [to ask questions] will be gone if I don’t seize it now. Many people have been unable to answer this question, but since Teacher is here today, it’s just such a precious opportunity. One night a few years ago, I was meditating in the Tantric style a little after midnight, as I used to practice Tantrism. But I started spiraling like an aircraft, indescribably quickly, and I rose into the air in this manner. I rose up this high and then exited the top of my head. When I exited the top of my head there was a bit of severe pain, and I rose even higher while in pain. I was quite scared. I thought that maybe my soul had left, and I couldn’t see my body. The second day, something strange happened: When I was sitting in my room in broad daylight, I saw a silver ring of light and silver light, but they disappeared five minutes later. On the third day, I saw a Falun. What was going on?

Master: Even though you used to practice Tantrism in the past, it didn’t do anything for you. Why were you able to see a Falun? It’s because we started taking care of you even before you started spiritual practice. It’s very easy for practitioners to float into the air; this is something that today’s science cannot explain. Actually, a person can float in the air when all of the energy channels in his body have been opened up. Even if he doesn’t float in the air, he will feel like he’s floating when he walks, hikes, or takes the stairs, and he won’t get tired. This is how things will be when the energy channels are opened. As for the issue of the true soul, it’s easy for some people’s true souls to leave the body and it’s difficult for others. Once you left your body, the Falun spurred your floating body into motion, and so you spun very quickly. As for you being afraid to go any higher than you were, that’s because your energy was only at a certain level at the time. You will be scared the first time you encounter something like this; it’s the same for anyone. Actually, many of us who practice Falun Dafa can float in the air, and it’s quite normal. Once a person begins spiritual practice, his energy channels will begin to open up, and when the entire cosmic circuit is open, the person will be able to float in the air.

As I discuss this I would like to stress to you that no one should have the following thought: “It would be so great if I could float in the air!” As soon as you develop the notion of pursuing it, you won’t float in the air even if you’re capable of it. This is because spiritual practice emphasizes emptiness and being free of intentions. You should want to do spiritual practice but not desire to gain things from doing it; you should want to do spiritual practice but not desire to gain higher energy from it. This is the kind of state you should be in when doing spiritual practice. If you think all day about becoming a Buddha, that is a strong attachment. If you don’t get rid of this desire you will never make it, so spiritual practice is simply getting rid of human desires. Anything secular that you are attached to is an attachment. No matter what you seek, the more you seek it the less you’ll be able to have it. You will only have it once you let go of the desire—you all must keep this principle in mind. If you want to get something in the material world, you can pursue it, learn about it, and get it through hard work, but as for things that go beyond the secular world, you can only get them by giving up [the desire to have those things]. What is this [situation] called? It’s called “getting things naturally without trying to get them.”

As for the issue of being scared that you mentioned, there’s actually nothing to be scared about; if you float into the air, then just float. [You were scared] at the time because no one had told you about this [phenomenon], and because you didn’t have a master in the human world to teach you. Floating in the air is a normal phenomenon and is controlled by a person’s will. If you say, “I want to come down,” as soon as you have that thought, you will come down; if you say you want to rise up you will rise up. If you then become afraid, that’s an attachment, and it’s easy for you to fall, so make sure not to become afraid. In the past, there was a person who progressed in his spiritual practice to the point of becoming an Arhat, but as soon as he got excited he fell. Why? Human excitement is a manifestation of emotion and is an attachment. A practitioner holds, “I won’t be moved if you curse me or say unpleasant things about me; I also won’t be moved if you say I’m good; I also won’t take it to heart if you say I’m bad.” So once this person got excited he fell. Progressing in spiritual practice to the point of becoming an Arhat is difficult, but in the end, this person restarted his spiritual journey from scratch! After a few years, he progressed to the point of becoming an Arhat again, but this time he thought, “I can’t get excited again. Otherwise, I’ll fall again.” He was afraid of getting excited. But once he became afraid he fell again. This is because fear is an attachment. Attempting to become a Buddha through spiritual practice is a very serious matter; it’s not a joke! So you must pay attention to this issue.

Before people ask more questions, I must bring up another issue: We must commit to one discipline in spiritual practice. I know that many people here studied Tantrism in the past; many believe in Buddhism; many others believe in Christianity or Catholicism. As I see it, you must commit to one spiritual discipline! Why must you commit to one discipline? This is an absolute, correct truth! [Not committing to one discipline] is a major reason why it’s impossible for people to succeed in spiritual practice in the Age of the Way’s End. There are a few factors driving [the fact that people cannot succeed in spiritual practice]: People cannot understand upright spiritual teachings, and also, people mix spiritual disciplines. Mixing spiritual disciplines is a primary reason. Once you practice one discipline, you cannot practice other disciplines. Why do I put it to you this way? It’s because “taking the best of all disciplines” is a secular way of thinking, and it’s how things work when you try to acquire worldly skills and knowledge. The principle for spiritual practice, though, is committing to one discipline. In Buddhism they call it “no second discipline.” If you say, “I will practice both Buddhist and Daoist disciplines,” then you won’t succeed in either of them when you practice them, and no one will give you higher energy. This is because “one only needs to put in the effort of practice, and the rest is in the hands of one’s master.” Think about it: Could you become a Buddha just by doing some qigong training? If you practice Tantrism, could you become a Buddha by reciting a few incantations, going through a few directed-thought exercises, and performing a few mudras? Human intention counts for nothing—it’s just a wish. It’s the master that truly makes things happen! Some people think, “We’ll recite Buddhist scriptures, study Tantrism, and practice Buddhist qigong because [these practices] are all Buddhist. What’s wrong with that?” That’s the way humans understand it, but not the way divine beings understand it. Think about it: How does a Tathagata Buddha or how did Buddha Amitabha succeed in spiritual practice? They attained spiritual perfection through their own methods of spiritual practice, and their higher energy came from their own method of evolving it. This is how they completed [the creation of] their paradises and spiritually perfected themselves. The unique factors of their spiritual discipline are what produced everything of theirs as they carried out their spiritual practice.

Buddha Shakyamuni’s method of reaching spiritual perfection is called “precept, concentration, wisdom.” You have to practice the four types of meditation, the eight types of concentration, and do things according to his spiritual discipline. In practicing this discipline, you will need to have the same type of higher energy that Buddha Shakyamuni has if you want to go to where he is. If you want to practice Tantrism, you will have to follow the Tantric requirement of “body, speech, and mind” if you want to go to the heavenly kingdom ruled by Vairocana. If you practice everything, you will gain nothing. If you practice Pure Land Buddhism and recite “Buddha Amitabha,” and then turn around and study Zen theories, you will gain nothing just the same. People have only one body, and transforming your body into a Buddha-body—the body of a Buddha, you know—is not such an easy task, and you won’t be able to do it yourself. A Buddha himself will have to do that, as transforming your body into a Buddha-body is an extremely complex task, something more complex than the most precise instrument mankind has. He must install a set of things called “mechanisms” in your body and must plant many seeds that will develop various forms of the divine powers of the Divine Way in your energy center. All of these things come from this Buddha’s spiritual discipline, and only with them can you practice his discipline and be able to spiritually progress to the point when you can enter his Buddha paradise. If you don’t commit to one discipline, how could you, with just one body, spiritually progress to where you can [enter] two different Buddha paradises? When the Buddha sees you acting like this, he won’t give you anything and will think that your character is poor. To put it plainly, you are a human trying to disrupt the Divine Way. To attain the spiritual realm of a Tathagata Buddha—it’s just so arduous and difficult! To attain the spiritual realm of a Tathagata Buddha—one has to suffer so much! If you, as an ordinary person, try to change and disrupt his things, mix two things together, and throw the things that two Buddhas enlightened to into chaos, aren’t you disrupting the Divine Way?! It’s that serious! But today’s monks and today’s mankind don’t even know that they are damaging the Divine Way. Of course, you can’t be fully blamed because you didn’t know about this, but even though you won’t be blamed, nothing will be given to you. No one will be allowed to disrupt the Divine Way at will. You would have disrupted two disciplines of the Divine Way, the Ways of two Tathagata Buddhas. That absolutely will not happen! Thus, as long as you mix things in your spiritual practice, it will be impossible for you to gain anything. It’s not like you can say, “I only practice Buddhist disciplines and not Daoist disciplines; it’s fine as long as they’re all Buddhist,” and then you practice the Buddhist disciplines of Zen, Tantrism, Pure Land, Huayan, and Tiantai—you would be acting recklessly and causing mischief, and you wouldn’t gain anything. You really wouldn’t gain anything, so you must commit to one discipline if you want to be able to attain spiritual perfection.

What I am explaining here is a principle. It’s not that you have to study Li Hongzhi’s Falun Dafa. During a prehistoric period, our Falun Dafa, much like Shakyamuni’s Buddhism, once saved people in society on a large scale, but this hasn’t happened in this period of human civilization. This is the first time that it has been made public since the appearance of the current mankind, and it will perhaps be the last time that it will be made public, but it will endure forever. Of course, we have the Falun Paradise, and disciples that attain spiritual perfection can go there. But it’s not that you have to follow my teachings. You can follow any teachings. As long as it’s an upright spiritual discipline, as long as you are able to access its authentic teachings, and as long as you think you can attain spiritual perfection in that discipline, then go there to practice. But I urge you to remain committed to one discipline.

Let me also tell you that Buddhas cannot save you using their true appearances. If a Buddha were to sit here, grandly displaying his divine powers, and explain the Way to you, that wouldn’t be saving people—it would be damaging the Way. Even people who had committed unpardonable sins would come to learn, and no one would have to rely on faith and discernment. As soon as people saw that a real Buddha was there, who wouldn’t learn from him? All of mankind would come to learn. Isn’t that how it would be? Thus, only a master who has reincarnated in the human world can teach and save people. This tests your faith and discernment, as it’s up to you whether you believe or not. But you can read over and think about their teachings on your own. Anyway, I explain this principle to you in order to be responsible to you. Because you want to take up spiritual practice, I tell you these things—otherwise, I would be acting in a way that’s not responsible to you. Since you have the predestined opportunity to be here, I will tell you these things. It’s very difficult to succeed in spiritual practice in any discipline now. No one is watching over practitioners, the key reason being that people are making a mess of spiritual practice. Of course, if you are able to handle yourself well and think that you can reach spiritual perfection through your own spiritual practice, then it’s fine regardless of which discipline you choose to practice in. That’s the idea. Since Buddhas do things for man’s benefit, I have to tell you that you must commit to a single discipline if you want to do spiritual practice. Not only can you not practice other disciplines’ movements, you also cannot study other disciplines’ scriptures, you cannot produce the things of other disciplines in your thoughts, and you must get rid of intention-filled thoughts. Since many things depend on your thoughts when you do the exercises, if your thoughts start to have an intention to them, then you will be pursuing things. If you go after something, you will get that thing. Then the higher energy in your body will be messed up, your Falun will become deformed and lose its effectiveness, and you will have accomplished nothing in your spiritual practice.

Let me remind you that this Falun is just so precious. Though I have given it to you, in the time before I started spreading this, a person couldn’t get one even if he did spiritual practice for a thousand years. Upon obtaining it, a person will have essentially completed half of his spiritual practice. Your higher energy will be automatically developed by the Falun. So as long as you work on improving your inner realm, you will gain a larger amount of higher energy and will advance. [The Falun] is a higher being, that is, it’s a life that’s higher than yours. Though I have given one to you, it’s because you want to do spiritual practice, which shows your divine nature. Once you have this thought, [I] will save you—that’s how it will be done, and what you will gain will be quite precious. Attempting to become a Buddha through spiritual practice is an extremely serious matter, and I won’t let you mess up or ruin [the Falun]. If you mix in other things as you do spiritual practice, we will take [the Falun] back from you, as we can’t let you ruin this life, this higher life. Some people think, “I did learn other things, but since this Falun is so powerful, how come it didn’t protect me?” It’s because there is a principle in the universe that you make your own decisions on what you want. If you, making your own decisions, go after wicked things… Wicked things are simply everywhere, trying to burrow into you even if you don’t want them! If you do go after them, they will come right over to you, arriving in less than a second. So why doesn’t the Falun protect you from them? It’s because you asked for those things. So you must pay special attention to this point. Spiritual practice is an extremely serious matter.

When I was spreading the practice in China, there were many people whose Celestial Eyes were open and who were very advanced in their ability to see things—but it’s also difficult to do spiritual practice with an open Third Eye. You may see huge, immortal beings. Because they are beings in other dimensions, they can expand their bodies to the point where they are very large. They wear yellow clothes, are enormous, and appear to humans as having great divine powers. They tell you: “I will take you as my disciple. Come learn from me.” As soon as the person’s desire emerges, he will go learn from the immortal being, and in that moment he will be ruined. No matter how enormous [that kind of immortal being] appears, he hasn’t left the Three Realms and is of no real significance; it’s just that he isn’t in this dimension and can transform his body at will. So you need to pay special attention to these issues. There are also demons who come to interfere with you: “Come learn from me. I’ll teach you a little something.” For some people—especially those who practice other disciplines—as soon as they sit down [to meditate], they often improvise their own exercise movements, performing mudras that look quite pretty—but you should know that demons know how to do that kind of thing too. You don’t know who is giving those things to you, so as soon as you go along with [the being that gave you things] as you practice, it will put things into your body, and your body will get messed up. I’ve seen that there are some people who seem to learn all sorts of things, and their bodies are horrible messes, full of all sorts of things—such people absolutely will not get anywhere in spiritual practice. We emphasize destiny. If you run into me, it’s because you were destined to. If you truly want to make spiritual progress, we must thoroughly cleanse you. We will keep your good things and remove your bad things, setting your body in order, purifying it, and having you reach the Milky-White Body state. This is the only way that you can truly produce energy and advance to a higher spiritual plane.

 

Student: You have many divine bodies (fashen) that can guide spiritual practice, but we are in Australia. Who can come to guide us? Who should we take as our master? 

Master: This person has brought up a very important issue. It’s known that when a person does spiritual practice it’s an extremely serious issue. This is because people have karma from many lifetimes and have committed bad deeds in their previous lives, so they will have enemies and creditors in other dimensions. If those enemies and creditors learn that you have taken up spiritual practice, then they will come to get revenge on you, so people just starting spiritual practice face mortal danger. Thus, I’ve mentioned that without a master it would be absolutely impossible for you to succeed in spiritual practice. You can only succeed in spiritual practice if you have a master watching over you and protecting you, and if he prevents any major issues coming up. There used to be practitioners of spiritual disciplines all over the world, and with a larger portion of them in China. Many Daoist practitioners take on disciples. Although now there is the religion of Daoism, which has large numbers of disciples, the real teachings are only imparted to a single person, as that’s the only way [the Daoist master] can guarantee that this person won’t run into problems. [A Daoist master] is only capable of watching over a single person, because Daoist disciplines don’t have the wish to save all beings.

Why can I pass on [the practice to] and save so many people? In China there are now ten million people learning it, and that doesn’t include people learning it outside of China. Why has no one run into problems? We have someone here today who was hit by a car. The car was destroyed, but the person was in fact fine. He wasn’t in pain or afraid, and he wasn’t injured anywhere. Why can this happen? It’s because those creditors are coming to demand payment, but we can’t allow you to really be in danger. Yet, the debt must be paid. Without Master protecting you, you would die right away. How could you do spiritual practice if you were dead? I have countless divine bodies that look the same as me. They are in other dimensions and can, of course, become large or small. They can become quite large and quite small. Their wisdom is completely unlocked, and their divine power is the same as that of a Buddha’s. My main body is here with me, but they have the ability to act independently, and they will watch over you, protect you, help you to develop higher energy, and perform some tasks. Actually, they are the embodiment of my wisdom, and thus I am able to protect you. I don’t live in Australia, but the practice has been passed on to you, and you can look for guidance in the teachings as if they were your master.

 

Student: Can the divine bodies guide our spiritual practice and protect us?

Master: When a practitioner is about to run into troubles, my divine bodies will dispel these things and prevent them from occurring, and they will also give you hints. When you just don’t wake up [to what the hints are trying to tell you], but you’re a solid practitioner, [one of my divine bodies] might appear before you to tell you something or perhaps let you hear his presence. Because your spiritual practice may not have reached an advanced enough stage, he might not have you see him, but he will let you hear his presence. Most of the time he will have you see him when you are asleep. This way it’s like you are dreaming, and you have to use your own spiritual discernment to decide whether what you’re seeing is real or false, so most of the times when you are able to see him will be in your dreams. If your ability to concentrate is very strong, you may see him when you meditate. But if you always want to see me, it’s also a kind of pursuit and an attachment, so you won’t be allowed to see me. When you stop thinking about it, as long as you make spiritual progress, you will definitely see [me] in the future.

 

Student: Master, though you are protecting me, I have huge karmic obstacles, so how are you able to protect me?

Master: This is also a very important issue. Because in today’s society, people’s karma has been rapidly accumulating, their karma is now quite sizable. It’s not just humans who have such large amounts of karma; since humans can reincarnate, they can reincarnate into animals, substances, plants, and organisms in high and low dimensions. Since there are six paths of reincarnation, a person can reincarnate into any of them. And people bring their virtue and karma along with them. Today’s people have small amounts of virtue and large amounts of karma. So it looks as if it’s not just humans who have karma; even concrete and soil have karma. It’s known that in the past, if a farmer in China cut his hand while working his land, he would grab a bit of soil and sprinkle it on the wound, and the wound would heal. The wound would heal simply from sprinkling a bit of dirt on it. Nowadays, would you venture to touch dirt [if you had a cut]? You could get tetanus even if you didn’t touch it! Karma is everywhere. There is karma on substances and plants, and animals and humans have karma all over, so seen from high-level dimensions, black waves are rolling across the world. Why do epidemics happen? Serious epidemics are simply those black waves, which are high-density clusters of karma rolling to different places. Epidemics occur wherever they roll to. What can be done, now that the karma of today’s mankind is so enormous? You should know that if you want to take up spiritual practice, it’s like I just mentioned: If you owe others a few lives and you were to wait until you paid them off before starting spiritual practice, [by then] the opportunity might have disappeared, and you wouldn’t have the chance to encounter me.

 

So what should be done about this? The purpose of man’s existence in this universe is not to remain human; it’s to return through spiritual practice to the place where you were actually created. Some people say, “I’m in the human world and I can’t let go of worldly emotions. If I take up spiritual practice, what will happen to my wife, children, parents, and siblings? [Without emotions] my life would be pointless.” That’s your understanding from your human point of view; you’re thinking about things from your current starting point. When you rise to a new starting point, after you ascend to a higher spiritual plane, you’ll be in a different realm and you won’t think this way. But let me remind you of a principle: Who are your true relatives? I’m not trying to interfere with your family relationships here. It’s because when a person goes through the six paths of reincarnation, you might be a human in this life, and in the next life you may be an animal or a plant, and through lifetime after lifetime, how many parents, wives, children, and siblings have you had? You’ve had countless numbers of them during the long flow of your existence. Some were human and some were not. Which of them are your real family members? Humans are simply too deep in delusion! Your true parents are at the place where your being was produced in the universe; only there can you find them. This is because beings have two types of origins: one is a being produced by the motion of enormous substances; another is when a tangible life formed by the motion of substances in the universe enters a state similar to that of a human being pregnant, and produces life. This [second] kind of life has parents. So your true parents are watching you right now and waiting for you to return, but you don’t return and remain deluded here, still thinking that the people here are your family members.

The purpose of man’s existence is not to just remain human; it’s to return to his true self. If a person has the wish to become a Buddha through spiritual practice, even if he doesn’t have a pre-arranged opportunity to take up spiritual practice, he sets himself up to have the opportunity to become a Buddha through spiritual practice in the future. Why do I put things this way? It’s because his wish is just so precious! Despite being in an environment full of suffering and confusion, he still has an aspiration to go back to where he came from, to become a Buddha through spiritual practice, and to become a better person. So if you want to take up spiritual practice, [the gods] will help find a way to give you the green light. When a person has the thought [of wanting to take up spiritual practice], this thought will send tremors through the world of ten directions; it will be as bright as gold, and everyone will be able to see it. That’s how things are if someone wants to take up spiritual practice, but what can be done about the person’s massive amount of karma? We have to use different methods to eliminate your karma. Your karma can’t be eliminated unconditionally, nor can it be completely eliminated. How much are others able to eliminate karma for people? I don’t look into these things, but in Buddhism they say that you cannot complete spiritual practice in one lifetime; it takes multiple reincarnations to complete. That is, you can’t eliminate that much karma in one shot. But if you want to make spiritual progress in earnest, we will find a way to have you complete your spiritual practice and attain spiritual perfection in this lifetime. If you are really old, or if you don’t have much time to live and don’t have enough time to complete your spiritual practice, then you will have a Falun with you as you live out the rest of this life and reincarnate into the next. When you are reborn you will continue to have it as you continue on to the next set of predestined relationships.

When a person practices an upright spiritual discipline, I will eliminate karma for that person to the extent that he can still make spiritual progress and be able to endure it. It’s not acceptable to eliminate all of it, or for you not to repay any of it at all. Then how will you pay back the remaining portion? We will place it on your path of spiritual practice, and all of it will be your own karma. We will place it at the spots when you need to improve at different stages of your spiritual practice, and it will act as the tests and hardships used to help you improve your character. When you need to advance to a new spiritual plane, you will run into some troubles, or you will feel pain somewhere in your body.  You will need to come to your own understanding of these situations, and decide at these moments whether you want to act as a practitioner would, or whether you will deal with these issues like a non-practitioner would, and whether you can let them go in your mind and take them lightly. When you take each test and difficulty as an opportunity to improve and let things go, you will be able to pass the test. Some people think that they face great hardships when they do spiritual practice, but those hardships aren’t actually that great. The more you think that the hardship is great, the larger it actually becomes, and the smaller you become. If you pay it no heed and don’t take it to heart, thinking, “As long as the green mountains remain, there will always be firewood to burn. With Master and the Way by my side, what is there to fear? I’ll just forget about it!” As soon as you let things go, you’ll find that the hardship shrinks and you grow, you will be able to overcome it with ease, and the hardship will become but a trifle— it’s guaranteed that things will go like that. When a person can’t overcome a hardship, it’s in fact because he’s unable to let go of his attachments or lacks faith in the Way. Most such people have one desire or another that they can’t let go of, and it’s because of this that they can’t overcome it. The person can’t overcome it because he can’t take that step back from humanness.

 

Student: I have a question. I have been practicing Falun Dafa for a long time.  I have read Teacher’s books and watched Teacher’s videotapes with great eagerness. But there’s a statement that I can’t understand: Teacher said, “You are unable to produce a Falun from your own practice, and the Teacher must personally install a Falun in you.” So I was thinking of going to China to ask Teacher to install a Falun for me. That’s one question. Another question is: how can we verify that we actually have a Falun? These are my two questions.

Master: Many people worry about an issue: “We want to learn this practice, but we haven’t attended your class, nor have we seen you in person. Can we get a Falun?” Some people can’t sense anything [and think], “Is Teacher not watching over us?” A lot of people will have this question. Actually, I’ve written in the book that you will have a Falun. Since I came here to save all beings, if I weren’t being responsible to you, your reading these [high-level] things would bring danger to you—so I have to watch over you. If you were genuinely developing yourself spiritually and yet I wasn’t watching over you, I would in essence be harming people and sending them to their deaths, and then I would face retribution, so I can’t do things that way. Since I am doing things the way I am, I have to be responsible to you. There are many people with good innate foundations who have seen that every word in this book is a Falun. Since dimensions differ from one another, when looking at [the book] from an even deeper dimension, every word is one of my divine bodies and a Buddha’s image, and even every component of each character is an individual Buddha. Think about it: the power of just one Buddha is great. Why are your illnesses healed when you read this book? If you have bad eyes, why is it that when you read this book, the words get larger and larger the more you read and your eyes don’t get tired? Why do miraculous changes happen when you read this book? It’s because those words are formed out of the Way, and they can do anything for you and install Falun for you. I also have divine bodies looking after you, and they can do any of these things, so you will gain these things even if you do not see me in person.

As to your senses, some people might be sensitive and feel a spinning sensation in the lower abdomen. It’s not in just one place that spinning will occur; it will occur all over the body. Some of us sitting here today have said erroneous things; please pay attention to this in the future. They’ve said that our Falun Dafa produces nine Falun through the practice. You should know that I only really install one Falun for you, and this Falun is incomparably powerful and can divide itself endlessly. In the early stages of your spiritual practice, I install many hundreds of Falun that spin in different places all over the outside of your body in order to adjust it. Some people say, “Falun are spinning here, there—wow—they’re spinning all over my entire body.” This is because we need to purify and assimilate your body. I use the special features of the higher energy in our practice to adjust you, so you will sense that there are countless Falun spinning everywhere. You might sense that there are nine of them, so you go and say that. So I will use many external-use Falun to adjust your body. Some people are sensitive and some are not. Those who are not sensitive will not sense anything, and those who are sensitive will be able to sense [those Falun]. But regardless of whether you are able to sense things or not, all of this happens at the beginning stages. For those who can sense things, once [the Falun] adapts to and becomes a part of your body, you will no longer be able to sense it. Your heart is beating; can you tell that it’s always beating? You can tell when you put your hand over it. Your stomach is rumbling; can you tell? Your blood is circulating; can you tell? Once [the Falun] becomes part of your body, you won’t have any sensations and won’t be able to sense it. There are also those who don’t have any sensations even in the early stages [of receiving a Falun]. A large proportion of people won’t have any sensations in the beginning, but will have many different sensations in later stages of their spiritual practice. As long as you continue to practice, I will be sure to take care of you.

The most obvious change is that your body will quickly be purified. In Mainland China many people know that practicing Falun Dafa results in so many miracles! As soon as people practice, their illnesses go away. Why? Many people have come without the intention of getting their illnesses healed. They practiced because they thought that Dafa was good! As a result, their illnesses were healed. But there are often also those who don’t get good results from the practice. Why aren’t the results good? They hear that Falun Dafa can cure illnesses and come to practice with the goal of getting their illnesses cured, so their illnesses can’t be removed. Get things naturally without trying to get them. Your wanting to heal your illness is a type of intention. The human body should pay back karma and should get sick. Your intention [in joining the practice] needs to be to develop yourself spiritually, and you have to remove your desire to have your illnesses healed. As long as you don’t think about having your illnesses cured, don’t pay heed to these [illness-related] matters, and just focus on doing the exercises, you will get everything. But if you come for the sake of getting your illness healed, you won’t get anything. In the past, we would always refuse to allow mentally ill people and those with critical illnesses to enter the classes; no matter how you tell a critically ill person to stop thinking about his illness, he can’t. His life is almost over; could he stop thinking about his illness? He can’t sleep at night because of his illness, so no matter how you try to persuade him to stop thinking about it, it won’t work. Sometimes he will say that he let it go but his mind is still thinking strongly about it, so there’s nothing we can do for him. Why can’t we do anything? The reason is that there are very strict requirements to be met when an upright spiritual discipline is spread to save people; otherwise, we would be spreading a wicked practice. You must change that mentality of yours [of using Dafa to cure your illness], and we can then actually [cure your illness]. If you don’t change that mentality, we won’t be able to do anything for you. If you change that mentality, you will no longer be an ordinary person, but if you can’t change it, you will remain an ordinary person—that’s how the two sides are demarcated. Thus, the only way is to let things happen naturally. Some people come without any particular intentions; they think the practice is pretty good and want to try practicing it. They see others practicing the exercises and unexpectedly decide to try practicing it, and these people, in fact, get all of their illnesses healed. Of course, we don’t require everyone to meet that high of a standard all at once, as there is a process of understanding, which is fine. But don’t take up the practice with any intention of gaining something.

 

Student: I’m sorry, but I have three questions to ask. The first question is that I read in Zhuan Falun that in the Qimen discipline, they don’t have you snap off the higher energy that you develop, and in some disciplines, eight-tenths of your higher energy will be snapped off in order to be used to substantiate your paradise. In our Dafa, is the higher energy also snapped off?

Teacher: Since a person goes through his spiritual journey in the human world, he must produce through his practice all the things that he will need to possess as a Buddha in the future. It’s known that Buddhas can have anything they want, have vast divine powers, and are blessed beyond compare. Where do these things come from? The amount of suffering he endures is equal to the amount of blessings he receives. Thus, he needs to increase his higher energy to quite a great amount in order to successfully become a Buddha through spiritual practice. In the past, these things were only discussed among those in religious circles who had achieved a very high spiritual realm; these things were not told to non-practitioners. A practitioner really does need to reach a very lofty realm to be able to attain spiritual perfection. Why? If you only have higher energy, when you go up there you won’t have any of what you want and you won’t have any blessings. That won’t do. You need to produce these things during your spiritual journey. The suffering you endure throughout your entire spiritual journey is your majestic virtue. When you suffer or when your character improves, your higher energy increases. So when you reach an extremely lofty realm in the future, you will have to take eight-tenths of your higher energy down and use it to complete the boundless blessings that come with your divine standing. When you fill out your own paradise, all of that comes from what you produce when you suffer as you develop yourself spiritually. Even the [column representing your] character standard that you have produced through spiritual practice must be broken off and used to fill out the paradise; these things are in fact your blessings and come from your suffering. The remaining two-tenths will be your divine standing. If you reach the Bodhisattva’s standard, you will be a Bodhisattva; if you reach the Buddha’s standard, you will be a Buddha; if you reach the Arhat’s standard, you will be an Arhat; if you reach even higher realms, you will be an even greater Buddha. The Qimen discipline, on the other hand, is more complicated, but those who practice it must also use their own higher energy to fully complete the blessings and virtue [in their paradises].

 

Student: I would like to ask my second question. My character is not good enough, so I get really angry inside when others curse at me or take advantage of me. According to what Teacher says, when others hit you, curse at you, or take advantage of you, they give you virtue, so you can’t get upset inside. If I get angry will I not increase the amount of my higher energy?

Master: As a practitioner, when you get angry with non-practitioners you become the same as them. When you get angry you push the virtue away; it’s just that you don’t push it back to the other party. You don’t push it back because you have indeed lost something, but if you handle the conflict the same way the other party does, you could push it back to him. Some people think, “This jerk really took advantage of me and conned me out of a lot of money, and I have to happily thank him. If someone beats me up, I still have to let that person curse at me. Not only can I not curse back, I need to thank him.” People will say, “Isn’t this being like Ah Q? Isn’t it being too weak and cowardly?” No, it’s not. Think about it: You won’t be able to do that without really good character. That’s a display of a practitioner’s firm will; could a non-practitioner do that? You won’t be able to do it without a firm enough will, and it’s not being weak and cowardly. Of course you should be happy. Think about it: If the person didn’t take advantage of you, you wouldn’t get an extra piece of virtue, and when you get an extra piece of virtue, through spiritual practice you can convert it into a piece of higher energy. When that person takes advantage of you, you eliminate karma! Can you become a Buddha while carrying karma? You need to eliminate it all. When someone takes advantage of you, he gives you virtue, and you also eliminate karma. You don’t stoop to his level, you remain calm, and your character standard improves. There is a measuring stick on top of your head that measures character, and the higher the measuring stick, the greater your amount of higher energy. Your character improves, the amount of your higher energy increases, your karma transforms into virtue, and the person who took advantage of you also has to give you virtue, so you gain four things in one shot. Shouldn’t you thank him? You should really thank him from the bottom of your heart. Just now I mentioned that society’s principles for determining what is good and what is bad are the opposite [of what they should be]. Once you arrive at a higher plane of existence you will find that all of the things people are attached to are bad.

 

Student: My third question is about the issue of killing mentioned in the book. Killing is an enormous sin, so is it considered a sin if a person commits suicide?

Master: It is considered a sin. Today’s society is bad and all sorts of strange things have appeared. People advocate for “euthanasia,” in which a person is given a lethal injection. After all, why would people give someone a lethal injection? It’s because others think that he suffers. But we think that his suffering is eliminating his karma, so when he reincarnates into his next life, his body will be light and free of karma, and he will have great happiness and other things waiting for him. He will, of course, have a tough time when he eliminates karma through pain, but when you don’t let him eliminate his karma and you kill him, isn’t that murder? He leaves [the world] carrying karma, which he will have to pay off in the next life. Which way would you say is the correct one? There is another sin when you commit suicide. Human lives are pre-arranged, and so you will have damaged higher beings’ overall sequence of things, which involves the interpersonal relationships you form as you fulfill your duties to society. If you die, won’t it mess up higher beings’ arrangements for the overall sequence of things? If you mess up those things, they won’t let you off the hook, so suicide is sinful.

 

Student: A Buddha can do whatever he wants, but aren’t Buddhas free of emotions and desires? Would they still be able to enjoy things?

Master: Some people say that Buddhas don’t eat and don’t have human bodies. It would seem that the general public has this sort of mistaken view of Buddhas. But I want to point out that statements of a spiritual nature cannot be properly understood using secular ways of thinking. In terms of Buddhas not having human bodies, it’s that they don’t have the filthy human body made up of molecular-level substances. Their coarsest particles at the surface are atoms, and their most microscopic particles are more microscopic substances in the universe. The more microscopic their substances, the greater the radiant energy those substances have, as the Buddha’s light illuminates everything. Some people say that Buddhas don’t eat. They don’t eat human food; they eat the substances of their dimensions. Those substances are not referred to as “food.” So if you don’t understand the meanings of words in Buddhas’ realms, you won’t be able to understand them. Humans will always understand things with a human mindset.

Some non-practitioners say, “Being a Buddha would be so pointless. You would have nothing and would just sit there like a log.” You should know that a Buddha is the king of his heavenly paradise. The title “Tathagata” that we use for such a being is based on the manifestation of the level of his character standard. In reality, he is the king of that heavenly kingdom. He manages countless beings in that paradise. Of course, he doesn’t use laws to forcefully manage others like non-practitioners do; he manages entirely with mercy and kindness. Everyone there meets the standard of that realm, which is incomparably wonderful. He doesn’t have worldly emotions. He instead has mercy (ci-bei), a more elevated spiritual realm, and things that are purer, and has none of the things that ordinary people have. Tathagatas have more wonderful things that correspond to higher spiritual realms. This is the state of a higher being, and there are beings that are far, far higher than even them. If everything were pointless then it would be better to just die and end it all. [The state of Buddhahood] is more wonderful, and only when you get to that paradise will you know what happiness is. [The state of Buddhahood] is more wonderful, but if you don’t let go of and remove these worldly things you won’t be able to gain access to it.

 

Student: Why don’t practitioners of the Qimen discipline snap off [a portion of] their higher energy?

Master: Who said that it’s not done in the Qimen discipline? In all cases a person has to use the higher energy that they have developed from their spiritual practice to perfect their divine standing. There is more than just one type of Qimen spiritual discipline, which is something quite varied and peculiar. In some cases, a Qimen practitioner perfects what’s needed at the same time that he tempers himself during his spiritual journey, but the amount of effort he has to put in is no different [from that of practitioners of non-Qimen disciplines]. Only a portion of his higher energy grows here [on a column on top of his head], so it’s not snapped off [at the end]. The higher energy of those whose energy column will eventually be snapped off will grow faster. Those whose energy won’t be snapped off perfect their blessings and virtue during their spiritual development, and their higher energy grows slower. But the efforts they have to make are the same.

 

Student: I have two questions. The first question is that the first day I meditated, I saw one of Master’s divine bodies next to me on my left, but he wore black clothes and was all smiles. Later, I read materials that talked about this. Since I saw this my first time seeing [Master], I would like to ask for guidance about this. The colors [I saw him wearing] were different from what I saw on the video.

Master: This was because there are contrasts between dimensions. To give an example, what color do Daoists like? Purple, so they say that purple qi comes from the east, and they think that purple is the loftiest color. Buddhist disciplines like the color yellow, golden-yellow, but [these two colors] are actually one color. It’s purple in this dimension, and golden-yellow in another dimension. So when we see black things in our dimension, they are white in other dimensions; when you see things that are white here, they are black over there; things that are green here are red in other dimensions. All of the colors appear different in various dimensions, so when you are in a certain state you will see a certain kind of color. Everyone should pay attention to this, because sometimes demons are really skilled at interfering with people. Most of the time my divine bodies wear the Buddhist kasaya, and have curly hair that’s very blue, bright blue. It’s only in very unique situations that you see my divine bodies wearing what I am now—extremely unique situations, which are very rare. So you have to be discriminating in these situations. If it is me, you will be able to sense that, and your mind will be at ease; if it’s not me, you will have a question mark in your mind.

 

Student: I have been studying this practice for two months now, and in these two months, the illnesses that I have had for decades are all gone. This is because my purpose in studying the teachings is to eliminate my karmic obstacles. In these two months, I’ve felt amazingly well, and I haven’t taken even a bit of medicine. That’s one point. The other point is that I would like to ask Master as to whether or not what I saw while meditating was a Falun. I saw something constantly spinning in a spiral. But it was an earth-like color similar to mud. The entirety of it was spinning and it was simply wondrous, but I couldn’t see its inner structure.

Master: Though the Falun’s symbols don’t change color, its base color will. Red, orange, yellow, green, greenish blue, blue, purple, colored, and colorless—it will alternate colors, so the Falun won’t necessarily appear in the colors [you see here]. Also, when the Falun adjusts your body it spins extremely fast and it looks like the wheel of an electric fan or like a tornado. Sometimes it spins slowly and you can see its inner structure clearly. When it spins quickly the structure is hard to see. When it adjusts your body as you begin practicing, it knows at what speed and how to spin, so none of [what you see] is an issue and it’s all normal.

 

Student: Can we perform the Great Lotus Mudra?

Master: The Great Lotus Mudra is a set mudra. This is the Great Lotus Mudra. (Master gestures.) We don’t need to perform that when we do the exercises. You can do it when you ask Master to consecrate a Buddha statue or a statue of the Daoist Laozi or the Original Master of Heaven that you have at home. It’s best if you hold my book—doesn’t it have my photo?—and as if you are talking to me directly, say, “Teacher, please perform consecration for me.” Hold this book while performing the Great Lotus Mudra, and the consecration will be done in three seconds. My divine body will have a divine body that’s the same type of god as the subject of the Buddha statue stay on it. If you were to have me consecrate a statue of Buddha Amitabha, my divine body would have a Buddha Amitabha divine body go onto the Buddha statue—this is true consecration. Those monks in today’s religions who don’t try to actually work on themselves spiritually and the many fake Qigong masters out there cannot perform consecration. They don’t have the spiritual authority to ask a Buddha to come. This is a Buddha we’re talking about; he won’t come over for just anyone. Of course, some people hold a mirror to reflect light on the Buddha statue and say that they have performed consecration, and there are others who paint cinnabar ink on the eyes of the Buddha statue until its eyes are red all over and also claim that they have performed consecration. All of these actions just make a mess of things!

 

Student: Just now [Teacher] said that humans have fallen down from different heavenly kingdoms and levels. Then naturally, in principle they should return to the heavenly kingdom from which they fell. But it seems that beings in this dimension of humans don’t know which heavenly kingdom they fell from. So when they take up spiritual practice, the method that they choose might be different [from the spiritual practice that would normally lead to that heavenly kingdom], like how they might have the predestined opportunity to study Falun Dafa.

Master: You are hoping to return to the paradise where you came from, the place where your life was created—your wish is good. The first problem you must resolve now is figuring out how to return via spiritual practice—this is the most critical issue. There are no other options. It’s not like everything is laid out for you, with the Buddhas sitting there, and you can choose which one [of the Buddhas’ paradises] you want. If, when you ascend through spiritual practice, you really reach a high place and are able to return to your original position, in that paradise you will be able to see your relatives there and walk around to take a look at things. At that point it won’t matter to you which paradise you’re in, [just like] it doesn’t matter whether you live in Sydney versus Brisbane.

 

Student: What is the situation with the Heavenly Dao discipline that is spreading so widely in Southeast Asia?

Master: You should know that these are the End Times, what Buddha Shakyamuni called the Age of the Way’s End, when countless demons come to the world. When Buddha Shakyamuni was in this world, a demon told him, “Right now I can’t throw your Way into chaos, but when your Way enters the Age of the Way’s End, I will send all of my disciples and their followers, to become monks and enter your temples. Let’s see what you can do about it!” Buddha Shakyamuni shed tears upon hearing that. Buddha Shakyamuni of course had no way to deal with that, and so things did become chaotic at the Age of the Way’s End. The Age of the Way’s End that he referred to does not involve merely humans, and not just temples, as there are incidents and people all over society that damage the undertakings of mankind. Evil religions have swept across the land! On the surface, they also tell their followers to become better people, but in their bones, they don’t really care about that. They care about either fame, money, or some dark influence—those things. So think about what kind of messed-up things they are after. The Divine Way is passed on to man in order to save him. If you use it to make money, that is an utterly wicked sin! Of course, demons don’t care about [whether something is sinful or not]. They use the guise of religion or of telling their followers to become better people in order to destroy mankind, man’s morals, and his innate moral compass. This is most vicious. So I think ... of course, there are certain things that I don’t want to say. You’re able to differentiate between what’s upright and what’s wicked, so just judge things for yourself.  I don’t want to say who’s wicked and who’s not.

But I can only tell you that if someone wants to save people in the human world, it’s an enormous undertaking, and it requires all the gods in the universe to nod their heads in agreement. This is because it involves many different aspects of things, involves every ethnic group and the beings in the heavens that correspond with that group, and it involves many, many issues, so it’s not something that someone can pull off on a whim. I know why Jesus was crucified. And why did Buddha Shakyamuni take the path of nirvana? It’s difficult to spread an upright discipline, but no one bothers you if you spread a wicked one. It’s not actually that no one bothers you; when an upright discipline is being spread, there are usually a lot of wicked disciplines as well, and it’s to see which one you choose. If there were only one choice, if all the disciplines being spread were upright, and if all of the wicked disciplines were done away with and the world were free of them, then it would be too easy for a person to take up spiritual practice. How would people be able to become true practitioners of this discipline? Everyone would take up this discipline, as that would be the only one available, so how could [the head of this discipline] test his disciples as to how firm they are in following his teachings? So usually when an upright discipline is being spread, wicked disciplines are also being spread, to see which choice people make. In order to judge your spiritual discernment, as you take up spiritual practice there will be people who come find you and say, “Hey, come practice this with me! Come practice that with me! Hey, I’m now doing this great practice,” and so on. They will try to drag you there and test you, guaranteed. Situations where people try to drag you away will occur from the beginning of your spiritual journey to the end. Why don’t we step in when these things happen? My divine bodies can deal with anything. Why don’t they do anything? It’s because they are using the demons to test people’s minds as to whether or not they are fundamentally firm in this practice.  The process of attempting to become a Buddha through spiritual practice is just that serious. So this kind of thing will happen.

Anyway, I’ve explained what’s good and what’s bad. Nowadays, it’s very difficult for even upright religions to save people, let alone wicked religions! Some of those people dress themselves up like models and are carried around by people, asking for money wherever they go, and people still believe in them. People are so confused! When people haven’t learned the teachings of an upright spiritual discipline, it’s very easy for them to be deceived.

 

Student: How does thought karma work?

Master: Some people’s brains unconsciously create bad thoughts. We follow an upright spiritual practice—I am carrying out this undertaking following the principle of being responsible to society, to mankind, and to individuals. That kind of person knows that [Falun Dafa] is good, but his mind curses at me and also tells him not to believe in Dafa and that it is fake. Why does this happen? In addition to the karma on his body, man also has thought karma. Every object is alive, and thus thought karma is alive. If you want to make spiritual progress, you have to purify your thoughts, and you have to eliminate the thoughts of cursing at others, the notions you’ve formed, and the various types of karma, all of which have formed over many lifetimes. Your essential nature will only emerge once you eliminate those things. When you take up spiritual practice and try to eliminate these thoughts and notions of cursing at people, those thoughts will fight it—could they accept dying? They will react in your mind: “All of this is fake,” cursing at it, cursing at people, and the more you practice the more they curse, producing filthy curse words in your brain. Actually, let me remind you that those thoughts are not you; they are karma, thought karma. You have to reject them. This set of exercises refines you, yourself. If your own thoughts and consciousness are not clear, as soon as the curse words come out and once you’re not firm, your main consciousness will go along with them, and you’ll stop practicing and not stay firm. Then we won’t take care of you anymore. Because it’s you that we save, if you don’t make the grade we won’t save you.

This situation happened a lot in the past. In China, some people’s minds reacted very strongly. One man’s mind cursed very strongly and he couldn’t repel the thoughts. In the end, he said, “I’m letting Teacher down! I’m even cursing Teacher. I’ve created too much karma, I don’t want to live anymore,” and with this, he took a knife and tried to slit his throat. Of course, don’t try this yourself. Try as he might, he couldn’t slit his throat; it didn’t hurt or bleed. He got upset and ran outside to find a Falun Dafa volunteer to ask him about this. He said, “My mind keeps cursing Teacher. What should I do?” When the volunteer saw what was going on, he began to recite the teachings to this man, and the man felt that that worked quite well [in resolving the issue]. Later, this man asked me about this situation and I told him. It’s actually your karma that is cursing, not you yourself. You shouldn’t carry any mental burden, because it’s the karma, not you, that is cursing me. But your main consciousness must be clear and must repel it; try to repel it and keep it from cursing. If you repel and restrain it my divine body will know what you are doing. That’s because it knows everything you do and knows that [the karma is going to curse] even before it does so. This is a test for you, a test to see if your main consciousness is firm or not. If you are firm, my divine body will eliminate this karma after a period of time. I eliminate this thought karma because it directly interferes with your spiritual practice and affects your ability to properly discern things. Pay attention to this issue and know how to differentiate [between karma and your own thoughts] when it comes up.

 

Student: I would like to raise an issue that involves the exercises and the relationship between the movements and a person’s character. Can doing the exercises more help to further improve one’s character?

Master: There’s no direct relationship, but the movements are a key aspect of spiritual perfection and are fundamental. Our discipline is one in which the mechanisms practice on your behalf. The mechanisms practice on your behalf even when you are not practicing, whether you are sleeping, working, or eating. It works on you ceaselessly twenty-four hours a day, and this shortens the amount of time in your life that practicing the exercises will take up and allows you to attain spiritual perfection as soon as possible. Since I’ve mentioned that I will have you attain spiritual perfection in this lifetime, I need to have things work that way. Yet the exercises in our practice are not like those in other practices, in which you only increase the amount of your higher energy when you practice them, and as soon as you stop, the amount of your higher energy stops increasing. When we practice the exercises, it strengthens all of the mechanisms installed in you.  You will be strengthening the mechanisms both inside and outside your body. Why do I say that we don’t put our hands in the position of pouring energy into the head, nor in the position of sending out or projecting energy, but instead have our palms facing the body? This is because when you follow [in your exercise movements] the qi mechanisms that I have installed outside your body, your hands will have great amounts of energy when you do the exercises and will strengthen the qi mechanisms; that is, the mechanisms. When your hands overlap over the lower abdomen they strengthen the mechanisms in your energy center, and when you perform the stretching movements you strengthen the mechanisms that are in motion. Thus, when we do the exercises, it strengthens the mechanisms that work on you long-term and that operate twenty-four hours a day without pause, and so practicing the exercises is [part of] our means to attain spiritual perfection. But [practicing the exercises] is not everything, as they are a supplementary means to attain spiritual perfection. Yet practicing the exercises is fundamental. Preventing the things you produce through spiritual practice in this discipline from becoming deformed is directly related to this set of things and to your exercise movements. Because we also have magical things, things that transform life and allow a person to extend his lifetime, that strengthen supernormal abilities, and so on, the exercise movements definitely have an effect. Spiritual practice comes first and practicing the exercises comes second. Spiritual practice is primary and practicing the exercises is secondary. But if you want to attain spiritual perfection in this discipline you must both make spiritual progress and practice the exercises.

 

Student: When I practice the exercises I’m unable to see any [special] phenomena. All I can see is white light, and I can see Teacher’s image when I want to. Is that an illusion?

Master: I will separate this into two topics. For those whose Celestial Eyes cannot see, there may be factors involved that are pushing them to break through to more advanced stages of spiritual practice. This is because for people with a strong ability to discern things properly and who have the ability to reach lofty realms in their spiritual practice, the less they are allowed to see, the faster they can make spiritual progress. Because they suffer and enlighten to things in this world of delusion, the same amount of suffering [as someone who can see] will enable them to elevate twice as fast. These people’s situation is different, and perhaps it’s to help them elevate in spiritual practice.

Another point is that even though you say that you didn’t see anything, you actually did see something. When you weren’t paying particular attention to anything, you saw a white light covering your body. Also, sometimes you see things when you want to, and you actually really see it, but you think it’s an illusion. A lot of people, when they’re able to see things, think that they are imagining things. You should know that when you see things with your eyes, you’re used to [seeing things that way], as you think that it’s your eyes that are viewing [those things]. But something you may not have considered is that whatever you see is transmitted to your brain through your optic nerve and displayed there as an image; the mind displays the object that was seen. Your eyes are only like the lens of a camera; they cannot analyze and display things themselves, as it is the brain that displays things. Since it is the brain that displays images, what the Celestial Eye sees and what people imagine are both displayed in the brain. When you think something, it’s the brain that is thinking, and when you see something, it’s the brain producing the image. So when some people are able to see things, they think that they are imagining things. But it’s different, as when you imagine something it won’t seem as real and it won’t move, as it is a fixed image. When you truly see things, on the other hand, they will be moving. When you get used to [seeing] these things, you will slowly see more things this way, and as you slowly get used to it over a period of time, you will gradually find that you’ve really seen things, and you’ll likely be able to use [this ability] better.

In the past, when some Daoists trained their disciples, they would specifically have them visualize things because they understood this relationship and could train their disciples’ supernormal abilities this way. [For example], there is no apple in front of you, but you are to imagine that there is an apple in front of you, and the master will tell you what kind of apple it is. Actually, there is no apple, but the master will train you to be able to smell it; then you visualize what the apple looks like—that’s how they train their disciples. Because these images are formed in the brain, some people cannot explain this issue clearly. Anyway, when you’re imagining something, it doesn’t move, and when you see something it’s in motion.

 

Student: One time when I was dreaming at night, I saw something scary, but I didn’t think of you; what I thought of was Tantrism. But I am a very devout Falun Dafa disciple. So does that mean that if something happens one day I’ll be finished, and that even my true soul will be gone?

Master: [This happened] because you hardly read the book. Though you practice Dafa now, you still have Tantric things in your mind, so what you thought of in your dream was Tantrism and not Dafa. Some people have asked me what they should do if they encounter mortal danger. I said that you won’t run into anything unrelated to your spiritual practice—guaranteed. But you may run into things that are related to your spiritual practice. If you really lost your life today, that would show that no spiritual discipline was watching over you and that you hadn’t made any spiritual progress. Some religions state that you must pay back any lives that you have taken with your own life, saying that it’s impossible to complete the spiritual journey in one lifetime. After you pay back a life with your own, you can continue spiritual practice in the next life—that’s what they advocate. But we don’t advocate that here. We emphasize here that you won’t be made to experience these issues, as my true disciples will absolutely not be made to face mortal danger.

 

Student: I didn’t realize at that time that it was a dream.

Master: At that time you were practicing Tantrism but weren’t truly doing spiritual practice, so [your practice of Tantrism] didn’t have any effect; thus, no one was watching over you. Some people say that when they dream they can see money on the ground and they pick it up. Actually, these dreams are tests for people to see whether or not your character is sound. Some practitioners say that they do very well during the daytime but can’t handle themselves well in their dreams. That happens because they aren’t sound [in character] in the deepest recesses of their thinking.  They are tested in their dreams as to whether or not they are sound, so this situation will happen. Don’t feel pained if you do poorly when it happens. If you take it seriously, you can definitely do well with it and you will be fine in the future.

 

Student: Teacher Li installed Falun for all attendees of the [Falun Dafa] classes in China. Will you install Falun for those of us here listening to your lecture today? Another question is, we don’t allow mentally abnormal people to be practitioners; are there any methods for dealing with slight brain issues?

Master: I will first talk about the first question. I’ve mentioned that each word in this book has my divine body behind it, and each word is the image of my divine body. Every word is a Buddha’s image. I have countless divine bodies; there are so many that numbers cannot be used to count them. It’s known that Buddha Shakyamuni mentioned that Buddha Amitabha has two million divine bodies. My divine bodies are so many that you cannot count them with numbers—it would take too long. I can watch over as many people as needed; I can even watch over the entire human race. Of course, we only play such a role for practitioners. We don’t get involved with non-practitioners or with social issues. So when you take up spiritual practice, as soon as you have a thought, my divine body will know about it. There’s also another situation. You see that this body of mine now is a human flesh body and just this big. But if you enter the next dimension, you’ll find that my body there is many times taller than this one. My body in each subsequent dimension is taller and larger than in the last one, and my largest body is indescribably large. Many students have briefly glimpsed my very large body. They say, “Teacher, when I stood under your toe, I couldn’t see the top of it.” So with [my having] such a large body, since the entire earth is here, I can watch over you wherever you are. Would I have to be standing right in front of someone to be able to install the Falun for them? I can install it for someone I’m not right in front of just the same as if they were. Even when I’m not where you are, I am where you are.

The second issue you raised is about schizophrenia. Whether it’s minor or severe, we have a clear rule for that: We don’t recommend such people join the practice. This discipline is different from others. We save the person himself, and if we can’t do that, we won’t give [our things] to someone else. Our higher energy is installed on the body of the person himself, and we only save your true soul; we only save the true you. This is unprecedented in history. Throughout history, whether you practiced Tantrism or other religions, they all saved your secondary soul. I have revealed one of the secrets of the ages here. When this secret was revealed, there really was a lot of resistance to [revealing it]. But when the earth becomes wonderful in the future, many Buddhas will come down to the world again to save people. When that happens, it won’t be just me saving man’s true soul, as they will also do so. I changed and turned around the situation [regarding the issue of saving the true soul] because saving man’s true soul has direct benefits in terms of the stability of society’s morality. When you save a person’s secondary soul, the person himself is unable to make spiritual progress.  That’s just having people join religious groups, which leaves society the same as before.  [Saving people that way] doesn’t have much of an impact on society. So when you save a person’s true soul, whether he takes up spiritual practice or not, he will be a good person and a benefit to society. Mentally ill people are not lucid, and so we are unable to save them. We save those who are lucid; if we gave things [for spiritual practice] to someone who is not in possession of his faculties, those things would be taken from this person by someone else the next day. Such a person wouldn’t practice consistently, so even less would he be able to follow our rules, to stay committed to a single discipline, and to avoid practicing various other disciplines. Since attempting to become a Buddha through spiritual practice is a serious matter, we can’t save such a person if he can’t do these things. Some people insist on having such a person practice, but those people are responsible if something goes wrong with him. If he practices for a while and then something goes wrong with him, he will say that the problems came from practicing Falun Dafa. We don’t teach mentally ill people at all—this is for sure. Because such people are not practitioners, they will get illnesses and run into problems. Something might go wrong with them when they are at the practice site trying to do the exercises.  Situations like that aren’t caused by them practicing but happen because the time has arrived for their illnesses to relapse.

 

Student: All of mankind is the same, but there is a large difference between the Buddhism spread in the East and the Christianity spread in the West. Buddhism is very weak in the West. Are they two different systems?

Master: Why does the West practice Christianity and the East practice Buddhism? Why are there large differences between Eastern religions and Western religions? Actually, Christianity lies within the boundary of the Buddhist system. It’s just that differences between peoples, culture, and in the cultures of different celestial bodies created differences in the various peoples’ physical features and ways of thinking. That is, people have different standards and defining qualities. This creates differences in their methods of working towards becoming Buddhas through spiritual practice and in their concepts of and ways of understanding the divine beings that reside at lofty realms.  All of these [religions] are in fact the same and are all at the spiritual realm of Buddhas.  Jesus is actually at the Tathagata spiritual plane.  But with the differences in culture, concepts, and appearance, they don’t use the term Buddha, though Buddha is the term used in the East. Of course, given the differences in appearance, the people in Jesus’ heavenly kingdom dress by wrapping themselves in white cloth. Those in Buddhas’ paradises, on the other hand, dress by wrapping themselves in yellow cloth. Their hairstyle is also different, and hairstyle is the biggest difference among different groups. Daoists tie their hair into a top knot; Buddhist Arhats have shaved heads; Boddhisattvas have their hair in the style of ancient Chinese women. And why is all this the case? The clothing worn in ancient China is the same as that worn by lesser deities in the heavens; it’s in fact the same style of dress employed by those in heavenly kingdoms and paradises. It’s the same with Westerners, as that’s how they dress in their heavenly kingdoms. That’s how people are. Of course, the current fashions are all new styles. Actually, the clothes that modern people wear are the worst and the ugliest.

Why doesn’t Buddhism exist in whites’ divine paradises? And why doesn’t Christianity exist in Asians’ divine paradises? These religions technically don’t exist in those places. I remember that in the Bible or a similar book, both Yahweh and Jesus said something back then to the effect of: “Don’t go east.” There was more, but I just remember this line, “Don’t go east,” telling his followers not to spread the teachings east. His followers didn’t listen and traveled to the East with expeditionary forces. There is an issue that comes up in this situation. It’s prohibited for the earth’s races to mix. Now the races are mixed, and it has brought about an extremely serious issue. People of mixed race no longer have corresponding connections with those [of their race] above, and they have lost their roots. People of mixed race have lost their roots; it’s as if those in the heavenly kingdoms and paradises don’t watch over them, as though they belong nowhere and none of those beings wants them. So if you look at the area connecting the continents of Europe and Asia, that area was once a desert. It was uninhabited, and was hard to cross when transportation was not so advanced. With the progress of modernized tools, this [barrier] has been broken through, so the races have become increasingly mixed, and this brings about serious consequences. I don’t focus on these things, of course; it’s just to say that those above don’t acknowledge these races.

The issue I just brought up is that there is a corresponding relationship between the human races and their corresponding races above. The white race above, in this world and in this universe, makes up a very small percentage of this universe—that’s their heavenly kingdom. The paradises of the yellow race and of Buddhas and Daos, on the other hand, are extremely numerous, and they almost fill up the entire universe. Tathagata Buddhas are as numerous as the grains of sand in the Ganges river—they are so numerous and large. There are a huge number of people with the appearance of people of the yellow race in this universe, so the races above and below correspond to one another. Jesus’ point in saying “don’t spread the teachings east” was that those in the East are not part of his people. Jesus said not to spread the teachings east, and I’ve found that there are no Asians in Jesus’ heavenly kingdom. It’s very sad! In contemporary times, people no longer listen to the words of their Lord, and Asians no longer listen to the Buddha’s words, so people have made a mess of these things. I’ve also found that Buddhas’ paradises did not have whites in the past. But why am I passing on to Westerners what I am spreading now? It’s because I am spreading the principles of the entire universe. As for those Caucasians who complete their spiritual journey in this Great Way of mine, when they complete their journey, the appearances of their bodies and the forms of their spiritual discipline will be the same as those of people in Jesus’ heavenly kingdom. That’s how things will be when they complete their spiritual journey. Those of the yellow race will be in the image of a Buddha when they complete their spiritual journey. So I can save both types of people. Since this spiritual way that I am spreading is huge, let me also tell you … no door this large has ever been opened before, but this is for a reason.

 

Student: Teacher, what is the situation with mixed race children?

Master: When I talked a moment ago about the situation with mixed race children, I was telling mankind a divine secret. It’s not that we are going to do something about the issue. I mentioned that I’m doing something even greater, and I can also save people of mixed race, though it’s only for this period of time that I can save them. Although both Easterners and Westerners reside on Earth, there is something separating the two sides that people don’t know about. It’s known that Easterners place importance on things like the number nine (jiu); the sound of this number is good, [as it has the same pronunciation as part of the word] “long-lasting” (chijiu); the number eight (ba) corresponds to the sound fa, as in “making a fortune” (facai), and [the use of these numbers] can indeed have a bit of an effect. That is, Feng Shui, geomancy, and other things that Asians use don’t work when brought to the West, and they don’t have an effect on Caucasians. And the astrology, omens, and so on that white people hold in high regard don’t work on Asians. Some people think that it works on them, but that’s just you thinking that, as it actually doesn’t. Why? The biosphere of Caucasians has the special material elements that make up their dimension, and the biosphere of Asians has the special materials that make up their beings. These things permeate the structure of a human being, so the two types [of people] are different. After people mix races, when you look at the child they bear, it’s a child of mixed race. Yet there is a partition in the middle of this child’s being, and once this partition is formed the child would be physically and mentally incomplete; his or her body would be incomplete. Modern science knows that each generation is worse than the previous one, so this situation will come about. Of course, if this person takes up spiritual practice, I can make things work and I can take care of it. These things cannot be casually taken care of for non-practitioners.

 

Student: When I do the third exercise, I feel like my palms are radiating heat. I don’t think this happens in any other spiritual discipline. When I am practicing, I feel as if I am a Bodhisattva and that I am superior to all. Is this correct?

Master: Don’t add any thoughts when you practice the exercises. The discipline of Tantrism works in the following manner: [The practitioner thinks,] “I am a Buddha.” The person is not a Buddha, but did his physical body transform? No, it did not. Then who will transform when he completes his spiritual journey? The secondary soul. When passing on this practice I have told you that I save the true soul. Then if your secondary soul completes his spiritual journey, you still have to enter the six paths of reincarnation, and once the two beings separate, you won’t remember anything about what happened. It’s normal for the palms to radiate heat.

 

Student: Can we not add even a few directed thoughts when practicing the Great Way?

Master: [Our practice] has no mind exercises, and all intentional thoughts are attachments.

 

Student: Two questions: One is about the issue of Asians and Westerners that Teacher just mentioned. If, for example, there are many people who were originally Asians but who have reincarnated as Westerners, what should be done about them?

Master: That doesn’t matter. There are two kinds of situations here: If this person did not come [to this world] with a purpose, then we will change this person as his body changes; if he came with a purpose, then that’s a different situation and should be regarded as a different matter.

Also, let me remind you that you need to be careful about how you spread this practice. If someone becomes interested and comes to learn, then you have accumulated merit, and this is something that brings boundless merit. But there is a point to be made: If the person doesn’t want to learn, but you insist on him learning and drag him over to learn, I say that that’s no good, because if he doesn’t want to become a Buddha through spiritual practice, not even a Buddha can do anything about it. People decide on their own what they want to gain and to seek after. We encourage people to be good, so you can tell them about the practice, but you can’t forcibly drag others in. On this point, let me remind you that we don’t force anyone to come learn the practice. Also, in the future, our volunteers or our people in charge should not use administrative methods when doing [Falun Dafa] work. You are all practitioners, so it’s the teachings that should convince people. You are all studying the teachings, so when a volunteer has done something poorly or incorrectly, other students will say that the volunteer has an issue in that area when they see it. So they will avoid making the same mistake as the volunteer. Why is that? It’s because everyone is studying the teachings and they won’t do things based on just anyone’s ideas; they do things according to the requirements set out in the teachings. Of course, our attitude toward you is the same: Learn the practice if you want, and if you don’t want to learn it, then you are free to leave; we won’t harm anyone. If you don’t want to learn it, then that’s fine, but if you do want to learn it and to take up spiritual practice, then we will be responsible to you, and it’s guaranteed that we can accomplish that. We aren’t strict in terms of formalities, but attempting to become a Buddha through spiritual practice is serious. This is because we cannot allow any bit of deviation to occur with such a great and serious spiritual discipline. Never in history has something this great been spread to the public. You sit here now, thinking, “Coming here was very natural for me; it was like I came as soon as someone told me about it.” You should know that it’s quite possible that you were destined to be here, and that predestination probably made this opportunity happen. It’s rare to have someone come with no predestined background. I think that if you all keep asking questions there won’t be much more to ask about. You can find answers to all of the things you want to ask about in the teachings.

 

Student: On the issue of not practicing two spiritual disciplines at the same time, I think that if some people learn Falun Dafa, they might also mix in other things that they are learning, and there is also some traditional divination knowledge …

Master: The process of attempting to become a Buddha through spiritual practice is a serious matter. It’s not that you can’t research the Book of Changes or the Eight Trigrams. As I see it, the time for spiritual practice is limited, so if you can use that time to delve into and understand this Falun [Dafa], that would be just terrific, as nothing is greater than it. That is, the principles of the Eight Trigrams that today’s society knows, as well as many technique-type things, do not go beyond the Milky Way. This universe, on the other hand, is large beyond your imagination. Three thousand universes like the one we are in constitute a larger universe. Three thousand of the larger-boundary universes constitute a universe with an even larger boundary, and there are countless Gods and Buddhas within. What can the Milky Way account for? It’s very small. For those learning the practice, consider that such an expansive set of teachings has been passed on to you. I really don’t think it’s necessary for practitioners to waste energy [on studying those other things]. But if you study those things professionally, I don’t oppose that, because it’s a field of secular study, and so just go and study it. If it’s just a hobby of yours, then I think that it’s best if you stop wasting your time on these things! I must be responsible to you, as attempting to become a Buddha through spiritual practice is a serious matter. Thus, it’s best if you use your energy to delve into the teachings. You will reap boundless benefits, as no field of study can compare with this.

As for the worldly practice of summoning spirits and ghosts, I’d say that you should avoid those even more. Because those low-level things are ghosts, seeking out things like that is just so far off from our Divine Way! In addition, those are wicked things; they’re ghosts. Also, I’ve talked in detail in the book about fortune-telling. If you want to make spiritual progress, it’s a serious issue. Once a person has energy, his words can make something a fixed reality. Since non-practitioners’ situations are unstable, you may tell someone that his situation is a certain way, but perhaps it’s not like that. Yet as soon as you say that it is like that, you will have made it a reality, and you will have done a bad deed. So practitioners must use a higher standard to judge themselves. If you do a bad deed, that’s not just a simple matter. I clean out your body; we do it as soon as we see that you want to take up spiritual practice. If you want to make spiritual progress, you should let go of these things, as pure and clean spiritual practice is the best.

 

Student: I have a mental burden. l am so fortunate to have fate steer me here to learn Falun Dafa today. I read that in Zhuan Falun Volume II it says that those who cannot complete their spiritual journey this life can make a vow to continue it in the next life. Yet my real purpose is to attain spiritual perfection. But I am old now, so what should I do?

Master: This is an issue for elderly people. That is, although our discipline refines a person very quickly, will this person’s remaining lifetime be enough for spiritual practice? Strictly speaking, it’s enough for anyone, regardless of how old they are. But there is one point: Most of our practitioners aren’t able to handle this situation well. You may say that you are able to handle this situation well, but in reality you are not, because you haven’t advanced to a high enough spiritual realm in your spiritual practice, and your mind has not met a high enough standard, so you aren’t able to handle the situation well. Our discipline refines both mind and body, so as you make spiritual progress, your body changes and your lifetime is extended. Since this practice refines both mind and body, you extend your lifetime as you practice, so in principle, no matter how old you are, strictly speaking, you have enough [time to practice]. But there is an issue: Any extensions to your lifetime are one hundred percent for the sake of spiritual practice and are not for the sake of simply living a worldly life. Then if the person doesn’t know that his life has been extended and can’t handle things well, and cannot do things one hundred percent according to the requirements for practitioners, then he will constantly face the risk of passing away—this is the issue that elderly people face.

If he really didn’t complete his spiritual journey, however, and wasn’t diligent, then he only has three ways to proceed: One is to continue spiritual practice in the next life. My divine bodies will watch over him, even when he reincarnates, and he will reincarnate into a family where he can take up spiritual practice. All of this will need to be arranged. Another choice is that if he doesn’t want to take up spiritual practice and thinks that the human condition is too full of suffering, he will go to the dimension that he has ascended to in his spiritual practice. So if he leaves the Three Realms, he will be a sentient being at that dimension outside of the Three Realms; if he doesn’t make it out of the Three Realms, he will remain as a lesser deity at that dimension of the Three Realms. But within the Three Realms, he will still have to come down to reincarnate in roughly three to five hundred years; it’s just that he can enjoy a few hundred years of happiness. That’s one issue. Another way is when some people actually progress quite far in spiritual practice, but they still don’t meet the standard. Because of their understanding of the teachings or because they made special contributions, they can go to the Falun Paradise to be beings there, and since they are beyond the Three Realms, they will not go through reincarnation. That’s good, of course, though this is a rather uncommon situation, as the requirements are rather strict. Yet they are not Buddhas, Arhats, or Boddhisattvas—they are just commoners in the Falun Paradise. So that’s how things are. Actually, since you have already taken up the practice, the seed of your becoming a Buddha through spiritual practice has been planted.

 

Student: I have a question: How are people’s spiritual levels differentiated?

Master: I have said this: I said that when a superior man hears the Dao, he follows it diligently, and I was using a statement made by Laozi. When an average man hears the Dao, he practices it on and off, and when an inferior man hears the Dao, he laughs at it loudly. What does that mean? The phrase “when a superior man hears the Dao” means that when this person hears about spiritual practice, he immediately wants to take it up, and he believes in it. This kind of person is hard to find. He starts spiritual practice right away and keeps going with it all the way to the end—that’s a superior man. When a superior man hears the Dao, he follows it diligently. What does the phrase “when an average man hears the Dao, he practices it on and off” mean? He sees everybody else coming to learn it and so he comes along with them. Whatever the case, he thinks it’s pretty good. Perhaps as soon as he gets busy or runs into frustrating issues out in the world, he forgets about it. He thinks to himself, “Others have stopped learning it anyway, so I’ll stop too.” He’s fine with either learning it or not—that’s an average man hearing the Dao, who practices it on and off. He might complete his spiritual journey, but he also might not. Whether or not a person completes his spiritual journey depends on himself. When an inferior man hears the Dao, he laughs at it loudly. As soon as the inferior man hears the Dao, he says, “Spiritual practice? What nonsense!” He laughs, saying, “It’s all superstition, and I don’t believe in it.” Of course, he’s even less able to make spiritual progress; that’s how things are. As for how high a realm an individual can advance to in spiritual practice, I think it depends on how much the person’s mind can bear. [For some people], when you run into a bit of hardship, once you’ve left this hall you won’t be able to bear it. As I lecture here, all of you think that this is good. Since it’s an upright spiritual discipline, the energy I carry is compassionate and kind, so you all feel comfortable here and are happy to listen to me lecture. Of course, the same thing will happen when you take up spiritual practice, since it’s an upright spiritual discipline. But if upon exiting the doors you completely change, some of the attachments to worldly things in your mind surge forcefully, and you just lose interest in spiritual practice and forget about it, that won’t do.

 

Student: Could you talk more about the situation facing mixed race children?

Master: I have already discussed mixed race children, which is a phenomenon that has only come about in these Latter Days. It’s of course not your fault if you are of mixed race, and your parents can’t be blamed for it, either—the bottom line is that mankind created this chaotic phenomenon that led to such a state. Yellow, white, and black people all have corresponding ethnicities in the heavens. It is true that [those in the heavens] indeed do not watch over those who aren’t of their ethnicity, those who don’t belong to them. This is not me just making up things—what I am telling you are divine secrets. Mixed races came about during these Latter Days, but you can’t blame people for that. Everyone has drifted along with the current, and since no one knows the truth, they came to this point by drifting along. If you want to take up spiritual practice, I can deal with this situation. As for which heavenly kingdom you will go to, we will have to judge things based on your situation. I will assimilate you to wherever the largest portion of you corresponds to. Anyway, in regards to these matters, you should just focus on spiritual practice and not on these things. What are you afraid of now that you’ve taken up Falun Dafa? I never discussed this in the past when I lectured on the teachings, but this situation needed to be explained to people sooner or later.

 

Student: Wouldn’t it be great if mankind ate only vegetables?

Master: That wouldn’t work. That’s how you see things, but heaven has set the standards for human living, and one must meet these standards to be considered a human. [That wouldn’t work] because meat can help the body replenish thermal energy better than vegetables can, to be sure. But it’s a different matter for those who engage in spiritual practice.

 

Student: Is there a specific standard for how calm the mind should be when we meditate? If a Dafa practitioner’s true soul is always thinking about itself, will that affect the person’s ability to enter tranquility?

Master: The true soul and your entering a state of tranquility are two separate things. It’s impossible for a person to calm their mind at the beginning. Why are people unable to calm their minds? It’s because people have so many attachments: your business, your studies, your job, interpersonal conflicts, your children are sick, no one is taking care of your parents, worldly affairs—there’s nothing that you won’t think of, and all of these things will take up a large part of your mind. Think about it: Can you claim to be able to calm your mind? You sit down and say that you’re not going to think about those things, but they pop up on their own, so there’s no method that will enable you to calm your mind. It’s just like what I wrote in the book—you say that you can calm your mind if you recite the Buddha’s name, observe your mind, or count numbers, but none of these methods will work. They are a kind of method, but they don’t always work. The only thing that works is gradually taking your attachments to worldly things more lightly. When you take them more lightly, you will naturally be able to calm your mind. When you can really calm your mind, you will have reached a very high realm. But there is one point: Once you start practicing Falun Dafa, will you be like a monk, wanting nothing and having no material possessions? No. We conform to society to the best of our ability as we develop ourselves spiritually, because when you are in the secular world, you can’t act like you’re special, and on the surface you are just a normal person. So we must conform to society to the best of our ability while we develop ourselves spiritually. If young people want to marry, they should go ahead and do so, and if you want to do some business or serve as an official, it won’t negatively affect [your spiritual practice]. We are explaining a principle. Every social class in society has its own set of interpersonal conflicts. We disregard the limiting frameworks of religions. Daoist disciplines are unable to go beyond their taiji, and Buddhist practices are unable to go beyond their principles. So we disregard the tenets of religions, as we are explaining the principles of the entire universe.

We’ve found that you can make spiritual progress regardless of what social class you belong to, what you do, and what your job is. Why is that? Your average worker, in order to have shelter and to be able to put food on the table, will have conflicts with others both personally and in his workplace. Then it’s a question of how he can be a good person when facing these conflicts. Your average white collar worker, an office worker, faces the issue of how to be a good person in his own social class, as people struggle amongst themselves for material interests. He faces the issue of how to be a good person when facing conflicts in all different aspects of his life. Business owners face the issue of how to be good people when doing business in their social class, how to work with other business owners, and how to deal with friction with other people. They also face their own types of conflicts. It’s the same for a president of a nation: The president has to work hard for his country, he has things that go smoothly and things that don’t, things that succeed and things that fail, and there are conflicts between nations, so he has things to worry about. That’s how life as a human is, so regardless of your status on the social ladder, you cannot avoid dealing with the mortal world, people, and society; thus, you will face conflicts. When dealing with these conflicts you face the issue of how to be a good person, and if you can be a good person you will have surpassed ordinary people.

This is the principle that we are explaining: It’s not about getting rid of anything materially. Instead, it’s about getting rid of attachments. It’s fine if you do big business, and it won’t affect your spiritual practice. The bigger the business you do, the more money you will make, of course, but you won’t see money as all-important. You won’t be like those who get extremely attached to tiny amounts of material interests. Even if your house was built out of gold, in your mind you wouldn’t be attached to it and you would take it very lightly. This is the standard required of our practitioners. If you were an important official, you could do good things for the people; this is the standard that we set for practitioners. That’s how it is, right? We go beyond religions when explaining this [concept] and we explain its essence. You can temper yourself in any environment. But there is one point: Spiritual practice in the human world directly tempers a person’s mind. So why do I say that I am truly saving you? It’s because you yourself are truly improving and are truly enduring the stress and pressure of living in the human world. Since you yourself are truly improving, the higher energy [produced in our practice] should be given to you, so we are saving you.

The secondary soul can also gain higher energy, but it will always be your guardian being, and it can also complete its own spiritual journey and follow you. Though I have brought up this matter today, your understanding of things still isn’t deep enough. You should know that some people are still discussing other spiritual disciplines and talking about what other disciplines are like, and it’s because you aren’t able to realize the real meaning of what I just said! All of the spiritual disciplines throughout history have saved your secondary soul, not you—they don’t save you! I’ve revealed a secret of the ages! I went through a lot of difficulties to be allowed to talk about this issue. In the past, you yourself wouldn’t be saved no matter how you practiced, so who were you practicing for? After a lifetime of spiritual practice, you would still have to enter the six paths of reincarnation, unaware of what you would reincarnate into in the next life. Is that not pitiable? Why was that the case? In the past, neither religions nor other spiritual disciplines saved your true soul. That’s because they felt that the true soul was too hard to save and too deluded. You may think that you understand what I’m explaining here, but once some people leave here they will start acting however they please, throwing themselves into and competing against others for tangible, worldly benefits; that’s how such people will be, guaranteed. This is why divine beings consider humans to be too difficult to save. But I am saving you. Your secondary soul has the same name as you, was born at the same time as you, and controls the same body—it’s just that you don’t know about his existence. What others do is save that soul; they may look at you while talking, but they’re actually talking to that soul. Sometimes, wittingly or unwittingly, you might say a few things, but that didn’t come from your own mind. A lot of people go into an unconscious state when they meditate and sit for multiple hours at a time. They get really excited when they finish the meditation, saying “Look how well I’ve practiced. I meditated in a state of focus for multiple hours.” It’s so sad! Did you actually practice? Do you know if you did or not? It’s another person entirely that’s actually doing the practice.

In the past, some Daoist disciplines would tell you to drink alcohol in order to numb your true soul so that your secondary soul could engage in spiritual practice. People in many Daoist disciplines drink until they’re numb, become unconscious, and fall sound asleep, after which others lead their secondary souls in spiritual practice. I am explaining a secret of the ages, though it may seem that I am just casually spelling it out here. Regardless of which discipline you’re talking about, since [higher beings] have deemed humans incapable of completing spiritual practice, perhaps out of the kindness of their hearts, they want to have someone from your body complete spiritual practice, which would count as you having accumulated virtue and having suffered, since your youth was, after all, spent in religion. So what happens next? Would you reincarnate into a secondary soul in your next life? That’s possible. But as I see it, the possibility of that opportunity is remote. And then you would be made to start spiritual practice again? That’s also quite uncommon. But some people will be given blessings. How does that work? They will become high-ranking officials, make big fortunes, or do big business—that’s what will be done for them when they enter their next life. That’s because they did, after all, accumulate virtue and blessings throughout their lifetime. I don’t think anyone here wants this outcome. Each time after I finish discussing this issue, some people still come and ask me what I think about various spiritual disciplines and religions. I think that their ability to catch on to things is just so poor. You can read through the defining qualities of our Falun Dafa, which are all written up there [on the poster], but people don’t pay attention to them and just gloss over them as if they were just common phrases. Those are governing principles from the universe, and this is indeed how things were in the past.

It’s possible that when you leave this hall, your body will feel very comfortable, but there is one point to be made: As you develop yourself spiritually, there will still be times when your body feels unwell. Why is that? It’s because you have karma accumulated from your various lifetimes. You cannot completely push out a person’s karma all at once in a single lifetime; otherwise, a person would die. So we gradually push the karma out from inside the body; therefore, after a period of time your body will feel unwell, and you’ll wonder, “Have I gotten sick?!” Let me remind you that it isn’t an illness. But when it comes it will make you feel very unwell, and sometimes it will be quite serious—it will appear quite serious. But some people understand [what’s going on], and they get excited when they feel the pain come, saying, “Teacher is watching over me and removing my illness and my karma.” Some people, on the other hand, who don’t feel unwell and don’t have any sensations in their body, get really worried: “Teacher’s not watching over me. How come my karma isn’t being eliminated?” But there are often some new students that, as soon as their bodies feel unwell, think that they’re sick and decide to take medicine, as they think that it’s better to both practice the exercises and take medicine. We’ve seen a principle: Hospitals cannot eliminate people’s karma. Doctors are not practitioners. They don’t have the requisite spiritual authority and are just technicians in the human world. They can only remove your surface pain, leaving it in the deeper layers [of your body]. Taking medicine pushes the illness deeper inside the body, essentially storing it up. The pain on the surface will be gone, but it will have been stored at deeper layers of the body. Surgery is the same. For instance, if you have a tumor, they will excise the tumor, but they are merely removing the surface matter. Yet the true cause of the illness is in other dimensions, and they cannot reach that. So a severe karmic illness will recur. In some cases it seems like the illness is cured and doesn’t recur in this life, but it will find you in the next life, because it was pushed down to a deeper plane and is thus bound to re-emerge at some point. The principle here is that every person must pay off his karma in the end. What we do here is, starting from the origin of your being, push the dirty things out of your body. But no one else does this; it can only be done for practitioners, and we will do it for you. However, you must maintain a good state of mind, and you can’t think, “Oh no, I’m sick again,” as soon as your body feels unwell. If you think that you’re sick and you take medicine, we won’t stop you, because spiritual practice depends on your ability to properly discern things, and there are no hard rules for anything. We’ve never said that you shouldn’t take medicine if you feel unwell. We’ve never said that.

Some people fail to comport themselves as practitioners would. They only practice the exercises, they don’t study the teachings, and they put no restraints on their behavior. Even though they practice the exercises, my divine bodies don’t watch over them. Without someone watching over them, they are just ordinary people, and they will get sick. If we set a rule that forbade you to take medicine, and if you weren’t able to comport yourself according to the standards of a practitioner, then you would still be an ordinary person. You would still get sick when the time came, but then you would say that Li Hongzhi didn’t allow you to take medicine. So I don’t tell you whether you should take medicine or not; you decide on your own. The situation occurs to test you, anyway, and if you fail to adopt the mentality of a practitioner, you will still get sick—that’s the idea. We’re only discussing the principle involved here, so you should know that if you want to develop yourself spiritually, from now on, when your body starts feeling unwell, it’s quite possible that the karma from your previous lives is being pushed out. I’ve seen that some people have reincarnated dozens or even over a hundred times, and they’ve accumulated many different illnesses over those many lifetimes; we will need to push all of this out of you, and one way or another we will have to remove it for you. We will remove more of it through another dimension, and we must remove a portion of it. But we cannot remove all of it through other dimensions, because you must bear a little pain. If you don’t bear anything, you will essentially have committed bad deeds and avoided paying for them. When you complete your spiritual journey and are given a Buddha’s divine standing, you’ll feel like you don’t deserve to be there. Others will also wonder: “How did he get up here?” Don’t you think so? So you have to bear a portion of the pain. And as you bear it you will also improve your power of spiritual discernment. Will you see it as an illness? Or will you see it as an instance of a practitioner eliminating karma?

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