text:
the biography and what is FG position regarding them.

"The article makes one point clear: all the trainings took place at night in secret locations where no one could witness them." whats the point of this? forgive me if im wrong but perhaps you are generalizing way too much. Besides, the training the first and second master gave him do not speak of anything related to night training. Appart from that, i dont see the relevance of this sentence.

"Despite the biography’s recounting of intensive, decades-long physical and moral training that only legendary saints and heroes undergo, it doesn’t provide the basic background information of Master Li’s life. Master Li apparently grew up in a vacuum." I think i just got tired of repeating myself but ill tell you, statements like this are the ones that give off a really bad image of wikipedia and compromise its integrity, its called "vandalism" and if these statements and claims are not removed or modified as quickly as possible, we'll find a way to report this kind of behaviour. I guess i dont need to say this should be eliminated too. You have no idea how many wikipedia rules you just outrageously and carelessly broke with this little remark.

Not only are you issuing personal attacks, creating an environment of incivility on the context of the article, but you are also using weasel words in order to give the "illusion" of being neutral in three or two sentences along all the article. Quoted from wikipedia "Please avoid the temptation to use Wikipedia for other purposes, or to treat it as something it is not." and i believe you are using wikipedia in order to defame falun gong and speak ill of it instead of actually wanting to create an article. If you really wanted to create and article, you would also consult with the oppossite party when making edits and you would not be breaking the guidelines just like you have been doing for quite a while.

While looking at this Mr. Lihongzhi wiki page i realized not only did you violate all this other rules i mentioned before but i believe your edits and the sarcastic and ironic way you present them in general constitute an act of "vandalism" and it is a serious offense of wikipedia policies.

As stated by wikipedia's guidelines and code of conduct (which i recommend you read a bit) "Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought" we are not here to advertise or defame falun gong and even less to attack other editors and label them of liars and such.

To conclude i would like to add a quote concerning the critics behaviour on the wikipedia discussion page which has caused articles like this Wiki page from Li Hongzhi to appear.

Please take the time to read the following paragraph also quoted from wikipedia

"Wikipedia is not a battleground

Wikipedia is not a place to hold grudges, import personal conflicts, or nurture hatred or fear. Making personal battles out of Wikipedia discussions goes directly against our policies and goals.

Every user is expected to interact with others civilly, calmly, and in a spirit of cooperation. Do not insult, harass, or intimidate those with whom you have a disagreement. Rather, approach the matter intelligently and engage in polite discussion. If a user acts uncivilly, uncalmly, uncooperatively, insultingly, harassingly, or intimidatingly towards you, this does not give you an excuse to do the same in retaliation. Either respond solely to the factual points brought forward and ignore its objectionable flavoring, or ignore the relevant message entirely.

When a conflict continues to bother you or others, adhere to the procedures of dispute resolution. There are always users willing to mediate and arbitrate disputes between others.

Also, do not create or modify articles just to prove a point..."

If you keep it up and the official mediation comitee rejects our petition in any way, im going to the Arbitration Comitee to report your behaviour and request a ban. If the official mediator arrives, you can be completely sure that i will report this behaviour to him/her in order to take proper action regarding this behaviour.--Andres18 19:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Wiki is not neutral, just complete
Where does it say that the pros & cons can not be presented side by side? The "instructions" from "Master" Li were that you either had to be for FLG or neutral. You refuse to allow any opposing points of view to even be considered and attack those responsible. That's the height of religious descrimination. Cj cawley 01:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

 * You misunderstood my post, pros & cons can be presented side by side, but all i see is the cons and not the pros, just look at the Li Hongzhi wiki page, its a mess. The pros & cons should also be exposed properly and neutraly, that means that you cannot expose more pros than cons or more cons than pros, there should be a balance. Did you read all my message? and i dont remember hearing anything about any instructions from Mr Li, could you explain yourself?.
 * Im not religious, im not a fanatic and i dont discriminate, i suggest you do not make such claims without proper understanding of what my message is reflecting.
 * The problem is you see all the cons as a fact, an absolute truth, and that happens because you do not want to listen to the FG editors position. If we are going to speak in terms of discrimination id say the critics are the ones who discriminate us, they are not open to listen to our suggestions or our point of view just because we are FG practitioners. Evidence of that is that they do edits without also consulting with us, WE are also editors as well arent we? and also they label us as liars, so everything we say is a lie to them, they dont even take us seriously, im guessing you know this is discrimination as well.
 * Concerning the title of your message "wiki is not neutral, just complete" thats your own understanding, or else, give me evidence that wikipedia states information should not be exposed with a neutral point of view or in a neutral way but instead, how the information is presented depends on the efforts the editors from both parties make in order to prove their point.--Andres18 02:09, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

 * And you wonder why, after that litany, we requested a mediator?

There's a good book: "Groo, Mightier than the Sword". Basically, he who controls the press also controls the people. Setting up your own "newspaper" & "tv" station are the same thing.
 * As for the for or neutral agrument, go back & ask your own people. I got the speech from the ex several times.
 * As for my own FLG experience, I also got that from the ex. I was even trying to help her at one point, then I realized what FLG was; however, it was too late for her.
 * I believe the Chinese Press about as much as I believe the FLG press - both are suspect. The Chinese just happen to do a much better job at presenting actual people - not just a listing of names.
 * If you are FLG, then you are a religious fanatic. It's impossible to have a conversation without FLG coming up.  I know, I tried.  One good example was dinner with the ex last night.  She shows up with a "friend".  She only has FLG friends and no one else.  I gave up even asking.  They show up 1 hour late and start in with the FLG conversion.  I brought up a simple point.  The fact that I am Catholic never came up.  Needless to say, it went over their head.  I am going to play with the kid, have a good day.

Cj cawley 12:48, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, im not wondering why you requested a mediator. Secondly, Your ex's behaviour concerning FG doesnt relate to the entirety of FG, she has her own attatchments and problems and we are all different. I dont go around talking about FG to everyone or trying to "convert" people, i think its really senseless to try to convince someone to like something they do not like. I may give away some flyers on the street from time to time or just briefly mention FG is something good if the topic comes up, i could extend myself a bit if the person im talking to is interested. I dont limit myself to having FG friends, i dont care if someone practices or not, its not a requisite to make a good friendship. Someone can be a FG practitioner and not follow the guidelines accordingly. Ive met non-practitioners who are a lot much better people than a few FG practitioners ive met, and these good people dont like FG, does that make them bad people? no. Just because you had this experience with your ex doesnt mean all practitioners are like this, i dont behave like your ex and im a FG practitioner. See? there goes the labeling again "If you are FLG, then you are a religious fanatic" says who? how many thousands of practitioners have you met in order to make that generalization? FG is not even a religion, i find it offensive that you label me as a religious fanatic and dont even know me at all. If your wife is very attatched to this practice then thats her business and she needs to fix that as a practitioner, that doesnt mean all FG people are like that. If the student of a class has bad grades in a certain subject, that doesnt mean all the students of the same class have a bad grade on the same subject.--Andres18 21:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Cj cawley, how did it go with the trial?

Who is asking? Also, I am not allowed to discuss material related to the trial. There should even be a section for things like that in the wiki page. Thanks for the suggestion.

As for Andres comments, the ex was not alone. The first pass through was 5 FLG people + the ex vs. 1 highlander. Do you want me to continue?

As for the religious fanatics, just pickup your own paper. The only thing missing is a Fatwah ordering the deaths of Chinese officials. Everything else is in there. Actually, we should also add a section for that too.

Back to playing with the kid. Cj cawley 12:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of my original message which you call "litany" proposed some edits for the li hongzhi wiki page and also issued a warning. Why dont we stop this discussion which seems to be going nowhere and concentrate on answering to these proposals or creating another thread you may have in mind in order to advance at least a little bit before the mediator arrives? or are we supossed to wait for him/her?--Andres18 12:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Warning, wow, just let you know I am not afraid of your FAlun Gong supernatual powers. --Yueyuen 20:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh im not going to do anything, thats the official mediator's job, not mine.--Andres18 19:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually cawley, its seems as you don't know what you are talking about, you have been brainwashed. <IP_ADDRESS> 19:11, 20 August 2006

It seems that all critics of Falun Gong are brainwashed by Master Li. :-) --Yueyuen 20:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I wonder, how can Mr. Li brainwash critics? does he trick them into criticizing him? that doesnt sound very reasonable to me. To The person who did not sign his/her post: 1. Dont judge people like that and even less do so if you are a FG practitioner. 2. Sign your post.--Andres18 06:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Request to put up photo
I don't have any opinion on the Falun Gong, I just want to know if I can put a photograph of practitioners in New York City I took today? The main way I try to create value to Wikipedia is by contributing photographs, even for entries as mundane as Lettuce and Skywriting. Here's the photo to the right. --DavidShankBone 19:36, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It may not be a good idea. what happens if every practitioner contributes a picture or everyone coming to this site contribute a picture? --Yueyuen 20:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't particularly care for slippery slope arguments which boil down to, "Don't make a sound decision today because we may need to make a sound distinction tomorrow." There's a lot of good ideas people shoot down because this may get out of hand. These pages are meant to carry value for their readers; adding a photograph of what the article is about can improve its quality exponentially. Images give readers a "full picture" so to speak. I don't think it has to be my photograph, but I think a photograph of its practice is warranted, and would make this page more complete. By your reasoning, Yueyuen, nothing in Wikipedia would get accomplished. What if everyone wanted to contribute to an article? The whole idea behind Wikipedia is community contribution--what you are concerned about is exactly what Wikipedia stands for. It's up to the other members of the community to collectively decide to keep or ditch a photograph. My photograph, in particular, only shows practice--it doesn't show protest or make any other statement except perhaps that people from differing backgrounds do Falun Gong, in this case in New York City. If you look at my contributions, you will see I have no agenda--just photography. So, this photgraph was taken with a "neutral" perspective --DavidShankBone 21:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

 * DavidShankBone welcome to the Falun Gong mess.  Since you are new here you might not be aware of the edit wars that have been going on on all Falun Gong pages.  Believe it or not pictures have been a source of contention.  Falun Gong practiiotners only want pictures like yours that deliever a nice image of the group, they would not allow pictures that reflect the true nature of the Falun Gong.  For example, on Li Hongzhi’s page here his pictures are repeatedly deleted by practitioners, why would they do that?   It is because they do not want the world to know that the FG is a religion, a cult to be exact.  --Yueyuen 22:36, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand, and I will leave it up to the page to decide - there are other pages where I can place the photograph. It does a disservice to this page to not have one. But as a note to all vested parties - I do not have a horse in this race, and as a reader of Wikipedia I would find an image like mine--not necessarily mine--to be useful. One thing that can be agreed upon is the fact "Falun Gong practice outdoors and in public spaces." This is a photo of this fact, whether you like the FG or not. It does not hold a value--I'm Episcopalian, so I just took a photograph of something I see. With that in mind, I will leave it for those who have a vested interest in this page to decide, and I will move on. But I bet if the 2006 Qana airstrike page could work out its differences (that's the Middle East!), than so can all of you - best of luck. --DavidShankBone 22:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

 * We are waiting for a mediator, hopefully he/she can enlighten us. good luck. --Yueyuen 23:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The truth Yueyuen? Obviously you have listened to the CCP propaganda. Falun Dafa is not a cult nor a religion, it is a qiqong cultivation school within the Buddha-School.

Publicity shots of practitioners do not consititute evidence of spirituality

 * True spiritual realization does not depend on the appearance of anything (eg: how sweet the faces of Falun Gong practitioners look in a PR picture), but rather a deeper reality which is not of form or name. Because Li Hongzhi is so attached to his reputation (criticizing his teachings is one of the worst sins you can commit)he has created a flock of disciples who devote themselves to concealing and spinning his teachings to make them acceptable to the west.  I challenge any fair minded person to read what the Falun Gong practitioners have said about their beliefs in Wikipedia and then compare that to what Li says Falung Gong is in his lectures and poems.

 * In the practitioner-written stuff you'll find no mention of Li as exclusive savior; people being weeded out by Li's fa-rectification; the requirment that practitioners work to destoy the Chinese Communist party as a condition for their salavation; Li's promise to turn them into gods if they do their duty and expose the evil, wicked CCP or the demonization of homosexuality.

 * The pretty pictures are all part of the big lie...a total distortion of the Falun Gong for the western audience so that Li can further his goal of destroying the Chinese Communist party, while at the same time not raising suspicions of western reporters and politicians. After all, if the Falun Gong is the enemy of the big bad regime in China, it must be good, right? And boy, just look at how peaceful those practtioners all look as they meditate and send forth their self-rigteous thoughts to save the universe from the likes of me.  --Tomananda 07:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

If publicity shots of practitioners do not constitute evidence of spirituality and you dont want them on the wiki page, then Fo images of Mr. Li do not constitute evidence of worship, take them off.--Andres18 13:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Andres, actually I am in favor of having both practitioner shots and Li-in-Buddhist-robes shots, as long as they are balanced. This is an enclycopedia article, not a promotional pamphlet for the Falun Gong. What annoys me is that month after month go by and every time a non-practioner editor tries to introduce either a picture or text which sheds light on Li's self-assumed divine nature (or Buddh nature if you would prefer) the response is always the same: delete the picture or the text and accuse the non-practioner editor of having a POV.  This is total bull and you know it.

 * Will Falun Gong practitioners ever reach a level of comfort with their beliefs that they allow a complete reporting of those beliefs in Wikipedia? So far, that seems unlikely. In case you think I am being cynical here, I assure you I am not. I have done yogic meditation and greatly respect hindu guru Swami Satchidananda, who founded the Integral Yoga Insitute.  Unlike Li, Swami Satchidandana never assumed the role of god, but he did wear the traditional orange/red robes of a hindu renunciate.  I find it mind-boggling that Falun Gong practitioners continue to conceal some of the most basic teachings and understandings of Falun Gong.  Put simply, I have learned over the years to distrust most of what Falun Gong practitoners say.  As long as practitioners continue to be more committed to preserving the PR image of Li than to reporting the truth about Falun Gong, I will continue to distrust.    --Tomananda 23:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Tomananda: I have been following this for a while and I see what is happening.
 * The explanation for you is that by talking about all the 'high level' things right away people obviously would not understand anything and think Falun Gong was nonsense and not learn it. Many people who are cultivation material might lose the chance. If I had come across all this earlier I might have written the whole thing off, too. It took quite a process to understand and accept Zhuan Falun, even after all the other things I had read. It takes time and a process to understand. For example, at some kind of Open Day at a university, different deparments advertise what they are going to teach. The Chemistry department doesn't go ahead and display third year chemistry learning, because no one would understand it. They just talk about the basic stuff and later people progress up to that level and can understand it. Cultivation is similar. People who understand Dafa would not talk about all these things to non-practitioners because they know how precious this is and want to do what is best for Dafa. That is my explanation for your comments, like why practitioners behave apologetically for their beliefs, or do not right away say all these things about Master and Fa-rectification. You have an ill agenda and are seeking to harm the Fa. You are doing the worst of things and you do not realise it. Dafa has not been damaged by this massive and incredibly evil persecution, so you should not think too highly of your crusade here on wikipedia. It amounts to nothing and you are ruining yourself. I think it will be fine if everything is laid out very simply and clearly for everyone to read. Tomananda makes good points about some things here and they should be addressed. I am trying to address the situation in a general way, Tomananda. There is nothing to worry about for us. To other practitioners reading this: I do not think it would be best to drag this out, subvert Tomananda in a sly way, or try to talk sideways about anything. That does not seem like the most righteous approach. If it's all stated simply and clearly with no distortions it will be fine. I see Tomananda's writing above as an awful distortion and an ill-minded interpretation of this event. I think it would be best at this point to state the case very frankly, and I am sure a consensus can be reached with the wording. I think this would be the most responsible way to move forward. Hasn't Master always said that practitioners should be responsible to society and conduct themselves openly, with dignity and confidence? We should not give people cause to say that we are being slippery, apologetic or dishonest in some way. I am on holiday at the moment so I can spend time on this. I know that things here on wikipedia have moved forward quite a bit, and that this has been going on for a while. Now there is the mediation happening, so I am not asking to be included or recognised, but I hope I can still contribute in some way. I am writing this because I want to be responsible to myself, to sentient beings, and to Dafa. Other practitioners, if you have some response please post it or email me. So I think it would be best to respond to this very directly; Tomananda's accusations against practitioner's attitudes are founded. Obviously his take on Dafa is lamentable, really unutterably lamentable.

 * It is actually the most perfect thing; really, all of this is completely perfect and righteous so there is nothing to worry about. Master's salvation is the most merciful. Dafa is really the most magnificent thing!
 * --asdfg12345 (UTC/GMT) 01:52 p.m. Wednesday, 23 of August 2006

The World Needs Truthfullness, Compassion, and Tolerance
I think this is an excellent idea. Everyone should contribute photographs of Falun Dafa, and the whole world will see their kindness and compassion, and their peaceful Fa-Spreading activities. Let's see more Falun Dafa Photographs!

Isn't this fair? The article is about Falun Gong after all, shouldn't we have pictures of Falun Gong!?

I WANT FALUN GONG PHOTOS!

I have some to submit, how do I submit Falun Dafa photographs?

Daniel Price

 * I agree with the pictures. Since FLG has no membership "list", pictures are the next best thing.  One picture, one name.  This way, the CCP agents will have an easier time collating the names & faces.  You will be saving them a lot of work.  When FLG members are banned from peaceful countries like Iceland, they will have faces to go with the names.  :)-

Cj cawley 01:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Photos posted here should be in consideration for the article. Since that article is locked (and likely to stay that way for a long time to come) the point is moot. --Fire Star 火星 12:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

 * User:Cj cawley, the purpose of Wikipedia is not a list of all people that should be discriminated against. Remember the Third Reich made all Jews wear insignia so that they could be recognized.  It was discrimination.  Discrimination of people's religious faith is a violation of Human Rights.  --HResearcher 03:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I plead Godwin's Law. You lose. -- Миборо в ский 04:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Violations of Falun Gong's human rights in China
"According to the U.S. State Department's annual human rights report, Falun Gong prisoners are required to work long hours daily in "extrajudicial reeducation-through-labor camps." Others are placed in psychiatric facilities or special deprogramming centers. In addition, human rights groups allege that detainees are often deprived of food and water, are denied bathroom facilities, and are sometimes forbidden to sleep. The State Department report adds that several hundred Falun Gong adherents reportedly have died in detention due to torture, abuse and neglect." Brother's Plight Spurs Effort to Improve Human Rights in China by Kristie Lee, November 7, 2003, Duke University --HResearcher 00:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The article is invalid. It claims to be written by two different people in two different places & references a third for a contact. Next time you post something like that, you should at least get all of them on the same page in the same place.

Almost forgot, I will find out about reporting you to the Duke U. press.

Cj cawley 01:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Hey Cj, please read No legal threats. --Fire Star 火星 02:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * User:CJ cawley, I don't understand your threat to report me to the Duke University and am not bothered by it anyway. Yes, it's from Duke University, there's no legal problem in citing it. The article is valid, and the claims cited are supported by the U.S. State Department report.  --HResearcher 03:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * If the charge is supported by the US State department report why don't you cite them dirctly? --Samuel Luo 04:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Heres another from CNN in 2000 which also references the U.S. State department: U.S. State Department report says 'religious intolerance remains far too common' around world, September 6, 2000

 * I will add the US State Department report also. Thanks for reminding me. --HResearcher 04:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Heh, it's Duke. What do you expect from Duke? :D -- Миборо в ский 04:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I would expect them to support Human Rights instead of trolling the U.S. Department of State. :D --HResearcher 04:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

"The Government continued its repression of groups that it categorized as "cults" in general and of small Christian-based groups and the Falun Gong in particular. Arrest, detention, and imprisonment of Falun Gong practitioners continued, and there have been credible reports of deaths due to torture and abuse. Practitioners who refuse to recant their beliefs are sometimes subjected to harsh treatment in prisons, reeducation-through-labor camps, and extra-judicial "legal education" centers."U.S. State Department, International Religious Freedom Report 2005, China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau) --HResearcher 05:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Falun Gong practitioners with mental illness
The Falun Gong has accused the Chinese government of persecuting practitioners by lucking them up in psychiatry hospitals. But many people including psychiatrists in the west have attested that some practitioners were mentally ill. Dr. Arthur Kleinman and Dr. Sing Lee from Harvard medical school have been long-time researchers on various psychiatric topics in China since 1978. One of the patients Dr. Lee interviewed in China in 1997 was a Falun Gong practitioner. Two years into practicing the Falun Gong this 54-year-old housewife found that her body moved in ways that were no longer under her control. Dr. Lee recounted her case:

 * She thought that these movements “talked” to her, sometimes by writing through her hand, telling her that continuous practice of Falun Gong could transform her into a Buddha. That she was plump and had long earlobes, resembling the popular appearance of a Buddha, convinced her that this possibility was real. In due course, however, she was frightened because the movements began to tell her to die by not eating and by taking an overdose of pills. She believed she was possessed by a shapeless fox spirit a thousand years old that required her body to turn into a real Buddha. She became an insomniac, restless, and distressed. Her distraught family members took her to a psychiatric hospital where she initially resisted treatment because she did not think that she was mentally ill but was only having a paranormal experience… Subsequently, she stayed in the hospital for one month and gradually recovered with antipsychotic drug treatment. She accepted the advice of her doctor that she had a sensitive disposition that was not suited for practicing qigong and stopped the Falun Gong altogether. She knew of many middle-aged people who practiced and derived benefit from Falun Gong for health reasons and loneliness after retirement. But she also heard about some who died by self-induced starvation or suicide as they attempted to ascend to the Falun heaven.

The above case shows that some practitioners did suffer mental illnesses and the consequences can be deadly. --Samuel Luo 04:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah please.....how can you get mental illness from practicing falun gong? so you atribute this womans mental state to practicing falun gong? well im sure there are many people with mental illnesses who practice Qigong, its their illness and it doesnt mean it came from practicing Qigong. Are there any official scientific experiments or research that can demonstrate Falun Gong practitioners get mentally ill from practice? no there is not. Just some guards who said some practitioners were mentally ill. And also you say she "heard about people who died by self induced starvation or suicide as they attempted to reach "Falun Heaven"... A mentally ill 54 year old woman and chinese communist guards, what a trusthworthy group of witnesses to make an objective statement about Falun Gong... Suicide is against Falun Gong principles and "self induced starvation" is not they way Falun Gong is cultivated, Mr. Li clearly states on his book Zhuan Falun that we must not do these things at all. Why dont you try and read the book before making these accussations? this way you'll understand a bit more about Falun Gong and we'll save us some time in here.--Andres18 06:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you simply admit the truth? Case in point, you have a Mother having a 15 minute fight with a 7 year old. He repeatedly and flatly refuses to go with her. Her solution? Threaten the father with arrest & physically remove the child from the McDonald's kicking, screaming and throwing up. All she needed was a stick & uniform. Where is the love? Does that respect the wishes or best interests of the child? Please explaing to me how "Truth, Compassion & Forebearance" relates to that one. Once again, I am sure that there are other similar stories & we should add a section for that.

To answer your question. We have all read the book. And have come to the following conclusion: FredFredBurger, FredFredBurger, FredFredBurger, FredFredBurger ....  Ask a kid to explain to you what that means.

"You become that which you hate." Cj cawley 10:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem is, you think the truth is just the critics side and dont give a chance to listen to the FG practitioners. Becoming mentally ill by practice of falun gong seems as senseless to me as becoming mentally ill for practicing tennis or soccer. Im a practitioner and i know FG does not have this kind of effect. Ive read all of Mr. Li's documents and there is not even one that says we must die from starvation in order to reach what you guys call Falun Heaven. If you already read the book, then read it more carefully and youll notice Mr Li says in falun gong practice fasting is not our way of cultivation. Im sorry Cj but i didnt understand your post.--Andres18 13:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Andres: There are testimonials on Falun Gong's own websites from actual practitioners in China who proudly talk about going on hunger strikes as a way of protesting their detention. Further, the Chinese officials have actually worked to keep these people alive by force feeding them.  Just to be clear, are you denying all of this? --Tomananda 19:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you "critics" actually believe what your saying about mental illness and starvation? It's so ridiculous. I think that some of you are smarter than this and know that it's weak, but at the same time you're willing to sacrifice truth to further your (as a user above put it) crusade. Or is it that you are simply too consumed by your mission to realize this? This isn't the first time you've done this. Your arguments about Falun Gong's funding, organ harvesting being non-credible, relation to natzism, etc. are all equally ridiculous. You continually undermine your credibility with these stupid arguments. I hope you're only fooling yourselves. Stop wasting everyone's time with these childish arguments that you know will go nowhere and have some dignity. Mcconn 06:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Mcconn I am not the one who wrote this article; I am also not the one who told these stories about some practitioners becoming mentally ill.  This article was written by two professors from Harvard (a 3rd party) and the story was told by a Falun Gong practitioner.   It is not the critics who are claiming that some practitioners are mentally ill, so please don’t mislead people. --Samuel Luo 06:53, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who wrote it. You are are the one using it to make a point. What I said still completely applies to what you are doing. Mcconn 07:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I see, so introducing this article here is ridiculous because you practitioners don't care about the truth and the mental health of practitioners. you really hate this kinds of reports, don't you?  Without them you guys can continue to claim the miraculous health benifits of the Falun gong and condemn the Chinese government for trying to cure those mentally ill. --Samuel Luo 16:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Hunger Strikes are Different From Fasting
Hold on Tomanada, we don't want to confuse anyone any further, you are bringing up a completely different point. The hunger strikes that many practitioners take up in China having nothing to do with the kind of fasting that many religions or cultivation ways take up. The practitioners in China who have gone on hunger strikes are simply protesting and resisting the persecution of the evil men in China, this is a common way of protesting for human rights and various freedoms.

**!!** VERY IMPORTANT POINT TO CLARIFY **!!**

You said:

Chinese officials *"have actually worked to keep these people alive by force feeding them,"* but did you know how cruelly they "worked to keep them alive"?

Many practitioners were force fed feces and urine, hot chilli peppers, sewage, and other non human food. These were not meant to help anyone.

The Chinese Communist Party simply reported that they were doing this to keep practitioners alive, when in fact it was another means of concealing their 150+ torture methods against the Falun Gong. I believe there were really just afraid people would find out what their were really doing to the Falun Gong practitioners.

Now,

There is a whole section in Zhuan Falun where Master Li explains bigu fasting, which is completely different from the hunger strikes many practitioners have undertaken in China. Here is a section entitled, "Bigu Fasting."

From Zhuan Falun:

Bigu Fasting

Some of you have brought up the question of bigu fasting. Bigu does exist, and it’s not only seen in cultivation circles—there’s a good number of people in the broader society who’ve experienced it, too. Some people go years or even over a decade without eating or drinking anything, but they do just fine. Some people say that bigu is a reflection of being at a certain level, others say bigu is a sign that the body is being purified, and then there are folks who say it’s part of the cultivation process at high levels.

It’s actually none of that. So what’s it all about, then? Bigu is really a special cultivation method that people use under specially designated circumstances. And just which ones exactly? Back in ancient China, and especially before religions came into being, a lot of cultivators used the method of secret, solitary cultivation. They would go deep into the mountains or they would go into caves to cultivate, and they’d stay far away from the crowd. Once they did that, having a source of food became an issue. If they didn’t use the method of bigu they’d have no way to cultivate, and they’d die in there from hunger and thirst. When I went from Chongqing City to Wuhan City to teach the Law, I traveled eastbound along the Yangtze River on a ship, and I saw that along both sides of the Three Gorges there were some caves halfway up the mountains. A lot of famous mountains have them. In the old days cultivators would climb into them with a rope, cut the rope, and cultivate inside. If they didn’t succeed at cultivating they would die in there. There was no water and no food, and it was under these extremely special circumstances that they used a special cultivation method.

A lot of practices have been passed down that way, so they include bigu. But a lot of practices don’t have bigu, and that’s the case for most of the practices that are transmitted in society nowadays. We’ve said that a person has to commit to one discipline. You can’t just go and do whatever you want. You think it’s pretty good, so now you want to do bigu too. But what do you want to do bigu for? Some people think it’s great, they’re curious about it, or they think their degree of mastery is great, and it’s a way to show off a little—people have all kinds of motives. Even if someone uses that method in his cultivation, he still has to burn his own energy to sustain his body, so the loss outweighs the gain. You know, this was less of a problem after religions came about, since when you meditate or do a meditation retreat in a monastery there are people who provide you with food and drink, so there isn’t that concern. And this is doubly so when you cultivate in the ordinary world, there you really don’t need to use that method at all. Besides, if it’s not part of your discipline you can’t just go and recklessly add it in. But if you really want to do bigu, well, then feel free to go ahead and practice it. As far as I know, usually when a master is transmitting his practice at a high level and if he really wants to bring up his disciple, bigu might happen if his discipline has it. But he can’t do it on a large scale, and he’ll usually guide his disciple to cultivate in secret or by himself.

Nowadays there are also qigong masters who teach people bigu. Has it worked out? When all is said and done, no. Tell me, who’s it worked out for? I’ve seen a lot of folks end up in the hospital, and it’s put a lot of lives at risk. So why did that happen? Doesn’t bigu exist? It does. But there’s one thing: people aren’t allowed to just go and ignore the way of society, you aren’t allowed to do that. Let’s not worry about what would happen if tons of people across the country stopped eating and drinking, let’s just say that nobody here in Changchun ate or drank—I’d say that would save us a ton of trouble! You wouldn’t need to worry about cooking anymore, farmers toil away to farm the land, and if nobody ate it’d really save them loads of trouble, and people would just do work and not need to eat, right? How could that work? Would that be a human world? It definitely wouldn’t work. That kind of thing isn’t allowed to upset the way of things in the ordinary world on a large scale.

When some qigong masters spread bigu a lot of people are put in danger. Some people just obsessively go after bigu, but they haven’t gotten rid of their attachments, there are loads of ordinary people’s attachments still there, so when they see delicious food that they can’t eat, their mouths start to water, their attachments well up, and they just can’t handle it. Then they get anxious, they want to eat something, and when that craving surges you’ve just got to eat or you’ll start to feel like you’re starving. But if they eat they throw up, nothing will stay down, and then they start to get nervous, and they get scared out of their wits. A lot of people have been hospitalized, and there really have been a lot of folks who were in danger. And then there are people who come to me and ask me to fix this mess. I don’t want to get involved in that. Some qigong masters are just plain reckless—who’d want to clean up their mess after them?

Besides, when you run into problems doing bigu, isn’t that the result of what you sought? We say that it does exist, but it’s not some kind of state that comes about at high levels, and it’s not some kind of special sign. It’s just a cultivation method that’s used in special situations. And it can’t be practiced widely. A lot of people seek bigu, and they even divide it into bigu and semi-bigu, they even rank it. Some people say they drink water, some say they eat fruit. That’s all fake bigu. I guarantee it won’t work after some time goes by. A person who truly cultivates with it goes and stays in a cave and won’t eat or drink anything. Now that’s real bigu.

Daniel Price

Mental Illness
Since this talk page is about Falun Gong, and people are bringing up the point of Falun Gong practitioners with mental illness, it is absolutely nessicarry that we hear the Falun Gong POV on mental illness. So here is the section from Zhuan Falun on mental illness and qigong pyschosis:

Qigong Psychosis

In the cultivation world there’s this phrase, "qigong psychosis," and it has a pretty big effect on the general public, especially since some people make a huge deal out of it and they’ve caused some people to be afraid of doing qigong. When those folks hear that qigong can lead to psychosis they get too scared to practice. But actually, I’m going to tell you: there’s just no such thing as qigong psychosis.

There’s a fair number of people who’ve gotten possessed as a result of their thoughts not being proper. Their master consciousnesses aren’t in command, and yet they somehow think it’s qigong. Their bodies are controlled by those spirits, and they get all topsy-turvy, and scream and shout. When people see that, they think that that’s how people are when they do qigong, and they get so scared they don’t dare practice. A lot of us mistake that for qigong. But how could that be doing qigong? That’s only related to the low, low level of healing and fitness. But it’s actually really dangerous. If you get used to being that way, and your master consciousness is never in charge, then your body might get controlled by things like your subordinate consciousness, outside messages, or possessing spirits, and it might do some dangerous things. And that would do a ton of damage to the cultivation world. It’s caused by people’s thoughts not being proper and their showing off out of attachment. It’s not qigong psychosis. Some people, I just don’t know how they can pose as so-called qigong masters—they too talk about qigong psychosis. The truth is, practicing qigong doesn’t lead to qigong psychosis. Most people have seen this term mainly in literary and artistic works, like kung-fu novels and those kinds of things. If you don’t believe me, then go dig through the ancient books or cultivation books—there’s nothing like that. Where could you find something as absurd as qigong psychosis? That kind of thing just doesn’t happen at all.

The qigong psychosis that your typical person believes in has a few different forms, and what I just talked about is one of them. It comes on as a result of the person’s thoughts not being proper, and he got himself possessed, he develops all kinds of states of mind, like wanting some "qigong state" to show off, and so on. Some of them even seek abilities, or maybe they’ve done fake qigongs, and whenever they do qigong exercises they have a habit of relaxing their master consciousnesses; they’re not aware of anything, and they give their bodies away to others, they get all topsy-turvy and let their subordinate consciousnesses or outside messages take charge of their bodies, and so then they do some strange things. If somebody tells him to jump off a building, he’ll jump, and if somebody tells him to jump in a lake, he’ll jump. He doesn’t have any will to live anymore and he’s given his body away to others. That doesn’t count as qigong psychosis, but you could say he’s gone astray, and it was caused by his intentionally acting like that in the beginning. A lot of people have this idea that swaying all over the place is doing qigong, when the truth is, if somebody is in that state when he does true qigong it’ll have serious consequences. That’s not doing qigong—that comes from ordinary people’s attachments and pursuits.

Another form is where a person’s qi gets clogged somewhere when he’s doing qigong and it can’t pass through, or his qi gets stuck at the top of his head and can’t come down, and he gets scared. The human body is a small universe. So Daoist practices, especially, run into these problems when qi is trying to rush through a pass. If his qi can’t rush through it’ll get stuck there. And it’s not just the top of the head—the same goes for other parts of the body, but it’s just that the top of the head is your most sensitive place. After a person’s qi gets to the top of his head and isn’t able to rush down and get through the pass, he’ll feel like his head is heavy, like his head is stuffed up, or like he’s wearing a thick hat of qi, or he’ll have some other kinds of sensations like these. But qi doesn’t have any restrictive power, it can’t bring people any trouble, and there’s no way it could cause some kind of sickness. Some people don’t know what qigong is really about, and they go and make some irresponsible comments in a sensational way, and that makes things a big mess. So people think that if someone’s qi can’t come down from the top of the head he’ll get qigong psychosis, or he’ll go awry, or something, and that’s made a lot of people scared.

When qi can’t come down from the top of the head it’s only a temporary state. Some people’s qi can’t come down for a long time, maybe even half a year. If it can’t come down, a person can ask a true qigong master to guide it and then it can come down. Whenever we can’t get through a pass in our practice, or whenever our qi isn’t able to come down, we should check our character for the cause—"Have I lingered at that level for too long, and now it’s time to improve my character?" When you truly improve your character you’ll see that it comes right down. When you only focus on transforming your gong and don’t focus on changing your character, you know, the problem will stick around until your character improves, and only then can sweeping changes happen. When a person’s qi truly isn’t going through it won’t cause any problems. It’s usually our own minds that cause problems. That, plus hearing fake qigong masters tell them that something will go wrong if qi gets to the top of the head, ends up scaring them. And when they get scared, now that might bring on real trouble. That’s because when you get scared you have fear, and isn’t that an attachment? And when your attachment comes out, shouldn’t you get rid of it? The more scared you are, the more the problem feels like sickness—that attachment of yours just has to go. It’s to have you learn a lesson and get rid of the attachment of fear, improving yourself.

A practitioner won’t feel that pleasant in the cultivation that lies ahead, either. A lot of gong will appear in your body, and all of it is strong stuff that moves every which way inside your body, bringing you all kinds of discomfort. The reason you have that discomfort is mainly that you are always afraid your body has some kind of health problem, when in fact, you’ve already generated really powerful things in your body, they’re all gong, they’re all abilities, and there are lots of living things. If they move, your body will feel itchy, painful, unwell, or whatnot (the nerve endings are sensitive), and all kinds of cultivation states can show up. So you’ll have those sensations as long as your body hasn’t been transformed into high-energy matter. And it’s a good thing in its own right. You’re a cultivator, so if you always consider yourself an ordinary person and always think these things are health problems, then how are you going to cultivate? When calamity strikes during your cultivation, if you still consider yourself an ordinary person, I’d say your character dropped to the level of ordinary people at that time. Or at least with this one thing you’ve dropped to the level of ordinary people.

If you’re going to be real practitioners, you have to look at things from a really high level, and you can’t use ordinary people’s opinions to interpret things. When you think it’s a health problem, you might just bring on health problems. The reason is, once you think it’s a health problem, your character is about as high as an ordinary person’s. Qigong and true cultivation, and even more so that cultivation state, won’t lead to health problems. You know, with people who really do have health problems, 70% of it is psychological and 30% physical. It’s usually that they collapse psychologically first, that they fall apart, and have a huge mental burden, which causes their condition to rapidly deteriorate. That’s usually how it goes. Let me give you an example. There was this person who was tied to a bed. They lifted his arm and told him that they would make him bleed to death. Then they blindfolded him, scratched his wrist (they didn’t make him bleed even a bit), and turned on a water faucet to have him hear the dripping sound. He thought that his blood was dripping, and in no time he was dead. But actually, they didn’t make him bleed one bit—it was the tap water that was dripping. His mind caused his death. When you always think that you’ve got health problems, you might just give yourself health problems. That’s because your character has dropped to the level of an ordinary person, and of course ordinary people do get health problems.

You’re a practitioner, so if you always think it’s a health problem you’re actually asking for it—you are asking for that problem, and now it’s able to set in. To be a practitioner your character has to be high. Don’t always be afraid that it’s a health problem. Fearing that it’s a health problem is an attachment in itself, and it can bring you trouble just the same. In cultivation you need to eliminate karma, and eliminating karma is painful—how on earth could you increase gong in total comfort! And how else could you get rid of your attachments? I’ll tell you a story from Buddhism. There was this person who put in a ton of effort and finally cultivated into an Arhat. He was about to achieve a True Fruition and become an Arhat—how could he not be happy? He was breaking out of the Three Realms! That happiness was an attachment, though, an attachment of excitement. An Arhat should always be in a state of nonaction, with a mind that’s unshakable. But he dropped, and he cultivated in vain. Since he cultivated in vain he had to cultivate all over again, so again he cultivated himself upward. After he put in a ton of effort, he again moved up by cultivating. But this time he got worried and said to himself, "I’d better not get happy this time. If I get happy again I’ll drop all over again." When he got afraid he dropped again. Fear is an attachment.

Then there’s another scenario, which is that some people develop psychosis, and other people say they’ve got qigong-induced psychosis. And would you believe, some people are even waiting for me to treat their psychosis! I say that psychosis isn’t a health problem, and I don’t have time to go and take care of those things. Why is that? It’s because a psychotic person doesn’t have any virus, and he doesn’t have any pathological changes or ulcers in his body. In my view, it’s not a health problem. Psychosis is when a person’s master consciousness is too weak. And just how weak? It’s as if the guy can’t ever take charge of himself—that’s what a psychotic person’s master soul is like. He doesn’t want to be in command of this body anymore, and he’s always foggy-headed and can’t stay alert. When this happens his subordinate consciousness and external messages come and interfere with him. Every dimension has so many levels, and all kinds of messages interfere with him. And a person’s master soul might have done some bad things before this lifetime, and he might have creditors who want to harm him. All kinds of things can happen. We say that this is what psychosis is about. How could I treat it for you then? I’d say that this is really how people develop psychosis. So what do you do about it? Educate him, and get him to snap out of it. But that’s very hard to do. If you watch, when the doctor in a mental hospital is about to administer an electric shock, the psychotic person immediately gets so scared that he stops mumbling nonsense. And why is that? At that moment his master soul perks up, and he’s afraid of getting shocked.

Usually when a person takes up cultivation he likes to keep practicing. Buddha-nature is something everyone has, and everyone has the wish to cultivate. So, once they’ve learned a practice, a lot of people will keep practicing it the rest of their lives. It doesn’t matter whether he can finish his cultivation or whether he’s obtained a Law, the bottom line is he has a wish to seek the Dao, and he’ll always want to practice it. Everyone knows he does qigong—the folks at his office know it, his community knows it, and all his neighbors know it. But think about it, true cultivation—who did anything like that a few years ago? Nobody did. Only true cultivation can change your life’s path. But he’s an ordinary person and he’s only doing health-and-fitness qigong. So who would change his course of life for him? Ordinary people, you know, one day they just come down with something, or out of the blue they have problems, and there’s even a chance one day they’ll just develop psychosis or maybe even kick the bucket. An ordinary person’s life is just like that. You see him out in the park doing qigong, but he’s not really cultivating, in fact. He wants to cultivate up to higher levels but he hasn’t obtained a true teaching, so he isn’t able to get anywhere cultivating. He only has the wish to cultivate up to higher levels, and he’s still a qigong practitioner at the low level of healing and fitness. Nobody has changed his course of life, and so he’ll have health problems. And if he doesn’t take virtue seriously nothing will get well. It’s not as if after you do qigong you’ll never have any health problems again.

He has to truly cultivate himself, and he has to take character seriously, and only then when he really cultivates can he get rid of his health problems. Qigong isn’t aerobics, and it’s something higher than ordinary people, so its practitioners have to go by higher truths and standards. They have to do that if they want it to work. But a lot of people haven’t done that and they’re still ordinary people, so when the time comes they’ll still get health problems. So maybe one day he suddenly has a stroke, or he suddenly comes down with some kind of disease or some kind of ailment, or maybe out of the blue he gets struck by mental illness. Everybody knows he does qigong, so when he develops psychosis people say he got qigong psychosis from his practice—they slap on a big label. Now think about it, is that reasonable? An outsider doesn’t know what’s going on, and it’s hard even for the experts or for a lot of qigong practitioners to know what’s really at work. If this guy comes down with psychosis at home it probably won’t be as bad, but people will still say he got it from doing qigong. If he develops psychosis while at a practice site, then that’s disastrous. A big label gets slapped on and you can’t get rid of it. "Doing qigong brings on psychosis"—newspapers will all report it. Some people just blindly oppose qigong, "Look, just a while ago he was fine doing the exercises right there, and now he’s like this." But he’s an ordinary person, so whatever is supposed to happen to him will happen. Maybe he’ll have other health problems, or maybe he’ll run into other trouble. Is it fair to blame it all on doing qigong? It’s just like with doctors in hospitals: now that they’re doctors they should never get sick again the rest of their lives? Can you really look at it that way?

So we can say that a lot of people don’t know what qigong is really about, and they don’t know what’s at work, so they go and talk wildly. As soon as there’s a problem they’ll slap all kinds of labels on qigong. Qigong has only been popular for a short time now, and there are a lot of people with rigid ideas who always dismiss it, attack it, and reject it, and who knows what’s behind their thinking. They’re annoyed by qigong… as if it has anything to do with them! And when somebody mentions qigong they automatically call it quack. Qigong is a science—it’s a higher science. It’s just that these people’s ideas are too rigid and their knowledge is too narrow.

There’s another scenario. In the cultivation world there’s something called the "qigong state." A person who has it doesn’t quite seem all there, but he doesn’t have qigong psychosis, either. And he’s perfectly rational. I want to first talk about what this qigong state is all about. You know, in cultivation a person’s base plays a big role. In all countries around the world there are people with religious beliefs, and in China, for thousands of years, there have been Buddhist and Daoist believers, and they’ve always believed that doing good is rewarded and doing evil is punished. But some people don’t believe these things. This was especially true during the Cultural Revolution, when they denounced these things and called them blind belief. Some people think that whatever they can’t understand, whatever they haven’t learned from books, whatever is beyond the level of today’s science, or whatever hasn’t been understood yet, they think it’s all blind belief. There were a lot of people like this a few years ago, but now there are a little fewer of them. It’s because some phenomena have really been reflected into this dimension of ours already, even though you don’t acknowledge some of them. You’re afraid to address them, but now there are people who have the courage to talk about them, and they’ve picked up a little about qigong from what they’ve seen and heard in daily life.

Some people are just so close-minded: when you mention qigong they laugh away at you, they think you’re caught up in blind belief, and it’s just too funny. And when you bring up some of the phenomena in qigong they think, "This guy’s so ignorant!" Even though somebody like that is close-minded, his base might not be bad. If his base is good and if he takes up qigong, it’s possible his Third Eye will open at a very high level and maybe some of his abilities will come out. He doesn’t believe in qigong, but he can’t guarantee he won’t get sick. If he gets sick he’ll go to the hospital. If doctors of Western medicine can’t cure him, he’ll go see a doctor of Chinese medicine. And if doctors of Chinese medicine can’t cure him, and if folk prescriptions can’t cure him either, then he’ll remember qigong. He thinks to himself, "I’ll go try my luck and see if qigong really can heal me." Grudgingly he comes to try it. Since his base is good he’ll do pretty well right from the get-go. Maybe a master will be interested in him, and so this higher being in another dimension gives him a hand. His Third Eye opens right up then, or maybe he’ll enter a state of semi-Enlightenment. His Third Eye opens at a high level, and he can suddenly see the true picture of some of the universe, and along with this he’ll have abilities. Now when this kind of fella sees those scenes do you think his mind can take it? Just imagine what his state of mind will be. The very things he’s always thought of as blind beliefs and totally impossible, and things he’d laugh at the second somebody mentioned them, they’re all unfolding right before his eyes in full reality, and he’s really come into contact with them. So his brain can’t take it, and the pressure on his mind is just too much, and what he says can’t be accepted by other people. But his thinking isn’t illogical—he just can’t put the two sides into proper perspective. He has realized that the things mankind does are wrong, whereas the other side is usually right. But when he does things according to the other side, though, people then say he’s wrong. People don’t understand, so they go and say he’s gotten qigong psychosis by practicing.

Actually, he hasn’t got qigong psychosis. Most of us who practice qigong won’t have anything like that happen to us, it’s only those really close-minded people who have this qigong state. A lot of people in the audience here have their Third Eyes opened—quite a lot. They really have seen things in other dimensions, they aren’t shocked by it, they think it’s good, their brains aren’t jarred, and they won’t experience this qigong state. After someone enters the qigong state he’s perfectly rational, and what he says is really profound, and the logic behind it is sound. It’s just that ordinary people don’t believe what he says. He might tell you that he’s seen so-and-so who is deceased, and that this person told him to do things. Would an ordinary person believe this? Later on he realizes that he should keep these things to himself, and he’d better not talk about them. After he learns to put the two sides into proper perspective he’s fine. These people usually have abilities. And this isn’t qigong psychosis, either.

Another scenario is called "true insanity," and this is an extremely rare thing. The "true insanity" we’re talking about here isn’t actually about going truly insane. That’s not what it means. It means cultivation of what’s true. What’s true insanity like? I’d say that among cultivators maybe one out of 100,000 people has it—you hardly ever see it. So it’s not common, and it hasn’t had any effect on society.

True insanity usually has a prerequisite, which is that the person’s base has to be excellent, and he has to be getting on in his years. When somebody is a bit older there’s not enough time for him if he wants to cultivate. People with excellent bases often come with a mission, and they’ve come from high levels. Everybody is afraid of coming to this ordinary world—after your brain is cleared you don’t recognize anyone. After they enter the environment here in this ordinary world, the interference they get from people causes them to put a lot of stake in their reputations and personal gain, and eventually they’ll drop right down, and they’ll never be able to get out. That’s why nobody dares to come and everyone is afraid. But some of these people have come, and after they get here they really break down in the midst of ordinary people, they really are about to fall, and they’ve done a lot of bad things in their lives. When a person fights to benefit himself, he’ll do a lot of bad things, and then he’ll owe a lot of things. His master sees that he’s about to fall. "But he is one with Fruition—we can’t just sit by and let him fall like this! Now, what can we do…" His master is very worried. There’s no other way to have him cultivate—where could he find a master at that time? He has to return, he has to cultivate back from scratch. But that’s easier said than done, right? And he’s getting on in years, and he doesn’t have enough time left to cultivate. Where could he find a practice that cultivates both nature and longevity?

This person has to be someone with a superb base, and under that extremely special circumstance, and only then, can the method of making him insane be used. In other words, when there’s absolutely no hope, and in a situation where he can’t return on his own, that’s when this method might be adopted—to have him go insane, that is—and a certain part of his brain will be shut down. For example, we humans are afraid of the cold, and we’re afraid of filth, so the part of his brain that fears cold is shut down, and the part that fears filth is shut down. After these parts are shut down, this person will have some mental problems, and he’ll really start acting like a lunatic. But people who are like this usually don’t do bad things, and they don’t insult people or hit people, instead, they often do good things. But they’re actually cruel to themselves. They aren’t aware of the cold, so they’ll run around barefoot in the winter snow, wearing just a thin layer of clothes, while their feet freeze to the point of cracking and bleeding. And because they aren’t aware of filth, they’ll even dare to eat feces and drink urine. I know that there used to be this one person who gnawed away happily on horse manure that was frozen hard like a rock. They can bear hardships that an ordinary person couldn’t bear while his mind is still intact. Just imagine how much they suffer from this insanity. Of course, they often have abilities, and in most cases they’re older women. Older women had their feet bound in the past, but there was one who could easily scale a wall that’s over two yards high. When this older lady’s family saw that she’d gone insane and always ran outside, they locked her up indoors. But when her family went out she would just point her finger at the lock and it would open, and so she’d get out. "Then let’s lock her up with steel chains." After her family headed out, she would undo the chains with a mere shake. It was impossible to restrain her. And it was this way that she went through a lot of hardship. She really went through some serious hardship, and things were just brutal, so she could quickly pay back the bad things she owed. It doesn’t take more than three years, and usually it’s over in just one or two. The hardship she goes through is pretty huge. As soon as it’s over they understand. With this their cultivation is considered done, so instantly they’re Unlocked, and all kinds of divine powers come forth. These cases are extremely, extremely rare. This has happened in history, though, but it’s not something a person with an average base is allowed to do. You all probably know about crazy monks and crazy Daoists, and they really did exist in history, it’s been documented. There are a lot of stories like the one about "the crazy monk who swept out Minister Qin" and the ones about crazy Daoists.

So now this "qigong psychosis" thing, or "going into fire like a demon," to take the old expression for it really literally, I’d say it’s definitely bunk. Let’s say so-and-so really can draw fire, though—then I’d say that guy’s something. Or he can spit fire and send it out with a stretch of his arm, and he doesn’t even need a match to light his cigarette, then well, he’s not psychotic, he’s supernormal!

Daniel Price

Li Encourages Practitioners to Go On Hunger Strikes
Daniel: You are evading the simple truth:  Li encourages his disciples to let go of their attachments, which includes attachment to their lives, in order to reach consumation. Your long post about Fasting is a diversion from this reality. I am copying here a portion of Samuel Luo's writings to put this all in context, so that casual readers of Wikipedia will not be confused by your diversionary tactics:

 * Master Li’s teaching of “letting go of life and death” has been carried out by many practitioners in the form of the hunger strike, which has become a powerful tool for the practitioners under custody. Worrying about their deaths, police have had to release them due to their health condition. Because it works, more and more practitioners have gone on hunger strikes after being arrested, but this practice nonetheless weakens the practitioners’ health and can even kill them. As early as January, 2000, the hunger strike tactic took its first life—a 52-year-old female practitioner living in Beijing.8 Unfortunately, at that time the hunger strike was already a common practice and was carried out even in groups. As reported by the Falun Gong itself, 140 practitioners once went on a mass hunger strike while in the Da-Guang detention center.9

 * In dealing with these hunger strikes the police have changed their approach—instead of letting them go, they force-feed them. Sadly, because of the resistance from practitioners, methods resembling torture have been used, as described in one practitioner’s account:

 * In order to verify that practitioners are innocent and ask for justice and freedom from Jiang Zemin's government, we began a fast July 9. On the fifth day of our fast, doctors and armed police came to the detention center to force-feed us. We were shackled, and tied to the "bed of punishment." Our hands and feet were tightly bound. Plastic catheters were inserted through our noses into our stomachs. At this moment I felt there was great pain in my stomach and I thought I was going to die. I struggled hard against the evil; the harder I struggled though, the tighter the shackles became. The pain was unimaginable; I clenched my teeth and endured. I was force fed four meals because I could not move. I was very sad at that time, since I never thought I could be so weak.10

 * Although the intention in force-feeding these practitioners was to keep them alive, this method did cause all kinds of injuries and some times even killed the practitioner. In one incident a practitioner was force-fed through the nose on his sixth day of hunger strike. The feeding tube caused severe injuries to his respiratory system, which seriously infected his lungs. He died in the hospital on February 11, 2000.11 However, despite the terrible experiences and deaths caused by hunger strikes, the Falun Gong organization continues to promote them with stories like this:

 * During the 15 days of detention, I insisted on a hunger strike. After I vomited, they measured my blood pressure and diagnosed that my heart had problems. I was tortured until I was on my last breath. They thought that I would die soon, so they let me go home… After I was released, I went to a practitioner's home and just drank several cups of water. I was fully recovered the next day. From my experience I deeply realized Dafa's supernormal and unimaginable power.12

 * This story is different from the others in a few areas: 1) it doesn’t give a name, 2) she doesn’t describe any force-feeding experiences even though she “insisted on a hunger strike” presumably for 15 days, and 3)“the supernormal and unimaginable power of the Dafa” which recovered her body over night is not seen in other practitioners’ testimonials. With these questionable characteristics, one wonders if the story was faked by the Falun Gong organization to encourage practitioners to “let go of the life and death” in the form of hunger strikes. In any case, with these kinds of encouragements, the hunger strike has become the main cause of practitioners’ deaths in police custody, especially in the years 2000 and 2001. With the death rate reaching 977, it’s sad, but not surprising, that there is no voice in the Falun Gong organization questioning the practitioners’ irrational and sometimes deadly tactics of using hunger strikes.

 * Li could put a stop to the hunger strikes, thus preventing many deaths, but instead he pushes his followers to take extreme measures, then fails to speak up when they choose to go on self-destructive hunger strikes. To further encourage these extreme tactics, Li proclaims that those practitioners who die in detention centers have “reached consummation.”13 Why is it that a spiritual master, living in the United States, would promote dying in a detention center in China as the fastest way to reach consummation?

 * The fact that practitioners have committed suicide in the form of “hunger strikes” shows that the Falun Gong organization has indeed lied about the deaths of at least some of its followers. What Li and the Falun Gong organization do in promoting self-destructive actions to defend the Dafa amounts to sending those practitioners to their death. Source:

PS: I didn't bother to copy the links to the footnotes in the above paragraphs. However, for people who want to verify that practitioners really did make these statements, you can find all the footnote links in a section called "Resisting the Ban" at:    So Andres, while you may deny that Master Li encourages self-destructive behavior on the part of his disciples (by "self-destructive" I mean in the mundane human sense of keeping your body alive by eating), the evidence points in another direction. You may point out that some Chinese guards are abusive in how they force-feed practitioners under their care (and I agree that some of them are), but you can't lay the blame for these hunger strikes in the first place on corrupt Chinese guards. Clearly, the practitioners are dutifully following their Master's directives in order to achieve Falun Gong consumation. --Tomananda 22:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Tomananda, ill tell you what i think, but please understand im speaking for myself and not in behalf of Falun Gong. I dont agree with hunger strikes. But that is just my personal opinion and perhaps my limited understanding of life in general might not let me understand this issue better and see what can be gained through the use of this method as a protest. Appart from that, I reeeaaally dont recall Mr. Li encouraging the practitioners to do hunger strikes or even to protest in any way.--Andres18 00:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Falun Dafa Hao (good)
Tomananda,

I am not trying to use divisionary tactics.

Yes, Master Li Hongzhi has told practitioners to remove all attachments, even to life and death.

This does not mean committing suicide.

A true cultivator does not care whether he lives or dies, only human beings get scared when they are about to die. When a being dies in this world, it is only his outermost shell that sloughs off, this human body made of molecules dies, while the particles of his being in the more microcosmic dimensions stay intact, so to a cultivator, or a God who has reached consumation, life or death in the human world is not important, as they understand from the persecpective of the Buddha Fa what happens to their being after they die.

After death, your entire being does not die and cease to exist, only this most surface body and these surface molecules die out.

As far as I know, Li Hongzhi has never told practitioners to go on a hunger strike, I have not seen his words saying this.

I do know for sure he has forbidden suicide, so if you are saying Falun Gong practitioners commit suicide by means of hunger strikes, then they are not following Master Li's Teachings. True practitioners would never commit suicide, or do anything to harm themselves. All acts of hunger strikes were to protect Falun Dafa and to resist the persecution.

One more thing,

Chinese policeman were not only cruel in force feeding practitioners, they force fed them feces, urine, and hot chili peppers. How do you explain this? This is not good for Falun Gong practitioners, how can they cover up these evil deeds? This is beyond the limits of forbearance. This shows the true evil nature of the Chinese Communist Party.

Explain that.

Daniel Price

 * Hi Daniel, just want to share with you a few points.
 * 1)	Master Li has demanded his followers to let go of all attachments (money, fame, sex, etc) including life and death, do you think Li himself lives up to his own teachings?
 * 2)	In Zhuan Falun which was published in 1994, Li did denounced suicide, but he has not spoken out against suicidal tactics used by practitioners in China. In stead he has made dying in detention centers the fastest way reaching consummation.  Don’t you think that he bares some responsibility for these deaths?
 * 3)	You said “a true cultivator does not care whether he lives or dies, only human beings get scared when they are about to die.” Did you think this way before studying Li’s teachings?  Practitioners think differently from ordinary human beings, in my opinion, because they have been brainwashed.
 * 4)	You said “As far as I know, Li Hongzhi has never told practitioners to go on a hunger strike.” Well, Li has not told them not to go on hunger strike either.  There are numerous stories claiming the divine protection from the Master or his Dafa like the one cited above published on clearwisdom.net the official site of your group.  Yet when practitioners died from this self-destructive action the Falun Gong uses their deaths to condemn the Chinese government.  This looks like an exploitive and deliberate tactics of the Falun Gong.
 * 5)	You said “True practitioners would never commit suicide, or do anything to harm themselves. All acts of hunger strikes were to protect Falun Dafa and to resist the persecution.” Do you see the contradiction in your logic?
 * 6)	You said the Chinese policemen feed practitioners on hunger strike with “feces, urine, and hot chili peppers,” do you have any evidence? Anything solely from the Falun Gong will not convincing us.
 * Just one more question to finish this discussion, Master Li teaches that suffering is good for practitioners because suffering is the fastest way repaying one’s sins. With this logic it can be said that the Chinese government is doing the practitioners a big favor.  Do you agree?--Samuel Luo 06:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Another clarification. The ex used to go nutso for hot sauce, chilli peppers, etc. Maybe, the police are feeding them the food they like?

As for the rest, I thought that you had to die in order to reach consumation. That's why the people in Tiananmen choose to burn themselves. Cj cawley 11:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Daniel Price: they have already lost everything, you do not need to engage in this argument. just use this page for discussing the actual content of the article. I think that is safeguarding the Fa. asdfg12345

 * asdfg12345 what you are really doing is preventing Daniel from exercising his critical thinking. In a cult where mind-control is used questions and doubts about the group’s teachings and leader(s) are suppressed.  asdfg12345 you can not get out of the Falun Gong trap because you refuse to think.  What you do is your own business but I must demand you not to tell others to stop thinking. --Samuel Luo 17:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Hello Samuel, I see what you are saying and I apologise as it was not meant to come across in that way. The reason I wrote that was because your understanding of Dafa is so far from reality, and with all you guys have done and your attitudes toward this thing, it really seems like there is no way for you to change your thinking at this point. I was advising Daniel Price not to waste his time answering all your things. I also thought it would be best to promote discussion of the article rather than more back-and-forth between you guys and practitioners. I looked at your points and anyone who understands Dafa could respond to them, explain the situation, and correct the understanding presented there. It's a really deviant understanding of Dafa. But no matter what you had written back to you, you would not change. People who truly understand Dafa know it is the Truth and the most righteous thing. I wrote a bunch of stuff addressed to Tomananda above, you should read it. The different understandings present - that of practitioners and that of anti-Falun Gong people - seem truly irreconcilable. So I think there is no use trying to convince each other either way. The best thing is to get on with the content of the article and come up with something. It's also doesn't matter if it drags on forever. All the things that you see as awful parts of Dafa are actually wrong understandings, and maybe they can no longer be corrected through some kind of dialogue. Besides, these things are very solemn; the deaths of practitioners in custody, practitioners negating the persecution, Fa-rectification, Dafa itself, they are so far beyond all that you understand, say, and accuse that it is utterly ridiculous. It's a really big shame. Cj Rawley maybe you have not sincerely read accounts of torture against practitioners in custody. I think you should clear your mind and read them and try to think about what is taking place. Go through this page http://www.faluninfo.net/torturemethods2/. If you have already read and thought about these things then I think it's really awful that you would write something like that. Really a shocking thing, really disgusting. --asdfg12345 The current time in (UTC/GMT) is 12:50 a.m. Thursday, 24 August 2006

I must say, I am totally disgusted today. It's been a while since I've read the talk page and felt this way. You 'critics' are so utterly obsorbed in your mission to show people the "true nature" of Falun Gong that to further your goal you heavily downplay and even make light of some of the worst human rights violations in history and instead try use them to demonize victims. Any rational minded individual with a good understanding of Falun Dafa and the facts of the persecution can see what you're doing. Why can't you? For once I hope you can actually let go of your goal for a second and think about this. I've seen you do this many times, but today I think you've really gone too far. What you are doing is utterly despicable. Mcconn 06:56, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I agree. This is going way too far, and it has nothing to do with the article. Some critics' utterly dehumanizing, scornful, dismissive and vilifying attitude towards a persecuted group of people is mind-boggling, to say the least. But that's always the case with severe human rights violations. It's a recurring pattern. Crimes against humanity wouldn't take place if there wasn't a significant number of people going into extremes with their enmity. Eventually only history can expose where they stood. What an abysmal tragedy. ---Olaf Stephanos 17:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

 * What is going tooo far is your FG lies like the organ harvesting allegation, if it wouldn’t for that I would not be here. Ironically I supported your fG cult before telling friends that this is a Buddhist group suppressed by the repressive CCP.  I still believe some practitioners were tortured in jail given the fact that police brutality is a big problem in China.  But this does not mean anyone should support this cult since it does not care about the life and death of its members.  --Mr.He 22:39, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I want to second what Mr. He says here. No one condones the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. However, Falun Gong critics do not believe there is anything close to "genocide" going on in China. The abusive actions of some local Chinese police officers cannot be fairly used as a blanket justification for the destruction of the CCP or the central goverment in Beijing.  My understanding is that Beijing officials have publicly condemned corruption at the local and provicial levels.  The story about organ harvesting appears to have been fabricated for the purpose of embarrasing the Chinese government. As I have said repeatedly, the Falun Gong has a big credibility problem.  As long as Falun Gong editors work to conceal their own Master's teachings, how can we believe all the outrageous claims about "genocide" and "crimes against humanity"?  The problem with losing one's credibility is that once you've lost it, it's difficult to get it back. --Tomananda 23:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Falun Dafa is Dishonest
Daniel: the reprehensible actions of corrupt Chinese prison guards do not equate to the "true evil nature of the Chinese Communist Party" anymore than the reprehensible actions of some Catholic pedophiliac priests prove that the Pope in Rome is evil. In both cases, these moral conclusions are gross generalizations which do not follow logically. In light of these examples, we might want to work to reform how China manages it's prison systems and how the Vatican manages charges of child abuse among the clergy. But in neither of these cases is it reasonable to conclude that the Beijing government should be eliminated, which is Li Hongzhi's stated goal, or that the Vatican should be destroyed.

The fact that you titled your post "Falun Dafa Hao (good)" speaks volumes to me. Falun Dafa does not deserve the title "good" merely because some of it's believers are abused in China. In order to earn the title of "good" practitioners need to demonstrate their own "goodness" in how they treat others. There are numerous ways in which Falun Gong practitioners fail to live up to the stated principles of "truthfullness, compassion and forebearance" and arguments based on the alleged victimization of practitioners in China do not absolve practitioners from accountability for their own actions. Here are just a few examples, all of which have been mentioned in these discussion pages: As long as the Falun Gong continues to conceal from the general public it's paramount objective--the destruction of the Chinese Communist party--and it's belief in Li Hongzhi as a god or main Buddha who alone offers salvation for mankind at this time, I will feel justified in distrusting everything you say. The big lie continues. --Tomananda 18:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * failure to truthfully report Li's teachings "at the higher levels"
 * failure to disclose that Li assumes the status of a god or "main Buddha" and is viewed as such by virtually all practitioners.
 * failure to clearly state in this Wikipedia article that salvation for Falun Gong practitioners is contingent on "standing up for the Dafa" which for Li means doing everything possible to destroy the Chinese Commuist Party short of overt violence.
 * failure to treat critics of Falun Gong with respect, compassion and forebearance.
 * failure to respect the civil rights of Falun Gong critics, especially the right to free speech. Case in point: the outrageous behavior of that Falun Gong lawyer in Madrid who threatened jail time for the organizers and presenters at the 2005 ICSA conference if they said anything critical of the Falun Gong.
 * failure to acknowledge that some Falun Gong practitioners have jeopardised their health because of Li's teachings on sickness karma.
 * failure to acknowledge that Li's teachings on homosexuals and mixed race people can be considered contradictory to universal standards of civil rights.
 * failure to respect the life and death of Dr. Lili Feng by reporting her death on Falun Gong websites, thereby reinforcing the idea that practitioners are treated as disposable commodities by Li Hongzhi.
 * failure on Li's part to come forward and accept accountability for his teachings rather than living in seclusion, therby avoiding the scrutiny of our complacent media.

This is wonderful material to bring up to the official mediator or the arbitration comitee. Keep it up if you want, you are just working harder to ban yourself.--Andres18 01:04, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Andres: Rather than responding to these legitimate concerns, you threaten me with some kind of mediator-initiated sanction? In the face of specific intellectual challenges to your positions, can't you do something better than threatening me?  You are showing your true colors. I have nothing to fear from a mediatator, in fact I have been the strongest advocate for mediation all along. I welcome mediation, or arbitration...anything that will lead to an honest reporting of Falun Gong's teachings and practices to the general public.   --Tomananda 01:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

If i ever wanted to threaten you i would have done so directly, im just exposing a very simple truth, if we were to agree to all these points you are proposing to us wouldnt we turn into critics?. We are not critics, we are FG editors, our opinion obviously differs from yours, so you are saying that in order to take us seriously, we have to completely agree with your vision and your POV. If we dont agree with your opinion then we are liars. Tell me, how are we supossed to work like this? I post a warning saying "Guys, you are breaking the rules" and you keep going on and on talking about how your point of view is the truth and how we are liars and dishonest. Your POV is not absolute, learn to respect other people despite the personal differences, the faster you understand that, the easier we will be able to work together.--Andres18 00:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Andres, I don't expect you to agree with my points, but only respond to them. Falun Gong practitioners are liers because Li tells them to lie...or rather, not to speak about the teachings "at the higher levels" when talking to ordinary people.  I don't blame you guys for this deceipt, but I do blame Master Li for manipulating you and destroying your ability to think clearly. Please see my post below to Daniel, and what I have to say about obfuscation...which in this case is a fancy word for apologetics.  Keep in mind that I see you and the other practioners as victims of Master Li, who uses you to work towards the destruction of the CCP.  The failure to honestly admit that the destruction of the CCP is the principle goal of the Falun Gong is part of the big lie.  Just look at the post below: in one sentence a practitioner claims "the Falun Gong has no objective to destroy the Chinese Communist Party" and then later on the same practioner acknowledges that Falun Gong practitioners are busy "spreading the Nine Commentaries."   Give me a break!  What does it take for practitioners to speak honestly about what they are doing (working towards the destruction of the CCP as Master Li requires) and why they are doing it (in order to reach consumation in this period of Fa-rectification, as Master Li teaches.)  The big lie continues, but it is getting more and more tiresome for me to call you guys on these lies.  It's not me who doesn't listen, it's you...and it is understandable why.  According to Master Li, your very salvation is at stake.  --Tomananda 20:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Falun Gong has no objective to destroy the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party chose elimination, can't you see it? All of China is turning against the Chinese Communist Party because of their 100 years of evil deeds, i.e. Cultural Revolution, Gang of Four, 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Persecution of the Intellectuals, Persecution of Christians, Persecution of Buddhists, Persecution of Falun Gong, Promotion of Cannablism, Promotion of Violence, Promotion of Struggle, Promotion of Athiesm. *Please do not ignore this section.* These are all the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party, all of these movements truly happened, and this is why so many people are turning against the Chinese Communist Party.

Did you know that it is not only Falun Gong practitioners who are spreading the "Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party" in China? Even just common people in China are spreading this book. The Chinese Communist Party defeated itself by becoming so corrupt throughout its 100 year history, and now daily it only gets worse. So, the whole world is finally coming to see its true nature and they are turning against the evil party. This cannot be denied, already nearly 13 million Chinese people have quit the Chinese Communist Party, and 20,000 more quit everyday.

Li Hongzhi has never claimed to be a God or Buddha, he has always claimed to be just a common man, as did Buddha Shakyamuni during his time.

To describe Li Hongzhi's main body as being the Lord Buddha would be an insult to the Lord Buddha, as no human body could compare to the state and holiness of the Lord Buddha.

However, in the book Zhuan Falun, Master Li has described that he has many "Law Bodies" which can manifest in other dimensions, and these beings can be thought of as supernatural godly beings, but these beings exist in state completely unimaginable to human beings, and Law Bodies are completely different from human bodies. The human body is incredibly dirty compared to the Law Bodies of any great enlightened being. There is a section in Zhuan Falun about Master Li's many "Law Bodies."

Law Bodies

Why is there a field around images of Buddhas? A lot of people can’t explain it. There are some people who say, "The field around the Buddha statue comes from monks chanting scriptures in front of it," or in other words, it’s a field that’s created by monks cultivating in front of the statue. But it doesn’t matter whether it’s monks or whoever that cultivates there, that type of energy is scattered and not directional, and the field should be evenly distributed over the floor, the ceiling, and the walls of the whole temple. So why is it only the Buddha image that has such a strong field? For example, there’s usually a field on the images of Buddhas that are in remote mountains, in some cave, or carved into stone. So why is there that field? Some people explain it every which way, but still don’t come up with anything convincing. What’s going on here is that a Buddha image has the field of an Enlightened Being’s Law Body on it. The Enlightened Being’s Law Body is there, so it has energy.

Now let’s think about it, isn’t it true that when Shakyamuni and Bodhisattva Guanyin did their cultivations, assuming there really were such persons, weren’t they cultivators, too? People develop Law Bodies when they reach a pretty high level in Beyond-Triple-World-Law cultivation. Law Bodies are born in the elixir field area, they’re made up of Law and gong, and they manifest in other dimensions. Law Bodies have the same enormous power that the person has, but Law Bodies’ consciousness and thoughts are controlled by his principal being. But a Law Body is also a complete, independent, and real individual life in its own right, and so it can do anything on its own. Law Bodies do the same things that the person’s master consciousness would like to do—exactly the same things. The person would do it the same way if he were to do it himself, and Law Bodies do it however he would. That’s what we mean by "Law Body." When I want to do something, like adjust the bodies of disciples who truly cultivate, I have my Law Bodies do it. Law Bodies manifest in other dimensions since they don’t have human bodies. And that being’s form isn’t fixed and unchanging. He can expand and shrink. Sometimes he becomes really large, so large that you can’t see his whole head, and sometimes he becomes really small, so small that he’s even smaller than a cell.

Please, if you have any more questions, ask. Dafa Di Zi

Actually, that's another good idea. We should have a section on the FLG books, what's the kickback to Li, etc. With comments like: "He can't see his own head", I take it that you are priming us for the new "bobble head" minature coming out. Oooooooooooooo.......... Cj cawley 23:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Do not flood the talk page with quotations
There's no point in copying large amounts of text from Zhuan Falun or other sources onto this page. If you want to present an argument, please do so in your own words. If you need a reference to an entire chapter or an article, create a hyperlink from your text to the appropriate page. Thanks. ---Olaf Stephanos 05:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Olaf Stephanos On this point I agree with you. I can understand why they use Li's quotes instead of their own words; they probably do not have any. --Yueyuen 07:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I disagree, you should put up the whole book. In fact, you should put up all of them.  The "poetry" shouldn't be a part of it; however, the rest of the crap should.  It will be easier to hyperlink.

Cj cawley 10:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

What is there to argue about? I don't want to argue with anybody....

Cj cawley's suggestion is not so bad.

Why not just replace the whole article with the book Zhuan Falun or links to the Falun Gong books and websites, so those who want to know about Falun Dafa, they can just visit the links for themselves.

danielprice

 * Daniel, you're just joking, right? If you really mean what you say you are not serious about writing an encylopedia article,  but instead only care about proselytizing Falun Gong.  What's more, the Zhuan Falun does not represent the Master's current teachings on your role as a Fa-rectification Dafa disciple.  Your duty in order to reach consumation is to help save all sentient beings.  The Fa-rectification is already happening all over the cosmos and beings are already being eliminated, is that not true?  By posting overly long quotes from Zhuan Falun you would be obscuring the essence of the teachings with a whole lot of verbiage.

 * If you want to save me you should be able to summarize the Master's teachings in your own words, as clearly and succinctly as possbile, something like this:

 * According to Li, we are now in the period of the last havoc or final kalpa. People have become so depraved that the Gods no longer look out for them. The traditional religions no longer can save people.  All the beings in the universe are being judged by Li's Dafa.  Only Li's Dafa can save people during this period of Fa-rectification. As Li says,  "Why is it that a being needs to be saved by Dafa and me personally? Or to put it plainly [think about] what kind of a being is worthy of salvation by the Great Law of the cosmos?  For a being who is saved, could it just be about personal Consumation?  So what kind of being deserves to be a Disciple of Dafa?  Would you say those people who hide in their homes and 'study the fa' do?  Or those who only want to gain from Dafa but don't want to give to Dafa?  Furthermore, what about those who, while Dafa disciples are being persecuted, don't want to speak up for Dafa and yet still 'read the book' at home and try to get things from Dafa--what kind of people are they?  You be the judge."

 * Are any of these words inaccurate? In the above block paragraph I used my own constructions to summarize Li's core teachings, then followed up with a supporting quote from Li himself. If need be, I could footnote the source of everything I have said, but is that really necessary?  Do Falun Gong practitioners ever feel comfortable enough with their own beliefs to venture away from the "safe" practice of only quoting Li verbatim?  Has Li gotten you all so frightened of the bad consequences of "plagiarizing" his Dafa that you simply can't do it in Wikipedia? Once again, I issue the challenge: write a brief and clear summary of Li's teachings about salvation during this period of Fa-rectification and I will respect your work as Wikipedia editors.  But as long as we play this game of obfuscation of the teachings I will continue to repeat, over and over again, what your own Master has said.  --Tomananda 19:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There is so much background and context to this, it is not such a simple matter as you write. The issue of cultivation practice is really serious. Saying things like that demonstrates that you do not understand. Your desire to put this on the internet also demonstrates that you do not understand. Dafa disciples understand, so that is why they do not think this should be spoken of so haphazardly and irresponsibly. That's the truth, and that's the reason you have not found us all supporting you in your mission on wikipedia. I think that if the words 'God; Consummation; Fa-rectification; Dafa', if the meaning of a single one of those words could be revealed to you or any of us then it would be a different story. It is also not possible to provide the meanings of those words in language and especially through wikipedia. Over a gradual process of cultivation one understands to a greater and greater degree what those words mean. Maybe we can do an experiment right now to show what I mean. Please explain below what you understand the word 'Consummation' to mean. Just write another straightfoward paragraph on what you understand that word to mean, it's implications and what it contains. I will wait and I think some other people will be interested to see whether you yourself understand what you write. I will preempt you one small thing, sorry if it is unnecessary: do not say that it is up to us to define those words. I am asking for to say how you understand them. This is important, and I find it similar to the question you have been putting to practitioners on wikipedia. Define 'Consummation'. asdfg12345 08:57 p.m. Friday, 25 de Agosto de 2006

 * I understand what Li Hongzhi and FLG practitoners claim because I am a neigong teacher who has trained with some of the top old school martial artists in China. For you to assume that other editors aren't qualified to argue FLG principles is an old, tired argument (see this talk page's archive) that violates WP:Assume good faith, at least. My opinion of those claims is irrelevant to the article, as are the opinions of all the other editors, including yourself. Wikipedia is not a falungong discussion board. The article is going to stay locked as long as editors of any persuasion persist in editing the article for propaganda purposes they way they have been. --Fire Star 火星 21:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Asdfg, why don't you write a short paragraph on "consumation"? The issue I have raised is that practitioners seem incapable of writing out clear and concise statements about their teachings.  I have already provided what I consider to be a clear and concise paragraph above and invited any practitioner to refute it's accuracy.  To argue that the meanings of Falun Gong words such as "consumation" cannot be put into words is begging the question, as well as being evasive.  Unless you and the other practiotioners wish to withdraw from the editing in this article all together, you really don't have a choice.  Falun Gong's teachings will be represented in this article whether you are happy with that or not.  Based on what you say, it seems that you cannot play the role of a Wikipedia editor on this subject because, by your own say-so, the concepts cannot be explained in language.  If that's the case, maybe every mention of Falun Gong should be deleted from Wikipedia.  Actually, what other alternative do we have?   --Tomananda 21:59, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Fire Star, firstly I apologise as I did not mean to come across like I was negating your opinion or saying no one else is qualified to talk about Falun Dafa. Dafa is for all sentient beings. The problem was that we need to come to agreement on the terms we are referring to for the discussion to be meaningful. That is essentially the problem I was trying to raise, and I could have been more clear on that. Tomananda, I see what you are saying and it is a complicated problem. I will try to respond. Firstly though, I want to reemphasise that I asked you to tell me your definition of the word 'Consummation', and I asked that for a good reason. I want to know how you understand what you are saying. Your response to me has avoided this. For your criticism to be coherent you need to understand exactly what the criticism is. It is meaningful to me that you have not defined 'Consummation', and I think that is because you do not have a clear idea in your mind about what the word means. That is what I think based on your response.

You have stated that you are criticising practitioners for being incapable of writing out clear and concise statements about their teachings. I responded above that it is not as simple as that. With regard to your response, I think what you have said is quite profound. These things cannot be represented in a simple way, and that is why you have found these attitudes from practitioners. That is also why you find no mention of this on falundafa.org. It takes a process of cultivation to understand. Anything worth something will be this way, don't you think? Master says the Tao will not be precious if one could just pick it up on the ground and succeed in practicing it. I do not want to leave it at this though, and not contribute to some formation of what these terms mean. I want to give you a couple of responses, talk about it with practitioners, and hopefully come up with some concrete, clear and concise paragraphs defining some key terms. I will get back to you on that as I hope you can appreciate this is an important aspect of putting this article together; that is, a discussion of the terms could not be meaningful without understanding what they mean and defining them in some way.

I'll respond to what you wrote now: "I have already provided what I consider to be a clear and concise paragraph above and invited any practitioner to refute it's accuracy." - The paragraph is there but you don't actually know what it means. It might as well be a bunch of jibberish if you can't define the terms you are referring to. If you do not know what the word 'Consummation' means, then how can you use it and then say that you have said something accurate? Do you see what I'm saying? This is something that you must resolve.

"To argue that the meanings of Falun Gong words such as "consumation" cannot be put into words is begging the question, as well as being evasive. Unless you and the other practiotioners wish to withdraw from the editing in this article all together, you really don't have a choice.  Falun Gong's teachings will be represented in this article whether you are happy with that or not.  Based on what you say, it seems that you cannot play the role of a Wikipedia editor on this subject because, by your own say-so, the concepts cannot be explained in language.  If that's the case, maybe every mention of Falun Gong should be deleted from Wikipedia.  Actually, what other alternative do we have?" - I'll just do this in one go. I also mentioned this above that spiritual truths cannot be expressed in language so simply, and that it is in the course of actual cultivation practice that one understands. Doesn't that make sense? Think about it. That is why you keep saying that on practitioner's versions of the pages they never include this stuff. That is not because we are trying to 'cover up' or anything deviant. I have already stated that we know this is the most righteous thing, we have nothing to hide and nothing to fear, and that nothing can damage Dafa. It is because it would not benefit any sentient beings, and those who want to find out more about Dafa, those seeking the Fa, can find out themselves by reading; and in this way there will be no misunderstandings. These are big questions and as I say, discussing them haphazardly and irresponsibly is something no one wants to do.

Also, I realise we do not have a choice here, since you are going about this in such a way. Therefore, we will give you something on Consummation, Fa-rectification etc. What I am trying to say is that it is not as simple as all this, though. We will give you something and I think we will all be able to agree. Probably it will have some of the effect you intend. It will not read like some kind of pamphlet, and people probably won't read it then rush out to get Zhuan Falun. People will not be able to accept these things. But it is either that, or let you write something based on your ideas, and that would cause more damage. Continually reverting and avoiding the issue is also not very righteous. I think I already said that in previous posts. The paragraph you wrote is really not such a bad explanation. We can work on it though. Anyway, I apologise for the length of this. It is because Dafa is actually really wonderful, so when I find this page I am responsible to do something. Okay, so we'll get back to you with some stuff on these terms. Please don't take this as something hostile against you or Fire Star. I do not have bad thoughts toward you guys. I hope you see where we are coming from a bit. Also, I am not representing other practitioners, I just wrote all this now and they will all read it then get back to me and we can chat then. Thanks.asdfg12345The current time in (UTC/GMT) is 12:50 a.m. Sábado, 26 de Agosto de 2006

 * It wasn't my opinion that I was worried about, more that that sort of argument doesn't usually go over well at Wikipedia. The biggest problem with this article and the discussion that surrounds it that I see, and why it is still locked and likely to stay locked, is that the majority of the editors here only edit FLG related articles. If you guys were to broaden your horizons a little bit, look around, say, at some of the featured articles and their discussions, you may get a better idea of what to avoid to get the article unlocked. --Fire Star 火星 05:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Falun Gong and Live Organ Harvesting
Heavy pro-FLG bias. -- Миборо в ский 21:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Why are you saying that here? If it is too one-sided, improve it by trying to balance it out more. John Smith's 21:43, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I am bringing it to the attention of the expert editors here on this page. Please refrain from wikistalking. -- Миборо в ский 22:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a 45-page report from Davil Kilgour that speaks about this. This will be used in the article. Omido 09:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

 * The problem is not what's used in this article, it's what's NOT used in this article. Which is, sources from the other side. -- Миборо в ский 12:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you allow us to provide "sources from the other side" on the Li Hongzhi Wiki page and reach a consensus on what we are going to post in there, then im sure we can also reach an agreement on the organ harvesting wiki page in order to make it more neutral.--Andres18 17:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

asdfg12345....
Do you think it's possible that maybe we should just write something about Fa-Rectification for Tomamanda, it seems to be such a big hurdle in his mind...

In the mean time, I agree with what you said asdfg12345.

Tomananda, let us hear it, in your own words:

What is Consumation?

If you can at least tell us in your own words what you think this phrase means, we will be able to better gauge what it is that you don't understand about Falun Dafa....

asdfg12345, we could chat on the side if you wanted to, I can give you some contact info if you wanted to discuss this.

Heshi,

danielprice

yes my contact details are on my userpage, asdfg12345

 * Yes, please write a short, concise paragraph or two about Fa-rectification (what is it, why it is so important) and consumation as well. Sorry, I am not going to accept your challenge to write something on consumation myself.  This is not, as you claim, due to a lack of understanding on my part, but rather a conscious decision I have made.  Some practitioners are new to Wikipedia and might not realize that this issue has a long history.  You can go all the way back to March, 2006 in the archives and find tomananda postings asking practitioners to write something about Fa-rectification, consumation and Li's promise to turn practitioners into gods if they do their duty as Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, which means expose the "evil, wicked"  CCP.  Clearly, Li equates salvation for practitioners with the objective of destroying the CCP.  I know you can point out that according to Li it's the gods who will destroy the CCP, not any human beings on earth.  But those are weasel words.  It's clear that practitioners constantly work to destroy the CCP by:
 * illegally jamming the tranmissions of the main Chinese TV station to broadcast pro-FG propaganda
 * writing letters to people in main land China asking them to condemn the CCP
 * getting US politicians to pass resolutions condemning the CCP for its alleged persecution of FG
 * spreading the Nine Commentaries to people in mainland China. (The Nine Commentaries is as close to a declaration of revolution as anything I've ever read. It's the Chinese version of Thomas Paine's Common Sense.)
 * As you know, I have repeatedly accused Falun Gong practitioners of being dishonest about their core teachings and their Master's objectives. I hope we can now, after 6 months of bickering, make some progress in this article.  --Tomananda 19:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

That is your way of looking at the situation. That is not how practitioners see it. We are assisting Master as he rectifys the Fa of the cosmos and saving sentient beings. So as for an explanation of Fa-rectification, that would be included. Of course, once the meaning of certains actions practitioners have taken, as they are understood within the context of Dafa teachings, have been explained, then you will want to put your own thing below which might say 'critics claim that all this is a ruse to cover Li's overtly politically motives' or whatever. I see that you construe it as some kind of political thing, while practitioners see it from a higher level. As far as we are concerned we do not care about politics or do not pursue any political purposes. So I'm saying the starting point and intention behind what we are doing does not lie within this dimension or contain any political motives. Also, we have only ever reported the facts of the persecution and the history of the CCP. Let me copy your two sentences:

''...Li's promise to turn practitioners into gods if they do their duty as Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, which means expose the "evil, wicked" CCP. Clearly, Li equates salvation for practitioners with the objective of destroying the CCP.''

In the first sentence you referred to what we are doing as exposing the CCP, while in the second you referred to it as destroying the CCP. We are, actually, only exposing the CCP. Also, the requirements for a Dafa disciple during this period of time are much more than just exposing the CCP. We will have to elaborate on that and spell everything out very clearly. I will get to work on something.

By the way, you did not address my concern. When I asked you that question I was challenging you to straighten out your thoughts about what you are accusing us of. You avoided that. --asdfg12345 The current time in (UTC/GMT) is 08:38 p.m. Sábado, 26 de Agosto de 2006

 * Sabado: I am quite clear on what I am stating about Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi's intentions.  My thinking about Falun Gong does not need to be straightened out" nor is it fair to characterize what I said above concerning the Fa-rectification and FG salvation as "accusations."  My problem all along has been the lack of honesty about the teachings and goals of Falun Gong. Let me cite just one important example: your claim above that Falun Gong practitoners are only "exposing" the CCP but are not seeking to "destroy" the CCP.  This is not true.  In the discussion pages of the Falun Gong article, some practitioners have admitted that practitioners are actively "spreading the Nine Commentaries"   Any reasonable person who has read the Nine Commentaries would reach the conclusion that it's intent is to destroy the CCP.  The Epoch Times, which Li says was founded by Falun Dafa disciples for the purpose of spreading the Dafa, also uses the Nine Commentaries to spread dissent in China and to encourage people to quit the CCCP.  It even reports the numbers who have quit.  Do you deny any of this?   Further, Master Li himself has asked his disciples to spread the Nine Commentaries, as in this recent poem:

For the Good of the World
 * Make clear the truth,
 * and drive off foul spirits.
 * Spread widely the Nine Commentaries,
 * and the wicked Party shall fade.
 * With righteous thoughts,
 * save the world's people.
 * I just don't believe their consciences
 * are irretrievably lost.

Li Hongzhi June 15, 2006, in Philadelphia

 * Does this poem not direct practitioners to spread the Nine Commentaries so that the wicked party will fade? Can you, with a straight face, deny this?

 * It doesn't matter to me whether we use the word "political" to describe Li's goal of destroying the CCP...all that matters is that we honestly report that goal in Wikipedia. And surely you have to agree that this goal of making the CCP fade away is  different from simply exposing abusive practices in China.  If all the Falun Gong wanted to do is to encourage the CCP to reform how it manages the detention of Falun Gong practitioners, it would say just that.  But instead the Falun Gong has called for the destruction of the CCP through a variety of means, including the jamming of Beijing's TV transmissions on mainland China.  If you continue to deny these empirical facts, how can I trust you on any other matters pertaining to this article? --Tomananda 21:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me first apologise very directly, as I had a shower after writing that yesterday and thought that I should not have said that we are not trying to 'destroy the CCP'. I wanted to draw some kind of distinction between actions that involve politics and actions that are politically motivated. Spreading jiuping is to save people. The reason is not for something in this world, it is an act of compassion because people who are against this Dafa of the cosmos, and those who support the CCP, are in a dangerous situation. Spreading jiuping will also have the effect of disintegrating the CCP. I think in terms of Falun Gong things, you cannot discuss one aspect without discussing everything; it is holistic. So you will say that we are trying to pull tricks, by saying that spreading jiuping is to save people and not necessarily to disintegrate the CCP, but acknowledging at the same time that it will disintegrate the CCP. You mentioned something like this before - "I know you can point out that according to Li it's the gods who will destroy the CCP, not any human beings on earth. But those are weasel words.  It's clear that practitioners constantly work to destroy the CCP by..." That is just such a manifestation. We are saying that "man follows the earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the tao, the tao follows what is natural." Maybe you can imagine a spider web, if you pull one side then the whole thing will bend. Everything is connected to everything else, and nothing can be spoken of in isolation. The bottom line is that the reasons we do these things lie beyond this world and they have greater meanings and purposes behind them. That is the understanding we have of our actions, so that is what I was saying should be explained in context of Fa-rectification etc. Perhaps you don't understand this and think we are making it up, but I have tried to explain how I understand the situation, and the reason I myself do these things is to save people who have been deceived by the lies of the CCP, so they can enter the future. asdfg12345 Sunday, 2006-08-27 T10:33 UTC--

 * Well, it's great that you have admitted that the intent of these actions is to destroy the CCP. After doing so many postings, it's refereshing to be thrown a bone of honesty. The fact that the destruction of the CCP is justified as part of Li's cosmic plan is understood.  What I have not understood is why this rather small and demonstrable fact, together with a whole lot of other factual items which I have been trying to introduce into this article, continue to meet with such stuborn resistence from so many practitioner/editors.  Since you seem more open than many of the other practitioners, would you be willing to go on to answer some of my other concerns or questions above?  For example, what words would you use to describe Li?   I know he is your enlightened master and teacher, but what I am asking is what other words come to your mind when you think of Master Li?  Could you say that you think of him as a "main Buddha" or "a god" (with a small g)?  Do you think of him as all-knowing, all-powerful and incapable of making a mistake?   --Tomananda 01:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Mediation
Let me try to mediate this never-ending discussion between two sides with strong and clear positions and I'm sorry if I offend any or all of you (but i'm sure a lot of that has been already done) but in all reality, the constant battle between the CPC (or the central leadership) and FLG (or Li Hongzhi, if you prefer) is a battle between liars. I have read Li's books, and watched the entire Chinese media attack Falun Gong for about 3 months continuously (on programs such as Xinwen Lianbo, Jiaodian Fangtan, even Dongfang Shikong, and local news specials from Hunan to Xinjiang), and admittedly a lot of it was ridiculous. Yes, Falun Gong promotes truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance (along with a lot of other things) in their books, but had you experienced the method by which they were promoting their beliefs you would be skeptical at best. Falun Gong is not a cult; at the same time neither is it fair to say from a third perspective that by foundation, Falun Gong is something of complete goodwill and compassion. Try reading the millions of newspaper articles before Falun Gong was labeled a cult, many of them criticize Falun Gong from an academic point of view, having absolutely no affiliation with the CPC.

The Communist Government made a decisive move in 1999 to ban Falun Gong. The persecution of Falun Gong that followed was in no way humanitarian by any standards. It is with the greatest sympathy when I hear Falun Gong related deaths because the innocent people are caught in between, and I do have friends who were persecuted, some under terrible conditions. Whether Falun Gong was in reality a political or social threat as some claim we may never know. It is unfair to say, however, that western media, especially the American media's general stance on this issue, is any more fair than that of the state-controlled media in China. Nor is it fair to say that the US government really cares about Falun Gong because it wants to save a few more souls about to be persecuted, and not because Falun Gong could be used as a convenient and timely political weapon against a possible rival government.

Most opinions reflected on Wikipedia, because of its large Western (even American) base, will be more pro-FLG. The issue of Falun Gong in the west is no longer an objective look at a social occurence, but rather as a full-fledged emotional concern. I do not have the power to change that, but at the same time, I want to make it known that it is impossible for Chinese religious experts and political analysts to voice their opinions fairly. I have recently been to China, and Wikipedia was unaccessible. Even if it was most of the English taught in China is quite poor. Now that I think about it, this may be a fundamental flaw with Wikipedia itself. But let's not go there.

I certainly hope I am not the lone voice to reflect these views. Colipon+(T) 00:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

 * The Western media has done an incredibly poor job of reporting on the Falun Gong. For the most part, they buy the Falun Gong story line concerning alleged human rights violations of practitioners in China and stop there. No attempt is made to look behind the PR image of Falun Gong as a peaceful meditative group that just wants to be left alone.  This is all part of a brilliant PR strategy Li Hongzhi and his disciples have created.  No one condones the persecution of these people in China, but by the same token reasonable people both inside and outside of China can conclude that it was a good thing for the Falun Gong to have been banned in 1999.  Note that I said "banned" and not "persecuted" or "tortured". I am drawing an important distinction here between banning this group (a justifiable and even necessary action within the context of Chinese law and culture), and how the ban has been enforced.

 * Your observation that both the CCP and the Falun Gong (or Li Hongzhi) are liers points out the absurdity of how the Falun Gong story has been treated in the West. At least one Western academic has suggested that the battle between Falun Gong and the CCP is a conflict between two totalitarian regimes. But actually, China is working to reform itself, and these reforms include holding corrupt local officials accountable for their actions and allowing the beginning of democratic elections at the local level. It's a start.  For Li, however, the entire rectification of the cosmos (which he himself directs) requires the destruction of the CCP.  It doesn't matter what label we put on this objective...the practitioners will go to their graves (or Falun Gong paradise) swearing that they are not political.  But what does matter is that the Western media should start seeing the conflict for what it is.

 * My mother taught me as a child that two wrongs do not make a right. This precept fits the Falun Gong situation quite well. On the one hand, to the extent that practitioers are being persecuted in China, that is clearly a moral wrong.  However, it is also wrong to allow the Falun Gong to continue to lie about it's true teachings and objectives to Western politicians and the press. And if you believe, as I and many cult experts do, that Li Hongzhi is a manipulative cult leader whose control over his disciples' thinking breaks up families and threatens the health of practitioners, then there is a whole lot more that needs to be exposed about the Falun Gong as well. --Tomananda 01:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

 * As to your offer to mediate, we were hoping to get an official mediator from the mediation committee. --Tomananda 01:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Tomananda,

Even if FLG's true objective was to eliminate the CCP, it is still not a political movement. People who are involved in politics seek political power... or helping someone else obtain political power. FLG practitioners claim to seek "nothing in the human world." So why would they be interested in human politics and political power? If they practice FLG in hopes of returning to "Falun Paradise" why would they care what kind of governement is in China?

I think it was nessecarry for Falun Gong to spread the Nine Commentaries, because it was the only way for them to save their practitioners being tortured in the labor camps, and the millions of other Chinese people decieved by the lies of the CCP. It is a dual thing. It's brings the 100+ years of persecution of the CCP to light, while at the same time destroying it, giving the Chinese people the opportunity to rule their own country however they see fit, free from the tryanny and violence of the CCP. The CCP is a pretty evil organization. Tell me what you think.

One more thing.

Even if FLG were a brainwashing cult, I don't see anything evil about their "brainwashing teachings". What's wrong with Truthfullness, Compassion, and Tolerance? What's so bad about eliminating Communism from the world? Nothing that I see FLG doing in this world is evil or bad.

I think they are doing good for the world. Communism is athiest and promotes violence and struggle. As I see it, the FLG are promoting non-violent removal of the CCP so that the Chinese people can choose whatever kind of government they want for themselvs. It's not like Li Hongzhi is about to become the new president of China, right?

FLG is definitely not involved in politics. They meditate and read books, and destroy the CCP. So what?

Heshi,

daniel price

 * Daniel, thank you for speaking the truth and amitting that a goal of the Falun Gong is to destroy the CCP (through means such as the spreading of the Nine Commentatries). Again, I don't care whether this counts as a "political"  objective or a "spiritual" objective.  The important thing is that we are trying to write an enclyclopedia article, and I am open to your constructions on this issue as long as they are honest.  So far you have said "the FLG are promoting non-violent removal of the CCP so that teh Chinese people can choose whatever kind of government they want for themselves."  Would you be willing to add the spiritual component into this equation and say something like:

 * A primary goal of the Falun Gong is to promote the non-violent removal of the CCP through such means as spreading the Nine Commentaries and exposing what the Falun Gong considers to be the persecution of its followers in China. According to Master Li, exposing the CCP is an essential component of Falun Gong culitivation practice during this period of Fa-rectification.  Ever since the ban in 1999, Master Li has increasingly focused on the importance of Fa-rectification, a process in which all being in the cosmos are judged by the Dafa, with the result that beings who do not think the Dafa is good, and those fail to support the Falun Gong in its efforts to expose the evil nature of the CCP, will be the first to be weeeded out.

 * How about that for a starting paragraph? Please feel free to suggest changes in the wording, but at least it is a start.  --Tomananda 19:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey Tomananda,

You said:

You can go all the way back to March, 2006 in the archives and find tomananda postings asking practitioners to write something about Fa-rectification, consumation and Li's promise to turn practitioners into gods if they do their duty as Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, which means expose the "evil, wicked" CCP. Clearly, Li equates salvation for practitioners with the objective of destroying the CCP. I know you can point out that according to Li it's the gods who will destroy the CCP, not any human beings on earth. But those are weasel words. It's clear that practitioners constantly work to destroy the CCP by:

* illegally jamming the tranmissions of the main Chinese TV station to broadcast pro-FG propaganda * writing letters to people in main land China asking them to condemn the CCP * getting US politicians to pass resolutions condemning the CCP for its alleged persecution of FG   * spreading the Nine Commentaries to people in mainland China. (The Nine Commentaries is as close to a declaration of revolution as anything I've ever read. It's the Chinese version of Thomas Paine's Common Sense.)

Specifically, I'm interested in this line that you said. You said:

"Li's promise to turn practitioners into gods if they do their duty as Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, which means expose the "evil, wicked" CCP. Clearly, Li equates salvation for practitioners with the objective of destroying the CCP. I know you can point out that according to Li it's the gods who will destroy the CCP, not any human beings on earth."

I think the point that you are missing here is that, the Falun Gong people who are distributing the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party are the "Gods who will destroy the CCP." I think the Falun Gong people are Gods....

random oberserver

Well, I think that you haven't read enough Falun Gong teachings to know what you're talking about Mr. Random observer. It's really not as simple as what you're suggesting, and are your totally off on the idea of the "gods" being practitioners. Alot of the antis here love to try to simplify things like this, but it only creates ambiguity, which leads to misunderstandings. A lot of things are included in whether a practitioner can consumate, and all of them have to be done well. The basis of this is cultivation based on Mr. Li's teachings, then you have righteous thoughts and clarifying the truth on top of that. And then you have things related to exposing the party (which is really something within clarifying the truth). Of course, there is lots of context to understand why this, why it wasn't before, and why it won't be in the future. I think that if you're really looking through all the old discussions then you'll probably also find myself and other editors saying how these kinds of things can be included, just not the way Tomanda and some of the others have in mind. It's not about censoring, it's about proper context.

I agree with Tomanda that we are a waiting for official mediation, and that because of this we shouldn't accept your offer, Colipon. Actually, I don't know if it would really be a good idea to have a mediator who already has such a strong opinion on the subject at hand, although you are more than welcome to join the editing team. As for Tomanda's rant, I don't have much to say. We've heard it all before, we've responded, and it's getting kind of old now. That's really not the way it is, but if you want to believe that it's your choice. Mcconn 17:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Mcconn: You and the other Falun Gong practitioners have heard this argument before, but have done nothing to propose your own edits which cover the topic of Fa-rectificatioin (what it is and why it is important for Falun Gong practitioners.) No one has ever suggested that this article can't report the basic ideas of Falun Gong cultivation, which include the importance of having righteous thoughts and clarifying the truth. Nor does anyone object to your pointing out that "clarifying the truth" during this period of Fa-rectification especially includes exposing the "evil and wicked"  CCP.

 * What we do object to is that practitioners continue to fail in their job as editors in Wikipedia, spending endless words arguing points that are distractions to the essential task at hand. In Wikispeak, we call this apologetics and you guys are masters of this art.

 * Actually, we've made some progress in the above discussion. At long last several practitioners have admitted that a goal of the Falung Gong is to destroy the CCP. Yet you come along with the same old tired arguments about context, etc.  Our challenge as editors is to provide that context, but at the same time report all the important stuff. Fa-rectification, and the requirement that practitioners work to destroy the CCP through peaceful means as part of what Li calls "clarifying the truth" in order to reach salvation and help save all sentient beings in the cosmos, are important concepts in Falun Gong, are they not?  So rather than continuing to attack me, why don't you for a change propose actually write something that reports this material in a simple and straight forward way?  It is my belief that you can't, because Master Li has prohibited you from talking about the teachings "at the higher levels" when clarifying the truth to ordinary people.  Here's an opportunity for you to prove me wrong by demonstrating that you can write about Fa-rectification in your own words (or by indirectly quoting Li as I have done).  This is also an opportunity to make progress in this article, which is why we are all here.  So please, do me the honor of reviewing the draft paragraph I have proposed in my post to Daniel above.  Thanks!  --Tomananda 19:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Question,

Mcconn, are you a Falun Gong practitioner?

random oberserver

Tomananda,

Actually, you're paragraph was not that bad, perhaps we could have such a paragraph in the article, I don't know. But an important thing to remember, is that we should have direct quotes from Master Li rather then paraphrases or individual practitioners or non-practitioners' understandings. Do you know what I mean? For instance, your paragraph said:

"According to Master Li, exposing the CCP is an essential component of Falun Gong culitivation practice during this period of Fa-rectification. Ever since the ban in 1999, Master Li has increasingly focused on the importance of Fa-rectification, a process in which all being in the cosmos are judged by the Dafa, with the result that beings who do not think the Dafa is good, and those fail to support the Falun Gong in its efforts to expose the evil nature of the CCP, will be the first to be weeeded out."

This paragraph should instead of saying, "According to Master Li,...." we should have direct quotes from his lectures, or, nothing at all. It is harmful to any spiritual practice or spiritual teachings, to have the students or non-students spread what they heard as the teachings, or what they understand as the teachings. This was a problem that the religion of Buddhism faced. It should instead be repeated with direct quotes from Master Li. The paragraph mentions the right things, but it should be quoted directly, and then with explanations and understandings of whomever is writing.

For example, this poem would be fitting:

For the Good of the World Make clear the truth, and drive off foul spirits. Spread widely the Nine Commentaries, and the wicked Party shall fade. With righteous thoughts, save the world's people. I just don't believe their consciences are irretrievably lost.

Li Hongzhi June 15, 2006, in Philadelphia

daniel price

 * No, Daniel, we cannot restrict ourselves to direct quotes from Master Li in this article. As with any encylopedia article, we must provide clear and concise exposition of the subject.  In doing this, we can introduce some direct quotes from Li, but those direct quotes do not replace the exposition that is needed.  You say you like the paragraph I have written above.  I ask you to read it again and tell me if it contains any incaccuracies or inappropriate words.  If the paragraph is accurate and written in accordance with the NPOV policy, then why not let the paragraph stand as is, with the understanding that we can follow up with a direct quote from Li?   Regardless of how you may feel personally about this issue, we cannot allow this Wikipedia article to become nothing more than a compiliation of Li quotes.  This is an enclycopedia article, not a "greatest writing of Master Li"  primer. --Tomananda 19:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

 * PS: Forgot to mention that I understand your concern about accuracy in reporting Li's teachings. But there's no reason why we can't summarize key points in Li's teachings through indirect quotes without sacrificing accuracy. If you read my proposed summaries carefully, you will see that I seldom "paraphrase"  Li's words.  Instead, I construct summaries which use Li's vocabulary exactly. This is standard practice in writing summaries and does not mean one loses any thing in accuracy. I keep waiting for some equivalent writing to come from the pracitioners.  So far, I've seen some examples of this kind of summary in the persecution and cultivation sections, but nothing yet on Fa-rectification and salvation.  --Tomananda 22:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Tomananda,

I think you misunderstood, I didn't want to restrict it to just quotes from Master Li. Your paragraph was basically perfect by me, I don't know what the others think. I just wanted it to be followed up with quotes from Master Li, like the poem I sent to you. Your paragraph was fine by me, I just wanted it followed with maybe a couple poems, like these two...

"Cleaning Out

The dark clouds have passed

yet winds remain fierce

Though the Red Dragon is slain

humans are still confused

Where there is Evil

there is dark, dense haze

Dafa disciples

hold the palm erect

Eliminate the remaining Evil

summon righteous thoughts

Clarify the truth

rescue the sentient beings

Thoroughly annihilate the Evil

and sweep the entire cosmos clean"

and

"For the Good of the World Make clear the truth, and drive off foul spirits. Spread widely the Nine Commentaries, and the wicked Party shall fade. With righteous thoughts, save the world's people. I just don't believe their consciences are irretrievably lost."

Tomananda,

I just thought of something that might help you understand more why practitioners do not like to talk about Fa-Rectification, and the more difficult things to understand about practitioners' lives and the Falun Gong teachings.

Practitioners consider their Falun Gong cultivation a very sacred and holy thing, and we don't like having all kinds of non-Falun Gong practitioners and commentaries mixed into the middle of our cultivation. It is simialar to how certain churches don't allow cameras inside, and how they may try to avoid the media. We feel these things take away from the sacredness of what we consider our sacred, holy duties.

Practitioners are not trying to hide anything from the public, we just don't want to be misunderstood, and we want to keep our things holy and sacred, and avoid turning it into some big public thing for anyone to come and video tape or mix in their own commentaries. If people really want to know more about Falun Gong, they should just come and read the books right?

I agree with what you are saying, the article should include a brief summary of the Falun Gong teachings, along with a short summary and commentary on what practitioners are doing during this historical period, i.e. clarifying the truth and eliminating the CCP. It's just, with some things, words can only say so much, and maybe they can't capture the true meaning of what you are thinking or trying to depict. Some times, trying to put things into words might take away from the subject.

Let me know if this helps you understand.

I'm going to keep checking in to make sure everything gets cleared up ok?

daniel price

 * Tomanda, where are you suggesting that the abovementioned paragraph be within the article? Daniel, please get a user account. Mcconn 08:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Tomananda in response to you: The primary reason we are spreading jiuping is to save people. That is the essential purpose behind it. The three things that Master has asked Dafa disciples to do in this special historic period are to study the Fa, clarify the truth, and send forth righteous thoughts. That should be explained in the context of Fa-rectification and salvation. Truly, I want to write something up for you, but this is not a simple matter... so when you say we are admitting openly to trying to destroy the CCP, perhaps it is not that simple. We are saying that the CCP will fall. It is against the universe, it is too corrupt, and it is just destroying itself. There is that saying 'honour among thieves', but if the thieves start robbing from each other, then they will even destroy themselves. Something needs virtue to exist. The CCP is an evil specter and such a thing will inevitably cannibalise itself. It's a sinking ship and we're trying to get as many people off it as possible. All those who can get off, we are trying to get them off. Daniel Price send me an email please, my email is on my userpage. Click on my name.

We will give you something on Consummation, Fa-rectification, how it implicates the CCP and is manifesting in this dimension (spreading jiuping for starters), and everything. We will clearly spell out every aspect of the teachings of Dafa as they pertain to this special historical period, you don't need to worry. By the way, there is an explanation on the criticisms page which is not bad. Also, on the criticisms page I have raised an issue that you have not responded to. When I get some more time I'll fix that section up then move on to the next one. -- --Asdfg12345 15:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I am quite sorry to say that I am immensely dissapointed by your responses (with a few notable exceptions). I am also dissapointed at

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title: Talk:Falun Gong/Archive 14