Hongzhi Li
July 28, 1996 ~ Singapore

All right, let me just stand here and let everyone see me clearly. I’d like to thank the people from various fields in Singapore who have given support to the Falun Dafa Association in various ways. Also, on behalf of all of you, I would like to express our appreciation to the people from various fields in Singapore for their support and for making it possible to establish the Falun Buddha Association. Let’s give them a round of applause. (Applause) The founding of the Buddha Association will lead to more people obtaining the Fa, and will allow more people with predestined connections to study this Fa. It will, under the protection of national law, provide favorable conditions for all of you in your future practice and for doing something that will benefit the general population.

I didn’t prepare much to say. Now I will take the opportunity of this gathering to talk about whatever comes to mind. I will first introduce Falun Gong, which has a long history. People in cultivation circles know that civilizations have emerged more than once in the human world. Civilizations have emerged many times in the human world. When throughout the long course of history human morality gradually declined and grew corrupt, the human race would be on the wane. That was usually the case. Also, as it developed to the final stage, when material degeneration and spiritual depravity had peaked, it would bring about a big downslide in human moral values. Under such circumstances, the human race would wane. The human race has gone through this scenario many times, and that is why there has been more than one human civilization—many civilizations have come about. The Stone Age that people talk about was not the only such age. The human race has gone through many stone ages. That’s because when the human race encountered these sorts of troubles, all of its means of production and knowledge were destroyed.

You know, in the early period of the current human civilization—four or five thousand years ago—our Earth experienced a great flood, and it engulfed the entire Caucasian civilization in Europe. Of course, precious little was left, though one could still see glimpses of the prehistoric past from the artifacts that remained. For instance, evidence of the existence of prehistoric civilizations can be seen in archaeological finds involving the culture of ancient Greece. In the East, relatively more things survived the great flood. Everyone knows the story of Yu the Great controlling the flood. The flood at the time was fierce, and when the water receded, Yu the Great led people to guide the water out of the flooded land. This was documented in history. The ancient human civilization at that time—the one in the last cycle—was destroyed by the huge flood, but many of the ancestors of the Chinese people survived the huge flood, and relatively more artifacts were left behind. In comparison, fewer Westerners survived. That is why the Western culture of today is a completely new one, one that is completely new and without any trace of ancient history. Thus, the ancient civilization of China has a deep-rooted history, and took a different path than modern science.

So in these ancient civilizations, there are many things that present-day people are still unable to understand and that are disassociated from modern culture. So, many people, including Westerners, know that in China there are many, many mysterious things—things that today’s people cannot understand. Chinese people themselves know this. In the land of China, there are many things of ancient culture that cannot be understood by modern people. Some people have heard about them and seen them, yet they cannot explain them, and no one has yet made public these ancient things and introduced them to people. Since more of the ancestors of the Chinese people survived [back during the flood], a portion of ancient culture has survived.

In the past, the ancient Chinese race was not concentrated in what is now the Yellow River valley; instead, it was located in the Xinjiang region. The most prosperous period for that civilization occurred in that region. Since Mt. Kunlun was nearby, the terrain in the neighboring areas was quite high. The water level of the great flood that year reached as high as two thousand meters, submerging the entire Earth. But when the great flood was unleashed, many people survived by escaping to Mt. Kunlun, preserving some things of the ancient culture. They include, for instance, Hetu and Luoshu diagrams, the Taiji, the original Eight Trigrams (bagua), and other things that some people in China still can’t understand, as well as some ancient forms of qigong that today’s people know of.

Put simply, qigong is not something invented by today’s people. It is part of prehistoric culture, and there is relatively more of it in China. But in the past it was not called qigong. What was it called, then? It was called “cultivation” (xiulian). Of course, cultivation is divided into levels, and at the level of ordinary human society, people can be told only how to heal themselves, how to become fit, or how to make their bodies healthy. So some qigong masters use this to do good things for people. In other words, those qigong masters who are transmitting their practices in society, including those who have gone to other countries, are teaching things only at the level of health and fitness. Now I’m not saying that the qigong practices others teach are not good. I am telling you that they have not taught things at high levels; rather, they are just teaching things for healing and fitness, and they have coupled it with displaying some supernormal abilities. As they heal, some illnesses can be removed only through supernormal means, and that is why some supernormal abilities are displayed.

“Supernormal ability” is just a modern term, and on a basic level it refers to a being’s innate abilities. With the current increasing abundance of material things and the advancement of science, people place ever greater importance in practical things, and they increasingly abandon their inherent abilities and the things that have been with them since the most ancient times. If this trend continues, in the future science and technology will probably develop further while human beings will progressively degenerate. Now there are trains, cars, and airplanes, so no one needs to walk much. In the future, with increasing advances in material things, human beings might regress in drastic ways. If you expand upon what the “theory of evolution” would have you believe, the surface of the human body will degenerate fully in the future, and in the end man’s limbs will become warped and vestigial, leaving only a big cranium. Of course, I’m just illustrating a point here. The idea is, more and more of man’s inherent, original things are being abandoned.

China’s ancient society did not develop that way. So some people may wonder, “If things had developed in keeping with ancient Chinese society, would there have been technological advances?” Of course, if you try to understand another kind of science in the context of the existing scientific and technological theories, you will never be able to understand it. You have to step outside of the confines of today’s science if you are to understand the approach of a different science. And within that other type of culture, people would think that that is indeed the expected state of society. Some people have said, “If things had developed in keeping with the society of the ancient East, would there have been cars and airplanes? I flew to Singapore from Hong Kong yesterday, and it took me just over three hours. It was fast! Humankind has developed to quite an advanced stage. Would it have been the same if things followed the way of ancient Chinese society?”

Actually, people know that different methods of science bring about different ways of scientific development. For instance, suppose things were to develop in accord with ancient Chinese society. As you know, practicing qigong can develop the human body’s innate potential. In other words, qigong practice can turn intangible things into tangible things, and ultimately turn what is invisible into the visible, and all of this can be done without the use of instruments or modern scientific or technological means. When you first enter a state of calmness in qigong meditation, you don’t feel much. But when you become completely calm, you discover that although the outer form of your body has not moved, the inside of your body is moving; you will feel movement within. And that movement, barely perceptible at the outset, will become increasingly obvious until eventually it is so obvious that your consciousness can control it, thus bringing about a transition from intangible to tangible. So eventually, this consciousness and sensation may slowly become tangible as a practitioner continues to ascend. There are still numerous substances that carry energy and which exist in the universe that today’s science and technology can’t detect. As these energies constantly strengthen the practitioner, these invisible, formless substances gradually become tangible, and then people can see them and even use them. If this path is followed, definitely the quality of man will elevate. In the past, students were called Confucian scholars, and before class began they were required to sit in meditation, adjust their breathing, and calm their minds before they read their books. That’s really how it was in the past. In ancient China adjusting the breathing and calming the mind were important to people of all walks of life. While in such a state of being, people can do many things that they couldn’t normally do, and that is getting very close to qigong cultivation. Such a culture always permeated the minds of ancient Chinese.

Of course, I just mentioned that there are people who wonder, “Had this path of development been followed, would there still be airplanes and trains?” Different directions of scientific development can take science to different places. So think about it, everyone: if humans could levitate and float, would there still be any use for airplanes and trains? People with such abilities exist in China, in India, and in the U.S., and there are a significant number of people like that among Falun Gong practitioners. How are they able to [gain those abilities]? When all of the energy channels in a person’s body are opened—when not a single area is blocked—the person will be able to levitate. Of course, today’s scientific research cannot explain how. In fact, no one dares to study it for fear of being laughed at—and therefore losing their reputations—by those so-called “scientists” who disbelieve in it. As you know, not long ago an American came to Singapore to perform a show, and many of you may have seen him levitate. This phenomenon truly exists—humans are able to levitate. So think about it, everyone: In the past, Chinese people talked about figures who could appear out of nowhere and disappear without a trace. Many qigong masters were able to travel from one place to another—with a distance of as many as a thousand miles, perhaps—all in a matter of a few seconds. Why were they able to do that? Of course, there are many unknown things that would take a lot of explaining to make sense of, and I am not going to go into them today. I am only saying in broad terms that different forms of scientific development lead to different outcomes. For instance, with an airplane you might be able to fly from Hong Kong to Singapore in three hours, but some people can levitate once they sit down and they might be able to fly over here in a little over ten minutes; they wouldn’t need to build such a clumsy machine. Those things really aren’t fairy tales. Many things that people still cannot explain have been gradually verified by science. Abilities like those are indeed possible, but you won’t be able to make sense of another scientific path within the context of today’s science.

Of course, put in modern terms, qigong is a scientific discipline. Moreover, it is a more ancient science and one on a higher plane. Many scientists have had the courage to step forward and validate the science of the extraordinary abilities and ancient science, because they have seen the real existence of qigong phenomena.

Of course, there are people who refuse to acknowledge qigong. I can tell all of you present here, who are Falun Gong practitioners, that when you tell others to come and learn Falun Gong, some of them may not believe it and may even oppose it. This is all normal. Why? Because human society just exists in this condition of conflicting dualities. If everyone believed in qigong, if everyone believed in the Buddha Fa, and if everyone could do cultivation, human society would cease to exist, and everyone would become celestial beings and gods. Precisely because there are those who are against it and those who are for it, those who believe in it and those who don’t, this society of conflict and mutual generation and mutual inhibition can be formed. All professions and all occupations, including everything in ordinary human society, have both positive and negative elements that exist simultaneously. When you want to do a good thing, a bad thing is sure to be there waiting for you, and you have to overcome challenges before you can accomplish that good thing. And of course, it’s not easy to do a bad thing either, as there are national laws and good people to serve as a check. So that is the way things are, which is normal. That’s because in this universe, there are two opposing substances of different natures, and their expansion downwards gives rise to the theory of taiji—a yin and a yang. As it expands further down, the principle of mutual generation and mutual inhibition emerges. This principle of mutual generation and mutual inhibition is played out most prominently in ordinary human society. That is why there are those who don’t believe in the ancient science I just talked about and those who do. It holds as well for the Buddha Fa practice I am transmitting today: there are people who support it and people who oppose it, and this too is normal. You will all encounter what I have described, and I think it’s not cause for alarm.

Just now I went further and talked to this extent before speaking about the history of Falun Gong. The qigong that people know today is also an ancient science. It includes Falun Gong, which is from prehistoric culture. It is not that Li Hongzhi made up something on the spur of the moment and passed it on to you all. That would have brought harm to people. Now there are many fake qigong masters who deceive people, and they are harming others as well as themselves. Since in general when gong is emitted it does not travel in this dimension, the regular eyes of a human are unable to see it, and so there are many fake qigong masters who deceive people. It’s like fish eyes being mixed up with pearls—the real and the fake are jumbled together. There were a lot of people who didn’t believe in qigong to begin with, and now they oppose it even more. In particular, the morality of today’s people is corrupt, and there are both authentic and fake versions of everything—there are even fake commercial goods, not to mention qigong. Of course, qigong isn’t something that one can just go and make up and deceive people with—doing that will bring harm to others and to the person himself. That’s because the swindlers don’t know what will be produced by practicing it. Of course, if they cannot produce anything, then it doesn’t matter. But if they really do produce something, it could be dangerous for people. That is the risk that fake qigong practices pose for people.

Then how did Falun Gong come about? And when did it come about? If one were to trace it back, well, it would be incredibly long, and ordinary people would find it unbelievable when they heard about it. So I won’t talk about those things for now, but gradually you will come to know them. I can tell you, however, that in a time predating history Falun Gong once served as a major Buddha Fa that saved people in the world. Much like how Shakyamuni was saving people twenty-five hundred years ago, Falun Gong once offered salvation to all lives on earth. A very long period of history has passed since it was made public. History is so vast and sprawling in the first place, and that just makes it even less likely for today’s people to know about it. Falun Gong’s history is very long and dates back very far.

Why could it be made public today? Of course, I can explain it only in the simplest and most shallow terms. I saw a situation. What situation? Namely, while human society has seen an increasing abundance of material things and the rapid development of science, human morality has declined drastically. Since people all believe in science nowadays, they think that modern science holds the truth. But people have not realized something, namely, that modern science is not complete. There are many, many things that science has not discovered, and there are many things that have been [wrongly] rejected by science. And there are many close-minded people who make use of this imperfect science to attack phenomena that people believe in and yet are unable to explain with science. However, those inexplicable phenomena solidly and concretely manifest in this material dimension of human society. Modern science doesn’t have the courage to acknowledge them. Because science does not acknowledge them, many people who believe in science, having the same notions, likewise oppose them. But this science is very much imperfect. For instance, for thousands of years people have believed that virtue is important. Nowadays many people think “virtue” is just having a kind, benign awareness in one’s mind and an expectation for people to reach from a spiritual perspective—and they haven’t thought much beyond that. But I am telling you, everything in the universe is materially constituted, thus allowing it to have a role in things. Virtue has real, material existence, and it manifests as a solid and tangible material. In the past, people in the East, and especially old folks in China, considered building up virtue important. Young people don’t understand it. “Why build up virtue? How are you going to ‘build up’ virtue?” “How can you build up something formless?” Actually, I can tell you that it has form, only the human eye can’t see it since it exists in another dimension. And it is there at all times. When you do good things, you build up virtue. And when you suffer hardship, you build up virtue. It goes with a person life after life, determining his future lot. Some people become very high-ranking officials because of it, some make a fortune because of it, and some are very successful in business because of it. All that owes to your having built up virtue earlier on or in your previous lives, so you are being blessed in the present life. Why are so many people less well-off than others? Precisely because they don’t have as much virtue as others, because they haven’t built up as much. That is the reason. So virtue is something extremely important. Just now I talked about the imperfections of science. Science is unable to break through this existing material dimension in which the human race resides, and it cannot discover other dimensions. But there are many special, remarkable scientists who have realized that other space-times exist. Although they still can’t make that breakthrough, they do have a rough theoretical explanation of other space-times and have asked those questions—and they believe in the existence of other space-times. Then, are there lives in those space-times? What do those lives look like? What are the forms of their existence? What are the differences between the time there and that in our dimension? What about the concepts in that dimension, the way its lives look, and the forms its matter assumes—what are they like? All these are unknown to the science of today’s human beings. Modern science does not acknowledge the existence of other dimensions, nor does it acknowledge the existence of virtue. Then think about it: when humans believe strongly in science, they will not believe in something’s existence if science denies it. So, isn’t science the factor responsible for the massive downslide in human morality? The reason is, when people mention virtue and that you should build it up and value it, many people with modern minds say, “You’re talking superstitious nonsense. That’s all superstitious. We believe in science, not those superstitious things.” Look, everyone, this science has been used as a club with which to beat down the most essential part of human beings. So, can you say that science is perfect? As I just mentioned, man’s material life is now very rich. Why is morality declining, then? Precisely because today’s science is unable to prove the existence of other dimensions and higher beings, unable to prove that humans will reincarnate and face retribution, and unable to prove the existence of virtue. That’s why people dare to do bad things. Many of today’s people believe, “That’s all superstitious and unscientific.” People don’t believe in the existence of gods, and so they dare to do bad things. They don’t believe in retribution, and so they think that these are all superstitious. This is the biggest problem brought about by modern science’s shortcomings.

Since I am talking about whatever comes to mind, when I got to the topic of Falun Gong’s origins just now, I went on to elaborate on this topic.

There are many, many things discussed by cultivators that cannot be mentioned in the secular world. But there are many people in the secular world who have perceived or heard certain otherworldly things; they may have occasionally seen or sensed something inexplicable, or they may have come across something unusual. Yet no one has ever attempted to verify these things and study them in systematic fashion.

A short time ago, there was a student up here on stage who remarked about how this Fa is extremely precious. I have taught you about a lot here today, and those who have not read Zhuan Falun may want to give it a read, and you might come to understand [what I am talking about]. Zhuan Falun contains Fa principles, and the Fa is, of course, to be transmitted to practitioners. Many people will feel that cultivation is hard to do. Actually, cultivation itself is not hard; to abandon ordinary human thinking and attachments is what’s hardest. What’s meant by ordinary human thinking? To illustrate it, the first thing a cultivator should be able to do is refrain from retaliating when you have been wronged in some way. Ordinary people aren’t able to do that because they are ordinary people. A cultivator must be able to, though. Moreover, you must be able to do the following: when others push you around, you have no complaints and hold no grudges, and take it lightly, and you even laugh it off and forget about it; or even when someone beats you up, you silently thank that person who beats you up. Ordinary people would think this is simply impossible, “How could anyone be like that? He must be a wimp.” But in reality, when someone pushes you around, he is giving you virtue—real and tangible virtue. In this universe, there are numerous massive substances that human beings can’t see with the naked eye, and today’s science can’t discover them either. These numerous, more microcosmic substances all have intelligence and life, and they are controlling all beings below them and at the same time balancing everything in this universe. Moreover, this universe has a principle, namely: there is no gain without loss, and to gain, one must lose. When someone wants to get something, a trade-off will occur, and that is called “gain and loss.” How does one lose? In this dimension, ordinary people cannot see it, though they will sometimes be able to sense it. In general people will get what they want after they have given of themselves in the form of hard efforts. With those who don’t want to give of themselves and seek to forcibly get what they want, gods will make them give all the same. For instance, say someone takes things from others or someone hits someone else. This is a case of someone wanting to forcibly gain something tangible or otherwise, and he won’t think of compensating the affected party. However, this universe will force the party that gains to compensate; that party will have to lose even if they don’t want to. Lose in what sense? On this side you have struck someone, taken advantage of others, or have taken things that weren’t yours. So however much you have gained will be how much virtue will fly over to the other party from the domain of your body in another dimension; and virtue is something that can be traded for material things or money. In other words, when one person is forced to lose something, the other party will compensate him. Ordinary people are unable to see this, so they dare to do bad things. Many people are tricked by others when doing business or are made to lose out. But they will, over time, be made to earn the same amount as compensation—assuming that they weren’t cheated because of their own unvirtuous conduct or wrongdoing. And that is the compensation that those who have caused others’ losses are forced to make, but people usually take it to be happenstance or the result of their own efforts. Human beings cannot see the real reasons. Here I am telling you that virtue is extremely precious, and it can be transformed into anything. Modern people don’t believe in these things because science is unable to see them, and this is one of the reasons for the sharp decline in human moral standards. But the massive and huge substances and higher beings in this universe are indeed equalizing all things in the universe. When you lose what you should not have lost, you will get compensation or remuneration. A person will lose even though he doesn’t want to, for what is on the other side is at work, and what I talked about earlier was a simple example of that. Actually the victim will gain even more. That is why I sometimes say that it’s not necessarily a bad thing to experience a little hardship. In the past, old people, and in particular all the old folk in China, said, “Now you are experiencing a little hardship, and in the time ahead you will be fine.” And that really is the case. Jesus said that you should turn the other cheek, when struck. Some people can’t understand it. Actually, there are now many Catholics and those of the Christian faith who cannot understand it. What’s the logic behind it? Jesus spoke about it on only the surface level and didn’t explain its deeper meanings. What he meant was, when someone hits you on this side, he gives you virtue and helps you to eliminate karma from wrongdoing. Then since the attacker hasn’t completely cooled off yet, if you offer him your other cheek and let him hit it, isn’t he helping you eliminate karma and giving you virtue? When you suffer, the karma in your body is eliminated. All humans create karma. Some people have taken lives, offended others, sworn at others, hated someone, done something bad, and so on—all of which result in karma. It is a black substance, and it exists around the human body. It determines when a person will suffer and fall ill, or encounter trouble, or fail in business, or be assaulted or cursed at by others, or many, many other types of suffering. All of these are caused by karma. When someone hits you or takes advantage of you, not only will you be given virtue by the attacker, but you will additionally, while you suffer pain, have your black karma turned into virtue. So one action results in two gains. With an ordinary person, he can have two gains. But with a cultivator, this is a test he has to pass. If he passes the test of that painful ordeal well, his xinxing will improve. And the improvement of his xinxing means the raising of his level, so his gong will increase and his virtue will be turned into gong. I have thoroughly explained the principle now, but in your cultivation, it is up to you to make good on it.

In fact, I have not only transmitted the Fa, but have also done something no one else has ever done. I have truly left humans a ladder to heaven. As long as you cultivate by following this Great Law, you will definitely achieve Consummation. No one in the past ever taught this Fa, much less among human beings. If you don’t believe it, you can flip through all the texts out there, ancient to present, in China or overseas. Be it the Dao De Jing, the Holy Bible, the Buddhist sutras—none of them teaches the Fa in this way, revealing all of heaven’s secrets.

Shakyamuni is a Buddha, and people believe that what Buddha Shakyamuni left behind is the Buddha Law. Yet Buddha Shakyamuni himself said: “Throughout my life, I have not left behind any Laws.” People didn’t understand what he meant, so Zen Buddhism asserted that there is no Law. [Zen taught that] if Buddha Shakyamuni didn’t even leave behind any Law, then nothing that anyone—whoever it may be—says is Buddha Law; talking about it is forbidden, and nothing uttered is Buddha Law. But that was a completely misguided understanding. Then what did Buddha Shakyamuni mean when he said that? Buddha Shakyamuni is a deity, and he had reincarnated in human society to save people. When he successfully completed his cultivation he would become a Buddha, so his words had a divine quality to them. Although what he taught was not the Buddha Law that systematically guides cultivation, divine words are similarly Law principles at that level. But it was not the fundamental Law of the systematic universe. Also, the scriptures compiled by later generations were actually fragmented and unsystematic. That is indeed the case. Over twenty-five hundred years ago Shakyamuni directed his words at the people of that time, and Buddha Shakyamuni saw what humans would be like today. So Buddha Shakyamuni said back then that his Law would not work during the Age of Dharma’s End. In fact, today’s people can no longer understand what Buddha Shakyamuni said.

The same holds for the Bible in Western religions: people can no longer truly understand it, for modern people’s minds have become very complicated. People understand it every which way, and interpret it in light of the feelings they have while reading it and their own self-interest, thus leading them to not understand the real, deeper meanings.

I am telling everyone that the book Zhuan Falun is really something precious. No other book found among human beings can compare to it. That’s because it is a book of cultivation, a very serious Great Law that can guide people to Consummation. Just now some people said that when you pick up Zhuan Falun and read it, every word in it shines with golden light. I think that if you can persistently keep cultivating and be diligent until Consummation, then in the course of putting in diligent effort and as you cultivate, you will come to see and experience many, many sensations and scenes that ordinary people cannot see or experience. At that point you will discover what this book really is. No matter how I talk about it here, it’s still just me talking. If I talk more about this, it will start to sound unbelievable. So I think it’s better if you arrive at your own insights and affirm it yourselves. I only want to tell you that this Fa is extremely precious.

When I started transmitting this Fa, a great many high-level beings and great enlightened beings tried to prevent me from doing so, saying, “Human morality has declined to such a point, and yet you still want to make public something so good. You didn’t bring it out during humanity’s best period, and now you make it public and transmit it.” The gods were all thinking that way.

But consider this. I just spoke about karma and virtue. Karma and virtue are carried along as humans reincarnate. A human can bring along nothing from his life except for these things, which follow him through the cycle of reincarnation. Speaking of reincarnation, I want to tell you that religions talk about humans going to other dimensions after death; particularly in the religions of the East they talk about the sixfold path of reincarnation. Humans can indeed reincarnate. This is true. There is no doubt about this among cultivators, and the concept is well understood. Why is there reincarnation? There are people who say, “When people die, that’s it, isn’t it?” What dies is the part that grows from eating human food after birth; the human life itself is not dead.

To put it in a way that modern people can understand, think of it as follows. The human body is composed of surface-layer materials that are comprised of molecular particles. This much is familiar to all. The air surrounding the planet Earth, wood, and the cement, iron, and steel in buildings are all surface materials that are comprised of different molecular particles. Then molecules are made up of atoms, and atoms are made up of neutrons, electrons, and nuclei; and going further down from nuclei, quarks make up nuclei, and nuclei are made up of neutrinos. If you try to trace further down, humans don’t know what is there. When humans die, only the flesh in the surface material dimension that is comprised of molecular particles is shed; it’s like the person’s clothes are taken off. And the body parts made up of atoms, nuclei, and materials smaller than quarks are not dead in the least. They couldn’t possibly die along with the surface body. Think about it: when a nucleus is split, a nuclear explosion will result. When a human dies, could there be a force strong enough to cause nuclei to split? When today’s science intends to split nuclei, high heat and forceful impact are needed to facilitate the change. How could an ordinary human body have strong enough energy to bring about that fission? The temperature of a crematory is definitely not high enough to cause nuclei to split. In other words, the more microcosmic substances that make up the human body cannot be destroyed by the fire in a cremation furnace. If it could really split the nuclei in your body, there would be a nuclear explosion. When the nuclear materials within the human body exploded, it would cause the destruction of a large city. It is an atom, and its energy is enormous. So why has this never happened? This tells us that the atomic elements within the human body have not been destroyed.

As you know, nuclei and atoms are highly radioactive as far as humans are concerned. In other words, they are a kind of energy. In fact, though, substances still more microscopic, such as quarks, have even stronger radioactivity than nuclei, and no one knows how many times stronger the radiation of neutrinos is than that of quarks. The smaller the particle, the stronger its energy. I can say to you that the gong that you cultivate contains strong atoms, neutrons, and even more microscopic substances. Why can the gong that you develop heal illnesses? Why can it change the human body? Why can cultivators perform so many miracles? It is because gong and supernormal abilities are composed of these higher-energy substances. Moreover, these substances, which are developed through cultivation under a true Law, are alive and have a kind nature, and they are controlled by the cultivator’s main consciousness and directed by his mind. They are unlike the malicious, destructive effects that result from the nuclear fission that is done using scientific means. The force released from the explosion of an atomic bomb using scientific means is malicious. It doesn’t go in a specific direction, it is harmful to human beings and other lives, and it is destructive to the human living environment. The energy emitted from cultivators, by contrast, is conscious and can have a positive effect. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences once conducted tests on me to come up with an appraisal, and they could detect energy matter emitted when I was teaching the Fa. The Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences specializes in high-energy physics research. They placed instruments in the conference room’s four corners, as well as in various spots in the middle of the room. An instrument was also placed on the table behind where I was teaching the Fa. During the test, they found that the energies I emitted contained strong neutrons as well as atoms. Of course, that was as far as they could go in their testing, as they did not have instruments for more microscopic substances. They were really surprised that the energy fields I emitted were evenly distributed and the energy could be directed, because scientific research says that nuclear matter doesn’t have a specific direction when it is emitted and no one knows where it will go, and it’s stronger closer to the source of emission and weaker as it gets further away. And the radiation is supposed to be harmful to everything within its range. Clearly, modern science is not perfect, and blindly believing in it will do extreme harm to humanity.

I just explained that human life does not die along with the physical body, so the soul of a human being will be freed as the flesh body in this dimension dies. It was in a different dimension originally, and only merged with the human body in this dimension at the time of birth. When the body in this dimension dies, the soul is freed. Thus, the cycle of rebirth that some religions have spoken of is real. A life can reincarnate in the cycle of rebirth. A person can reincarnate repeatedly as a human being, or reincarnate as an object, as an animal, or even as a higher being, or as something else.

Buddhism talks about the unlocking of the Five Powers, among which are Celestial Vision, Wisdom Vision, Law Vision, and Buddha Vision. When your Law Vision is unlocked, the world before your eyes will not be like [it is here]. What will it be like, then? You will find that your eyes will be able to, within your level, see through any object and observe even more microscopic substances. And you will find that all objects are alive. When these objects realize that you can see them, they will communicate with you, using language and thought to communicate. Some ordinary people might feel that this is too good to be true, and absurd. Of course, these are matters of cultivation, and they are being taught to students of Falun Dafa. You are all cultivators, and I am not talking to ordinary people; I couldn’t just casually tell ordinary people these things. Many ordinary people wouldn’t believe them.

So, by then you will have found that the life of an object could have been a human being before; he had died and reincarnated as an object. At this point I want to say something. A human being carries karma as well as virtue along with him while reincarnating. As the morality of today’s people declines, people have less and less virtue and ever larger amounts of karma. Because of how lives reincarnate into the forms of each other, when you now take a look, you will see that not only human beings but also objects have black karma. A life will carry this karma as it reincarnates in the cycle of rebirth, so any object might have karma, which could make someone fall ill. In the human dimension karma manifests as microscopic viruses. Nowadays the karma is so abundant that anything might carry it. As you may know, in the past when a Chinese farmer got a cut on his hand while working in the fields, he would grab some soil and apply it to the wound, giving it no further attention. And soon the wound would heal. But today you’d better not even touch dirt [when cut]. With even the slightest touch an ordinary person might be infected, making the wound fester, and he might even die of tetanus. Why is this? This shows that the soil nowadays is soaked with karma. So, when one looks at the Earth from a higher dimension, karma is seen everywhere—waves upon waves of it. Since the human eye can’t see it people think that things are all right.

Everyone knows about the flu, right? Basically, the flu breaks out when a cluster of high-density karma rolls over an area. Cancer, AIDS, and the like are malignant karmic diseases that have specific targets—for example, AIDS targets promiscuity and homosexual behavior—and they are karma of even higher density. Generally speaking, in places with more karma people will get sick. Epidemics will break out in whatever region has high-density karma, and that place is afflicted because of the large amount of karma created by human beings.

Why am I talking about this? I have seen that human morality has declined drastically and that if this continues, human beings will face even greater danger. If gods in the heavens don’t regard human beings as human, then real danger is imminent. Humans should act like humans—having a human form doesn’t necessarily make for a human being. Monkeys have forms similar to humans, after all. If human beings don’t have human moral norms and standards, gods will not call them human, and in that case human beings are in grave danger. That’s because human beings are created as well as governed by gods. Mankind’s authentic cultures appeared when gods willed it to be so. When human beings deviate from human norms, gods eliminate them. I have found that as human beings drift along with the current of things, they have unknowingly made everything worse, become worse themselves, and caused society to deteriorate. And most notably, they have fouled up human morality. The most obvious manifestation now is how culture has turned demonic, leading human nature to turn wicked. As a result, organized crime, drug abuse, drug trafficking, promiscuity, and homosexuality have cropped up in society. People are drowning in a sea of lies and countless vices. Even criminal kingpins are glorified nowadays. There are many, many things like this. Think about it, everyone: is this normal? How human concepts have changed! And it’s not limited to these issues. Strong demon nature now exists in the minds of people from all different segments of society. I am teaching this Fa for the purpose of freeing human beings from this danger and enabling them to be saved through cultivation. If you can truly cultivate to the end, I really can make it possible for you to achieve Consummation.

Just now I mentioned some phenomena in society. At present, it’s not that I want to do something for society; I haven’t had that thought. However, this Fa is able to save people, it teaches people to be good, and it can truly change your xinxing and fundamental nature. Thus, although there are many people who don’t do cultivation, when people know the teachings of this Fa they will try to be good people. When people realize what harm they will sustain if they become bad (applause), they will try to be good people. This means that when a true Fa is made public, it will surely benefit society.

While teaching the Fa over the years, I have stuck to the following principle: I am doing this out of a sense of responsibility to people and society. I have never done things recklessly. As you know, I had to travel far to reach Singapore and spread the Fa, but I don’t want a penny from you. I will be gone before long, and I leave only this Fa with you. Many students have asked me, “Teacher, in this universe there is this principle called ‘no loss, no gain; to gain, one must lose; and in losing, one will gain.’ But then you are saving us without asking anything from us, giving us so many good things, imparting the Fa to us, looking after us while we cultivate, helping us eliminate karma, installing many, many things in our bodies, and solving numerous problems for us at different levels since ‘cultivation is done by the person, gong is handled by Master’—what then do you want?” I said that I don’t want anything. I am different from you, as I have come specifically to do this. If you ask what I want, I want only to see that heart of yours—the heart to cultivate and the heart that longs for goodness. (Applause)

I have taken too much time, haven’t I? (Teacher laughs) If there is still time I can speak further. There are many, many methods of cultivating Buddhahood. You all know that the Falun Gong you are practicing is grounded in Buddhist principles—it’s just that I’m not using the language that Shakyamuni used in the past to teach it, and I couldn’t possibly do that, since today’s language is different. I thus can only use the human language of the present to teach the Fa and our practice. The Fa I am teaching today is different from the Buddha Law taught by Shakyamuni once upon a time. Why is that? Because the cultivation way I have given cultivators and the things targeted by cultivation are not those of the past. There are higher requirements for cultivators’ xinxing and levels, and the Fruit Status is higher, since what I teach is the most fundamental Law of the universe. The words Buddha Shakyamuni used at that time had Buddha-nature, and it can be said that they are Buddha Law at that level, though they are not the fundamental Law or the highest truth that created the universe. The highest truth in the universe is Zhen, Shan, Ren. All substances, such as steel, iron, wood, rock, air, water, and soil, and this includes all microscopic matter—from their original elements all the way to their surface substances—all have the nature of Zhen, Shan, Ren. Zhen, Shan, Ren runs through all beings and all substances in the entire universe, and it is the most fundamental nature of the universe. I have explained the truth most clearly by using the plainest language of modern times. Dafa is like a pyramid, and it becomes simpler toward the top and more massive and complex toward the bottom. Thus the human and lower levels of the universe are complex. At the highest spot—the pinnacle of Buddha Fa—it is Zhen, Shan, Ren, three all-inclusive words. All of the highest substances and elements in the universe are made up of Zhen, Shan, Ren—the spirit of the universe, the nature of the universe, the true essence of Buddha Fa. In the past this was the supreme secret. Even many higher beings did not know it. Although I have, as you’ve seen, revealed many of heaven’s secrets in my book, I have not disclosed them casually. If Li Hongzhi had casually revealed heaven’s secrets, and spoken aimlessly, and afterwards everyone was happy and that was it, or you thought of it as just some information you were taking in, then I would have been undermining heaven’s principles here. If that had been the case, Li Hongzhi would not have been able to stand here today and would have been punished, and no one would know where he was. While teaching the Fa I have been responsible to everyone so that you may cultivate upward. Putting it into practice, I have consistently been responsible to people, and there are indeed many who have cultivated well. So it shows that what I am doing is not without a purpose or something done flippantly at the spur of the moment. Actually, this affair was arranged long ago in history, and full preparations were long in the making. Today you are able to sit here and listen to the Fa, and that owes to your having this karmic connection, and your opportunity has arrived. Regardless of how many times you have reincarnated in the human world, your opportunity has arrived today, and that is why you can obtain the Fa.

Although Buddha Shakyamuni did not see how large this universe really is, nor how microscopic it can be, what he did see was in fact quite microscopic. He saw that within one grain of sand there are three thousand chiliocosms. What’s meant by “three thousand chiliocosms”? For instance, in our Milky Way, Buddha saw that there are three thousand systems of human beings with [a] heaven and earth, and that within the life systems where Gods and Buddhas exist there are societies like the one where humans exist. Within each chiliocosm there are countless beings, like the system within which divine beings and earthly humans exist. Buddha said that within each grain of sand there are also three thousand chiliocosms like that. Think about it, then: what Shakyamuni described is so microscopic and so magnificent. This isn’t something too fantastic to be true. Let me illustrate it for you. The earth revolves around the sun, and scientists have now discovered that electrons revolve around nuclei in the same manner. How is this different from the earth revolving around the sun? It’s the same. When an electron is enlarged to a size as big as our earth, you will see that there are lives on it, how many lives there are, and what images those lives assume. At even more microscopic levels, there are even more microscopic lives. Shakyamuni said that one grain of sand contains three thousand chiliocosms. If we trace down this way, following the theory Shakyamuni taught—namely, that there are three thousand chiliocosms in one grain of sand—isn’t it true that the three thousand chiliocosms in the grain of sand also, like the human world, have rivers, streams, seas, and oceans? Then do the rivers, streams, seas, and oceans have sand in them as well? And do the grains of sand in them contain three thousand chiliocosms, too? So if this logic is followed, isn’t it true that the sand within the sand also contains three thousand chiliocosms? I’ve found that they are so numerous there is no way to count them, and the great enlightened beings at even higher levels all believe that beings and matter become so microscopic that there is no end to it. Then how microscopic can matter be? Even Gods and Buddhas at very high levels can’t see its origin—the sources that form matter. In this respect, man’s science has not even reached the pre-school level! It will forever remain in the dark, and it can’t be mentioned in the same breath as Buddha Fa. Modern science can understand only particles as tiny as neutrinos and quarks. Modern science has merely detected neutrinos and quarks, in fact; it has no way to see them, it doesn’t have a microscope powerful enough. That’s why a moment ago I said that Buddha Shakyamuni did not see what the original source of matter is, nor what the largest substances in the universe are. Thus he stated: “It is so large there is no exterior, and so small there is no interior.” Meaning, this universe is so large that it has no boundary, and so small that there is no end to how tiny matter can be. A Tathagata Buddha is quite magnificent, and yet even though he can see this far, he still can’t see the very end.

That means that this universe is broad and expansive, and its component matter is massive and complex. As for the origin of matter, then, it can actually no longer be called “matter.” It is the Fa power or the nature of Zhen, Shan, Ren that forms original elements into primitive substances, and those, in turn, through Zhen, Shan, Ren form layers upon layers of different levels of substances, until an even larger layer of matter is formed, reaching all the way to neutrinos, quarks, nuclei, atoms, molecules, and all the way to the surface substances that humans now understand. All of them are merged together through this nature, Zhen, Shan, Ren. Thus the ultimate truth of this universe is Zhen, Shan, Ren, and it is the essence of Buddha Fa.

It’s easy to say the three words, but if this Fa is expanded, it is really sizeable. Zhen contains many, many principles at different levels, just as Shan and Ren also contain many, many principles at different levels. At the human level, Zhen includes benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom, trustworthiness, and many other human principles; Shan on the human plane contains emotion (qing), and these are all Fa-principles derived from the true, fundamental Great Law of the universe—Zhen, Shan, Ren.

As for emotion, if humanity didn’t have emotion, human beings would be in one of two states: either callous like extraterrestrials, or compassionate like gods. A human being is a human precisely because he has emotion. A person is happy or unhappy due to emotion. A person likes or dislikes something; you are upset with someone or friendly with someone else; you are happy about doing something, or you want to make a certain amount of money; or you want to get a good job in government—your preference toward all of the things you want to do… your wanting to do this, that… everything in the human world is within emotion. And human beings doggedly pursue things precisely because they are driven by emotion. At this level of human society, the Fa created human beings and the human dimension, and it established the human state. Cultivation is essentially a matter of leaving the human state, getting rid of attachments which are driven by emotion, gradually taking them lightly as you cultivate, and thus slowly elevating yourself. Some people think that life would be boring without emotion—no more movies, no more interest in finding attractive companions, no more craving tasty foods—it’d be so boring. I will tell you, though, that this is how it looks when you view it from the standpoint of an ordinary person. If you ascend to higher realms, you will discover the beautiful state of those realms, and you will discover that everything is better than here in the human world. So much so that no words will be able to describe how beautiful it is up there. But if you want to enjoy that beauty, you will have to rid yourself of the emotion-driven, ordinary attachments you have to human interests. Only when you abandon ordinary human attachments will you get better things.

You are all my students, so as you cultivate I might set very high standards for you. As you go about cultivating, you might not, for the time being, be able to let go of many human attachments, but don’t worry. If when I finish teaching the Fa today each of you were able to meet expectations, you would become Buddhas on the spot. (Applause) But among beginners it’s hard for anyone to do that. It’s impossible to abandon everything that is human all at once. Everyone feels good sitting here listening to the Fa, and is willing to hear me talk, since that is the effect of the mighty power of a true practice. The energy in a true cultivation way is compassionate, harmonious, and able to purge and take care of all negative elements. That’s why everyone feels good sitting here. You will be able to do the same when later on you achieve a certain level in cultivation. You won’t be able to do it at first since there are still a great many attachments you have not abandoned and your righteous thoughts are not yet strong. All the emotions among people and the conflicts generated out of self-interest that you run into in human society will still disturb you a certain amount. And your body will feel bad or under the weather when karma is being eliminated. How will you handle yourself amidst the hardship? If you can manage to improve yourself and not handle the conflicts as ordinary people would, then you are improving and strengthening your righteous thoughts. When someone strikes you, if you can remember, “I am a practitioner, you are an ordinary person. So I won’t do the same,” then you are improving. If you are indeed able to not hit back when punched and not swear back when sworn at, if when others fight with you to get ahead you manage to take it lightly, then even though it’s only a difference of one thought, you are already a thousand miles apart from ordinary people. However, if you want to reach this point, then you have to make steady progress as you cultivate among ordinary people. You might say, “I want to achieve it right away,” but that’s really hard. You have to let go of attachments amidst real experiences and tests, and only then will what you achieve in cultivation be solid.

Man’s science will never be able to reach the realm of Buddhas. Why? Because human wisdom is delimited and controlled by higher beings. Why? Because human beings were created by gods, and human truths are inverted [as compared to those above them]. What is a Buddha? He is the guarantor of all beings at his level, the protector of all beings, and the defender of the truth of the universe. Think about it, then: human beings have all sorts of attachments, including attachments to fame, wealth, emotions and desires, and jealousy, so if they were allowed to enter the realm of Buddhas they might start a fight with a Buddha. How could that be allowed? So, you have to let go of these human attachments while here among humans before you can reach that realm and position. Now there are monks who say to ordinary people, “You’re a Buddha! You have chanted Buddha’s name, so you will become a Buddha when your present life is over—even if you don’t want to be.” That is like slandering the Buddha and slandering the Fa. A monk is a human being, and even those who truly manage to cultivate are merely cultivators. If he doesn’t do well cultivating, he is nothing, just like an ordinary person. If he makes mistakes during cultivation, the sin he commits will be larger than that of an ordinary person, and it is called “harming the Buddha Fa while wearing Buddha’s clothes.” So, don’t blindly believe in those monks who don’t truly cultivate. True cultivation is about cultivating the human mind, and a person can never reach that realm if he doesn’t get rid of his human attachments. Were human beings to reach there by means of science and technology, a galactic war, a cosmic star wars, would really break out. And Buddhas would never allow that. That’s merely science fiction, and can never be reality. If humans want to make their way to higher levels and know higher beings—if you want to be a higher being, or if you want to really know the truth of the universe—the only way is through cultivation. That is the only way. So I am telling you, in ordinary human society, no matter what challenges you meet with in the days ahead—be they clashes [that test] your xinxing, someone getting upset with you, someone taking advantage of you, someone pushing you around, or you suffer in some form or other—I am telling you, that is not necessarily a bad thing. If you really want to cultivate, I will tell you, your life path will be rearranged for you. Why does it have to be rearranged? Because a human being has his human life, and before he takes up cultivation his future is that of an ordinary person, and who knows how long he has to live. Some people may live longer than others, but no one knows when such people will have serious illness or for how many years they will be ill. How could people like that do cultivation? Or some people might go through some major ordeals. Scenarios like these would make cultivation impossible. I will clean up your path for all of you, clean out all of those things, and arrange a path for cultivation. Of course, this can’t be done casually for ordinary people. It can be done only for practitioners.

Then why are practitioners so special? It’s because a human being’s life is not meant for being human. Your life does not come from this Earth; your life comes from higher dimensions. Returning is the purpose of your life, so when a wish to cultivate comes forth, it shines brighter than gold, and Buddhas spanning the ten-directional world see it. When a human has that thought—a wish to cultivate—it is so precious. Nothing can be casually done for ordinary people, because usually ordinary people didn’t do good things in their previous lives, and they must pay for it in this life. Were you to casually eliminate his karma and remove his ordeals, it would mean that people may do bad things with impunity. That would be undermining Buddha principles and Heaven’s law. How could that be allowed to happen? There is no way. Buddhas, Daos, and Gods are all safeguarding the principles of the universe and doing things to safeguard the Fa principles of Zhen, Shan, Ren. That’s why I say that when you, a cultivator, suffer some or when you meet with hardship, you will get four things. When others push you around, when they take advantage of you, or when they infringe on your interests, they will give virtue in return and these [things you gain] will be turned into even greater benefits. And while you suffer, you are the party who loses out, and you are the party who suffers, so the karma in your body will be transformed into virtue. The amount of suffering equals the amount that is transformed. Also, you are a cultivator, and you don’t handle conflicts the way others do. In your heart you don’t regard the problem the way others would, so your gong will grow. Why is that? It’s because your xinxing has improved. However high your level of xinxing is, that is how high your gong is—that’s an absolute truth. It’s not possible that your gong has grown higher though your xinxing hasn’t improved, because this Fa of the universe is governing all beings. All substances in this universe are lives, and they were all created by Zhen, Shan, Ren. So they too are restraining human beings, and when you do not meet the standard, all elements will prevent you from moving up. It’s like a principle I once explained: If a bottle that’s filled with filth is thrown into water, “plop”—it will sink straight down to the bottom. Pour out a little of its filth and it will rise a little; pour out a little more, and it rises up a little more. Empty the bottle of all its filth, and it wouldn’t sink down anymore even if you were to push it down. It will float on the water’s surface, and that is where it’s supposed to be. If you truly cultivate, it is like pouring out filth: the degree to which you have cleaned things out should indicate where you have cultivated to. That’s how it works.

There is a lot I wanted to talk about. Because I really hoped to help you all gain more of the Fa, I wanted to tell you many things once I started talking. Of course, I can’t possibly tell you everything I had hoped to, with time being so limited. The book Zhuan Falun contains the contents of several class series I held when I taught the practice in China. I consolidated them into one book and personally revised it before it was published. So it is the Fa that systematically guides cultivation. Now the audio and video tapes of my lectures are available, so you may supplement your practice by watching and listening to them.

Also, I wanted to tell you all that I have infused the mighty power of the Buddha Fa and my various abilities into the book, into this Fa. Be it the videotapes, audiotapes, or the book—as long as you watch it, listen to it, or read it, you will experience changes. As long as you read it, you will be able to stave off illness. As long as you cultivate, your body will undergo fundamental changes. As long as you persist in cultivating, you will develop abilities. And you will see, hear, and feel Dafa’s boundless blessings. If you are a true cultivator, I will give you all of the mighty powers of Buddha Fa. As long as you cultivate, you will obtain them. Of course, if you don’t cultivate, you will not obtain them.

The inner meanings in the book are profound, and will not reveal themselves on the first read through. Since you are asked to cultivate step by step, at the point of departure, the ordinary human level, there is the Fa at this level to guide your cultivation. But when you have risen by cultivating, it won’t work if the same principle continued to be used to guide your cultivation. For instance, if you were to go to junior high school and use elementary school textbooks, you would still be an elementary school student. If you were to go to college and yet still use elementary school textbooks, you would still be an elementary school student. This means that when you reach a certain level through cultivation, the Fa at that particular level will manifest itself as your guide. Only this way will you be able to cultivate upwards. In the book Zhuan Falun, I have included Fa principles spanning from the ordinary human realm all the way to the highest realm of the universe. The Fa principles of all levels have been infused into the book, though they aren’t apparent at the surface. The first read through will reveal how to become a good person. When you read it through the second time, you will find that it’s different. And after the third read through, you will find that it is a book about true cultivation. As you keep reading it, you will find that it is a divine book. With the same sentence, you will have different understandings and different interpretations at different levels and in different realms. There is an enormous amount of meaning in the book. Now there are many, many people who are reading the book, and some have read it over one hundred times and keep on reading it. Even if you have read it ten thousand times, you won’t feel there is nothing there worth reading. Rather, you will still find that there are numerous things you didn’t realize before, and you will still have many, many new understandings. That is why this book is so valuable. I can’t possibly touch upon every facet of it here. If you are able to cultivate, I think you should keep studying it in earnest and read it repeatedly. Then you will obtain everything. All of the questions you have in your first reading will be answered in your second reading. Then you will have new questions, but when you read it the third time all of those questions will again be answered. Then as you keep reading it, you will have questions at higher levels, and as long as you don’t cease reading it, all of your questions will be explained and answered.

I don’t know if what I said suits your taste. (Applause) I am eager to have you progress in your cultivation, so I have talked about things at higher levels. If there is anything inappropriate, you may point it out. Thank you all. (Long applause)

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