Hongzhi Li
January 4, 1995 ~ Beijing, China

First I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Some that are here today are veteran students, and some have not attended the lectures, but everyone has some understanding of Falun Dafa. Just now, our volunteer workers summarized the work done in 1994 for Falun Dafa. A few of the existing problems were broadly covered, and wherever we fell short, we will make improvements in our future work and in the development of Dafa. Currently, judging from the way our practice is developing as a whole, we can see a trend of rapid expansion, with Dafa’s influence growing greater and shooting straight up, spreading at a very fast rate. It has been only a little over two years since I started to teach the practice. In the beginning, we spread the practice by teaching the Fa in the form of a low-level qigong that was for healing and keeping fit. That was because we needed to allow everyone a period of time to get to know it. When I first came to the public, I said specifically that my goal in going public was to teach the practice at high levels, and to guide people to reach high levels. There was no one teaching people how to truly cultivate to high levels yet. Of course, in the beginning we spread it in the form of qigong—something at a low level—and the purpose was to give everyone a period of time to get to know it first. In this last year in particular, however, I have been basically teaching the Fa. So our students have all come to know that I talk about things at a rather high level, that the subjects I discuss are all things that others aren’t able to teach, and that I talk about true cultivation and the issue of how to cultivate. Because there are many cultivation ways and they have been disseminated for so many years, there is indeed a problem of how to improve. It won’t do if you just remain stuck in the existing theories. In the past, many people practiced cultivation but didn’t pay attention to cultivating their xinxing¹ or didn’t value virtue, so things were in disarray.

We are teaching the Great Law of the Buddha school, so we will talk about the principles of the Buddha school. Buddha Shakyamuni said that during the Dharma Ending Period demons would appear, creating disasters and wreaking havoc in our ordinary human society. Actually what he was talking about was not just demons coming to the temples to damage his Fa. That wasn’t the only meaning—he was conveying a general and broad truth. Think about it everyone, in this current period, the human moral standard has deteriorated to such an extent, and the conflicts among people have intensified to such a degree. People are bent solely on profit and gain, and dare to do anything for money. Public morality is deteriorating day by day. Right now, the relationships between people are really tense, and the moral standard is quite degenerate. All varieties of messed up and depraved things are taking place in China and abroad: homosexuality, “sexual liberation,” drugs, gangs—everything. Older Chinese people still have some concept of morality and are keeping this society’s current state from getting worse. In the West, they give great importance to a sense of propriety, so their propriety at the surface too can be sustained for a period of time. But in the younger generation, and especially among us Chinese, there is simply no morality left to talk about. Think about it everyone, isn’t it dangerous for things to go on and keep developing like this?

Many great masters and prophets said that humankind would go through some sort of havoc or tribulation in the future. It doesn’t matter how they put it, let’s think about it: if this society keeps going like this, isn’t it dangerous? When something reaches an extreme, it will reverse course! If it keeps going like this, what would people of the next stage be like? I am teaching this to the public. At high levels it can guide people in cultivation, and on low levels it can guide people to behave as human beings. It truly can achieve such an effect. That is why many of our students want to study it, seek to study it, and think it’s very good. That’s because as the true Fa is taught it can offer people salvation, and the students feel this deeply. This is not limited to your logical thinking; your physical body, the quality of your character, and your moral standard have all undergone a great change. That’s why it can have such a great impact. This Dafa of ours is different from conventional qigong practices, as we are truly teaching towards high levels.

Currently there are many workers who, after learning the practice, have changed the morale and mental outlook at their factories. When people understand how to conduct themselves and value virtue (de), it can translate into productivity as well. People’s hearts are all turning to goodness and they are focused on working diligently. If you want to be a good cultivator, you have to first start from the basics: you have to first be a good person. Good people have to act like good people under any circumstances, so you have to do well in the work that your boss assigns to you. You have to fulfill your obligations in society, and this will definitely have a positive effect and move things forward. I am teaching this practice towards high levels, and what I lecture on is the Fa that is taught towards high levels. It can guide people to cultivate towards high levels, and even cultivate to still higher realms.

You may say that you don’t want to cultivate to high levels, but perhaps once an ordinary person hears these truths, he will find that he should conduct himself according to these same truths just the same. That’s because no matter how close human morality slips to the brink of danger, the truths of this universe do not change. Precisely because the truths of this universe don’t change, we are able to see the descent of human morality. If the truth had also changed, then the fall of human morality couldn’t be detected. I’ve said that human morality has slipped to this level, and many people still don’t quite understand. Particularly for some who have attended the lectures, often in the first day or two they didn’t quite understand the issues I was talking about. But once the lectures were over they would look back at ordinary human society and understand everything. In the midst of this powerful current you don’t feel it yourselves, and you might even think that you are better than others. But, only after your thinking rises to a higher level and you look back, will you come to realize how dangerous it was. That is because Dafa can have this kind of power and this kind of effect. Although things have come to this stage, people still have benevolent thoughts and their Buddha nature is still there. So once you explain it, they will understand. Many people still seek out goodness and want to learn, and of course, there are many people with a really good foundation who still need to cultivate even higher, all of which enabled such a trend to develop in the course of disseminating our practice.

A few years ago, some people blindly opposed qigong with an attitude of rejecting it across the board, and this resulted in qigong sinking to a low point. In the last two years, there were some signs of it regaining popularity. Although it wasn’t as popular as before, it was still quite popular. But more recently the trend has cooled off again. It didn’t cool off because someone was opposing it or criticizing it, nor were any administrative measures behind the cooling. Instead, it was because people were able to think calmly about which ones were genuine, which were fake, and which ones were used to deceive and hurt people. Everyone is pondering these questions and calmly dealing with them. That’s why the situation is what it is today. As a result, many fake qigong no longer have an audience. They can’t hold classes and can’t cheat people out of money anymore. Of course, I have been to many places to teach the practice, and many leaders of the local chapters of the Qigong Science Research Society and Human Science Research Society told me these things. They said that right now it’s difficult to hold qigong classes in various regions, and that it’s really hard to enroll students. Qigong as a whole is on the decline. Only Falun Dafa is shooting straight up, and it is growing very rapidly. Of course this is what others have said. I’m just bringing it up. In the future it might grow even faster, even more rapidly. I knew this before I came to the public. I also knew what situations would occur in the future. I was crystal-clear.

Overall in the process of spreading the Fa, our Falun Dafa has been responsible to students and to society, and that is how we’ve achieved such good results. Just now I briefly talked about the state of our Falun Dafa’s development. There are many new students sitting here today who may still feel they can’t quite understand things. Many students still want me to talk about the state of things concerning Falun Dafa and lecture a bit more on the Fa. There are some new students in the audience, and I can take this time to introduce Falun Dafa to you. At the same time I can talk briefly to you about some Fa principles of cultivation.

As we all know, practicing qigong at the level of eliminating health problems and strengthening the body involves taking the best from different practices. Since everyone wants to practice qigong and strengthen the body to get rid of health problems, if one is taking the best from different practices, what does it matter where something is taken from? It’s fine if you want to go back to being an ordinary person. I’ve said that at different levels there exist different Fa, and the Fa at different levels have different constraints and requirements for cultivators of different levels. Ordinary people are just at this surface level, and it’s no problem for them to take the best parts from different practices to make the body healthy. The truth is though, qigong isn’t just for eliminating health problems and strengthening the body; it has in fact been cultivation all along. In order to conform to modern people’s ways of thinking, in order for it to be readily accepted and not easily given a false label, people came up with the name “qigong.” During the mid-to-late stages of the Cultural Revolution, qigong started to spread and began to peak. At that time if you called it by its original names, you might very well have been condemned. It wouldn’t be allowed, even though you wanted to do something good by helping the masses eliminate illness, keep fit, and have a healthy body. That was because of the extreme Maoist faction back then. So people didn’t call it by its original name, they just generally started calling it qigong. Of course, there were different disciplines and branches of qigong, and the cultivation method of each discipline and each branch was different. So when this or that qigong was being taught to the public, they all hid their original names. That was how people started using the term qigong.

Qigong is something related to cultivation, just as the cultivation methods in religions are a way of cultivating. Since it is a cultivation method, it isn’t just simply getting healthy and strengthening the body, because it aims to reach a very high and profound realm. Think about it, if it’s used for healing and to strengthen the body for people, of course amazing results will be seen. But there’s one point: Why is it that many people practice qigong but can’t get rid of their ailments? Why is it that many people practice qigong but their gong doesn’t grow? Because qigong is cultivation. So, something that is cultivation is not the same as ordinary people’s calisthenics, or some kind of skill or sport among ordinary people. It is something supernormal. Since it’s something supernormal, if you want to use this supernormal method to make your body healthy and reach a high, profound realm, then doesn’t this supernormal thing have to be guided by a principle that’s supernormal? Then, these supernormal principles actually have a guiding and restraining effect. In other words, they surpass the level of ordinary people, and you must follow the requirements set forth by the supernormal principles. With things at this level of ordinary people, you can do a little bit of work, spend a little money, and buy that thing; or if you work a little harder, you can gain it like gaining an ordinary person’s skill. But it doesn’t work that way with cultivation, as the person’s mind must be cultivated. Only when you cultivate your mind are you able to elevate. If you want to improve, you must value virtue and cultivate xinxing.

In the past I explained why people have to stress xinxing and cultivate virtue to improve. This is because in this universe there is an overriding principle. What’s the principle? It is the nature of the universe that I have talked about. Like us humans—take your human body for example—besides this flesh body of yours, you also have other life forms that exist. Only then can a complete person be formed. Your body by itself is just a piece of flesh. You need to have your temperament, disposition, special characteristics, and your soul before you can be a complete and independent person, a person with unique qualities of your own. The same goes for this universe. Aside from its material existence that we know, including the heavenly bodies, the Milky Way, stars, comets, planets—aside from the material substances we know of—it still has another special quality, which can be called a spiritual existence. Then to sum it up, once this Fa gets to lower levels it is very broad, and there are many ways to talk about it. Yet it’s quite simple at very high levels. Three words sum up this special nature: Zhen-Shan-Ren.² Now mind you, this isn’t that “truth, compassion, beauty.”³ It is Zhen-Shan-Ren.

Of course, this nature isn’t that simple. From within, it propagated and evolved into a great many things at different levels. The lower the level, the more complicated and enormous. At high levels it can be summarized in three words: Zhen-Shan-Ren. This nature exists in every microscopic particle of air and the most microscopic particles in every substance—soil, stone, steel, wood, even plastic—the nature exists in every substance and in the air. Ordinary people can’t feel its existence, because they are at their level—that of ordinary people—and so they can’t feel it. Once you want to surpass the level of ordinary people, you can then feel its presence. In other words, if you want to use this supernormal method to eliminate illnesses but you don’t follow its requirements and don’t follow the standard required by such a supernormal state, then you can’t get rid of illnesses. If you want to increase gong, but you don’t follow the requirements of this supernormal principle, which are above the level of ordinary people, then your gong will never go up.

Then why is it that some people have quite low moral standards yet still have some gong? For some it is a result of their foundation. Since their moral standard is quite low, they are consuming their foundation. Once it is used up they will have nothing left. Before they use it all up, though, they still have a little bit [of gong]. In some instances spirit possession is involved. Demons are permitted to exist during a specified time period, at a specified, very low state, for they can be of use. If there were no demons, people would have no health problems; if there were no demons, people would have no tribulations, either. But people are supposed to have tribulations and supposed to have health problems, because they created these themselves. So on the other hand, it can be said that demons are also created by the people themselves. If you took advantage of and mistreated someone in the past, did something bad, or killed lives, then you have to pay it back. You’re not allowed to go without paying it back. In this cosmos, there is a principle derived from the principle of Zhen-Shan-Ren. It is, “no loss, no gain.” To gain, one must lose, and what’s owed must be paid back. If you don’t want to lose, you will be forced to lose. That’s the principle behind it, so the hardships and tribulations will be there.

Just now I talked about Zhen-Shan-Ren. The Buddha school’s cultivation mainly focuses on the understanding of Shan out of this “Zhen-Shan-Ren.” It also has Zhen and Ren, yet it focuses on the cultivation of Shan. Cultivating Shan can create a benevolent heart. Once a person develops a benevolent heart, he sees that everyone is suffering, and thus he has the wish to offer salvation to sentient beings. As this Fa is spread down, it gets quite expansive. Because the goal is to save all sentient beings, it is passed on to many people, and eighty-four thousand cultivation ways were created as a result. The Tao school primarily focuses on enlightening to Zhen and mainly cultivates Zhen. It has Shan and Ren, too, but its main focus falls on the cultivation of Zhen. So they talk about speaking true words, doing true things, being a true person, cultivating Zhen and improving character, returning to the origin and the true self, and ultimately cultivating to be a True Person. Their focus falls on the cultivation of Zhen. Since they cultivate with an emphasis on Zhen, they don’t have the wish to save all sentient beings, so the Tao school’s genuine teachings are passed down to only one disciple at a time. Taoism is a kind of reformed religion that was developed in recent generations. Long ago, Taoism was not found in any of the prehistoric cultures. So, the practice of the Tao school has always been passed to only one disciple at a time. Since it was passed down through one disciple at a time, the scale on which it was spread was limited. As its Fa was passed down, three thousand six hundred cultivation ways were developed. The Buddha school has eighty-four thousand cultivation ways, which is quite a lot compared to the Tao school.

Zhen-Shan-Ren is the only standard for measuring good and bad. Only when you assimilate to this nature can your gong improve. If you don’t assimilate to this nature, then your gong will never be able to improve. We have said that for a cultivator or an ordinary person, this principle can be briefly summed up in a few sentences. For example, how do you differentiate between good people, bad people, and cultivators? The person who is able to follow the nature of the universe is a good person—it’s certain that he is a good person. The person who acts against the nature of this universe is a truly bad person. Perhaps there are some people who have been told by others at work that they are no good. They have gone through hardships their entire lives, or are always looked down upon or taken advantage of. Let me tell you, you’re not necessarily truly bad. If at the workplace everyone praises you, or perhaps you are skillful at making yourself look good, then let me tell you, you’re not necessarily truly good. The principle of the universe is the only standard for measuring good and bad. So as a cultivator, if you can assimilate to this nature of the universe, then you are someone who has attained the Tao. It’s that simple.

A person’s gong is absolutely not obtained through doing the exercises. Everyone is practicing qigong and making quite a lot of effort. They get up early in the morning and go to bed late at night in order to practice, and they believe that their gong will go up. But it doesn’t increase at all. What I just said might surprise many people. They ask, “Aren’t you teaching people to practice qigong exercises? Then why are you teaching people?” You all know the term, “cultivation practice.” Well, people focus on the practice part but don’t take the cultivation part seriously. They just think the word “cultivation” is a modifier for the word “practice,” a modifier for the noun. Let me tell you, cultivation comes before practice. Cultivation is first and foremost. If you don’t take the cultivation of your xinxing seriously and don’t pay attention to virtue, then you won’t have any energy to speak of! If you don’t take the cultivation of your xinxing seriously, then you won’t have any gong! True energy and gong are one and the same, and this is the gong that determines one’s level and the strength of one’s gong power (gong li). As for the level of a person’s gong, or the “attainment status” referred to in Buddhism, this gong can only be the result of cultivation. We can all see that a monk doesn’t practice qigong, but his gong can grow. Why is that? It’s because he is cultivating.

Then what’s the relationship between cultivation and the practice that we talk about? In a bit I’ll talk about what we practice. What’s the relationship between cultivation and practice? Why is it that when we cultivate, our gong can grow? Some may ask: “Isn’t this matter of xinxing cultivation, this thing that you’ve talked about, something that exists only in people’s mindsets, notions, and ways of thinking?” But, isn’t the gong we talk about something material? What’s the relationship between them? Let me tell you, this principle at high levels can’t be understood in the same way as at low levels. Ordinary people in society can’t clearly explain ordinary people’s things, but if you can jump out from among them and then look at those things, they can be understood with just a glance. Among those concerned with ideology and theory, people have been continuously arguing about which comes first, matter or mind; they are continuously arguing over this question. They debate and try to understand the two separately. I say they are actually one thing—they are integrated. Let’s give the simplest of examples. Currently, whether it’s those who are engaged in the science of the human body or in the contemporary sciences, it is believed that people’s thoughts and the things people imagine are a kind of mind-activity energy. The thoughts that people produce are thus a kind of matter. That is how it’s commonly understood at this time. Then, given that they are a type of matter, aren’t they a part of people’s thoughts and the way they think? Aren’t they the thoughts in your mind? Aren’t they the same type of thing? I just gave a simple example on this subject.

I said just now that such a substance exists in the universe, and at the same time such a nature exists, so it is one thing and of one body. If you don’t assimilate to this nature, then you will never be able to cultivate upwards. What does that mean? To give a simple example, this nature exists in the vast matter of this universe and in every substance. It is a balancing and restricting force in the universe. In ordinary people’s society, in life after life and generation after generation, people have no idea how many bad things they’ve done. I would say that people have gotten to where they are today with karma built upon karma—they all have a great deal of karma. It’s just like a bottle. If a bottle is filled with dirty things and you twist the cap on really tight, and then you don’t pour the dirty things out, when you throw the bottle into water, “plop,” it will sink right to the bottom. If you pour a little bit of it out and you throw it in water, it will float up a little. As you pour a little out it floats a little higher. The more that’s poured out, the higher it floats. When you have poured out all of those dirty things and you put the cap on, even if you try to push it down into the water, you won’t be able to. It just floats there, as that is what its position should be. I gave this example to illustrate the point that people in ordinary people’s society have all done some bad things; your heart is polluted, your mind is polluted, and you have a great deal of karma. If you don’t get rid of those things and your xinxing doesn’t change for the better, you will still produce those bad things. They will keep on being produced every moment. So you must change your heart for the better and get rid of these substances and bad things. In other words, when you are cultivating among ordinary people, you have to suffer a little, your physical body has to labor, and your mind has to bear hardship. Only then can you rise. What I’m talking about is improvement through cultivation. If you don’t cultivate your heart, the nature of the universe will restrict you, and it won’t let you rise. We can also break it down part-by-part for you, and tell you how this gong rises.

Speaking of people, actually in every dimension there are people—they exist in every dimension. Because of differences in time-spaces, the differences in their bodies in terms of existence and in form are quite significant. In a special dimension, there is a field around our bodies, and there are two kinds of substances in this field. One is virtue, which is a kind of white substance that comes in clusters. For those with a lot of virtue, the density will be very high. In the past people always said that virtue was something that exists only in ideological terms or is some kind of a state. Let me tell you that virtue is a kind of matter and has a purely material existence. And there is another thing that exists in the same field, called karma, but it is black. Virtue is gained when one does good things, is taken advantage of and mistreated by others, suffers hardships, or endures tribulations. That black karma, on the other hand, is produced when one does bad things. In the past, people talked about how good or bad one’s foundation was—something determined by the proportion of those two substances—and this formed a major component of what’s considered by cultivators to be a good or bad foundation in ordinary society. But ordinary people using mortal eyes cannot see it, because ordinary people are in a maze, and being in a maze is what allows you to return from the maze. Since you made yourself fall down this far, you have to cultivate your way back with sealed vision. You’re not allowed to see the truth, as once you see the truth you can’t cultivate anymore, because then there would be nothing more to enlighten to and cultivate. If people could see while cultivating, who wouldn’t do it? Why is a Buddha always at one, set level? Why can’t he improve and ascend? Of course, it’s because he knows everything, and there is no longer the matter of cultivating xinxing for him. It’s easy to cultivate only when one is in a maze. Some people stress that if they could see things clearly they would be able to cultivate more easily. Actually, if you could see things clearly, you couldn’t cultivate at all. Some other people say, “I’ll believe it only after I see it. If I don’t see it I won’t believe it.” We have always regarded this kind of person as having poor enlightenment quality.

Like I just said, gong is actually gained through people’s cultivation. I also said that this field of virtue surrounds a person’s body. If you have a lot of virtue, then you can achieve very high-level gong. If you don’t have a lot of virtue, then, after going through suffering, the black substance can be turned into the white substance. It won’t be eliminated, though, as this kind of substance cannot be destroyed. So for any person that is cultivating, the virtue within the boundaries of his dimensional field is actually what is transformed into gong. The gong that truly determines the power of your gong and your level is transformed from your own virtue. How is it transformed? In the past, among cultivators there was a saying (not at all the same as what’s talked about in the qigong community): “Cultivation is up to the individual, while gong is up to the master.” What does this mean? It means that when you have the wish to cultivate in that school, when you have a wish to cultivate something, you just have that desire, while it is actually the master that is doing things for you. Some people talk about using the mind, and directing it in this or that way. But that can’t solve anything. It’s just a wish. In actuality, it is the master who sets up a crucible or furnace, gathers chemicals and makes the dan⁴ for you, or forms for you a circulating cosmic orbit, or opens the energy channels and the acupuncture points, and so on, for you. Ordinary people’s thoughts don’t have any energy, and ordinary people’s hands simply can’t accomplish these things.

For true gong to grow, the mechanisms that produce those things [needed by it] are even more precise than precision instruments. They’re extremely complicated. How could you do that? There is a saying that was passed down in secret: “Cultivation is up to the individual, while gong is up to the master.” In the past, this wasn’t made known at low levels. So when the master sees that you have cultivated quite well, that your xinxing has improved, and that the universe’s special nature is not restricting you as much, then you will be able to increase your gong. Then, at that time the master gives you a kind of power that develops gong. It transforms your virtue into gong in a spiral fashion around the body, and it grows upwards in a spiral-like form. Once it reaches the top of the head, it will gradually form a gong pillar there. As the strength of your gong power and levels continue to improve, this gong pillar will continue to grow. This is exactly the gong that determines your level and the strength of your gong power. All of the energy you give off originates from here. It’s certainly not a dan, and in a bit I will talk about dan. One’s true level lies in this.

As you know, the attainment status discussed in Buddhism is determined by what position your gong pillar has reached, how high you have cultivated, and how high of a level you have reached—that’s where it is. There are some people whose souls, as soon as the person meditates, can leave the body and go up to a certain height. If they’re told to go up even more, they can’t. It won’t work, and they can’t go any higher. If they do go higher, they will be afraid and fall down. Why can’t they go any higher? It’s because their gong pillar is just that high, and that’s the attainment status they have cultivated. They rode their gong pillar up there. It’s said in Buddhism that wherever one has cultivated to is where one will end up in the future. This gong is completely the result of people cultivating their xinxing and assimilating themselves to the universe’s nature, which no longer restricts them. That is when gong can grow and be transformed from virtue. Isn’t this a result of cultivation? This kind of gong is completely the result of people cultivating their hearts.

Then what does the movement part [of our practice] work on? It is to change the human body. In the beginning you can call it nourishing your life; in the end you can call it prolonging your life. It also strengthens supernormal capabilities. What does strengthening mean? It’s about using energy to make them stronger. There is also the transformation of technique-related things, and the transformation of all kinds of living beings. It is very complicated. So as for the appearance of various shapes and forms of gong, before you can have them, you must fortify them with energy, and without such energy there is nothing. When people have gong they simply can’t emit qi, there just isn’t any. What is emitted at that point is a kind of high-energy matter, yet few can detect the sensation of emitting it from inside the body. These are the things that I am teaching and discussing at high levels. In the past, they were always regarded as heavenly secrets, and nobody was allowed to talk about them. This time, over the course of my lectures I have revealed all of them along with many other high-level, profound things. The goal is to allow people to truly cultivate and to be responsible to people. I am indeed guiding people this way, so it’s not considered casually leaking heavenly secrets or messing things up casually and irresponsibly. We have indeed had that effect. Our students’ xinxing are improving quite fast, and our growth has been quite rapid.

Some students say: “After attending the Falun Dafa lectures, my perception of the world changed completely. I have no idea how I managed to make it to such an advanced age in life, and only today have I realized the reason for living.” That’s what students said. I’m just telling everyone that no one in the past talked about matters of true cultivation. If you don’t believe it, you can try looking it up in the ancient texts. Look through the Tao Te Ching⁵ or thumb through Buddhist scriptures. People in the past relied on enlightening to those things on their own, and there were no open discussions. Today I have revealed all of it. Although I have revealed it, humans have gotten to their current state, and even if you teach it to them, they won’t listen or believe it. They will think that it’s just preaching and not practical. But no matter how much is taught, there is still the issue of enlightening. After all, you can’t see, or at least see clearly, and you still have to cultivate in a maze. That issue still exists. I just talked about how gong grows. Look at the monks of ancient times: they didn’t do any exercises, but their gong still grew. The true gong that determines the height of one’s level and the strength of one’s gong power is not at all the result of doing exercises.

Then what do the movements [of our exercises] work on? The movements, as I just said, are actually to change a person’s original body. But if there’s no energy to strengthen it, it can’t be changed. Only when the molecular cells in your body are gradually filled with high-energy matter can you reach the goal of prolonging your life. If you don’t have this gong and energy, then what do you rely on to strengthen it? Empty talk doesn’t help. As you know, there are many supernormal capabilities. Aside from what’s passed on by the master, a large portion of these capabilities inherently exist in the human body, meaning that everyone has them, but they are not functional. Some people said they had a dream while sleeping, and the next morning it came true. Some said they foresaw something, and a few days later it really did happen. Then there is someone else who, while doing something, had a sudden feeling of deja vu, even though he actually hadn’t done that thing in his life. So what’s going on? Actually these are all manifestations of abilities, and involve entering into the future before it arrived or entering into the past. But those capabilities of yours are barely discernible. They are nothing, and without energy they’re not really usable. They can only have this little effect. Once there is energy to bolster them, it’s called strengthening the capabilities. Only when they are strengthened by gong power can they become strong and easy to use, and only then can they have some effect. But if you don’t cultivate your mind and you want to attain something, you won’t get anything at all.

Some students even call themselves masters of Falun Dafa. Many of our veteran students know better. If someone called them “master,” they would be quite startled and scared. They don’t dare call themselves master. They would say: “There’s only one teacher, only Teacher Li is the Master. We are all students.” When people dare to call themselves master, one reason for it is that their attachment to fame is acting up, and the second is that they are attempting to undermine the Fa. In the boundless universe, countless Buddhas, Taos, Gods, Lords at different levels, and heavenly deities are all studying this Fa. Who would dare to call himself the master? If you don’t cultivate your mind or stress virtue, could you cultivate in any school? All righteous-law cultivation ways emphasize virtue. So, how come those messed-up things such as animal spirits that possess people have gong? At a very low level, they are allowed to have a little essential energy, and that is used to make people pay back karma at a very low level. Although you may see people contracting a certain disease or suffering some form of hardship, they were all actually things owed by those people and brought on by themselves.

Perhaps I’ve been talking at a bit of a high, profound level here, and some people don’t understand. Let me tell everyone a very simple principle. In the community of cultivators it is held that people’s souls cannot be destroyed. People’s souls just cannot be destroyed. When people say that somebody has died, he has not in fact died at all. From what I see, the person is not dead. Think about this everyone: Aren’t the cells of a human body made up of countless molecules? And aren’t the molecules made up of countless atoms? Aren’t the atoms made up of nuclei, electrons, and neutrons? Then going further down, what makes up atoms are quarks, and as it goes further down there are still neutrinos. Our modern science can only understand things to this point. Actually it is still very far from the original matter that composes those things—in other words, the human body has these kinds of microscopic matter. Think about it everyone, for a human body, when someone draws his last breath and dies, how could all of his nuclei cease to exist just because he is dead? How could his atoms, neutrons, and electrons all cease to exist? How could that be possible? In order for the nuclei to undergo fission, there has to be a great amount of heat and a powerful collision—only then can the fission take place. The conventional power of ordinary people simply can’t make that fission happen. Can the fire of the crematory cause the nuclei of your body to split and explode? If that fire truly could make the nuclei of your body explode, then one human body’s atomic matter could destroy part of a city, isn’t that so? We have discovered that the life is simply not destroyed. When people die, it is just that what they have now—the body that we see in this material dimension—dies, yet none of the bodies existing in other dimensions die.

The concept of the dimensions I talked about is not difficult to understand. Today’s science thinks there are four dimensions. Some people say there are eleven dimensions. One scientist from the former Soviet Union has pointed out in compelling terms that if the universe was formed from a big bang, then in that instant it could not have only exploded into one time-space. He believes there should exist twenty-some time-spaces simultaneously. They have clearly pointed out that besides this material dimension and this time of ours, as this time-space exists, there co-exist other time-spaces. This issue has been clearly pointed out. Many scientists are studying and delving into this subject. Of course, the forms in which the cosmos’s dimensions exist are extremely complicated. Let me talk about the simplest form of dimensions. Which dimension do we human beings reside in? As we know, the largest type of matter that we humans can see is a planet. Planets make up the Milky Way and other galaxies. The smallest type of matter that we humans have come into contact with is a molecule. We humans live in this dimension between molecules and planets. We feel that it is an extremely expansive dimension, inconceivably large. Then think about it everyone, what’s the dimension that exists between molecules and atoms like? I would say it too is extremely expansive and exceptionally big. Of course, you can’t stay within these theories of ordinary people and look at the material world the way ordinary people do if you wish to understand it. If you enter into another dimension and try to understand it from there, then you will discover that it too is an extremely vast dimension.

Then what about between atoms and quarks, and between quarks and neutrinos? What about those extremely microscopic levels? Shakyamuni said that one grain of sand holds three thousand boundless worlds. His “three-thousand boundless worlds” concept says: in our Milky Way galaxy there exist three thousand planets that have living beings and intelligence similar to that of man. He said that one grain of sand contains three thousand boundless worlds. If what he said is true, think about it everyone, then inside that one grain of sand, microscopically it is as rich and abundant as the Milky Way galaxy, with societies and ways of existence similar to those of human beings. As you investigate further down, within that one grain of sand, aren’t there again rivers and sand? Then doesn’t the sand inside that grain of sand also have three thousand boundless worlds? Then doesn’t the sand inside that sand still have three thousand boundless worlds? Investigating further down, Shakyamuni found it to be endless. Only when people look while avoiding using the eyes made from molecules are they able to see the true picture of the universe. The higher the levels reached, the more one can see things at microscopic levels that are infinitesimally small, and the more expansively one can see things at macroscopic levels. Shakyamuni didn’t see the end of it, and didn’t see how vast the universe was ultimately. That’s why in the end, during his final years, he said, “It’s so huge that nothing is outside it”—he didn’t know how big it was. “It’s so small that nothing is inside it”—so small that he couldn’t see the end. Just based on what Shakyamuni said and what modern physics can understand, I would say that there is no contradiction there and it makes a lot of sense. Like I said just now, it can be explained thoroughly at a theoretical level. This is how I see it and what I am teaching. How could the nuclei all disappear as you draw your last breath—you would undergo nuclear fission just from the fire of the crematory? I say it’s impossible. That is why I said, even though the human flesh body dies, the life does not die. It is also correct for us to say that matter cannot be destroyed, and this holds true in other dimensions, as well.

Our scientists today believe and today’s humans can only surmise that matter no longer exists when there is a vacuum. Actually, this is just the understanding at this stage of the existing human science’s development. I would say that in a vacuum there is still matter—the vacuum itself is matter. Going down to a more microscopic level, it is no longer visible, but a vacuum is still far from the microscopic matter that is the origin of life. What is the most microscopic matter of matter? What is the original matter? I would say that contemporary scientists, using existing research techniques, won’t be able to understand it no matter how many more years they spend on it, because the path along which Western science has been developing is the slowest, and humankind chose the most imperfect way of developing it. I would say that how ancient China’s science developed is pretty correct. It directly studied the human body, life, and the universe. And aliens, as you know, have flying saucers that can fly back and forth, coming and going without a trace, and that travel at incomprehensible speeds. A flying saucer can even change its size to be bigger or smaller. How is that so? It is just that its methods for researching and developing science and technology are different. It can travel in other dimensions. Because of the difference in time-space, it can come, get to where it’s going, and leave at will.

When I talked about gong just now, I touched on this subject, that actually the exercises we practice with physical movements are nothing more than a technique for strengthening supernormal capabilities, transforming the body, and prolonging one’s life. But without that energy or gong that determines your level, your life will not be prolonged. On the other hand, let’s talk about things at the lowest level. If you don’t pay attention to the cultivation of xinxing and you don’t stress virtue, you will not even get rid of your illnesses. Can you heal yourself by doing calisthenics? You can’t. Qigong is not a form of calisthenics. It is a supernormal method for changing a person, which means you have to hold yourself to the requirements of those supernormal principles. Some people are pretty devout when they practice the exercises, but once they go out the door they turn into different people. Out in society they do whatever they please. They argue and fight with others for petty personal gain; they even fight with others over the smallest perceived slight. Can their ailments be cured? They absolutely cannot. I just talked about why people’s gong does not increase. Actually this is still just one of the reasons.

There is another reason why gong doesn’t increase. The reason why your health problems aren’t cured and your gong doesn’t increase is that you don’t know the Fa at high levels. If you don’t know the principles at high levels, then you can’t cultivate. For all these years a lot of people have wanted to cultivate up to high levels, and they have been focused on things like setting up a bodily crucible or furnace, gathering medicines and making a dan, and opening the energy channels and the great and small cosmic orbits. Go ahead and practice, but after an entire lifetime it will still be the same old thing. Working on qi is not the ultimate goal—that is nothing. The ultimate goal of working on qi is to purify the body and build a foundation for cultivating to higher levels. At the same time, at the level of working on qi, if you follow the dan method, then you will form dan, open acupuncture points, and connect a few energy channels. That builds a foundation at low levels, but it doesn’t count as practicing yet. It’s just building that bit of a foundation and purifying the body, and such is the goal of working on qi. Some people feel pretty good about themselves because their bodies have stored qi to capacity. I say you’re just a big qi-bag then, and you are mistaking it for gong. How could that be gong? The talk of emitting qi to treat people’s health problems is a completely wrong understanding. How could qi heal? Let’s think about it calmly and rationally. Your body has qi, just as the next person’s body does—between ordinary people it’s all qi. It’s just that your Laogong acupuncture point or some other acupuncture point of yours is opened, making it possible for you to emit or take in qi. Isn’t that still qi though? Objects of the same level don’t have any restrictive effect on each other. You have qi, just like he does. How could you treat others’ health problems just by emitting qi? It may very well be that his qi, instead, has treated you—isn’t that possible? Only things that are beyond this level can restrict things on a lower level such as this, and only then can the gong truly have this effect.

A few years ago, some things happened that caused people to develop an incorrect perception. There were many qigong masters who appeared in public to popularize qigong. Even when they didn’t have any gong of their own, they were emitting gong. Why did it seem like they could emit gong? The emergence of qigong was the result of celestial phenomena. Many masters didn’t even let those involved know about it. You were given a channel, and when you wanted to emit gong, he would supply it to you. The fake qigong master who did this was just like a faucet. He hadn’t practiced gong, and he didn’t have any gong. When he emitted gong, it was like turning on a faucet, and it would be supplied to him from the other side. When he stopped emitting it, the other side was switched off just like a faucet. He himself didn’t have any gong. The goal of giving him gong was to have him cultivate himself, be a good person, do good deeds, improve himself, and advance himself. In a society of complicated groups of people, he was to cultivate his mind and raise his level. But many qigong masters didn’t understand this. They had no idea why this gong had been given to them. They didn’t know where it came from, either, and just knew that it came from some external source. They thought it was to get rich and become famous as a qigong master. Now there are very few of these people left. Among those who remain, some—the majority, in fact—have animal possession. For a human being to have that is really frightening. Even though he considers himself to be a qigong master and is quite well-known, if you take a look at him in a couple of years, he will be like a vegetable—his body’s essence will have been extracted completely. That is because demons are taking advantage of the loopholes in the cosmic principles: “No loss no gain, I can’t give you gong for nothing. You made all that money and became famous, so I have to take things from you, isn’t that right?” So it takes your things, and takes them fair and square. Animal possession is actually the result of a person’s own doing. Some people, after treating other’s illnesses, will actually feel unwell in this or that part of their body, and that is illness that people bring upon themselves.

Then what is a dan? As for dan, some people believe they can lift up a bit of qi from the dan field to do some things. There is even this misconception that doing this or that to lift the qi from the dan field amounts to doing qigong. I would say that’s degrading to qigong. Qigong is something broad and profound, and is in itself something of cultivation that follows the Great Law of the universe. Well, if it is qigong when you do something by lifting the qi from the dan field while in a daze, then I would ask: what about when you lift a little bit of qi from the dan field and use the restroom while in a daze? Isn’t this notion trashing qigong? That’s not the right understanding. There is a great deal of inner meaning to qigong, and it’s not such a simple thing. Consider a person’s dan—if you ask me, in essence it is a bomb. When someone cultivates to the final step, at which point the gong is unlocked, the dan will explode. In Buddhism, they call it enlightenment. In that instant it will explode. In this explosion, it bursts open all energy channels of the individual, all the acupuncture points in the body, and the Mingmen point, releasing the supernormal capabilities. The Third Eye is blasted open to an extremely high point of the level you are at, and you will see the truth of the universe that exists at your level. This is what it’s for. It is just a bomb, without any other use. You know that after a monk who has cultivated well dies, sarira can be found upon cremation. A few days before the monk dies, the dan will explode. With a boom it will explode, and he will understand everything. But he doesn’t talk about it with ordinary people, so no one knows and others can’t sense what has happened. Once the dan explodes and shatters, the pieces in this dimension are like stones. We don’t cultivate dan. Why don’t we cultivate dan? We believe that dan is immobile, and aside from being able to hold a little energy it doesn’t have much use. For a monk, after he dies and is cremated, there are sarira. They are lustrous, very hard, and have energy. Scientific tests cannot ascertain what they are made of. They are a combination of matter gathered from other dimensions and matter made from our virtue being transformed into gong, so scientists right now can’t recognize what substance it is. It is not a substance of our ordinary people’s society. Some people try and force an explanation or just give whatever explanation they can think of, saying that a dan is teeth or bones. Isn’t that giving whatever random explanation they can think of? How come ordinary people don’t have them when they are cremated? Why are monks and cultivators able to have them after cremation?

Just now I talked about the principles of truly cultivating to high levels. It doesn’t matter which school or branch you are in. Some people may be reminded of the old Taoist monks that cultivate in the mountains, or cultivators that follow the Buddha school’s method of cultivation while in isolation, some of whom you might have even taken as masters in the past. Since these people didn’t follow Zhen-Shan-Ren in cultivation, how were they able to cultivate to that point? Let me tell you how such a person cultivates. He suffers a lot, and it takes him many, many years of cultivation to gain even a little bit of gong. However, because he cultivated deep in the mountains and forests, away from ordinary people’s society, his gong was not locked. When cultivating among ordinary people, gong is locked. Even in cultivation through gradual enlightenment, a part or half of it has to be locked, so you don’t have such great abilities. Even when your level is very high, you can’t use it. Deep in the mountains and forests though, when one doesn’t live in secular society and has no involvement with things of ordinary people, one’s cultivation is all done open and unlocked. If such a person has even a little gong, his abilities will appear to be quite great, because they are open. Actually his cultivation is quite arduous. He can only gain a little bit of gong over a long period of time, but he doesn’t know this.

I have said there are eighty-four thousand cultivation ways that have been laid out, and in the middle is the Great Way cultivation, Dafa cultivation. On the fringes, since it offers salvation to all sentient beings, all kinds of people come to study it. When one cultivates to a certain point and is enlightened, then that is as high as he can cultivate—he can’t cultivate any higher. This was determined by his own foundation—he is enlightened when he cultivates to that level. There are some that cultivate this high and become enlightened (Teacher gestures with his hands); some cultivate this high and are enlightened; some cultivate this high and are enlightened; some cultivate this high and are enlightened; some become enlightened when they have only cultivated to a very low level. Once the person becomes enlightened, he sees the principles at his level but no higher. Since he has cultivated that high, he can only see principles at that level, yet he takes disciples just the same and teaches the principles he has seen and understood. Of the eighty-four thousand cultivation ways, there are many low-level ways. The closer to the fringes, the more numerous and complicated the teachings are. The closer to the central Great Way and Dafa cultivation, the simpler the cultivation is—cultivation is pretty fast when its essence is grasped. We are bringing people along rather quickly. Why is it so fast? Some students’ changes and the growth of their gong are just unbelievable. Had you not attained the Fa, you might not have been able to go beyond the level of qi in your lifetime.

In my nine-lecture class, so long as you can cultivate, I will push you through in the nine lectures. People are able to break through levels extremely rapidly in the cultivation process. Many of those that cultivate the Tao have told me this, and I have asked them how the gong of my students compared with theirs. They think that it’s unbelievable. The growth of this gong really is unbelievable, because we are cultivating while grasping the essence and cultivating by focusing on the mind. This is the most important, and that is why it is extremely fast. Those that cultivate in the mountains, as with some monks, cultivate over a long period of time, suffer a lot of hardship, and they think that their cultivation advances because of the suffering involved. Actually, it is because over a long period of time they slowly wore away the things they were attached to among ordinary people—only then could they improve. Right from the beginning, we cultivate by targeting people’s minds. Your attachments of jealousy, elation—all kinds of attachments—we target these things in your cultivation, and it is these we get rid of during cultivation, so it is very fast. That’s all I will say on this topic.

There are many people who want to study Falun Dafa but haven’t taken the classes. I can give you a brief introduction. Our Falun Dafa is a cultivation practice that cultivates both the mind and body. A true mind and body cultivation practice is unique in that the changes in the human body happen very quickly. At the same time, the outer appearance of a practitioner is very different from ordinary people. There are many veteran students of Falun Dafa, even the elderly, whose skin has become delicate and smooth, white and rosy-red in color, and their bodies are strong and healthy. In the past, it was very tiring for them to climb up stairs, but now they can climb several stories without even becoming short of breath. Their hearts don’t race, and they feel good, not tired. In the past they were tired after walking just a few steps, and now when they ride a bike it feels like someone is pushing them. This is the situation, and I ask our veteran students here: isn’t that really how it is? (Audience answers in unison: “Yes!”) This is a very common occurrence. I’m not talking about what happened to just a few select students. This is very common, as true mind and body cultivation practices can accomplish this. The outer appearance changes quite a lot. The wrinkles on many older folks’ faces become few and light, or even disappear. At the same time, they also experience great physiological changes. Due to our limited time here, I won’t talk more about this.

In addition, our Falun Cultivation Dafa is a most unique practice. No one ever taught it in the past. Of course, I was too absolute there. It is, rather, that it just hasn’t been taught during this era of human civilization. In prehistoric times, going way back in prehistory, it was the main way of saving people in human society, but it has not been taught in this human civilization. So this Dafa is completely different from the cultivation theories of all those various types of qigong currently in existence. What people cultivate today are basically dan methods. What’s meant by dan methods? It means that you want to form a dan. This applies to Buddhist monks in the temples as well—although they don’t have qigong exercises, they too form dan. The sarira that appear after cremation are from the explosion of dan. Taoists are the same way, and so are the cultivation methods passed on through folklore; they are all basically dan methods. You might know that in Tantrism, it doesn’t seem like they form dan, but at a fundamental level theirs is also a dan method. The chakras they cultivate are also dan. So those wheels of theirs are turned by the mind’s will, and they don’t turn if there is no will to direct them. And those wheels of theirs are intangible, while this Falun of ours is material.

This Falun from my set of exercises is very difficult to obtain if you cultivate on your own, of course. We have formed it only after going through so many generations of people. In the past it was passed on from generation to generation through a single disciple, and it has never been passed to outsiders. In this special historic environment, I have now brought it out in the open to pass on to people. Some students say, “Teacher, please give me a Falun.” Some students write notes saying, “Teacher, although I haven’t attended the classes, I will give you some money as tuition. Would you please give me a Falun?”—meaning that they want to buy a wheel. Let me tell everyone, this Falun is extremely precious, priceless in fact. For a person who lacks a predestined connection, it wouldn’t matter how many hundreds of millions he spent, he still couldn’t buy it. For those with a predestined connection, they can get it without spending a penny. The reason that we can bring this to the public today is that we see that people still have a final bit of Buddha nature left. Actually the results of teaching it have been pretty good. It is extremely precious, and you have to be a cultivator before you can attain it. Once this wheel is given to you, it will keep turning twenty-four hours a day without stopping, always turning like this. It will turn both clockwise and counterclockwise. When turning clockwise it will automatically absorb energy from the universe and transform the energy. The energy it transforms will provide what is needed for all parts of your body. When it turns counterclockwise, it can give off energy. The energy that is given off takes out the discarded matter created by your body, and then absorbs new energy matter. It is purposeful and selective, for it is an intelligent being. A person simply can’t do such things by manually pouring qi in from the top of the head or gathering qi [as is common in other practices], because he hasn’t as much power as [the Falun] does—he simply can’t do it. So [the Falun] is selective and is an intelligent being, and can do things that people could never hope to do.

After the Falun is installed, it won’t come to a stop at any time. It is always turning as I described, always refining you. This forms the situation that is called “the Fa cultivating the person.” In other qigong practices, only when you practice does gong grow, and so people try to lengthen the time for which they practice; if you aren’t practicing, then the gong isn’t growing. But in my Falun Dafa, when you are not practicing, it still grows. When you practice, you are strengthening the mechanisms, strengthening these mechanisms and the Falun that I have given you. You are maintaining and strengthening it, and that is all the effect you can have. But true cultivation involves this entire system of Fa. It’s not just the Falun that is cultivating: the mechanisms given to you on the outside are at work, the Falun is turning, and all the mechanisms inside the body are automatically cultivating.

The cultivation that we talk about—true cultivation practice—stresses cultivation, while doing the exercises is a different aspect of it. As long as you stress the cultivation of your xinxing, treat yourself as a true cultivator and restrain your actions in ordinary people’s society accordingly, then your gong will grow. And this, together with the movements that you practice every day, means that you are completely and holistically practicing this system of mine. The movements are very simple and there are only five exercises, but on a macroscopic level they holistically control tens of thousands of things involved in your refinement. Some people ask a qigong master, “What does this movement do, what does that one do?” Some qigong masters can’t answer. Why can’t they? Such things are not easy to explain. [In our discipline] there are tens of thousands of things that need to be cultivated in the human body, and every movement is macroscopically directing many things that are being refined. “What are they doing,” you ask? How should it be explained to you? They refine everything. The movements seem simple, but were they complicated it wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing—the Great Way is the simplest and easiest. The small ways have complicated movements. Cultivation does not depend on the complexity of the movements themselves, but on the things of a given cultivation way that are given to you in another dimension. Regardless of whether those things [given to you] are complicated, the movements themselves are not.

Perhaps some people are feeling that they don’t quite understand what I just said, thinking: “Others talk about forming dan and that this is energy, and when monks are cremated, there are sarira. These seem believable, because they are still something tangible. But the Falun you talk about, which keeps turning in the belly, isn’t so easy to believe. How can it be alive? How can it turn?” Let me ask you something in return. You know that this Milky Way galaxy and the universe are turning. The Milky Way galaxy is rotating, the nine planets are orbiting around the sun, and our Earth is spinning by itself. Who pushes it? What is applying force to it? Let me tell you, it exists in the form of a spinning mechanism, and our Falun also has this kind of a spinning mechanism, so it automatically turns, unceasingly. Some of you have not attended the class yet, and I can have you experience the feeling of the Falun turning. Let’s all stick out one hand and lay the hand flat. Don’t use force with your hand, but keep your palm as straight as possible. Good, I will now send out a Falun to each of you, and have it turn in the palm of your hand so that you can tell for yourself. Is it turning? (“It’s turning!”) For those upstairs, is it turning? (“It’s turning!”) Okay, that was just to let everyone experience it. A few people didn’t feel it turning, but their hand felt cool, or in some cases hot. The different sensations have to do with the karmic field of your body. For those who sensed cold, often their bodies are not very healthy, and for some, it was because they have karma in the area of the hand. But it doesn’t matter if you felt the turning or not, you will have a hot or cold sensation all the same. Of course, the vast majority of you can feel it turning.

A practice such as our Falun Dafa is well suited for modern people to study and practice. Of course, once Falun Dafa is taught to the public, it can contribute to the elevation of society’s moral character as a whole and the moral character of its people. The facts speak for themselves. If you, an ordinary person, a human being, want to cultivate, then you have to stress the cultivation of xinxing. If you do stress xinxing cultivation, in ordinary people’s society it will certainly manifest as your being a good person—this is for sure. Some people say that their style of qigong can, like ours, allow you to practice for a long time, and they are always in a dazed state. I would say that’s not practicing; that is no more than a matter of curing illnesses and keeping fit. It’s just a state in working on qi, and that’s not practicing. Also, even if it truly were practicing, go ahead, give it a try: if you’re in a daze, can you do your job well? Can you complete well the work your boss has given to you? Even if you are self-employed, or you run your own company, isn’t there still the matter of contributing to society? For those of you who work in an office, if you are in a daze while you sit there, how can you write documents and such? If you can’t complete the work well, it may even lead to danger! If a worker works while in a daze he might, while not paying attention, stick his hand into the machine’s gears. If you work at a place high off the ground and are in a daze, you might take a fall. Doesn’t that create a safety issue at the workplace? That way of doing it can’t possibly reach the goal of a prolonged qigong exercise time. But our practice truly does solve this problem. We have to assimilate to the nature of the universe and be good people—only this is the cultivators’ standard. Some of our students know that our gong grows quite rapidly. In our practice, we don’t pay particular attention to trivial matters and don’t have many rules. Because we are cultivating the Great Way, cultivating Dafa, there are very few rules. We don’t pay attention to which direction to face while practicing, or specify times of day to practice and the direction to face when doing so. That’s because what our Falun Dafa cultivates is quite vast. In this historical period, in this human civilization, there hasn’t been anything that has cultivated something so vast. If you don’t believe me you can look for yourself at the situation before I started teaching: those cultivation methods mimicked animals’ movements, and that applied to even those of famous people, sages, or Taoists. Regardless of whether someone [was cultivating to be] a Tao, a God, or a Buddha, it was pretty limited all the same.

Our Falun Dafa practice follows the fundamental principles of the universe’s development. Because the Falun was formed according to the fundamental principles of the universe’s development, it takes the highest nature of the universe—Zhen-Shan-Ren—to be the guide in our cultivation. We can say that we are following the highest things in cultivation, cultivating in such a great Fa, just like cultivating the universe. And we don’t worry about things such as facing in certain directions. Think about it everyone, in the context of the universe, what happens to one’s directional orientation? The universe itself is rotating, our Milky Way galaxy is rotating, the nine planets are orbiting around the sun, and the earth itself is rotating—so where is north, south, east, or west? After all that turning, everything is muddled up, and there is simply no concept of direction. It is only something that people designated on this Earth, and it was done from the human vantage point. Since we cultivate such a vast thing—it’s just like cultivating the universe—of course there is no such thing as a directional orientation. So whichever direction you face when you practice is the same as facing all directions. Whichever direction you face for practicing, to put it simply, is the same as facing north, south, east, and west simultaneously. So we don’t worry about direction at all. It is because everything is rotating and turning.

We also don’t worry about the time. Why don’t we worry about the time? Many qigong practices say it’s good to practice at zishi (11pm–1am) or at chenshi (7am–9am). Of course, we think that the time period of zishi is a bit better, but we don’t limit our practice time to such a narrow period. In this vast universe, the zishi of the Earth may be good, but in other dimensions the zishi might not necessarily be good, so we don’t limit things in this regard. But there is something beneficial about zishi, as it is rather quiet at that time. Deep into the night and when people are quiet is suitable for practicing. Some people also say that chenshi is a good time for practicing. Of course, for the same reason, we don’t worry about specific time periods. However, we do encourage getting up in the morning and practicing the exercises together, or practicing together at night. Why? Because if you practice the exercises in a group, when there is a problem you can discuss with each other and solve the problem together. Discussing with each other is beneficial to everyone’s collective improvement. That’s why we have chosen this form of collectively practicing the exercises as a group. Of course, some people have to go to work, and they only have time in the morning and evening, so we practice the exercises in the morning and evening. Actually, every minute that you don’t practice, you are being refined by the gong; your practicing is to strengthen the mechanisms that I installed for you. We use the principle of the movements following the mechanisms. The hands and movements are just strengthening those mechanisms.

We also don’t require ending the practice in a specific way. The reason for this is that there is no concept of ending the practice in a specific way. In other qigong practices, after finishing the exercise they take the gong back in and retract the energy field given off around the person, and the practice is stopped. We don’t have this concept, because we are practicing twenty-four hours a day; there is no concept of bringing it to a stop. That is why we don’t talk about ending the practice in a specific way. Then some people may ask, “If I’m there practicing and all of a sudden the phone rings, or all of a sudden someone comes knocking at the door, what should I do?” Then you just get up and greet the guests, or go and get the phone—it’s no problem. Why is that? That’s because although there is a field that exists around people who practice qigong, your Falun is conscious [and cognizant of it]. When your mind thinks about doing something else, the Falun knows that you are not practicing anymore, and it will immediately turn clockwise and instantly take in the field that was outside your body. This is something you couldn’t will to happen even if you tried. If you try to hold the qi and pour it into the top of the head, no matter how hard you try to hold it, you will still lose some qi. But [the Falun] doesn’t lose any, because it has this element that checks things. Just now I briefly talked about the unique characteristics of this practice of Falun Dafa. Of course, there are many more and even better things, but we can only talk about them in class, because we have to teach them systematically.

Next I’ll talk about another issue, which is how people of different social classes practice. You might have heard a saying before about how only those who are poor to the point of having no possessions and no money can cultivate. People from different religions all talk about the principles of their own schools. No matter how much teaching there is in Buddhism, it still centers around the Buddhist principles enlightened to and validated by Shakyamuni, which were passed down by later generations with some errors. Taoism is limited to its principles of the Taiji. No one has completely explained this universe with clarity. Only when you go beyond this boundary and talk about the entire universe can you clearly explain the Fa of the universe, the nature of the universe, and the essence of Gods, Taos, and Buddhas. So they all just talk about their own schools. In addition, there are many branches in the Tao school and many branches in the Buddha school, and they all talk about the principles of their own branch. We have broken through all of this to explain the truths of the universe, and done so in conjunction with modern science and the science of the human body. Then what are the principles we are talking about? Perhaps you have heard what was said in religions, or what Jesus said about it being harder for a rich person to enter Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. He was talking about how hard it is for rich people to cultivate. But we say that it is difficult to cultivate—that doesn’t mean that rich people cannot cultivate. You can’t look at things superficially. Although it’s hard for rich people to give up their money and wealth, we look at the core and not the surface. What I teach is that genuine cultivation does not equate to really having you toss away your material possessions, but rather, it is the thoughts that are attached to money that have to be given up—you should be able to see money as unimportant and take it lightly.

I’ll talk now about how people of different social classes cultivate. Let me tell you, the reason there are people, and that people can live in the world, is just one word: qing!⁶ Your happiness, anger, grief, and pleasure; what you like to do or don’t like to do; what you like to eat or don’t like to eat; whichever person you like or don’t like; feelings for family, feelings for friends, feelings of love, feelings for parents—everything of everything—everything of human beings comes from this qing. Then it follows that qing can produce every kind of attachment. When something affects this qing of yours, you can develop jealousy—people just live for qing. Then when a person is actually cultivating, he has to get rid of this attachment, to gradually wear it down. It’s even better if you can completely get rid of it, because it is a manifestation of your level. You should gradually come to take these things, things that ordinary people are attached to, more and more lightly. Others can see that ordinary people are attached to fame and fortune the most, and believe that those people who pursue these two things find it the hardest to cultivate. Pursuing “fame” includes pursuing social status, a high-ranking job, and power, while pursuing “fortune” is mainly about money and material gain. So it’s thought that cultivation is the most difficult for those who pursue these two kinds of things. Actually, although cultivation is difficult for them, it is still possible—it’s not to say that they can’t cultivate. Do you have to throw away all of your money before you can cultivate? That’s not the case. True cultivation doesn’t depend on whether you are wealthy or not. According to the principles of the Buddha school, wealth was created by your own good fortune, which was a result of your having virtue, and so you should have it. Being wealthy is not in and of itself wrong.

What we teach is how to be a good person at your level and take lightly material things, desires, fame, and gain. If you are wealthy but you don’t see it as something important and you take it very lightly, even to the point where in your heart you don’t care about money at all, then it’s no problem. Even if you have so much money there is no room left to store it in your house, or the mattresses are padded with money, then I would say that it doesn’t matter. Cultivation is about cultivating people’s minds, not actually getting rid of some material thing. If you have a high position in the government but you take the high position itself lightly, and you understand that however high a government position you may have, you are still a civil servant who works for the good of the people and for others, then aren’t you a good official? Of course, this human society is complicated. At every level, if you can balance these things properly and follow the requirements of the Fa, you will manage to be a good person and a cultivator.

Let’s talk about people of different social classes. Ordinary people have ordinary people’s conflicts. For a regular office worker, he has conflicts with others regarding personal gain, while those in higher positions have interpersonal conflicts with their peers and plot against each other. People in even higher positions have situations of conflict at their levels. The key is: at your level, in that environment of yours, you manage to take the pursuit of personal gain lightly, you manage to be a good person, do more good things, do good deeds for others, and improve yourself. Cultivation can be done at every level. We have transcended the principles talked about in all religions and schools to teach this. The point isn’t to make you really lose some material thing, or to say you can cultivate only when you have nothing—it’s not like that. It is a matter of whether or not you can take it lightly. Isn’t it true that the focus of our cultivation is the mind? We have reached the goal if the attachment is gone. If there were really nothing left in human society and it became a primitive society, then I would say that’s not right, is it? The reality is that humanity will continue to move forward in its development.

In the past many people asked me: how should we cultivate? Of course, contemporary society is very complicated, and some things we can’t speak too specifically about. So just follow the Fa in your actions. If everything is explained to you, then there is nothing for you to cultivate, nothing for you to enlighten to. On specific issues, you have to enlighten to them yourself and cultivate yourself. Only then do you have something to cultivate, and only then can you improve. If it is all taught explicitly, there is no room for your improvement. If everything were laid out for you, then you would just have to follow it. People are in a maze to begin with, and it is meant for you to enlighten while in this maze. If a person needs to see everything before he will cultivate and enlighten, then I would say this person won’t be able to enlighten. The reason it’s so hard for an Enlightened Being to cultivate and improve, the reason why he is always at that level, is that in his setting there is no suffering for him to go through. Things are so great everywhere and he is not in a maze, so what is there for him to enlighten to? But ordinary people are in a maze, and they can’t see the true picture or the true principles of things.

People are all fighting for practical gains and benefits. If a good person comes along who doesn’t care about these things as others do, who won’t fight for these things, and who takes both fame and fortune very lightly, then this person is already quite outstanding. Although among ordinary people this person doesn’t seem like much, looking from a high level, this person sparkles like gold. In the past, people said that those with high-level gong would look for their disciples. It’s not the disciple that would look for the master, but the master who would look for the disciple. It’s the same principle: these are the kinds of people that are sought after. Ordinary people are all lost among themselves, and when they think that what they do is something good, looking from high levels it is clear that it’s the opposite. People all live for themselves, and they are selfish. So these things that you are attached to are for nothing but satisfying your selfishness. If you want to cultivate, all this has to be gotten rid of. To put it plainly, cultivation is about getting rid of human attachments, and here, I am purely talking about the fundamental things. Cultivation is about getting rid of every kind of attachment you have, which fundamentally means cultivating your mind. I would say that the cultivation of our school is directed right at people’s minds, and we teach the practical points and the key aspects.

There’s another issue I would like to talk about—after all, there are many veteran students here, and this conference is for the purpose of summarizing things as well. There are some people that want to come and cause damage to Dafa, but they are very few, only a very, very few individuals. And it’s not like with other styles of qigong, where out of desire for money people from one qigong practice fight and clash with people from other practices, and they even fight and clash with each other within their own practice. They simply don’t care about xinxing and create a foul atmosphere. Everyone here knows that Falun Dafa is a pure land—I dare to say this. What’s the mindset our people have towards each other? Everyone is helping each other out. What’s it like when Falun Dafa practitioners get together? At our class in Guangzhou, some practitioners didn’t have any money left, and people donated hundreds of yuan to help them out. If you are in other qigong practices, such things are unheard of. Here there are so many good people doing good deeds—it happens all the time, it’s extremely common. Isn’t it a pure land? Since we directly cultivate people’s minds and stress xinxing cultivation, we will definitely have such results. You should all stress cultivating your xinxing in the cultivation that lies ahead.

At the same time, if you want to grasp this Fa well—and I would say that you have to have a thorough understanding of this book and this Fa—you need to study the Fa. You shouldn’t just do the movements. If you do the movements all day and forget everything that the Teacher said, then you won’t be able to cultivate. What would there be to guide you? So you should all read the book a lot, study the Fa and read the book like you do the movements daily, and read the book every day. Only then can you be guided to be a good person, only then will your xinxing improve through cultivation, and only then will your gong increase. If you say you just want to do the movements, and you do them from morning until night, you might be exhausted but your gong still won’t increase. Though the Falun is indeed turning automatically, your doing the exercises is to strengthen the mechanism, and when the Falun just turns and prepares the things that were developed from gong to be moved upwards, the nature of the universe still restricts you. And if it doesn’t allow the increase, what’s the use? Therefore you must improve your xinxing, and only then can your gong increase rapidly. You must take this issue seriously.

Some students also bring up this question: how should our students pass on this practice in the future? I think I can also talk a bit about this issue with everyone. Before I talk about it though, I would like to clarify one thing for everyone. For those practitioners who haven’t attended the class and who have studied or practiced on their own, all you have to do is practice while following the standards of a practitioner. There’s no need for me to personally give you a Falun and Law Body, as you will get everything. The reason for this is that a student of mine taught you, and all of my students have the protection of my Law Bodies. You all know that this isn’t some kind of superstition—my Law Body is a life that was formed by gong during my cultivation and it has the same image as myself. He also has the same Fa and power—it’s just as strong. That is what a Law Body is. I have countless Law Bodies that can protect the students, so everyone that truly cultivates will be protected. Then if you, as our student, want to study this, then when another student teaches you this Law Body will naturally adjust your body, and will naturally install a Falun and energy mechanisms for you. What should be given to you will be given to you. But you must be a true cultivator in order to attain these things. After installing these supernormal things for you, if no one were there to protect you, you would be in danger. What would we do then? I still have Law Bodies that will protect you, this is guaranteed. Then how do you pass on the practice from now on? I will be very clear about this, as well. The assistance centers and every student all over the country can spread the practice, but collecting fees is not allowed. Nobody can charge any fees, not even the assistance centers. You should pass on the practice as volunteers. True cultivation is about accumulating virtue, not pursuing fame and fortune. That is how it should be spread. If you really insist on doing this—using Falun Dafa to make money, that is—then you won’t have anything left. My Law Body will take everything back, because you are not allowed to use these things to undermine this Fa. This issue has been talked about very clearly, so you don’t have to worry about whether others can obtain a Falun and energy mechanisms when you teach them the exercises. They will have those things just the same. My Law Bodies know it when you pass on the practice.

If there is no one to teach a person, can he learn by reading the book? Can he attain it? He can attain it just the same. For example, whether it be Shakyamuni, Lao Zi, or other Enlightened Beings, they left this world many years ago, but the students in those disciplines are still cultivating. In ancient times some people did succeed in cultivation. Why? Because the Law Body was there. Many of our students may have seen this. On my pictures that are in the books, it may seem like the eyes can move. Some people may have seen the body move, or there may be other feelings, so some say there are Law Bodies there. It’s not just on those pictures. Since there are new students here, I won’t speak at too high a level. Let me tell you: as long as you study it, be it through the book, the videotapes, or the audiotapes, you can attain it just the same. The problem arises if you don’t cultivate. If you just do the movements and expect to get these supernormal things, then it’s absolutely impossible. Only when you truly cultivate can you attain these things. The issue I just talked about was for our veteran students, but it’s also beneficial for new students to hear it.

There’s another issue that I will talk about, which is doing healing. Many people are very obstinate, very stubborn. Even some Western medical doctors have these kinds of thoughts. They say, if you can use supernormal capabilities to heal people, then what do you need hospitals for? They are implying that they don’t believe supernormal capabilities can be used to heal people. But what they say is not reasonable, not very rational at all. Then, can supernormal capabilities actually heal people?

We have discovered that one who cultivates at a superficial level can’t cure the root of the problem, but he can cure the surface. A person whose level is a bit higher can delay this illness of yours, push it back, so that it may feel better for the time being. But after some years it will come back, turn into other forms of misfortune, or be transferred onto friends or family members—he can do things like that. To truly cure illness, a person must have that kind of ability, in other words be able to eliminate karma for people. But this isn’t something that a normal person can do. It has to be a person with such an ability, and it can only be done for those who are true cultivators. Doing it casually for ordinary people is absolutely not permitted; it would mean that after a person does bad things, he doesn’t have to pay for it.

There’s a principle here, which is that gong can heal people. Over such a long period of time, so many people have cured their ailments through tempering themselves, or cultivators have cured their ailments. This is something everyone can see and is simply undeniable—it can indeed heal people. If you take something of high-level cultivation and use it to fix health problems at low levels for people, it will of course have amazing results. Some patients started to pay attention to virtue. Some people are very good in ordinary people’s society, so after practicing, their health problems can get better. But cultivation is a supernormal thing, so it follows supernormal principles. It is absolutely prohibited for you to use it to disrupt ordinary people’s society on a large scale. If qigong were used to open a hospital, a clinic, or a wellness center, its healing results would drop off drastically. This is for sure.

As you know, those with true abilities see a patient only once to heal him. Eliminating too much karma is not allowed. The disease is basically cured during that one time. When the gong is emitted, the hand method is irrelevant—what does the hand method matter? The gong can be emitted, and it can go through any part of the body. Once the gong is emitted, the disease is cured. Originally, there weren’t any hand methods, but to deceive people, fake qigong masters made up many haphazard hand methods for healing people, such as expelling, purging, nourishing, hand grabbing, qi needle, electric needle, light treatment, and others. Actually it doesn’t matter how a cultivator emits his gong, and the hand method doesn’t matter—it’s not like that at all. All of these were made up by some people in order to make money. When it comes to true cultivation, this is how things are fundamentally.

Ordinary people’s illnesses can’t be removed casually. Once a hospital is established for qigong treatments, the healing effects will drop off drastically. It just doesn’t work anymore. This is because supernormal things can’t be used casually to disrupt ordinary human society on a large scale. Ordinary people are just on this level of ordinary people, governed by the Fa of the lowest level. Isn’t it a serious matter if you use the Fa of high levels to interfere with the principles of ordinary people and the Fa at this ordinary people’s level? It is actually undermining the principles of the universe and those of the dimension of ordinary people. So if you really did set up a hospital, the results of your treatments must be similar to ordinary people’s hospitals. Just take a look around—any hospital or wellness center that uses qigong to do healing will take several treatment sessions to cure an illness. It’s ridiculous for qigong treatment to take several sessions. It shows that its healing effects aren’t good. In some regards they aren’t even as good as treatment at regular hospitals. This problem will occur, because qigong treatment is something supernormal.

When people who are in the process of cultivation develop a heart of compassion and can see the suffering of all beings, and have themselves gone beyond the Three Realms, when their gong is relatively high, they are permitted to help some people in individual cases. But this isn’t something to be done casually. When a person cultivates to very high levels, he is able to cure many people’s ailments in an instant. But once someone has cultivated to this level, he discovers that you can’t casually do things about people’s health problems—he can see such a principle. Sickness karma is all connected to things that happened in the past, and everyone is paying back karma. Your casually eliminating it means that people can do bad things and not pay back the karma; it has this principle behind it. Some may say that qigong treatments do temporarily alleviate the suffering at hand to some extent. But aren’t hospitals the same way? It is just postponing it for you, and it can’t take away that karma.

Actually, the health problems we’re talking about are problems in another dimension that manifest in this dimension, such as something abnormal growing somewhere on the body or a body part becoming inflamed, leading to viruses and bacteria being present. Smaller amounts of karma with great density are viruses when manifesting in this dimension; greater amounts of karma manifest as bacteria. We see it as just being these things that exist in other dimensions. How can you cure it at the root when you can’t break through this dimension? Karma is that black substance that comes in clusters. So in the community of cultivators, we don’t talk about health problems, just karma—it’s just this issue. Like I just said, removing a disease like that on a fundamental level isn’t something that can be done casually. Out of compassion and under special circumstances, it is okay for you to help people out a bit. But you can’t do it for personal fame, money, or some kind of gain—there’s this principle.

Some people may ask, isn’t healing done for the sake of saving all beings? Isn’t it doing a good thing? In the Fa-ending period the Buddhist scriptures have been misinterpreted. You can look through the Tripitaka⁷ and see if it says that healing people is saving all beings. It doesn’t say that at all. Saving all beings refers to guiding you up to high levels from this environment of suffering of ordinary people, and this is so you will not be here suffering ever again. This is what it means. This is truly saving all beings, as it fundamentally resolves people’s problems. Today’s phony qigong masters tell people that doing healings for ordinary people is “saving all beings,” but that’s a lie they fabricated in order to make money. Buddhas don’t save people for this purpose. Think about it everyone, if treating illnesses for people is the same as saving people, well, wouldn’t you say that a Buddha is quite powerful? A high-level great Buddha, whose foot is bigger than the earth, could eliminate all ailments of the entire human race with a wave of his hand. Why doesn’t he do it? How great would that be—saving all beings like that. People are just this way—if you incur a debt of karma, you have to pay it back—this principle can’t be undermined. A person has to pay back the karma that he creates. If you want to cultivate, you have to cultivate your xinxing while paying back your karma, going back like that. Let’s use an example. If a person wants to go abroad, to go to a pretty rich country and enjoy good fortune, then those debts you owe in this country have to all be paid off first. How can you just brush them off and leave—how could that work? You have to return it all before you can go. Along the same lines, if you want to cultivate you just have to suffer—there’s such a principle. Of course for Dafa cultivators, we can eliminate some for you. If a portion is not eliminated for you, then you can’t cultivate. People have come to this point after having karma rolled up over karma and the obstacle is too great, so a portion of your karma must be eliminated for you before you can cultivate. I just talked about healing people and touched on its principles for you while I was on the subject.

Then why do some qigong masters claim that if you study their practices, in three, five or ten days you can do healing? You can be a qigong master they claim, and after taking part in a class you are all qigong doctors. Why do most of them fail to accomplish this? And why can a minority actually cure some health problems? What’s the reason behind it? The reason they can’t do it is because they are not permitted to violate the principles of ordinary people. Then why can a few individuals treat a disease with their hands and actually cure a few people? Those who do that are so happy, and they believe even more in that so-called qigong master—how does this happen? I’ll tell you, those few people have been deceived. Those so-called qigong masters that do such things are often possessed by animals or spirits, and those things too have some gong—if it didn’t have any gong it couldn’t heal people—and it even has abilities. It gives you a few messages and a bit of energy, but that energy gets consumed. If you treat one illness, a portion of it gets consumed; if you treat some more it will continue to be consumed; and after treating a few more it’s gone. But from then on your attachment to healing others becomes extremely strong. Once the energy is all used up, if you try to use it to give treatments it won’t work.

Once it doesn’t work anymore, another problem will occur. What problem is that? If you continue to give treatments, you will be using your own foundation and trading it with other people in exchange for illness. What does that mean? This universe has a principle called “no loss, no gain.” If you want to gain you have to lose. Even if what you gained is something bad—since you can’t heal others, you insist on wanting the other person’s ailment cured—what happens then? You will get that ailment while the patient gets better, since you really want his ailment to be cured. Some people want to cure others even if it means getting the ailment themselves, but this doesn’t arise from compassion. He just wants the other person to feel better because he is afraid of losing his reputation. Can’t you see how seriously these qigong masters are harming people? Look how strong the attachment to fame and fortune is, and how it causes such great harm to people. He only had this thought out of the fear of losing his reputation, and he just has to make that health problem go away, even to the point that he himself is willing to get it. Okay, if you want it, then you will get it. But in such an exchange, you can’t get something for nothing. Even though what the other person has is an illness, it can be dissolved away and turned into virtue, since matter isn’t ever destroyed; it can transform in such a way. So if you take it away, then you will give him virtue in exchange. The only thing used for exchange over on the other side is virtue. So he gives the virtue to the other person, and gets the disease in return—he has done the stupidest thing. Virtue is so precious!

In the past, religions talked about something, and so did the elders: don’t worry if you go through a bit more suffering in this life, do more good things and collect virtue, and in the next life you will have good fortune. It implies that this virtue can bring you money or a high position in the government. Actually, we have found that it is a kind of exchange. When you want to get that money, you can’t get it unless you have virtue to trade for it. Some people can make a lot of money at once in business, while others try very hard yet gain nothing. The reason is that the latter person has little or no virtue, so he can’t trade for it. For some people, let me tell you, if your virtue is too little, you won’t get anything even when begging for food. You have to give others virtue, and then they will give you food; there is an exchange there. So if you don’t have virtue, you don’t have anything—it’s all black karma. Then this person is evil beyond pardon, and is faced with complete destruction—even the soul will be destroyed. This is called the complete destruction of body and soul, something quite terrifying. When being destroyed, lives are destroyed level by level all the way down, bearing all of their sins while their lives are being eliminated

Since this virtue is such a precious thing, how can you casually give it to others? Isn’t that qigong master hurting people? He is hurting not only others but also himself, for he has done too many evil things. He teaches you how to heal others. Once you develop an attachment, if your inborn foundation (genji) is good, you will have to use your own virtue to heal others. The ailment will be transferred over to your body, and you have to give them your virtue. In the last few years there have been many people that, after giving others treatments, seemed to contract a terrible illness and felt awful afterwards. How many such people have there been? Too many! Of those who healed others, who didn’t feel this way? Actually they are all like that. After giving others treatments they felt just awful, because they were trading their virtue with others for illnesses. Even worse, they were once people who could reach Consummation and who could cultivate up to high levels and achieve the True Attainment Status, but now it has ruined them in an instant. How badly has it ruined them? People’s attachment to fame and fortune are the most difficult to get rid of. You feel so very pleased when someone says that you are good, and everyone has this hidden yet very obstinate thought. If someone flatters you, you feel just elated. If someone calls you a qigong master and says you cured him or her, that your skills are truly great, you’re just thrilled beyond description.

Think about it everyone, once you develop this attachment to fame and fortune, it will be just so difficult for you to get rid of it. For many people, when I tell them that they’re not allowed to give treatments, they are still itching to do that, and they just have to treat people. Once this attachment to fame and fortune develops, how are you going to get rid of it? Also, when you do healing for others, a field forms between you and the patient. Because you are cultivating In-Triple-World Law, no matter how high you have cultivated, you don’t have the power to protect yourself. You are sure to be in the same, connecting field with the patient, and the disease qi of the patient will come over onto your body. It will even get to the point where you will have more disease qi on your body than the patient, but because the root of the ailment is with him and you can’t touch it, you still can’t cure it. His black qi was slightly alleviated, and he feels better, but you are left feeling awful. Perhaps you don’t care about one or two bouts of illness at first, but as time goes on, if you keep treating everyone’s health problems, you will have every kind of disease qi covering your body. Some qigong masters tell you to flush it out. Let me tell you, cultivation is up to the individual, but the gong is up to the master. With your ordinary person’s hands, and these ordinary person thoughts, can you do those things? If you could really flush out that disease qi, would you get rid of your own health problems that have plagued you for many years? You can’t flush it out like that at all. You might feel qi going downward in your body, but the good qi and bad qi go together, and after the qi is let out it will be sucked back in. So didn’t he harm you to no end? You end up with filth all over your body, and what is that black disease qi? It is karma. When manifest in the body of this dimension, it is a disease. You end up with a disease-riddled body and an attachment to fame and fortune. This attachment is very difficult to get rid of, and when you heal others, you end up feeling awful yourself.

Many people don’t know that the first stage of In-Triple-World Law cultivation is purifying the body. The purpose is to let qi fill up and flow through the body, so that the body can be cleansed. This is to prepare for cultivation at higher levels and to establish some basic, fundamental things. Cultivation at high levels is also a process of continually cleansing and cleansing, making it purer, purer, and even purer, and in the end it is replaced by high-energy matter. The entire In-Triple-World Law cultivation is purifying one’s own body. Then think about it, when you continually give treatments and continually bring dirty things onto your body, aren’t you precisely going against cultivation? When you treat others, are you truly doing it out of great compassion? You’re not. You are being controlled by the attachment to fame and fortune. If it’s not for money, then it’s for fame. Once you can heal people, you will itch to heal more; you will feel that you can’t show off your skills if you don’t give treatments. Isn’t that the case? But isn’t cultivation about getting rid of human attachments? How would you get rid of this attachment? He is really hurting you deeply, so we disclosed the fundamental reason for not treating illnesses.

For those people who can truly heal people and have cultivated to a very high level, they may not have reached enlightenment. Such a person may once in a while see a good person and do a healing for him—this can be done. Usually they don’t leave their name and don’t want any reward; most of them are this way. Actually he can’t fundamentally resolve the problem either. He can only postpone the tribulation for you, push it down from this surface material dimension of ours, and press it down to a deep material dimension, but it will eventually come back up. He might also transform this for you, so instead of a disease, you encounter other types of troubles. Many cultivation methods cultivate the subordinate consciousness (fu yishi). Although he has some gong, he doesn’t know at all what gong he has, what form the gong takes, what state the gong is in, how the gong came about, how it was cultivated, or where the gong exists. He doesn’t know these things at all. He only knows to do it, while actually it is the subordinate consciousness that does it, since it is the subordinate soul (fu yuanshen) who is cultivating. So he will postpone it or transform it onto someone else’s body. It can’t be transformed at will, it has to be a friend or family member. But there are other conditions for such an exchange, since you can’t give others illness for nothing. You have to give up something—there is such a principle.

Here I would like to tell everyone, although some qigong masters are very famous, they are really making a wreck of human society. Now there is hardly any pure land left. The workplaces in ordinary human society are all the same. Which place doesn’t have those things that harm our human society, ordinary people’s society? Demons are everywhere. Qigong itself is cultivation, so can this be a pure land? Why do some people want to harm our Falun Dafa? It’s just because they can no longer attain fame and benefit themselves. Of course, it’s not okay if demons don’t exist at all. If there were no demons, then it would be too easy to cultivate, as there would be no obstacles for cultivating upwards in Falun Dafa; this would just be too simple. In order to get rid of people’s attachments, every aspect of them has to be exposed. In particular, at some of our Falun Dafa practice sites, there are some people who claim, “I’m a Buddha. Don’t study with Li Hongzhi.” Why does this occur? It’s just to see if you will waver at a fundamental level. All the way until you cultivate to the last step, your mind will be tested to see if you understand the Fa and if you are steadfast at a fundamental level. Every aspect has to improve and be solid.

Here I’ll talk about something else. In the future, the worldly small Tao or small Fa methods of treating illness might still exist. They are just a form that exists. I have talked about how they treat illness, and their power of healing is very small. They can treat minor illnesses, but not major ones. An extremely small number of cultivators can do it for a very small number of people, but they definitely can’t do things that disrupt society on a large scale. Some so-called qigong masters hold classes with many people and teach them to heal others. Attendees are supposed to turn into qigong doctors it’s claimed, and they can then treat any disease. If that were true, then people wouldn’t have any health problems, which is impossible. That’s the way it is. But can they heal people? Doing healing is just the state that they are in and the form that they take. Our Falun Dafa is teaching the practice at high levels, it is true cultivation.

True cultivation is saving people, so I’ll tell you clearly that if you truly cultivate Falun Dafa, you can’t give people treatments. If you really do so, it is considered undermining the Fa and damaging the Fa. As soon as you heal people, I won’t let you harm and pollute such a precious thing, and my Law Body will take back the Falun, the mechanisms, and everything else. There are no true cultivators who do healings and things of this sort. In the past, which Taoist or Buddhist monks talked about giving treatments? Some used medicine to treat illnesses, and in extremely isolated cases, it was permitted to use gong to heal someone. But there still had to be conditions, it was not allowed to be unconditional. We have stated this very clearly for everyone, and I have explained the ins and outs with everyone. It really does harm you a great, great deal. Think about it, if a qigong master wants to heal others’ ailments, he has to go through decades of cultivation before he can cultivate those abilities. You have studied for three days, five days, or ten days, and you can supposedly heal people—doesn’t that sound like child’s play? Everyone can think for themselves, so think about it. If in three days you could become a qigong master, then I would say cultivating that “Tao” is just too easy. It would be equivalent to saying you could become a Buddha as easily as picking up a rock from the ground. This is all I will say on this subject. There are too many things to talk about, and I can’t possibly tell everyone at once what we talked about during class for fifteen to sixteen hours.

If you want to cultivate, you have to study this Fa well. Our Falun Dafa’s book, Zhuan Falun, has been published. It’s based entirely on the content of my lectures and is presented in full. In the future, you can rely on this book for cultivation in our school. I won’t say any more. I’ll conclude this brief talk. In conclusion, I hope that everyone is able to soon reach Consummation in the cultivation of Dafa!

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