All cultivators of Falun Gong must make cultivation of
character their top priority and regard character as the key to developing
gong. This is the principle for cultivating at high levels.
Strictly speaking, the gong potency that determines your level
isn’t developed through doing exercises but through character cultivation.
Improving character is easier said than done. Cultivators must be able to
put forth great effort, improve their awakening capacity, bear hardships
upon hardships, and endure almost unendurable things, to name a few. Why
hasn’t some people’s gong grown despite practicing for years? The
fundamental reasons are: first, they disregard character; and second, they
do not know of a high-level upright cultivation way. This point must be
brought to light. Many masters who teach a practice system talk about
character—they are teaching real things. Those who only teach movements
and techniques without ever discussing character are actually teaching
crooked cultivation. So practitioners have to exert great effort in
improving their character before they can start cultivating at higher
levels.
1. The Meaning of Character
The “character” referred to in Falun Gong can’t be
fully encompassed by the word “virtue” alone. It contains much more than
virtue. It contains many different facets of things, including those of
virtue. Virtue is only one manifestation of a person’s character, so using
only virtue to understand the meaning of character isn’t enough. Character
encompasses how to deal with gain and loss. “Gain” is to gain
conformity to the nature of the universe. The nature that constitutes the
universe is Truth, Kindness, Tolerance. A cultivator’s degree of
conformity to the nature of the universe is reflected in the amount of his
or her virtue. “Loss” is to abandon negative thoughts and behavior, such
as greed, the pursuit of wealth, lust, desire, killing, fighting, theft,
robbery, deception, jealousy, etc. If a person is to cultivate to high
levels, he or she needs to break free from the pursuit of wants, something
inherent in human beings. In other words, you should let go of all
attachments and take lightly all matters of fame and gain.
A complete human being is composed of his
flesh and his temperament. Similarly, with the universe, along with the
existence of its matter, there also exists its nature, to be True, Kind,
and Tolerant. Every particle of air contains this nature. This nature is
made manifest in human society in the fact that good actions bring rewards
and bad ones bring punishment. At a high level this nature manifests as
supernatural abilities. People who align themselves with this nature are
good people; those who depart from it are bad. People who comply with it
and assimilate to it are those who attain the Dao. In order to conform to
this nature, practitioners need to have extremely high character. Only
that way can a person cultivate to high levels.
It is easy to be a good person, but it’s not easy to
cultivate character—a cultivator must ready his mind. Sincerity is a
prerequisite if you are to rectify your mind. People live in a world where
society has become complicated. Though you might want to do good things,
there might be some people who don’t want you to; you might not want to
harm others, but others might harm you for various reasons. Some of these
things happen for unapparent reasons. Will you be able to enlighten to the
reasons? Then what should you do? The challenges in this world test your
character at every moment. When experiencing indescribable humiliation,
when losing out, when tempted by money and lust, when in a power struggle,
when rage and jealousy emerge in conflicts, when discord in society and in
the family take place, and when experiencing all kinds of hardships, can
you always follow closely the character criteria? Of course, if you could
handle everything then you would already be an enlightened being. Most
practitioners start as everyday people after all, and the cultivation of
their character occurs gradually; it moves upward little by little.
Determined cultivators will eventually gain their ultimate rank if they
are prepared to endure great hardships and face ordeals with an unwavering
mind. I hope that each of you cultivators will maintain your character
well and raise your gong potency rapidly!
2. Loss and Gain
Both qigong and religious circles talk about
loss and gain. Some people take “loss” to mean being charitable, doing
some good deeds, or giving a hand to people in need, and “gain” to mean
gaining gong. Temple monks say that one should be charitable. That
understanding narrows the meaning of loss. The loss we talk about is much
broader—it’s something of a larger scale. The things we require you to
lose are the attachments of everyday people and the mindset that doesn’t
let go of those attachments. If you can let go of the things you consider
important and part with the things you think you can’t part with, that is
loss in the truest sense. Offering help and displays of charity are only a
part of loss.
An everyday person wants to enjoy
prestige, prosperity, a better standard of living, more comfort, and more
money. Those are everyday people’s goals. As practitioners, we are
different, for what we gain is gong, not those things. We need to
care less about personal gain and take it lightly, but we aren’t really
asked to lose any material things; we cultivate in society and need to
live as everyday people do. The key is for you to break your
attachments—you aren’t really required to lose anything. You won’t lose
anything that belongs to you, and you won’t gain anything that does not
belong to you. If you do get such things, they will have to be returned.
To gain, you must lose. Of course, it’s not possible to immediately handle
everything well, just as it’s not possible to become an enlightened being
overnight. Yet by cultivating little by little and improving step by step,
it is achievable. You will gain however much you lose. You should always
take matters of personal gain lightly and prefer to have peace of mind
over gaining more. When it comes to material things you might suffer some
losses, but you will gain in terms of virtue and gong. This is a
truth. You aren’t to intentionally gain virtue and gong by
exchanging your prestige, money, or personal gain for it. You should be
able to understand this further as your awakening capacity grows.
Someone who cultivated in a high-level
Daoist practice once said: “I don’t want the things others want, and I
don’t have the things others have; but I have things others don’t, and I
want things others don’t.” An everyday person hardly has a moment when he
or she feels content. These people want everything except the rocks lying
on the ground that nobody wants to pick up. Yet that Daoist cultivator
said, “Then I’ll pick up those rocks.” A proverb goes like this: “Rarity
makes something precious, scarcity makes something unique.” Rocks are
worthless here but could be very valuable in other dimensions. This is a
principle that an everyday person can’t understand. Many enlightened,
high-level masters with great virtue have no material possessions. For
them there is nothing that can’t be given up.
The path of cultivation is the most correct one, and
practitioners are actually the smartest people. The things that everyday
people struggle for and the minute benefits they gain are fleeting. Even
if you get things by fighting for them, find something for free, or profit
a little, so what? There is a saying among everyday people: “You can’t
bring anything with you when you are born, and you can’t take anything
away with you when you die.” You enter the world having nothing, and you
take away nothing when you leave—even your bones will be burned to ashes.
It doesn’t matter if you have tons of money or are a dignitary—nothing can
be taken with you when you leave. Yet since gong grows on the body
of your main consciousness, it can be taken forth. What I am saying
is that gong is hard to get. It is so precious and so hard to
acquire that it can’t be exchanged for any amount of money. Once your
gong reaches an advanced level, if one day you decide not to cultivate
anymore, then as long as you don’t do anything bad, your gong can
be converted into any material thing you want—you will be able to have
them all. But you will no longer have the things that cultivators have.
You will instead have only the things that a person can gain in this
world.
Self-interest leads some people to use
improper means to take things that belong to others. These people think
that they’ve gotten a good deal. The truth is that they came to benefit by
exchanging their virtue with others, only they don’t know it. For a
practitioner, that would have to be deducted from his or her gong.
For a non-practitioner, it would have to be deducted from his or her life
expectancy or from something else. In short, the books will be balanced.
This is a law in the universe. There are some people who always mistreat
others, harm others with abusive words, and so on. When doing those things
they throw a corresponding portion of their virtue to the other party,
exchanging their virtue for the act of hurting or insulting others.
Some people think it’s disadvantageous to
be a good person. From an everyday person’s viewpoint a good person is at
a disadvantage. But what they acquire is something that everyday people
cannot: virtue, a form of white matter that is extremely precious. Without
virtue a person cannot have gong—this is an absolute truth.
Why is it that many people cultivate but their gong fails to
develop? Exactly because they don’t cultivate virtue. Many people
emphasize virtue and require cultivation of virtue, yet they fail
to disclose the real principles of how virtue is evolved into
gong. It’s left for you to figure out. Those nearly ten-thousand
volumes of the Tripitaka and the principles that Shakyamuni taught
for forty-some years all talked about one thing: virtue. The ancient
Chinese books of Daoist cultivation all discuss virtue. The
five-thousand-word book by Lao-zi,
Dao De Jing, also contemplates virtue. Some people still fail to
grasp this.
Let’s now address “loss.” When you gain, you must lose.
You will encounter some trials when you genuinely want to cultivate. When
they come up in your life, you might experience a little bodily suffering
or feel discomfort here or there. But it’s not sickness. The hardships can
also come up in society, in the family, or in the workplace—anything is
possible. Discord will suddenly arise over personal gain or emotional
tensions. The goal is to enable you to improve your character. These
things usually happen suddenly and seem very intense. If you encounter
something that is annoying or troublesome, embarrassing for you, that
makes you lose face, or puts you in an awkward position, how are you going
to handle it at that point? If you stay calm and unruffled—if you’re able
to do that—your character will be improved through the trial and your
gong will develop proportionately. If you can achieve a little, you
will gain a little. How much you put in is how much you get out. Typically
when we’re in the middle of some ordeal we might not be able to realize
that, yet we have to try. We shouldn’t treat ourselves like everyday
people. We should hold ourselves to higher standards when discord arises.
Our character will be tempered among everyday people since we cultivate
amidst them. We are bound to make some mistakes and to learn something
from them. Your gong can’t develop when you are comfortable and
don’t meet with any problems.
3. Cultivating Truth, Kindness, and
Tolerance Simultaneously
Our discipline cultivates Truth, Kindness, and
Tolerance simultaneously. “Truth” is about telling the truth, doing things
truly, returning to one’s original, true self, and ultimately becoming a
true person. “Kindness” is about developing great compassion, doing good
things, and saving people. We emphasize Tolerance in particular. Only with
Tolerance can a person cultivate into somebody with great virtue.
Tolerance is a powerful thing, and it surpasses Truth and Kindness.
Throughout the entire cultivation process you are asked to tolerate, to
mind your character, and to exercise self-control.
It’s not easy to tolerate things when you
run into problems. Some people say, “If you don’t hit back when beaten,
don’t talk back when slandered, or if you tolerate it even when you lose
face in front of your family, relatives, and close friends, haven’t you
turned into an Ah-Q??”
I’d say that if you act normal in all regards, if your intelligence is no
less than that of others, and if it’s only that you have taken personal
gain lightly, nobody is going to say you are foolish. Being able to
tolerate is not weakness, nor is it being like Ah-Q. It is a display of
strong will and self-restraint. There was a person in Chinese history
named Han Xin who once suffered the humiliation of crawling between
someone’s legs. That was great tolerance. There’s an ancient saying: “When
the common man is disgraced, he draws his sword to fight.” It means that
when a typical person is humiliated, he will draw his sword to retaliate,
will yell at others, or will throw punches their way. An opportunity to
become human and live a life here doesn’t come easily. Some people live
for their ego, which really isn’t worth it and is just exhausting. There
is a saying in China: “With one step back, you will discover a boundless
sea and sky.” Take a step back when you are confronted with troubles, and
you will find it a whole different scenario.
A practitioner should not only show
tolerance towards the people with whom he has conflicts and those who
embarrass him directly, but should also have a generous attitude and even
thank them. How could you improve your character if you didn’t go through
those trials with them? How could the black matter be transformed into the
white matter? How could you develop your gong? It’s hard when you
are in the midst of an ordeal, but you must exercise self-restraint.
Ordeals will constantly get more intense as your gong potency
increases. Everything relies on whether you can improve your character.
That ordeal might be upsetting to you at first and make you unbearably
angry—so angry your veins bulge—but you don’t erupt and manage to contain
your anger. Then that’s good. You have started to exercise tolerance, to
intentionally exercise tolerance. You will then gradually and continually
improve your character, truly taking those things lightly. And that is an
even greater improvement. Everyday people take little tensions and minor
problems really seriously. They live for their ego and tolerate nothing.
They will dare to do anything when they are angered to an unbearable
point. Yet as a practitioner you will find the things that people take
seriously to be very, very trivial—even too trivial—because your goal is
extremely long-term and far-reaching. You will live as long as this
universe. Then think about those things again: It doesn’t matter if you
have them or not. You can put them all aside when you think from a broader
perspective.
4. Ridding Yourself of Jealousy
Jealousy is a huge obstacle in cultivation and one that
has a large impact on practitioners. It directly impacts a practitioner’s
gong potency, harms fellow cultivators, and seriously interferes
with our ascension in cultivation. As a practitioner, you have to
eliminate it one hundred percent. Some people have yet to forgo jealousy
even though they’ve cultivated to a certain level. Moreover, the harder it
is to abandon, the easier it is for jealousy to grow stronger. The
negative effects of this attachment make the improved parts of one’s
character fragile. Why is jealousy being singled out for discussion?
Because jealousy is the strongest, most prominent thing that manifests
among Chinese people; it weighs most heavily in people’s thinking. Yet
many people aren’t aware of it. Called Oriental jealousy, or Asian
jealousy, it is characteristic of the East. The Chinese people are quite
introverted, reserved, and don’t express themselves openly. All of this
easily leads to jealousy. Everything has two sides. Thus, an introverted
personality has its pros and cons. Westerners are relatively extroverted.
For example, a child who scored a one hundred in school might happily call
out on his way home, “I got a hundred!” Neighbors would open their doors
and windows to congratulate him, “Congratulations, Tom!” All of them would
be happy for him. If this happened in China—think about it—people would be
disgusted once they heard it: “He scored a hundred. So what? What’s there
to show off about?” The reaction is completely different when a person is
prone to jealousy.
Jealous types look down upon others and
don’t allow others to surpass them. When they see someone more capable
than they, their minds lose all perspective, they find it unbearable, and
they deny the fact. They want to get pay raises when others do, get equal
bonuses, and see everyone share in the consequences when things go
terribly wrong. They get green-eyed and jealous when they see others
making more money. At any rate, they can’t take it if others do better
than they. Some people are afraid of accepting a bonus when they have
achieved certain things in their scientific research; they’re afraid of
others becoming jealous. Some people who have been awarded certain honors
don’t dare reveal them for fear of jealousy and sarcasm. Some qigong
masters can’t stand to see other qigong masters teach, so they go
make trouble for them. That is a character problem. Suppose that in a
group that does qigong exercises together, some people who started
later are nonetheless the first persons to develop supernatural abilities.
There are people who would then say: “What’s he got to brag about? I’ve
practiced for so many years and have a huge pile of certificates. How
could he develop abilities before me?” His jealousy would then emerge.
Cultivation focuses inward, and a cultivator should cultivate him or
herself and look within to find the source of problems. You should work
hard on yourself and try to improve in the areas you haven’t done enough
with. If you look hard at others to find the source of friction, others
will succeed in cultivation and ascend, while you will be the only one
left here. Won’t you have wasted all of your time? Cultivation is for
cultivating yourself!
Jealousy also harms fellow cultivators,
such as when a person’s badmouthing makes it hard for others to enter into
a state of quiet mind. When that type of person has abilities, he or she
might use them out of jealousy to harm fellow cultivators. For example, a
person sits there meditating, and he has been cultivating fairly well. He
sits there like a mountain since he has gong. Then two beings float
by, one of whom used to be a monk but who, due to jealousy, didn’t achieve
Enlightenment; even though he has a certain gong potency, he has
not reached Perfection. When they arrive at where the person is
meditating, one says, “So-and-so is meditating here. Let’s go around him.”
Yet the other brags, “In the past, I chopped off a corner of Mount Tai.”
He then tries to strike the practitioner. But when he raises his hand he
can’t bring it down. That being is unable to strike the practitioner
because he is cultivating in an upright practice and has a protective
shield. He wants to harm someone who cultivates in an upright way, so it
becomes a serious matter and he will be punished. People who are jealous
harm themselves as well as others.
5. Ridding Yourself of Attachments
“Having attachments” refers to the relentless,
excessive pursuit of a particular object or goal by those practitioners
who aren’t able to liberate themselves or are too stubborn to heed any
advice. Some people pursue supernatural abilities in this world, and that
will certainly impact their cultivating to high levels. The stronger the
feelings, the more difficult to abandon. Their minds will become ever more
unsettled and frustrated. Later on these people will think that they’ve
gained nothing, and they will even start to doubt the things that they
have been learning. Attachments stem from human desires. The
characteristics of attachments are that their targets or goals are
obviously limited, fairly clear and particular, and often the person might
be unaware of the attachments. An everyday person has many attachments. He
might use any means necessary in order to pursue something and get it. A
cultivator’s attachments manifest differently, such as in his pursuing a
particular ability, his indulging a certain vision, his obsessing over a
certain phenomenon, and so on. No matter what you, a practitioner, pursue,
it is not right—pursuit has to be abandoned. The Daoist system teaches
nothingness, while the Buddhist system teaches emptiness and how to enter
the gate of emptiness. We ultimately want to achieve the state of
nothingness and emptiness, and be rid of every attachment. Anything that
you can’t let go must be let go. The pursuit of supernatural abilities is
an example: If you pursue them it means you want to use them. In reality,
that is going against the nature of our universe. It’s actually still an
issue of character. You want to have them, and you want to flaunt them and
show them off in front of others. But those abilities aren’t something to
showcase for others. Even if the goal of your using them were innocent and
you just wanted to use them to do some good deeds, the good deeds that you
did could turn out to be not so good. It’s not necessarily a good idea to
handle ordinary affairs using supernormal means. After some people hear me
remark that seventy percent of the class has had the Third Eye opened,
they start to wonder, “Why can’t I sense anything?” Their attention
focuses on the Third Eye when they return home and do the exercises—even
to the point of getting a headache. They still can’t see anything in the
end. That is an attachment. Individuals differ in physical state of being
and underlying base. It’s not possible that all of them come to see
through the Third Eye at the same time, and neither can each person’s
Third Eye be at the same level. Some people might be able to see and some
might not. Whatever the case, it’s normal.
Attachments can cause the development of a
cultivator’s gong potency to come to a standstill or to fluctuate.
In more serious cases they might even result in practitioners taking a
crooked path. To be specific, certain supernatural abilities might be used
by people with an inferior character to do bad things. There have been
cases in which a person’s unreliable character has resulted in abilities
being used to commit bad deeds. Somewhere there was a male college student
who developed the ability of mind control. With it he could use his own
thoughts to manipulate the thoughts and conduct of others, and he used his
ability to do bad things. Some people might witness visions appearing when
they do the exercises. They always want to have a clear look and full
understanding. That’s also a form of attachment. A certain hobby might
become an addiction for some, and they aren’t able to shake it. That, too,
is a form of attachment. Because of differences in underlying base and
intentions, some people cultivate in order to reach the highest level
while some cultivate just to gain certain things. The latter mentality
surely limits the goal of one’s cultivation. If a person doesn’t eliminate
that kind of attachment, his or her gong won’t develop even through
practicing. So practitioners should take all material gain lightly, pursue
nothing, and let everything unfold naturally, thus avoiding the emergence
of new attachments. Whether that can be done depends on a practitioner’s
character. You can’t succeed in cultivation if your character is not
fundamentally changed or if any attachments remain.
6. Karma
(1) The Origin of Karma
Karma is a type of black matter that is the opposite of
virtue. In Buddhism it is called sinful karma, while here we call it
karma. So, we call doing bad things “producing karma.” Karma is produced
by a person’s doing wrong in this life or in past lives. For instance,
killing, taking advantage of others, infringing upon others’ interests,
gossiping about someone behind his or her back, being unfriendly to
someone, and so on can all create karma. In addition, some karma is passed
on from ancestors, family and relatives, or close friends. When somebody
throws punches at someone else, he also throws his white matter over to
the other person, and the vacated area in his body is then filled with the
black matter. Killing is the worst evildoing—it is wrong and will generate
heavy karma. Karma is the primary factor that causes sickness in people.
Of course, it doesn’t always manifest in the form of sickness—it can also
manifest as running into problems and the like. All of these things are
karma at work. So practitioners must not do anything bad. Any misconduct
will result in negative influences that will seriously impact your
cultivation.
Some people encourage collecting the qi of
plants. When they teach their exercises they teach how to collect qi
from plants; they discuss with intense interest which trees have better
qi and the colors of different trees’ qi. There were some
people in a park in our northeastern region who practiced a kind of
so-called qigong in which they would roll all over the ground.
After getting up, they would circle around the pine trees to collect their
qi. Within half a year the grove of pine trees had withered and
turned yellow. That kind of action generates karma! That too is killing!
Collecting qi from plants is not right, whether it’s viewed in
light of our country’s reforestation effort, maintaining the ecological
balance, or from a high-level perspective. The universe is vast and
boundless, with qi available everywhere for you to collect. Knock
yourself out and go collect it—why abuse plants? If you’re a practitioner,
where is your heart of mercy and compassion?
Everything has intelligence. Modern science has
recognized that plants have not only life, but also intelligence,
thoughts, feelings, and even super-sensory functions. When your Third Eye
reaches the level of Law Eyesight, you will discover that the world is a
totally different place. When you go outside, rocks, walls, and even trees
will talk to you. All objects have life. As soon as an object is formed, a
life enters it. It is the people living on Earth who categorize matter as
organic and inorganic. People who live in monasteries get upset when they
break a bowl, for the moment it is destroyed, its living entity is
released. It hasn’t finished its life journey, so it will have nowhere to
go, and thus harbor extreme hate toward the person who ended its life. The
angrier it gets, the more karma the person accrues. Some “qigong
masters” even go hunting. Where did their kindness and compassion go? A
Buddhist or a Daoist doesn’t do things that violate the laws of heaven.
When a person does these things, it is an act of killing.
Some people say that in the past they produced a lot of
karma, for example, by killing fish or chickens, by fishing, etc. Does it
mean that they can no longer cultivate? No, it doesn’t. Back then you did
that without knowing the consequences, so it wouldn’t have created extra
karma. Just don’t do it anymore in the future, and that should be fine. If
you do it again you will be knowingly violating the principles, and that’s
not allowed. Some of our practitioners do have that kind of karma. Your
attendance at our seminar means that you are predestined, and that you can
cultivate upward. Should we swat flies or mosquitoes when they come
inside? As to your handling of this at your present level, it isn’t
considered wrong if you swat and kill them. If you can’t drive them out,
then killing them is not a problem. When the time has come for something
to die, naturally it will die. Once, when Shakyamuni was still alive, he
wanted to take a bath and asked his disciple to clean the bathtub. The
disciple found a lot of bugs in the bathtub, so he returned and asked what
he should do. Shakyamuni said it again, “It is the bathtub that I want you
to clean.” The disciple understood, and he went back and cleaned the
bathtub. You shouldn’t take certain things too seriously. We don’t intend
to make you an overly cautious person. In a complicated environment it is
not right, I think, if you’re nervous at every moment and afraid of doing
something wrong. It would be a form of attachment—fear itself is an
attachment.
We should have a
compassionate and merciful heart. When we handle things with a
compassionate and merciful heart we are less likely to cause problems.
Take self-interest lightly and be kindhearted, and your compassionate
heart will keep you from doing wrong. Believe it or not, you will discover
that if you always have a spiteful attitude and always want to fight and
contend, you will even turn good things into bad ones. I often see some
people who, when right, won’t let others be; when this type of person is
right he has finally found grounds for mistreating others. Similarly, we
shouldn’t stir up conflict if we disagree with certain things. The things
you dislike might at times not necessarily be wrong. As you keep on
raising your level as a practitioner, every sentence you say will carry
energy. You shouldn’t speak as you please, since your words will be able
to restrain everyday people. It’s especially easy for you to do wrong and
create karma when you can’t see the truth of problems and their karmic
causes.
(2) Eliminating Karma
The laws in this world are the same as those in heaven:
Eventually you have to pay what you owe others. Even everyday people have
to pay what they owe others. All the hardships and problems you encounter
in your life result from karma. You have to pay. The path of life for our
true cultivators will be altered. A new path that suits your cultivation
will be arranged. Your shifu will reduce some of your karma, and
what remains will be used to improve your character. You exchange and pay
for your karma through performing the exercises and through cultivating
your character. From now on the problems you confront won’t happen by
chance. So please be mentally prepared. By enduring some hardships, you
will come to let go of all the things an everyday person can’t. You will
run into many troubles. Problems will arise in the family, socially, and
from other sources, or you might suddenly meet with disaster, and it could
even be that you will get blamed for what is actually someone else’s
fault, to name just a few. Practitioners aren’t supposed to get sick, yet
you might suddenly come down with a serious sickness. The sickness could
come on with intense force, causing you to suffer to the point where you
can no longer bear it. Even hospital exams might yield no diagnosis. Yet
for an unknown reason the sickness may disappear later without any
treatment. In fact, it’s that your debts are paid in this manner. Perhaps
one day your spouse will lose his or her temper and start a fight with you
for no reason at all; even trivial things might set off big arguments.
Afterwards your spouse will be confused over his or her loss of temper. As
you are a practitioner, you should be clear as to why that kind of
incident takes place: It’s because that thing came—you are being asked to
pay for your karma. To resolve such incidents, you have to keep yourself
under control during those moments and mind your character. Be
appreciative and thankful that your spouse has helped you pay for your
karma.
The legs will start to ache after you sit in meditation
for a long while, and sometimes the pain is excruciating. People with a
high-level Third Eye can see the following: When a person is in great
pain, there is a large chunk of the black matter—both inside and outside
of the body—coming down and being eliminated. The pain you experience
while sitting in meditation is intermittent and excruciating. Some people
understand it and are determined not to take their legs down. The black
matter will then be eliminated and transformed into the white matter, and
it will in turn be evolved into gong. Practitioners can’t possibly
pay for all of their karma through sitting in meditation and doing the
exercises. They also need to improve their character and their awakening
capacity, and go through some ordeals. What’s important is that we be
compassionate. Your compassion emerges quickly in our Falun Gong. Many
people find that tears start to fall for no reason while they meditate.
Whatever they think of, they feel grief. Whoever they look at, they see
suffering. That is actually the heart of great compassion emerging. Your
nature, your true self, will start to connect with the nature of the
universe: to be True, Kind, and Tolerant. When your compassionate nature
emerges, you will do things with much kindness. From your inner heart to
your outer appearance, everyone will be able to see that you are really
kind. At that point no one will mistreat you anymore. If someone were to
treat you unfairly then, your heart of great compassion would take effect
and you wouldn’t do the same to him in return. That is a type of power, a
power that makes you different from everyday people.
When you encounter a tribulation, that
great compassion will help you overcome it. At the same time, my Law
Bodies will look after you and protect your life, but you will still have
to go through the ordeal. For example, when I was giving a class in
Taiyuan City there was an older couple that came to attend my class. They
were hurrying when they crossed the street, and when they got to the
middle of the road a car came speeding along. It knocked the woman right
down and dragged her along for more than ten meters before she finally
fell in the middle of the street. The car couldn’t stop for another twenty
meters. The driver got out of the car and said some rude things, and the
passengers sitting in the car said some bad things too. At that moment the
woman remembered what I had said, and she didn’t say a word. After she got
up, she said, “It’s fine. I’m not hurt.” She then went into the auditorium
with her husband. Had she said at that moment, “Oh, it hurts here, it
hurts there… You’d better take me to the hospital,” things would have
turned out really badly. But she didn’t say that. The woman said to me: “Shifu,
I know what that was all about. It was helping me pay for my karma!” A
huge disaster was averted and a big chunk of karma removed. As you can
imagine, she had really high character and her awakening capacity was
good. She was of that age, the car was traveling that fast, and she was
dragged that far before finally hitting the ground hard—and yet she got up
having a right mind.
Sometimes when calamity befalls us it
seems just huge—it’s so overwhelming there seems to be no way out. And
perhaps it stays around for quite a few days. But then a path suddenly
appears, and things start to take a big turn. In fact, that is because we
improved our character and the problem naturally disappeared.
In order to improve your realm of mind,
you have to be tested by hardship in this world. If your character has
really improved and stabilized, karma will be eliminated during the
process, the hardship will pass, and your gong will develop. Don’t
be discouraged if during tests of character you fail to guard your
character and you did something wrong. Take the initiative to find what
you learned from that lesson, to discover where you fell short, and to put
effort into cultivating Truth, Kindness, and Tolerance. The next problem
that will test your character might come shortly thereafter. As your
gong potency develops, the hardships that test your xinxing
might come on even stronger. Your gong potency will grow a bit higher with
every problem you overcome. The development of your gong will come
to a standstill if you aren’t able to overcome a problem. Small tests lead
to small improvements, big tests lead to big improvements. I hope that
every practitioner is ready to endure great hardship, and will have the
determination and willpower to embrace the hardship. You won’t acquire
real gong without expending effort. No principle exists that will
let you gain gong comfortably without any hardship or effort. You
will never cultivate to become an enlightened being if your character
doesn’t become fundamentally better and you still harbor personal
attachments!
7. Meddling by Wicked Entities
“Meddling by wicked entities”
refers to the manifestations or visions that appear during the cultivation
process and that interfere with a person’s practice. Their goal is to
prevent practitioners from cultivating to high levels. In other words,
wicked entities come to collect debts.
The problem of meddling by wicked entities is sure to
arise when a person is cultivating to high levels. There is no chance a
person hasn’t done wrong in his lifetime, just as his ancestors must have
done wrong in their lives, and those bad acts are called karma. Whether a
person’s underlying base is good or not reflects how much karma the person
carries on him or her. Even if he or she is a rather good person it’s
still impossible to be free of karma. A person can’t sense it if he or she
does not cultivate. Wicked entities won’t care if your practice is only
for healing and improving health. But they will bother you once you begin
cultivating to high levels. They can disturb you by using many different
methods, the goal of which is to prevent you from cultivating to high
levels and to make you fail in your practice. Wicked entities manifest
themselves in a variety of ways. Some manifest themselves as daily life
happenings, while others take the form of phenomena from other dimensions.
They command things to interfere with you every time you sit down to
meditate, and they make it impossible for you to still your mind or, as a
result, cultivate to high levels. Sometimes the moment you sit down to
meditate you begin to doze off or have all kinds of thoughts going through
your mind, and it makes it so that you can’t enter into a cultivation
state. At other times, the moment you start to perform the exercises, your
once-quiet surroundings suddenly are filled with the noise of footsteps,
doors slamming, cars honking, telephones ringing, and a variety of other
forms of disturbance, making it impossible for you to enter into a state
of mental calm.
Another kind of wicked entity is sexual
attraction. A beautiful woman or handsome man might appear in front of a
practitioner during his or her meditation or dreams. That person will
entice you and seduce you by making stimulating gestures that evoke your
attachment of sexual attraction. If you can’t overcome it the first time,
it will gradually escalate and continue to seduce you until you abandon
the idea of cultivating to a high level. It’s a hard test to pass, and a
fair number of practitioners have failed because of it. I hope you are
mentally prepared for it. If someone doesn’t guard his or her character
well enough and fails the first time, he or she should truly learn a
lesson from it. It will come again and interfere with you many times until
you truly guard your character and completely break that attachment. This
is a big hurdle that you must overcome, or you won’t be able to attain the
Dao and cultivate to success.
There is another kind of wicked entity
that also presents itself as you do the exercises or in your dreams. Some
people suddenly see some horrifying faces that are ugly and real, or
figures that are holding knives and threatening to kill. But all they can
do is scare people. If they really were to stab, they couldn’t touch the
practitioner since the master has installed a protective shield around the
practitioner’s body to prevent harm. They try to scare the person off so
that he or she will stop cultivating. These only appear at a certain level
or during a certain period of time and will pass quickly, like in a few
days, a week, or a few weeks. It all depends on how high your character is
and how you treat this matter.
8. A Person’s Underlying Base and
Awakening Capacity
“Underlying base” refers to the white matter a person
brings along at birth. It is, in fact, virtue—a tangible form of matter.
The more of this matter you bring with you, the better your underlying
base. People with a good underlying base more easily return to their true
selves and become enlightened, as their thinking is unimpeded. Once they
hear about learning qigong or about things related to cultivation,
they immediately get interested and want to learn. They can connect with
the universe. It’s exactly as Lao-zi said: “When the highest type of men
hear the Dao, with diligence they will practice it. When average men hear
the Dao, it seems some is kept and some is lost. When the lowest type of
men hear the Dao, they laugh at it heartily. If they didn’t laugh at it,
it wouldn’t be the Dao.” Those people who can easily return to their true
selves and become enlightened are wise people. In contrast, a person with
a lot of the black matter and an inferior underlying base has a barrier
formed outside of his body that makes it impossible for him to accept good
things. The black matter will make him doubt good things when he
encounters them. In fact, that is one of the roles karma plays.
Any talk of underlying base has to include
the topic of awakening capacity. When we talk about awakening, or
enlightening, some people think that being awakened or enlightened is
equivalent to being clever. A “clever” or “cunning” person, as everyday
people think of it, is actually far away from the cultivation we are
talking about. Those types of “clever” people usually have a hard time
achieving Enlightenment. They’re only concerned with the practical,
material world, so as to avoid being taken advantage of and or losing out
on something. Most notably, a few individuals out there who regard
themselves as knowledgeable, educated, and smart, think that cultivation
is the stuff of fairy tales. They can’t imagine a person cultivating
himself and improving his character. They think practitioners are foolish
and backward. The awakening or enlightenment that we speak of doesn’t
refer to being smart but to the return of human nature to its true nature,
to being a good person, and to conforming to the nature of the universe. A
person’s underlying base determines his or her awakening capacity. If
somebody’s underlying base is good, his or her awakening capacity tends to
be good as well. Underlying base does determine awakening capacity, but,
awakening capacity isn’t entirely dictated by underlying base. No matter
how good your underlying base is, if your understanding is poor and you
fail to enlighten to things, it still won’t do. The underlying base of
some individuals isn’t so good, but they are able to enlighten to things,
and so they can cultivate to a high level. Since we offer salvation to all
sentient beings, we look at people’s awakening capacity, not their
underlying base. Even though you may have many negative things, as long as
you are determined to go up in cultivation, that thought of yours is an
upright one. With that thought you only need to forgo a little more than
others and you will in the end achieve Enlightenment.
The bodies of practitioners are purified.
They won’t contract illness after gong develops, for the presence
of that high-energy matter in the body prevents black matter from being
present. Yet some people just refuse to believe it and always think
they’re sick. They complain, “Why am I feeling so bad?” We say that what
you have gained is gong. How could you not have discomfort when you
have gained such a good thing? In cultivation you have to give things up
in exchange. In fact, all of the discomfort is on the surface and has no
impact whatsoever on your body. It appears to be sickness but it’s
definitely not. It all depends on whether you can awaken to this.
Practitioners must not only manage to bear the worst suffering, but also
have a great awakening capacity. Some people don’t even try to comprehend
things when they are confronted with troubles. They still treat themselves
as everyday people despite my teaching them at a high level and showing
them how to measure themselves with higher criteria. They can’t even bring
themselves to cultivate as true practitioners. Nor can they believe that
they will reach a high level.
The enlightenment discussed at high levels
refers to becoming enlightened, and it is categorized into Sudden
Enlightenment and Gradual Enlightenment. Sudden Enlightenment refers to
having the entire process of cultivation take place in a locked mode. At
the last moment after you have completed the entire cultivation process
and your character has reached a high level, all of your supernatural
abilities will be unlocked at once, your Third Eye will instantly open to
its highest level, and your mind will be able to communicate with
high-level beings in other dimensions. You will instantly be able to see
the reality of the entire universe and its different dimensions and
unitary paradises, and you will then be able to communicate with them. And
you will be able to use your great supernatural powers. The path of Sudden
Enlightenment is the hardest to take. Throughout history only people with
a superb underlying base have been selected to become its disciples; it
has been passed on privately and individually. Average people would find
it unbearable! The path I took was that of Sudden Enlightenment.
The things I’m imparting to you belong to
the path of Gradual Enlightenment. Your abilities will develop in due time
during your cultivation process. But the abilities that emerge will not
necessarily be available for you to use, as it’s easy for you to commit
wrongdoing when you haven’t raised your character to a certain level and
still cannot handle yourself properly. You won’t be able to use these
abilities for the time being, though they will eventually be made
available to you. By cultivating you will gradually raise your level and
come to understand the truth of this universe. Just as with Sudden
Enlightenment, you will eventually reach Perfection. The path of Gradual
Enlightenment is a little easier and takes no risks. What’s tough about it
is that you can see the entire cultivation process, so the demands you
place upon yourself should be even stricter.
9. A Clear and Still Mind
Some people can’t quiet their minds when they do
qigong exercises, and so they search for a method. Some have asked me:
“Shifu, why can’t I quiet my mind when I perform qigong
exercises? Can you teach me a method or technique so that I can quiet my
mind down when I meditate?” I’d ask, how could you quiet your mind?? You
still couldn’t even if a deity were to come teach you a method. Why? The
reason is that your own mind isn’t clear and still. Because you live amid
this society, things such as emotions and desires, self-interest, personal
things, and even the affairs of your friends and family come to occupy
your mind too much and assume a high priority. How could you have a state
of mental calm when meditating? Even if you intentionally suppress them
they will still surface on their own.
Buddhism’s cultivation teaches “precept,
meditation, wisdom.” Precepts are for letting go of the things that you
are attached to. Some Buddhists adopt the approach of chanting a Buddha’s
name, which requires concentrated chanting in order to achieve the state
of “one thought replacing thousands of others.” Yet it’s not simply an
approach, but a type of skill. You can try chanting if you don’t believe
it. I can promise you that other things will arise in your mind when you
use your mouth to chant a Buddha’s name. It was Tibetan Tantrism that
first taught people how to chant a Buddha’s name; one had to chant a
Buddha’s name hundreds of thousands of times each day for a week. They
would chant until they got dizzy, and finally at some point nothing would
be left in their minds. That one thought had replaced all others. It’s a
type of skill that you might not be able to perform. There are some other
methods that teach you how to focus your mind on your elixir field, how to
do counting, how to fixate your eyes on objects, and so on. In actuality,
none of those methods can quiet your mind. Practitioners have to attain a
clear and still mind, discard their preoccupation with self-interest, and
let go of the greed in their hearts.
Whether you can enter into a state of calm mind, into
deep stillness (ding), is in fact a reflection of your skill and
level. Being able to still your mind the moment you sit down indicates a
high level. It’s all right if for the time being you can’t enter into
stillness—you can slowly accomplish that through cultivation. Your
character rises gradually, as does your gong. But your gong
will never develop unless you attach little importance to self-interest
and your own desires.
Practitioners
should hold themselves to higher standards at all times. Practitioners are
bothered regularly by all kinds of complicated social phenomena, lots of
vulgar and unhealthy things, and a range of emotions and desires. The
things that are encouraged on television, in the movies, and in literature
teach you to become a stronger and more practical person among everyday
people. But if you can’t transcend these things you will be far from a
cultivator’s character and state of mind, and you will acquire less
gong. Practitioners should have little or no involvement with those
vulgar and unhealthy things. They should turn a blind eye and a deaf ear
to them, and be unaffected by people and things. I often say that the
thoughts of everyday people cannot affect me. I won’t become happy when
someone praises me, nor will I get upset when someone insults me. I remain
unfazed no matter how serious the challenges for my character among
everyday people may be. Practitioners should take all personal gain
lightly and not even care about it. Only then can your intention to become
enlightened be considered mature. If you can be without strong pursuit of
renown and personal gain, and even regard them as something trivial, then
you won’t get frustrated or upset and your mind will always stay calm.
Once you can let go of everything, your mind will naturally become clear
and still.
I have taught you Dafa and all five
exercises. I have adjusted your bodies and placed Law Wheels and energy
mechanisms in them. My Law Bodies will protect you. All of what should be
given to you has been given. During the class it’s all up to me. From this
point on, it’s all up to you. As the saying goes, “A master leads you
through the door, but it’s up to you to cultivate.” As long as you learn
Dafa thoroughly, be attentive to and learn from what you experience, mind
your character at every moment, cultivate diligently, endure the toughest
hardships of all, and tolerate the intolerable, I believe you are sure to
cultivate to success.
The
mind is the path to cultivating gong
Hardship is the ferry across the boundless sea of Dafa
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