Zhuan Falun is not meant to be a literary work, and is not, as such, concerned with the literary or stylistic conventions of our day; nor does it necessarily use terms in the ways that people are now accustomed to. Were these conventions to have been prioritized, it would come at a significant cost: while the text would perhaps be more in keeping with certain expectations, or rhetorically elegant, it would be accompanied by a shallowing and limiting of its message. This is a book that offers spiritual guidance of a higher order and that speaks to multiple stages of practice, and affords insights into the Way on numerous levels. All of this is meant to foster real, substantive changes in the reader—from his body, to his energy, to his spiritual state itself—and much of this would be impossible were the approach to the text otherwise.

Li Hongzhi
January 5, 1996

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