Hongzhi Li

copyr ight © 2019 by hongzhi li

a ll r ights r eserved

2018 english edition

First printing, July 2019
Translated by practitioners in the United States and
the United Kingdom, from the original Mandarin text, © 1995
Translated and printed with the consent of
the Falun Dafa Association

As no single translation can capture all of the depth,

nuances, and intricacies of a spiritual text like Zhuan Falun,
several versions have been made available. These can be found
online at FalunDafa.org and in bookstores.

Published by: Yih-Chyun Book Co, Ltd.

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isbn: 978-957-8632-32-5 (paper back edition)

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Printed in Taiwan
英文 版
 contents
ON DAFA ................................................. i

THE FIRST TALK

Truly Taking You to Greater Spiritual Heights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Many Levels of the Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Sole Measure of Goodness: Zhen, Shan, Ren . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Energy Practices Predate History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Energy Practices Are for Spiritual Development . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
When Practicing Doesn’t Bring Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
What Sets Falun Dafa Apart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

THE SECOND TALK

The Inner Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The Power of Clairvoyance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
The Power of Knowing Fate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Surpassing This Material and Mortal Realm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Problem with Having Intentions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

THE THIRD TALK

I Regard All Who Learn as My Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Buddhist Energy Practices and Religious Buddhism . . . . . . . . 99
Staying True to One Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Supernormal Powers and Spiritual Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Reverse Practice and the Borrowing of Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Entity Attachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Cosmic Tongues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
What I Do for Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
The Field That Our Energy Has . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
How to Introduce the Practice to Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

THE FOURTH TALK

Costs and Rewards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Reworking Your Karma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Perfecting Your Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Ritual Anointment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
The Mystery of the Mandorla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

THE FIFTH TALK

The Falun’s Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
The Mystical Ways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Practicing an Evil Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Tantric Union Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Practice for Both Mind and Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Spiritual Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
The Blessing of Sacred Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Occult Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

THE SIXTH TALK

The Fear of Practice Going Wrong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
How Practicing Provokes Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
How the Mind Can Lead Astray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
The Importance of a Strong Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Your Thinking Needs to Be Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Martial Arts with an Energy Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Showing Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
THE SEVENTH TALK
Taking Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Eating Meat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Jealousy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Modern Medicine and Energy Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

THE EIGHTH TALK

Inedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Stealing Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Amassing Chi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
The One Who Practices Achieves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
The Cosmic Orbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Getting Carried Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Guarding Your Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

THE NINTH TALK

Energy Practices Versus Regular Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Thoughts and the Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
A Pure and Serene Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
One’s Innate Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Enlightenment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
The Spiritually Adept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
 on dafa
(Lunyu)

Dafa* is the wisdom of the Creator. It is the bedrock of cre-

ation, what the heavens, earth, and universe are built upon.
It encompasses all things, from the utmost minuscule to the
vastest of the vast, while manifesting differently at each of the
cosmic body’s planes of existence. Out of the depths of the
cosmic body, the tiniest of particles first appear, with layers
upon layers of countless particles following, ranging in size
from small to great, reaching all the way to the outer planes
that humankind knows—those of atoms, molecules, planets,
and galaxies—and beyond, to what is still larger. Particles
of varying sizes make up lives of varying sizes as well as the
worlds of varying sizes that permeate the cosmic body. Lives
at any of the various planes of particles perceive the particles
of the next larger plane to be planets in their skies, and this is
true at each and every plane. To the lives at each plane of the
universe, it seems to go on infinitely. It was Dafa that created
time and space, the multitude of lives and species, and all of
creation; all that exists owes to it, with nothing outside of it.
All of these are the tangible expressions, at different planes,
of Dafa’s qualities: zhen, shan, and ren.*

* This and all terms marked with an asterisk appear in the Endnotes
at the back of the book.

i
 However advanced people’s means of exploring space and
probing life may be, the knowledge gained is limited to cer-
tain parts of this one dimension, where human beings reside,
at a low plane of the universe. Other planets were explored
before by humans during civilizations predating history. Yet
for all the heights and distances achieved, humankind has
never managed to depart from the dimension in which it
exists. The true picture of the universe will forever elude
humankind. If a human being is to understand the myster-
ies of the universe, space-time, and the human body, he must
take up cultivation of a true Way and achieve true enlight-
enment, raising his plane of being. Through cultivation his
moral character will elevate, and once he has learned to dis-
cern what is truly good from evil, and virtue from vice, and
he goes beyond the human plane, he will see and gain access
to the realities of the universe as well as the lives of other
planes and dimensions.
While people often claim that their scientific pursuits are
to “improve quality of life,” it is technological competition
that drives them. And in most cases they have come about
only after people have pushed out the divine and abandoned
moral codes meant to ensure self-restraint. It was for these
reasons that civilizations of the past many times met with
destruction. People’s explorations are necessarily limited to
this material world, and the methods are such that only what
has been recognized is studied. Meanwhile, things that are
intangible or invisible in the human dimension, but that do
objectively exist and do reveal themselves in real ways in this
immediate world—such as spirituality, faith, divine word,
and miracles—are treated as taboo, for people have cast out
the divine.

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 If the human race is able to improve its character, con-
duct, and thinking by grounding these in moral values, it
will be possible for civilization to endure and even for mir-
acles to occur again in the human world. Many times in the
past, cultures that were as divine as they were human have
appeared in this world and helped people to arrive at a truer
understanding of life and the universe. When people show
the appropriate respect and reverence toward Dafa as it man-
ifests here in this world, they, their race, or their nation will
enjoy blessings or honor. It was Dafa—the Great Way of the
universe—that created the cosmic body, the universe, life,
and all of creation. Any life that turns away from Dafa is
truly corrupt. Any person who can align with Dafa is truly
a good person, and will be rewarded and blessed with health
and happiness. And any cultivator who is able to become one
with Dafa is an enlightened one—divine.

Hongzhi Li
May 24, 2015

iii
 the
first talk

Truly Taking You to

Greater Spiritual Heights
from the start, I have been teaching in a way that’s
responsible both to those who want to learn our practice
and society. It has gone quite well, and the practice has had
a widely positive impact. In recent years there have been
many figures teaching energy practices, but their instruc-
tion has always been geared toward health and wellness.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. My point is that
they haven’t taught anything of a more advanced sort. I have
a good sense for the state of energy practices in China today,
and can say that no one here or abroad is offering a practice
like this, which really takes you to greater spiritual heights.
As for why that is, there are bigger, and broader, reasons at
work, some of which stretch far back into the past and can be
controversial. Not just anyone can teach something like this,

1
as it entails dealing with factors from a host of other practices.
The problem is especially acute these days, when many people
jump from one practice to the next and make a mess of their
bodies, ruining any spiritual aspirations they may have had.
They go in for all sorts of things, rather than committing to
just one solid approach that could take them somewhere, and
each new one that they dabble in only conflicts with the last.
All of which only dashes their spiritual prospects.
We have to straighten out all of those things for you.
What’s good will be kept and what’s bad disposed of, and
this will make spiritual progress possible for you. But there’s a
stipulation, which is that you have to be serious about this
practice. It doesn’t work if you are motivated by the wrong
things, like attachments, or wanting psychic powers, or heal-
ing, or are here out of intellectual curiosity. Remember that
what I am doing is unique. Something like this is hard to come
by, and I won’t be offering instruction* forever. So I think that
by being able to sit here and hear my teaching in person, you
are really… you will grasp the significance of it later on, and
realize how fortunate you were. We subscribe to the idea of
destiny, and I would say it is your destiny to be here.
It’s worth pausing to consider what it means to be learning
a practice that truly takes you to “greater spiritual heights.”
It means deliverance from this world. So you will need to be
doing genuine spiritual practice, and not just involved for
health or wellness. It follows, then, that there are high expec-
tations for your personal character. You are here because
you want to learn Falun Dafa, so as you sit here you have to
really listen with sincere spiritual intent, and let go of what-
ever things might have initially motivated you. You will get
very little out of the practice if there are impure motives still

2
 with you as you try to learn it. In truth, the spiritual journey
is none other than an ongoing process of learning to let go
of the things of this world that we may be attached to. If you
are someone who competes fiercely with others, who tries to
cheat and outwit people, or who even tramples on others to
come out on top, then you really have to change your ways.
It’s especially imperative for you as someone who is here to
learn the practice today.
I won’t be teaching you how to heal, as that’s not part of our
practice. But an ailing body is a real impediment to anyone
serious about spiritual practice. And so I will purify your
body for you. But I can only do this for whoever is sincere
about the practice and the teachings. And so I have to stress
that we will be powerless to help you if you are set on get-
ting healed and can’t get past that idea. Why, you might ask?
It’s because the way things work in the universe, according
to Buddhist thought, is that everything in a person’s life has
“causal reasons” behind it, and the ordeals of existence—such
as coming into the world, aging, getting ill, and dying—are as
they should be. The ailments and miseries that people expe-
rience result from their karma, and karma is the product of
past wrongdoings. So the ordeals that people face are how
they pay for their karma. This means that nobody may change
them. Changing them would be like letting people build up
debt and never having to pay. So people’s lives can’t be freely
changed, and it would be wrong to do so.
Some people are under the mistaken impression that they
are being helpful when healing people. But as I see it, in no
case is the person actually getting healed. His ailments are
just being postponed or turned into something else, and
aren’t really removed. To end the person’s physical ordeals

3
you have to eliminate the karma involved. And to really, thor-
oughly do that and heal the person you have to be someone
quite spiritually advanced. And anyone like that would be
aware that the workings of this human world can’t rashly be
tinkered with. That said, it is allowed for those who are in
the process of spiritual development to do a few acts of char-
ity, such as healing someone or helping a person regain his
health, if they are moved to do so by compassion. But any
healing done wouldn’t be thorough. That’s because it would
not be right to remove the person’s ailment at the source, by
dissolving his karma, and completely free him of it, since he
would still be his same old, worldly, self afterwards and go
back to his competitive and self-interested life. So truly heal-
ing someone like that is out of the question.
But purification can be done for those who engage in sin-
cere spiritual practice. It is because they are valued above all
others. The desire to work on yourself and become a better,
or more spiritual, person is the greatest aspiration there is.
It has long been believed that everyone has divinity within
them, and this would be a reflection of it; so higher beings
will help you. This takes a little explaining. The practice that
I’m teaching is quite advanced, I would say, and so higher
matters and bigger things are involved. From a higher vantage
point in the universe, it can be seen that the lives of those on
this earth didn’t come into being here. Their souls were born
in the higher realms of the universe. There are many, many
things in the universe that can, when working in conjunc-
tion, generate life, and so it was in the greater universe that
each person’s soul first came into existence. The universe is
by nature good and kind, and so when a person is first born
he shares in its defining qualities: zhen, shan, ren. As more

4
lives come about, however, people enter into community with
one another, and some grow selfish and no longer worthy of
the realms they are in. And so they must fall to a lower plane,
since they are not allowed to remain where they are. But then,
in that new realm, they may again change for the worse and
not be allowed to remain, whereupon they drop again. And
the cycle could keep repeating itself until, in the end, they
fall to the human plane.
All of humanity is on this one plane. Upon arriving at this
level, lives were meant to be, if viewed with higher powers, or
as divine beings see it, destroyed. But divine beings, acting
out of compassion, decided to give these lives another chance,
and created this unique setting, or realm, much as we know
it. The lives in this realm are different from those in all other
realms of the universe. From here, the lives of other realms
cannot be seen, nor can the universe be seen as it really is,
and so the lives here are as if under a spell of ignorance. So
the only way for someone to be healed, to be free of adver-
sity, and to be unburdened of karma, is to engage in spiritual
practice and return, pure as he once was, to his true home.
This is a belief common to a range of spiritual traditions. And
this is in fact the meaning of life. And it explains why the
wish to become a better, or more spiritual, person is consid-
ered divine and is prized; it means that the person wants to
become pure again and return to his true, heavenly abode,
and be freed of this world.
In Buddhism there has long been a belief that when
one’s divinity shines through, it is moving to higher beings
throughout the many planes of the universe. All who behold
it will wish to provide help, and will do so unconditionally.
Buddhists believe that higher beings expect nothing in return

5
when they save someone from this world; they don’t affix
any price, and their help is always unconditional. And it is
on these grounds that we can do much for anyone who takes
up our practice. By contrast, little can be done for the average
person, who just wishes to keep going through life as he has
and perhaps be healed. Some only want to do this practice if
it will heal them. But your interest shouldn’t be conditional.
Just start practicing if you are inclined to. Naturally, there will
be some who come to the practice with ailing bodies, with
bodily energies all out of sorts, or with no prior experience
with energy practices; and even those who have done them,
and even for decades, usually haven’t moved past the most
basic stages of energy practice to actual spiritual progress.
So what do we do? We cleanse their bodies for them so that
progress in our practice will be possible. The first, most basic
stage of the spiritual journey involves thoroughly and com-
pletely cleansing your body, as well as clearing out all of the
bad things in your head, the cloud of karma engulfing your
body, and the factors compromising your health. Without this
cleansing it would be hard for you to make spiritual prog-
ress, plagued as it were by a body dark and foul, and a mind
that unclean. Our practice doesn’t work on the basic kind of
energy known as chi.* You needn’t work on such basic things
with our practice. We boost you past that stage, so that you
begin with a body free of ailment. But at the same time, we
still provide you with everything that one would normally
develop as a foundation at the basic stage of practice, ready-
made. This means you start right off at an advanced stage.
In Asian spiritual practice there are said to be three stages
of practice, if the beginning one, which involves chi energy, is
included. But true practice only begins after chi, so there are

6
just two main phases: that of the human realm, and that of
beyond the human realm. These shouldn’t be confused with
the religious concepts of renouncing the world or returning
to secular life, which might sound similar. The two terms
we are using refer to the two main stages of bodily change
that occur in true spiritual practices with a physical compo-
nent. In the first stage, of practicing within the human realm,
the body is being purified constantly, again and again, until
ultimately the body has been fully remade with high-energy
matter. The second stage, of practicing beyond the human
realm, is essentially practice that’s done with a divine body.
It is a body made of high-energy matter, and it will now be
developing all powers anew. These are the two stages of prac-
tice that we will be referring to.
We believe in destiny. So by virtue of your coming to this
class, I can do what I’ve described for you. And I could still
do what I said even if we had not just two thousand people,
like we have in attendance today, but even several thousand,
or over ten thousand. So none of you need to worry about
practicing for the basics, as I said. I will purify your body
and advance you past the basic stage, and provide everything
you need to make spiritual progress. So you are starting right
off at an advanced stage of practice. But this is only true for
those of you who are sincere about the practice and about
making spiritual progress. It’s not enough just to be here,
enrolled in the class; that doesn’t make you a practitioner.
There may have to be a deep and dramatic change in your way
of thinking before you get the benefits I’ve described. And
there are more in store, in fact, as you will find out later on.
While we don’t do healing here, what we will do, to use our
term for it, is bring your entire body into balance. Doing this

7
will make it possible for you to do our practice. If you were
trying to do the practice with a disease-ridden body, you
really wouldn’t be able to develop higher energy, or gong, as
it’s called. So don’t ask me to heal you; I don’t do that. I made
this practice public because I want to really, truly bring you
to greater spiritual heights.

The Many Levels of the Way

Chinese energy practices, known by names like chi-gong and
tai-chi, have taught that there are three phases of practice—
beginning, intermediate, and advanced. But as it turns out,
all of those phases are at a basic stage since they work on the
lower form of energy known as chi. Most who are involved in
those practices have little to no idea about higher stages and
what they entail. By contrast, right from day one all of what
we will be teaching will be the higher Way (fa) of advanced
practice. Along the way I hope to help give spiritual practice
the status it deserves. This means that I’m going to have to
shine a light on some of the questionable things that are hap-
pening out there, and explain the right way to look at them.
And by teaching a higher Way, as we are, bigger and broader
things are going to be hit on, some of which are quite contro-
versial. But I am going to address them all the same. Some of
the things troubling this world, and in particular the spiritual
arena, trace back to other dimensions, and these need to be
laid bare and remedied for our students, which I will do. Your
practice would be doomed from the start if I didn’t address
these issues. But to deal with them on a fundamental
level means that I have to regard you as true practitioners.

8
Of course, you might not be able to change your way of look-
ing at things right from day one. But I think you will in the
days to come, and I hope you can listen attentively. I teach
in a different way from others in this field, who typically just
run through the basics of their practices, impart energies to
you, and teach you their exercises. And this is what many
people have come to expect.
But real guidance takes more than that: there needs to be
a moral component, or Way, to the teaching. And that is what
I will be providing over the course of our ten sessions. We
will teach the deeper workings of spiritual practice in great
detail, and this will be what makes your spiritual growth pos-
sible. Without this, you really wouldn’t be able to get very far.
The instruction offered in most other settings is simply about
healing and physical well-being, and doesn’t provide a higher
Way or teaching that could guide you to advanced stages of
spiritual practice. It’s analogous to trying to go through col-
lege by studying primary school texts: you would come out
with an elementary level of education. There are people who
have studied all kinds of practices and have a stack of certif-
icates to show for it, but it hasn’t taken them anywhere. And
yet they think that they’ve learned the true meaning of prac-
tice and all that there is to it; they don’t realize that they have
only scratched the surface and gained just a small, partial
picture of it. But there is much more to traditional practices
like chi-gong and tai-chi. They are forms of spiritual practice,
and are far-reaching and profound. And it’s important to
know that the Way and its guidance are different at different
stages of practice. It’s not like what most people imagine—
that the more one learns the merrier. To give an analogy, you
could toil away studying textbooks gathered from around

9
the globe—from England, from America, from Japan, from
China—and if they were all just elementary school books,
you would only come out of it with an elementary level of
education. And in the case of energy practices, you’re even
worse off: the more instruction you take in of a lower sort,
the more harm it will do. Your body will pay for it.
I want to emphasize, then, that as ours is a spiritual prac-
tice, it is vital that we teach a higher Way. This doesn’t sit
very well with some monastic Buddhists, particularly those
who are Zen, and they turn a deaf ear to us. The reason is,
in Zen Buddhism it’s believed that higher, spiritual truth, or
dharma,* is not something that can be taught, or it’s no longer
truth. They believe there is nothing to be taught, and that any
higher truths are just to be intuited on one’s own. And so as
it now stands, the dharma is no longer taught in Zen. This
traces back to Zen’s founder, Bodhidharma, who based his
ideas on one line from the Buddha, Shakyamuni,* who had
said: “No dharma is definitive.” So the discipline of Zen was
built around a single sentence. To us it seems that the disci-
pline has essentially revolved around splitting hairs, and gone
down a dead end. I say that because it has found itself in more
and more of a predicament with each successive generation,
going from having an idea that seemed quite deep at first
and allowed ample room for reflection, when Bodhidharma
began things, to one that was less so by Zen’s second patri-
arch, that still had a little to it by the third, barely any left
by the fourth, and that had basically bottomed out by the
fifth. By the sixth patriarch, Hui-neng, the original idea had
been mined to the point that nothing was left. Today, if you
go to a Zen temple in hopes of understanding the dharma,
you’d best not ask any questions or you might just get rapped

10
on the head with that “waking stick” of theirs—since you’re
supposed to just intuit the truth yourself. But that’s pretty
confusing, as the whole point of going there would be to learn
something, and now you’re supposed to figure things out for
yourself—or otherwise get whacked with a stick! This sug-
gests that Zen really has reached a dead end, and has nothing
left to teach. Bodhidharma himself had said that his teach-
ings would only survive down to the sixth patriarch, which
was hundreds of years ago. But there are now people who
just insist on the wisdom of Zen and stick with it. Yet we
should think about what might have been the true meaning
of the Buddha’s statement that, “No dharma is definitive.” Very
few people since the Buddha, and that includes the monks
who followed in his footsteps, have achieved the divine rank
that he ultimately had, known as tathagata; nor have many
attained the same degree of enlightenment or realm of mind.
So it has been hard for them to know the true meaning of
his dharma teachings or what he said. And this accounts for
the wide and confusing array of interpretations that you see
of his statement—including, even, Zen’s belief that spiritual
truth shouldn’t be taught and that whatever is, isn’t valid.
But that wasn’t what the Buddha meant. When the Buddha
became enlightened and his powers came to him under the
Bodhi tree, his awakening was not yet at its highest point of
tathagata, which he ultimately achieved. He continued to
make regular spiritual progress throughout the forty-nine
years of his ministry. And with each successive breakthrough
he would find, looking back, that what he had previously
taught wasn’t quite right. This continued to happen again
and again, with each new spiritual breakthrough being fol-
lowed by a re-evaluation of what he had taught before. And

11
this went on for forty-nine years as he kept progressing; he
kept finding that what he taught before was incomplete. He
came to realize that the spiritual insights from the Way that
he was perceiving at each new level of attainment were spe-
cific to those realms, with different truths existing at each
realm, but with none of them being the ultimate Truth of the
universe. However, he could see that at each progressively
higher realm that he reached, the Way [he had awakened to]
grew closer to the true qualities of the universe. And so this
was what led him to proclaim that no dharma is definitive.
In the end, the Buddha also remarked that he had “never
taught the dharma.” And this was taken by Zen to mean that
higher truth cannot be taught. When the Buddha remarked
as he did, he would have been in his later years and had
in fact achieved the divine state of tathagata, so it’s worth
reconsidering what he meant. What he meant was that he
could not make out, at his stage of spiritual achievement,
what the ultimate Truth or Way of the universe was. And
so he didn’t want those who came after him to take what
he had said as absolute or final Truth, lest his words limit
people to his degree of achievement or lower, and prevent
higher breakthroughs. Later generations misunderstood his
remarks, taking them to mean that no teaching could reveal
the Way. But what he meant was that the Way differs across
levels of existence, with no instance of it being the ultimate
Truth of the universe, though each would serve to govern its
own level. So now you know what the Buddha was getting at.
Many people have had a radical take like Zen has, and
been wrongly biased against the idea of teaching a higher
Way or dharma. But how are you to make progress in spiri-
tual practice without instruction or anything to guide you?

12
A Buddhist tale comes to mind, which you might have read;
it’s one of many in the Buddhist tradition. It tells of a person
who ascended to a heavenly realm, where he saw a well-
known Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra. Yet this ver-
sion of the sutra was completely different from the one in
the human realm, from the words of the text to the insights
it contained. This might seem puzzling, then. It has likewise
been said that the scriptures in the Pure Land paradise have
no similarity to their counterparts on earth, with everything
being different—from their words and insights to the ideas
they contain. What accounts for this is the fact that the Way
differs, in both form and substance, at each plane of existence.
And so it can always provide guidance to believers, at what-
ever stage they may be, in their spiritual journey.
Similarly, there is a Buddhist booklet that some of you
might be familiar with, titled A Journey to the Pure Land. It
tells of a monk whose soul left his body while he was medi-
tating and went to this fabled paradise and beheld what was
there. His soul spent a day there, only to find, upon return-
ing to the human world, that six years had passed. He did
really go there, in case you’re wondering. But he didn’t see the
paradise as it truly was, because his realm of spiritual attain-
ment didn’t qualify him to. So what he beheld was only one
expression of the paradise, provided by the Way, as befitting
his level of attainment. A paradise like that is an embodiment
of the Way, and so he was not allowed to see it as it truly is.
The above conveys what I believe the Buddha really meant
by saying that no spiritual truths, or dharma, are definitive.

13
The Sole Measure of Goodness:
Zhen, Shan, Ren
The “Way” has long been the subject of religious discussion
and inquiry. But that doesn’t mean that all that can be known
about the Way has already been revealed by past teachings
and scriptures. When the Buddha gave his teachings twenty-
five hundred years ago, they were meant for the relatively
simple people of his day whose civilization was still in its
earliest stages, and whose understanding of the world was
quite rudimentary. And he spoke of a future time, or “latter
day,” when his teachings would no longer be able to guide
people’s spiritual development. That time is in fact our day.
He indicated that in the latter day it would be hard even for
dedicated monastics to free themselves from this world, let
alone laypeople. So what he taught was geared towards the
people of his day, and didn’t include all of the insights he had
gained into the Way at his stage of attainment. And there
would have been no way to keep his teachings from being
altered in the centuries that would follow.
People’s minds have grown increasingly complicated as civ-
ilization has developed, and it has become harder to progress
spiritually by following the old ways of devotion. It should also
be said that the spiritual truths of any one tradition are only
one small part of the Way, and couldn’t possibly capture all of
it. And there are still many other, lesser-known practices that
similarly follow the Way and that have been passed down out-
side of any religious institutions, such as in a private lineage.
Truths differ from one plane of existence to the next and from
dimension to dimension, since the Way is revealed uniquely

14
at different planes of existence and in different realms. All
told, there are only a dozen or so Buddhist disciplines that
are well known—such as Zen, Pure Land, Tiantai, Flower
Garland, and Tantric—and yet the Buddha indicated that
there are eighty-four thousand avenues to enlightenment, or
divinity. So the few that we know of couldn’t possibly rep-
resent the full array of spiritual insights that exist. And this
is on top of the fact that, as I just mentioned, the Buddha
didn’t teach all that he had come to know of the Way, but
rather, only what was suitable for his audience at the time.
Then just what exactly is the Way? Its highest expression
is the fundamental qualities that underlie all of existence:
zhen, shan, ren. These are the essence of the Way. The Way
is expressed differently at different levels of existence, and
serves to govern each accordingly, with its expression becom-
ing increasingly intricate at lower planes. The qualities of
zhen, shan, ren are imbued in all of creation, from particles
of air to stones, wood, earth, metal, and the human body.
And so too are these qualities found in the “five elements”
of classical Chinese thought, which are believed to make up
all of existence. Those who engage in spiritual practice will
only come to know the expression of the Way unique to the
realm that their attainment has brought them to; its revela-
tions reflect the success of one’s spiritual efforts, or realm of
attainment. When looked at in its entirety, the Way is enor-
mous. But in the highest of realms it is quite simple, for its
structure can be likened to that of a pyramid whereby at the
very top everything can be summed up in just three words—
zhen, shan, ren—while as you go downward toward the base,
things get increasingly complex. A parallel can be drawn
between man and the universe, as ancient Daoist thought

15
has done. While you may be endowed with a physical body,
that alone isn’t enough to make you a complete person. You
also must have other invisible elements such as disposition,
temperament, personality, as well as a spirit, or soul, to be
a complete and independent individual. By the same token,
the universe has a Milky Way as well as other galaxies, living
creatures, and water—with all such tangible facets of cre-
ation being its physical side. Yet at the same time, behind it
all, it has the invisible qualities, or spirit, of zhen, shan, ren.
So these qualities are imbued in the particles of anything and
everything that exists, down to the very smallest of particles.
And it is these qualities that act as the measure of good
and evil in this universe. They are what define good and evil,
as well as what has traditionally counted as virtuous. Peo-
ple’s values have undergone a change, however, and many
people’s moral compasses are now askew. For instance, many
would now think it’s silly for someone to try to learn from the
example of selfless figures from the past, like Lei Feng.* But
it wasn’t like that back in the 1950s or ’60s. People’s values
are eroding at a dramatic rate, and getting worse by the day.
Many people now put their own gain before all else, even at
others’ expense, and will do whatever it takes to come out
on top. But what will become of our world if it goes on like
this? There are people who won’t even listen if you try to
point out the error in their ways; and they really can’t see
what’s wrong on their part. Some even think that they are
better than others, since they see themselves through the dis-
torted lens of modern values, which has altered their sense
of right and wrong. But however much people’s values may
change, the qualities that define this universe will not, and
they are the sole measure of your person. It is these—and

16
not the values now in vogue—that must be what you live by
as someone who does spiritual practice. If you would like to
regain the purity you once had, and return to your true home,
if you would like to develop spiritually, then you must live by
the cosmic qualities of zhen, shan, ren. Anyone who abides by
these is a good person, while anyone who lives a life contrary
to them is a bad person. And so how well someone regards
you at your workplace or in whatever setting may not reflect
how you really are. Yours is a spiritual life, and you must
embody these qualities if you hope to become a spiritually
realized being. It’s rather simple, in fact.
In the Daoist tradition, practice focuses on the zhen of
zhen, shan, ren. And so it teaches followers to engage in spir-
itual discipline, speak and act honestly, be genuine, return to
one’s true state of purity, and ultimately become an enlight-
ened being. Ren and shan do feature in their practice, but
the focus is upon zhen. In the Buddhist tradition, meanwhile,
practice focuses on the shan of zhen, shan, ren. By cultivat-
ing shan, great compassion develops in one’s heart, and one
becomes sensitive to the suffering of others; and this, in turn,
gives rise in oneself to a wish to deliver people from suffering.
Zhen and ren also appear in their practice, but the focus is
upon shan. What makes Falun Dafa so powerful is that we
integrate all three of the universe’s highest qualities—zhen,
shan, and ren—and work on them all together.

Energy Practices Predate History

Many instructors of energy practices have sought to explain
what these are all about. My take is quite different from theirs,

17
which tend to be narrow in scope; I look at the practices from
a higher, more spiritual, vantage point. Some instructors
might date them back two or three thousand years in China,
or as far as five thousand years—which is roughly as old as
Chinese civilization. But even the furthest proposed dates,
which are based on archaeological findings and put the figure
at seven thousand years back—and which would predate
Chinese civilization by quite a bit—don’t go much beyond
human civilization. And going by the calculations of those
who subscribe to Darwin’s evolutionary theory, civilization
in any form wouldn’t really have begun earlier than ten thou-
sand years ago, when people with the thought and culture of
modern man are believed to have come about; and this would
be after his evolutionary journey from aquatic plant life, to
aquatic animal, to land and eventually tree dweller, and then
finally, once settled on land again, to ape. With the idea being
that before the advent of civilization, people would have had
no written record of any sort and lived a supposedly wild and
savage existence, covering themselves with things like leaves,
eating raw meat, and with no knowledge of fire.
But there are problems with this view. There are many
artifacts around the world that far predate the earliest era
of civilization now known. Many of the remains display
a sophisticated level of craftsmanship and artistry. The arts
of the past had a high aesthetic value and almost give the sense
that modern man was just following in their footsteps. And
yet some of these remains date back hundreds of thousands
or millions of years, with some even exceeding 100 million.
It would seem to radically challenge current views of history,
wouldn’t it? But there is nothing inherently radical about it.
People always try to push the boundaries of what is humanly

18
possible, and keep arriving at new insights about themselves
and their past. So people’s initial findings and views about
things aren’t always right.
This leads to the topic of prehistoric civilizations, or pre-
historic cultures, which you might be familiar with. In the
world today we have Asia, Africa, North America, South
America, Antarctica, Europe, and Oceania, which are all con-
sidered in geology to be continental land masses. These settled
in their current configuration tens of millions of years ago.
So some land masses emerged from the ocean floor, while
others, now no longer with us, became submerged under the
ocean’s waters. The current land masses have been in place
for tens of millions of years. Yet discoveries have yielded
ancient megastructures at the bottoms of several oceans. And
these structures are covered in intricate carvings bearing no
resemblance to the works of any civilization today. Yet they
must have been built before having sunk to the bottom of
the sea—many millions of years ago. But then who would
have built them, if man, supposedly, wasn’t even a monkey
yet? Such sophisticated things wouldn’t have been possible.
Another enigma surrounds the discovery by archaeologists
of a certain trilobite fossil. This is a creature that dates back
some 260 to 600 million years, and has long been extinct.
Yet an American scientist discovered a trilobite fossil with
a human footprint on it—the footprint of someone wear-
ing shoes. And the print was unmistakable. For many, it’s an
embarrassing challenge to established views about the past.
Darwin’s evolutionary model can’t explain the existence of
human beings that long ago.
Another telling case is a rock in the museum of a national
university in Peru that has a human figure carved on it. An

19
analysis determined that the person was carved on it thirty
thousand years ago. But the person wears clothes and a hat,
has shoes on, and is holding a telescope and observing the
stars. And while it might be hard for us to imagine people
weaving clothes like those back then, it’s even harder to
fathom the presence of a telescope and the possibility that they
knew something of astronomy. People have always thought
that it was a European, Galileo, who invented the telescope,
some three hundred years ago. So we are left to wonder how
a telescope came about thirty thousand years ago. And there
are many unsolved mysteries like this. Another is the cave
murals that have been found in various countries including
France and South Africa, as well as in the Alps. These were
painted skillfully, in a very lifelike and vivid way, with the
use of mineral pigments. But what’s striking is that the fig-
ures depicted in them are dressed like people from modern
times, with European-style clothes, like breeches. And some
are holding what look to be tobacco pipes, while others
have canes or wear hats. Art of that quality is hardly what
you’d expect from our supposedly primitive ancestors.
Another example goes further back. Uranium ore is pres-
ent in the African country of Gabon, but the country is not
very developed and hasn’t the means to refine it, and so they
have exported the ore to more developed nations. When
a plant in France imported some of it in 1972, they were sur-
prised to find, after chemical analysis, that the uranium had
already been processed and depleted. They thought it was
rather strange, and sent over scientific and technical person-
nel to investigate onsite. And eventually scientists from many
other countries went as well. Ultimately, what they deter-
mined was that what was thought to be the uranium mine

20
was in fact a well-designed, large-scale nuclear reactor—one
built better than could be made today. And yet the reactor
was built 2 billion years ago and had operated for around five
hundred thousand years. That’s an extremely long time ago,
and makes no sense within an evolutionary framework. And
there are many anomalies like this, in fact. There have been
more than enough scientific discoveries to rewrite the books.
It’s hard for people to be receptive to new ideas or findings if
their views on things are set and have formed into a mode of
operating and thinking. So they will shy away from the truth,
even when it comes to light, or instinctively reject it. Owing to
longstanding biases, hardly anyone in the sciences is system-
atically reviewing or trying to make sense of these anomalous
findings. And so the theoretical frameworks aren’t keeping
pace. New findings continue to be written off as “pseudo-
science,” even if they are valid, though not well-publicized.
A number of scientists in other countries who are a bit
more courageous have openly voiced their opinion that these
finds do bespeak of earlier cultures prior to written history
or civilization as we know it. So this would mean that they
did indeed exist, and it’s believed that there was more than
one—judging from the artifacts that have been unearthed
so far. It is now believed that on multiple occasions some-
thing catastrophic befell civilization and left the population
decimated. The few people that survived would have lived
a most basic existence at first, until, with time, the popula-
tion had grown again and civilization developed anew. And
this cycle would have repeated itself many times, with phases
of destruction and renewal. All changes throughout creation
follow patterns, much like how in physics the motion of matter
follows patterns.

21
 It would be hard to imagine that things have always gone
smoothly for this Earth as it moves within the vast universe
and within this turning Milky Way, and chances are it has
collided with another planet or object at some point or expe-
rienced some type of catastrophic event. But we can tell, by
way of extrasensory powers, that these events are part of
larger designs. I once looked into it in some detail and saw
that humanity was nearly destroyed eighty-one times. In each
episode little of civilization and very few people remained, and
they would then enter a new phase, and live primitively, before
the population recovered and a new civilization emerged. So
while I observed eighty-one cycles of this, there were still
more to look into. There is a longstanding Chinese belief
about the importance of “timing, location, and together-
ness”—and there is something to it. The state of the world
is indeed brought about by larger, cosmic forces that are at
work, and there is a timing to everything. Just as how phys-
ics holds that the motion of matter follows patterns, the way
that things unfold in the universe does as well.
The reason I’ve delved into all of this is because energy
practices like chi-gong trace back to cultures predating history,
rather than this civilization. And they were each transmit-
ted in unbroken lineages of considerable length. We can see
hints of this in certain religious scriptures. The Buddha, for
instance, indicated that he had completed his spiritual journey
and gained enlightenment “many eons ago.” This amounts to
a mind-boggling figure; in Buddhist terminology one eon is
equivalent to hundreds of millions of years. Then assuming
what he said was true, all of this would be plausible in light
of the larger history of civilizations and earth that I’ve been
describing. The Buddha also remarked that there were six

22
earlier Buddhas before him, each of whom themselves had
teachers, and so on, with all of their spiritual enlightenments
having taken place hundreds of millions of years earlier. Then
if that’s so, you might wonder whether authentic spiritual
practices like those, with such an ancient pedigree, still exist
in the world today. I can answer in the affirmative, that they
do, for sure. But they are rare, and their number is dwarfed
by that of the false masters and charlatans, who have enti-
ties attached to them and invent things at will. And it’s hard
to tell which category a practice falls into. The true practices
aren’t easy to identify or find.
There are other things that date far back, similar to how
energy practices do. Examples include the tai-chi symbol, the
mystical he-tu and luo-shu diagrams, the Book of Changes,
and the Eight Trigrams. All of these were handed down from
before this civilization. And that is why each has proven hard
for regular scholarship to make sense of. Their secrets won’t be
revealed to those whose thinking or perspectives are steeped
in a secular worldview.

Energy Practices Are for

Spiritual Development
So if energy practices have such a long history, you might
be wondering just what exactly they’re for. I can tell you that
ours is an advanced Buddhist method of spiritual practice,
and so it seeks to bring you to divinity, or what’s known as
“Buddhahood.” And Daoist methods, similarly, seek to foster
enlightenment, or enable you to “attain the Way,” as it’s called.

23
The idea of becoming divine shouldn’t seem absurd, or far out,
as it may to some. For example, take the concept of Buddha.
It’s a term from the ancient Indian language known as San-
skrit. The term has undergone various permutations in China
since arriving there long ago, being translated phonetically as
foah-toah, foo-too, and eventually just foah. Translated into
our own language today, the term simply means “one who has
awakened,” and refers to any being who has gained a state of
awakening through spiritual discipline. So it shouldn’t seem
that far-fetched.
Consider that extraordinary powers can come to those
who engage in spiritual discipline. While six types of powers
are now generally recognized, there are in fact a myriad
number that exist. There are individuals who can, just while
sitting in place, do things that normally even physical action
couldn’t accomplish; or they might be able to see the true
workings of the universe in multiple dimensions, and how it
really is, and see things that are invisible to others. I think you
would have to agree, then, that they have attained a higher
state of awakening, or spiritual attainment, and are no longer
mere mortals. So it’s only fitting to call them spiritually awak-
ened, holy, or divine—or in ancient Indian terms, a “Buddha.”
And this is what these practices are in fact meant to achieve.
Some people can’t imagine why anyone would want to
do practices like chi-gong or tai-chi for anything other than
health. The implication being that that’s all they are for. But
that’s a very shallow view of these. People can’t be faulted for
thinking that way, though, because many instructors of these
practices are only focused on health, and nobody is offering
guidance of a higher, more spiritual sort. I don’t mean to
imply anything bad about what they’re teaching. That’s the

24
role that they are meant to play—to keep it at the level of
health and popularize these arts. But many people are look-
ing for something more, for something spiritual, that can
take them further. Yet without a true spiritual teaching to
guide them, it’s going to be hard and they are apt to get into
trouble. Instruction of a higher sort involves bigger things,
naturally enough, and so you really have to go about it in
a way that’s responsible to people, or the world. And that is
why we have had good results all around. Some of what we
talk about is a bit lofty, for sure, and to some people it might
sound hard to believe. So I’ll do my best to draw scientific
parallels to help make sense of things.
Some of the things we’ll be discussing provoke strong
reactions from people, who quickly dismiss them. They
think that anything that isn’t known to science, that they
haven’t personally experienced, or that seems impossible to
them must be nonsense and divorced from reality. But is that
the right way to look at the world?—to write off anything not
known to science, even if it’s because of science’s limitations?
It seems to me that this line of thinking puts a little too much
faith in science, and is itself divorced from reality. If everyone
had this mindset it would utterly stifle any scientific prog-
ress or innovation. And you would see few developments in
the world, more broadly. Every technological development
represents a step beyond what was formerly known. If the
world’s innovators had treated the unknown as “nonsense,”
we wouldn’t be where we are today. Many people simply
don’t understand practices like chi-gong or tai-chi, and think
they are nonsense. But that’s not the case. Consider that scien-
tific instruments have detected that the bodies of true masters
of these practices emit everything from infrasonic waves to

25
ultrasonic and electromagnetic waves, to infrared rays, ultra-
violet rays, gamma rays, neutrons, atoms, and trace metal ele-
ments. All of these are very much real and physically exist.
There is a physical basis to everything. And the same would
certainly hold true for the other dimensions and realms that
we discuss. So there are no grounds for writing them off as
nonsense. Since these practices are meant to make us divine,
any discussion of them is naturally going to touch upon a lot
of deep things, and we won’t shy away from them.
It’s curious that practices like these, which have such a
profound purpose, sometimes have very ordinary-sounding
names. For example, chi-gong* simply means “energy practice.”
But they are more properly referred to as spiritual practice—
or in traditional Chinese culture, as self-cultivation. For that
is their purpose. Of course, there are many individual names
for such practices, but as a whole they should be referred to
as spiritual practices. The case of how chi-gong got its name
is telling. It has to do with the state of affairs in China some
twenty years ago, when these practices first started to gain in
popularity. China was in the middle of the Cultural Revolu-
tion at the time, and there was a strong stigma and hostility
surrounding traditional thought and culture; only later did
interest in these practices peak. Without getting into the ear-
lier spiritual names for chi-gong, which predate known history,
we can see just from the names it’s had in this cycle of civili-
zation what the issue would have been: they were very much
religious, owing to the times they date back to, and often had
what people would have considered “feudal,” or backward,
overtones. Examples included the Great Way of Practicing the
Dao, Vajra Meditation, Way of the Buddhist Saints, The Dafa
of Buddhahood, and The Nine-Cycle Method of the Golden

26
Elixir. Naming your practice something like that during the
Cultural Revolution would have gotten you denounced and
attacked—even if you were sharing the practice with people
out of good intentions, like to promote better health. And
so nobody dared to use traditional-sounding names. What
most instructors did, instead, was to adopt two non-contro-
versial terms—chi and gong (“energy” and “practice”)—from
traditional Chinese spiritual texts to refer to their practices.
So even though you now see some people researching the
history of “chi-gong,” there’s not much to it. It would have
just been referred to as spiritual practice, or self-cultivation,
before. So the term chi-gong is just a recent invention that
was meant to suit a modern, secular sensibility.

When Practicing Doesn’t

Bring Results
When doing an energy practice doesn’t bring the results that
one would hope for, people typically attribute it to not having
been taught “the genuine stuff.” They tend to think that they
would see their energy levels shooting up if they could just
get in on the best techniques or learn “the secret.” Around
ninety-five percent of people think this way. But that line
of thinking is funny to me. That’s because these practices
are not some worldly skill, but go fully beyond the ordinary.
And so it takes a different, and higher, logic to make sense
of them. I can share with you that when people don’t see the
results they hope for, it’s because they are overemphasizing
the physical aspect of practice, to the neglect of its spiritual

27
component. The keys to success do not lie in outward, or phys-
ical, techniques. It’s a stretch to think that you could develop
the kind of higher energy you seek just by the power of your
own human hands, body, or thoughts—as those techniques
would have you believe. That’s what strikes me as funny about
it. It’s never going to work out if you are pinning your hopes
on superficial things.
Spiritual practice doesn’t work like worldly skills, where
you can pay some fee to learn a technique and then it’s yours.
It’s something altogether different, as it operates on a plane
beyond the ordinary, and thus has higher demands. I’ll
explain. With this kind of practice you have to work on your-
self, not on anything else. And yet many people are doing
just the opposite, trying to learn one thing after another and
even harboring attachments to psychic powers. You see all
kinds of motives. Some even want to become energy healers
so that they can make money from it! But true spiritual prac-
tice is about working on the mind, or character. For example,
it entails learning to worry less about the disputes that might
surround you, and value less the worldly things that people
normally want and feel strongly about. You shouldn’t expect
many results from your practice if instead you are all caught
up in competition with others and pushing hard to come
out on top. In that case you are just like everyone else, and
shouldn’t expect to get any higher energy from it. This is why
you need to put character at the heart of your practice. And
if you can do that, you will find yourself elevating spiritually
and your energy growing.
What does character consist of, then? It includes being
virtuous (as virtue is physically real), practicing self-restraint,
having faith and discernment, letting go of what others

28
normally desire and hold onto, and being able to suffer grace-
fully. So there is a lot to it. We should strive to perfect every
facet of our character. And by doing so you will make real
spiritual progress. It is one of the keys to developing powerful,
higher energy.
Some people have objected that character is just a moral
concept, and something theoretical, whereas what they are
interested in is getting real energy, which it has no bearing
on. But that’s just not true. There have long been philosoph-
ical debates in China about whether reality is fundamentally
something material, or mentally constructed. But ultimately,
I would say, material and mental phenomena are the same
in nature. Scientists have found that there are physical prop-
erties to the thoughts that take place in the brain. So this
means that thoughts materially exist, yet at the same time
they are certainly mental phenomena. This would suggest,
then, that the two are actually the same. It’s similar to what
I said about the universe: that it is something physical but
which has its own qualities. The qualities of zhen, shan, ren
that are imbued throughout all of creation aren’t perceptible
to the average person, who dwells on the plane of ordinary
existence. They only become perceptible to those who rise
above the ordinary. Let me explain. Every single thing that
makes up creation, wherever it may be in the universe, is alive
and has thinking, and whatever it does, no matter the level
that it exists at, is an embodiment of the Way of the universe.
And so you will not be able to progress to higher levels of exis-
tence, or attainment, if they do not agree to it. Their reason
would be that your character has not grown sufficiently. There
is a standard for each level of existence, and you must meet
it—by ridding yourself of bad thoughts and intentions and

29
whatever is unclean in you—if you are to go there.
With a change in character will come a significant change
in your body; physical changes in your body are guaranteed to
accompany positive changes in your mind. What will happen
is that the bad things that have led you to form attachments
will be cast away. To help you picture what happens, imagine
that there is a bottle filled with dirt and that’s capped tightly. If
the bottle is tossed into water it will sink to the bottom. But if
you pour out some of its dirt, and toss it into the water again,
it will float up this time; and the more that’s poured out, the
more it will float. Pour out all of it and the bottle will float all
the way up. And that is what we try to do in the process of spir-
itual refinement: to rid ourselves of all that is bad within us,
so that we may rise up. And it is the qualities of the universe
that act as the gatekeeper. If you don’t work on your charac-
ter, become a more moral person, and remove the bad mate-
rial and thoughts in you, then those qualities won’t let you
progress. I think you would have to agree, then, that mental
and material phenomena are the same. Here’s a funny sce-
nario to imagine, which makes the point. Just try to picture
what a mess it would be if a regular, average guy who was still
brimming with human desires and emotions were allowed to
go up and join the ranks of the divine. Upon beholding the
beauty of the angels he would probably start having indecent
thoughts. And because he would still be prone to jealousy, he
might make trouble for the divine beings there. It’s a scenario
that would absolutely never happen. And so a person must
rid himself of all bad thoughts and intents while he is still in
this world, before possibly being allowed to ascend.
What this means, then, is that you need to make a focus of
perfecting your character, ground your practice in the cosmic

30
qualities of zhen, shan, ren, and rid yourself of any worldly
desires, bad thoughts, or wrongful intents. Just by elevat-
ing your realm of thought ever so slightly, the bad things in
your body will have been purged to some degree. You also
must go through some painful things and experience a bit of
adversity in order to eliminate some of your karma. And by
doing so, your level of attainment will rise somewhat, for the
qualities of the universe will no longer be holding you back
as before. You put in the effort and your teacher will handle
the rest. What he will do is to provide you with a mechanism
for developing higher energy. The mechanism will then do
the work for you of transforming your virtue into a higher
energy around your body. And as you continue to progress
and elevate in your practice, the column of energy that you
have will continue developing upward to new heights. So
the task for you, as someone doing spiritual practice, is this:
to work on yourself spiritually; to perfect yourself as you go
through difficult things; and to constantly work to weed out
any attachments or wants that you have, all while a part of
this human world. Often what is considered good or desir-
able in this world is seen as bad at higher planes. Most people
think that the more that you gain materially in life through
trying, the better. But in the eyes of higher beings above, you
are worse off for it. In what sense? Your material abundance
may come at other people’s expense, and not all be rightfully
yours; and it might only make you more attached to worldly
things like status and wealth. And all of this would be at the
expense of your virtue. So you must make a focus of perfecting
your character if you want to earn the higher energy we seek.
People of faith have long believed that the soul is immor-
tal. The idea of “the soul” has met with suspicion in certain

31
circles of late, but consider the following. The insights of
physics have revealed that the body is made up of molecules,
protons, electrons, and at deeper levels, quarks, neutrinos,
and so on. At that point the body’s composition is beyond
the powers of microscopy to behold. And yet it is still far
removed from the plane that is the ultimate source of matter,
or of your life. You may be aware that it requires a powerful
collision or extraordinarily high heat to trigger nuclear change.
So do you think that when a person dies, the atomic nuclei
in his body would simply perish along with his death? And
this explains why we have found that when a person dies, it
is merely that his body at the molecular layer—the layer of
the largest particles in this dimension—has been shed. His
bodies in other dimensions have not in fact perished. Just
consider what the human body looks like under magnifi-
cation. Even if a person is just sitting still, all of his body is
found to be in motion. The cells of the molecular level are
moving, and all of the body seems to be loosely composed,
as if it were granular. So the body under magnification looks
nothing like what it seems to the naked eye. So our eyes play
tricks on us, in a sense, and don’t allow us to see the body or
physical things as they really are. The inner eye, however, can
see in a magnified way once it has opened. This is an innate
ability, even if it’s now thought of as an extrasensory power.
To gain powers like these you have to recover, via spiritual
practice, the purity you once had.
Let’s turn our attention to virtue now, and see how it’s
related to what we have been discussing so far. I’ll explain it
in some detail. Each individual has multiple bodies that exist
across many dimensions. The largest component of the body
that the eyes can see is the cell, and cells make up the physical

32
body. But if you were to enter into the space between cells and
molecules, or one molecule and another, you would experi-
ence what it’s like to enter another dimension. To go there,
however, your body would have to first meet the require-
ments for existence there. But the concepts we have here
wouldn’t enable you to understand the very different bodies
you saw there—bodies that can expand or shrink. And those
are unimaginably vast realms. But I am just describing one
simple form of parallel dimension, which exists in the same
place and at the same time as ours. A person has a different
body in each of various dimensions, and in one particular
dimension he has a body that is surrounded by a field filled
with virtue. Virtue is actually a white material, and not just
a moral or theoretical concept. It is very much physical. And
this would explain the old sayings in China about “accumu-
lating” or “losing” virtue. There was really something to them.
Virtue surrounds a person’s body and forms a field. And so
in the Daoist tradition the common practice is for masters to
seek out disciples, rather than vice versa, since they can see
how much virtue someone’s body has and what his spiritual
prospects thus are. Someone with much virtue would have
good prospects, while someone with little would not, and it
would be hard for him to develop higher energy.
At the same time, there is also a black form of matter on
the body, which we call karma, or which in Buddhism is
referred to as “the karma from evil deeds.” So both a white and
black matter exist at the same time. I’ll explain the dynamics
between the two. The white one, virtue, comes to us when we
suffer, are dealt a blow, or do something meritorious. While
the black one, karma, comes from doing evil or wrongful
things, or mistreating people. Nowadays some people will

33
do anything for their own gain, including all manner of evil.
People will stoop to just about anything for money, they even
commit murder or hire others to kill for them, and both
homosexuality and drug abuse are now common. All kinds of
things are now done. But doing wrong costs a person virtue.
I can explain. When a person speaks abusively to someone
he might think that he’s the better for it and has let out his
frustrations. But as the universe works, everything comes
at a cost. You can’t get something for nothing, and if you
don’t personally pay, you will be forced to. And by whom,
you ask? It will be enforced by the underlying qualities of the
universe. So you can’t get away with not paying, wish as you
may. Here’s what happens in a scenario like I was just describ-
ing. When one person speaks abusively to another, or pushes
someone around, he will give his virtue to the other party. It
is given to him as compensation, since he counts as the party
that’s been hurt or wronged in this circumstance, given that
he suffered to some degree and it was at his expense. So while
the one person is hurling abusive words in this dimension, in
another, a portion of his virtue is sent over from his expanse
to the other person and lands on his body. And the amount
of virtue sent over will be proportionate to the severity of the
abuse. The same happens with physical altercations as well.
If one person strikes or kicks someone else, his virtue will
go over to the other party according to the severity of it. The
average person can’t perceive the workings of all this. And
so he might be incensed by the abuse, and fight right back.
But if he punches back, he will be returning the virtue that
he had just been given, and as a result, neither one gains or
loses anything from it. But then suppose the second person
won’t feel avenged unless he lands one more punch in return.

34
Well, if he punches again, another portion of virtue will fly
over from his body to the other party.
To appreciate why we value virtue so much, just pause to
consider what becomes of it in spiritual development. There
is a longstanding religious belief that blessings will come to
the virtuous, in the next life if not in this. The blessings, for
the very virtuous, might take the form of a coveted position
of office, great wealth, or having their wishes in life fulfilled.
All of these would come to them by cashing in their virtue,
so to speak. Another belief is that a person who is devoid of
all virtue faces the extinction of both body and soul. It means
that his soul (yuan-shen) will be destroyed at the time of his
passing, and nothing of him will remain. For those of us
engaged in spiritual practice, however, virtue has a different
value: it can be remade straight into higher energy.
Let’s look more closely at how virtue is rendered into higher
energy. There is a saying in spiritual practice, that, “One only
needs to worry about putting in the effort of practice, and
the rest is in the hands of one’s teacher.” This contrasts with
the approaches that some take or consider important, such as
doing elaborate visualizations of alchemical processes within
the body. But I would say that those really aren’t what is
important, and in fact, they might become an attachment if
they occupy the mind too much. If it weighs heavily in your
thinking it would seem to be an attachment. So just put in
the effort needed and leave the rest to your teacher. The intent
that you have to develop higher energy and make progress
will suffice. It will be your teacher that does the real work,
and it will be beyond anything you could possibly do. There
is simply no way that you, with your ordinary body, could
possibly fashion for yourself a supernatural body made of

35
high-energy matter. Just the thought of it is humorous. The
processes involved in transforming one’s body in other dimen-
sions are highly mysterious and intricate, and by no means
something you could do yourself.
What your teacher will do is give you a mechanism that
develops higher energy. The true higher energy that you
develop will be born from virtue, which resides outside of
your body. So it is ultimately virtue that’s responsible for your
degree of spiritual attainment and spiritual power. The mech-
anism I just mentioned transforms your virtue into higher
energy, which grows upward in a spiraling manner. This
higher energy in fact determines your level, and it develops
on the outside of your body; it spirals around it, upward, until
it reaches the top of your head, where it forms into a column
of energy. Just by glancing at the column’s height one can see
how much higher energy a person has, and it indicates his
degree of spiritual attainment—or divine rank, in religious
terms. And this explains how it is that some people’s souls
can travel to certain heights as they meditate, but at a certain
point go no further, and wouldn’t venture to try. What allows
them to reach the heights that they do is that they are boosted
there by their energy column. And this explains why they
can’t climb further; they have reached their column’s limits.
So this sheds light on the religious concept of having “divine
standing.”
There is also a measuring stick that gauges one’s character.
This stick and the column I was just describing are not to be
found in the same dimension, though they exist concurrently.
Let’s look at what happens when you improve your character.
Suppose someone out in the world swears at you or berates
you, yet you manage not to say a word in reply, and keep calm.

36
Or suppose someone hits you, and you don’t say anything and
just shrug it off with a smile. In either event it would mean
that you have made progress with your character, which is
excellent now. Then what’s in store for you, as a practitioner?
You will get higher energy for it. The level of your energy will
rise in proportion to your character. It will always be capped
by your character, however, and there are no exceptions to
the rule. And this explains why some people, who were at
one time devout about whatever energy practice they did,
never had higher energy to show for it or were never freed
of illness. They might put in great efforts and do well at their
exercises wherever they did them, be it outdoors or at home,
but afterwards they would turn around and go back to their
ordinary ways, contending with people over worldly things.
So that’s why they never got the health benefits they hoped for
in spite of their sustained efforts. Energy exercises are meant
for spiritual development, which is something higher. They
aren’t just another routine form of fitness. And so character
has to feature prominently in one’s practice for there to be
any healing or higher energy.
There are some who believe that forming a concentrated
cluster of energy (dan) is a way of developing higher energy,
but it is not. As part of their practices, they do elaborate visu-
alizations of alchemical changes in their bodies to form this
energy cluster. But this cluster only contains a certain range
of energy from throughout the spectrum, and not all of it.
Let me put it into context. You’re now aware that our prac-
tice has a physical component to it, and this enables practi-
tioners to develop higher powers and many abilities in their
bodies. In all practices, the majority of powers like these will
be sealed up and not available to the person. As each of the

37
many, myriad powers develop in the practitioner they will
most likely be sealed up as they are formed. The purpose is to
prevent the person from using them freely out in the world
and impacting it, or rashly showing them off. Doing so would
disrupt the designs of this world. Many a person’s spiritual
journey depends on the exercise of faith, and it would be
a problem were a practitioner to start unveiling his powers
around others. Who wouldn’t believe or want to practice if
they saw such miraculous things. Even the most wicked of
people would get interested. All of which would be a problem.
So no one is allowed to display them. Another factor is that
people would be apt to misuse them if they had free rein
over them, since people can’t perceive the deeper causes or
karmic reasons behind things, or their core. What’s taken to
be a good deed could turn out to be the opposite. And with
any misuse of powers, a person’s level of attainment will fall,
undoing his spiritual efforts. So for this reason many powers
are sealed up and unavailable to the practitioner. Then what
becomes of the energy cluster? When the day arrives for the
person’s enlightenment and the freeing of his powers, the
cluster is used like a bomb. It is used to blast open all of the
powers in the person’s body that have been sealed up, as well
as its acupuncture points, for that is its purpose. Sometimes
when the bodies of deceased Buddhist monks are cremated,
they are found to have small, beaded, crystal-like relics known
as śarīra. Skeptics have tried to dismiss them as just being
bones or teeth. But that would just raise another question:
why aren’t these seen when others are cremated? What they
are, in fact, are the remnants of an energy cluster after it was
ruptured and its powerful energy released. The energy clus-
ter was every bit physical; it consisted of a large amount of

38
matter from other dimensions. But these don’t have any pur-
pose beyond what I’ve described. People now consider these
objects to be precious, and they do have energy, are luminous,
and hard. So this gives you a sense for what they are.
Then there is another reason why people might not get
the results, or higher energy, they expect from their practice:
they haven’t any higher teachings to guide them. Spiritual
progress isn’t possible when that is the case. To understand,
recall the analogy that I made earlier. I explained that learn-
ing a large variety of practices doesn’t do a person any good.
That’s because if all that someone learns are just basic things,
he will still be just a kid in terms of spiritual practice. Basic,
beginner teachings aren’t able to guide a person to higher
stages of spiritual practice. And as I said, if you try to go
through college by studying books from elementary school,
you won’t get a college education—no matter how many of
them you study. And it will only make things worse. The
Way offers different spiritual truths to guide you at different
levels, and these truths each govern practice in their respec-
tive realms. And so the insights of a lower plane can’t guide
you to higher ones. The insights we will be offering here are all
of what you need for spiritual practice of a higher order. I am
building into my instruction insights spanning many planes,
and so the teachings will always be able to guide your prac-
tice from here on out. I have several books as well as audio
and video recordings of my teachings. You will find that after
you finish them and return to them again, you will continue
to get new insights from them. I guarantee it. And they will
keep providing you with new insights and direction as you
keep progressing. That is the nature of a genuine spiritual
teaching. So now you know the two reasons why people might

39
not get results with their practice: one is that they can’t make
spiritual progress if they don’t have the higher guidance of
the Way; and the other is that they won’t get higher energy if
they don’t work on themselves or strive to perfect their char-
acter. These two reasons sum it up.

What Sets Falun Dafa Apart

Our practice of Falun Dafa is one of the eighty-four thousand
avenues to enlightenment spoken of in Buddhist thought.
And while it hasn’t been taught publicly during this cycle
of civilization, it was in a previous one, and was then a
widespread means of deliverance from this world. In these
final times I am making it public again and available to all,
so it is something to treasure. I have disclosed the means by
which virtue gets rendered straight into higher energy. And
now you know that this energy does not come from exercises,
but from spiritual development. Many people are looking to
build up this energy, but are focusing solely on energy exer-
cises to the neglect of the spirit. And yet higher energy is
always the product of working on your moral character. We
do, however, have a place for energy exercises in our practice,
and I’ll explain why. But first it’s worth considering why no
such exercises feature in the Buddhist monastic tradition. Its
monks mainly focus on meditation, recitation of scripture,
and working on the mind, and yet they do manage to develop
higher energy—a form of it that determines one’s level of
spiritual attainment. The reason they don’t make use of any
bodily exercises is that the Buddha taught his followers to
forsake all that is of this world, including even one’s own

40
body. Circumstances are very different in the Daoist tradition,
however, where they don’t aspire to benefit all of humankind,
[as Buddhists do]—and thus won’t find themselves in the
situation of having to deal with people from all walks of life
with all sorts of attitudes toward practice, different degrees
of spiritual understanding, and varying degrees of selfishness.
Daoists are selective about who they take on as students, and
it’s no surprise, for example, if only one of the three students
they select ever receives the true teaching. And so they are
assured that whoever is taught will be a good and virtuous
person, and not apt to run into trouble. Bodily practices
are thus used in Daoist practice, and feature prominently,
since they seek to extend one’s life and develop supernatural
powers, which requires this approach.
Falun Dafa is a practice of mind and body, and so there
is an exercise component to it. One purpose of the exercises
is to increase your spiritual power, which, in turn, serves to
strengthen the powers of your body. Another purpose is to
develop a number of supernatural beings in your body. And
this is what, at higher stages of practice, Daoists describe as
the “birth of the immortal infant” and Buddhists the “devel-
oping of an incorruptible body.” Many special powers are to
be developed in the body as well. Physical movements and
techniques are needed to develop all of these, and our exer-
cises serve this purpose. For a practice to really be considered
one of mind and body, there has to be both a spiritual and
a physical component to it. I think you’re now aware that the
kind of higher energy that decides your level of attainment is
ultimately not the product of exercises, but of spiritual devel-
opment. Your ascension to higher realms comes from work-
ing on your character while in this world and embodying the

41
qualities of the universe, such that they no longer hold you
back. Your virtue will be transformed into higher energy as
this happens, and this energy will only continue to grow as
you raise the bar for your moral character. So all of these go
together.
Ours is genuinely a practice for mind and body. The higher
energy that it develops will be stored in the cells throughout
your body, reaching all the way to your particles in the tiniest
and most invisible of realms where your physical existence
begins from. Your energy will increase in both density and
might as your spiritual power grows. It will be a high-energy
matter that is alive and that has its own intelligence. And
because it is stored in the cells of your body all the way down
to the starting point of your life, it will, over time, assume
the same shape and appearance as your cells and nuclei, with
the same molecular arrangement. So your cells will undergo
a change in substance; you will no longer be composed of
the same physical material as you once were. And so you will
transcend the five elements, naturally enough. Of course, that
doesn’t mean that your spiritual journey will be done. You
will still have further spiritual refinement to undergo while
a part of this world. So your appearance will still be normal.
The only difference will be that you look young for your age.
For all of this to happen, however, your body first needs to be
cleansed of the bad things it contains, including any diseases.
We will not be healing you though, but rather, cleansing your
body. We avoid using the word “healing” and simply refer
to it as “cleansing.” This is something we do for whoever is
sincere about our practice. It’s not done for those who come
just for healing. People with serious medical conditions are
not allowed to enroll in our classes, because their minds are

42
going to be occupied with thoughts of getting healed; they
won’t be able to let it go, understandably, since their condi-
tion is serious and causing them pain. That makes it very
hard to engage in spiritual practice. And so we have always
maintained a strict policy that the seriously ill may not take
our classes. Our classes are about spiritual practice, which
is something far from their minds. They might be able to
find others who will heal them, but that’s not our approach.
That said, there are many people with normal ailments who
are sincere about learning our practice, and we can cleanse
their bodies.
After practicing Falun Dafa for some time, the changes
in your appearance might be dramatic. Common ones
include the skin becoming soft and fair, with a rosy glow,
and a lessening of wrinkles—sometimes quite dramatic—
among those who are older. And I’m not making outland-
ish claims, as many who are seated here and who have been
practicing a while will attest to. Another change that will
happen is that older women will have their menstrual period
return, since there is an essential energy involved in this blood
that’s needed in mind-body practice. So while their period
will start up again, it won’t be heavy; it will be just enough
to serve the purpose for this stage of practice. And this too
is common, since the development of your body would be
impeded without it. Meanwhile men, both young and old, will
experience changes as well, such as a feeling that your entire
body is becoming lighter. The changes that I’ve described will
come to you if you are sincere in your practice.
Our practice is based on something big—something simply
enormous, in fact. This contrasts with the many practices
that base their exercises on the movements of wild animals.

43
The teachings given by the Buddha and the Daoist sage
Lao-tzu were informed by the workings of the Milky Way.
But the practice of Falun Dafa is informed by the processes
that underlie transformation throughout the universe, and it
is based on its highest expression: the qualities of zhen, shan,
ren. And it is this standard that guides us in practice. So the
scale of our practice is so big, you could call it cosmic.
Then there is another feature of Falun Dafa that’s incredibly
unique and that truly sets it apart. All of the energy practices
currently in this world and that are available to the public take
the approach of developing an energy cluster, like I described.
But with that approach it’s awfully difficult for someone to
achieve enlightenment and the realization of his powers while
still part of the secular world. We take a different approach
in Falun Dafa. In our practice you develop a falun* at the
position of your lower abdomen, and I personally bestow it
during our classes. As I teach the practice we systematically
provide it to each of you, whether you can sense it or not. Most
people can, but the qualities of people’s bodies vary. So our
practice develops the falun, not an energy cluster. The falun
is essentially a miniature universe and is capable of all that
the universe is, and so it can turn automatically of its own
accord. It will forever turn in the area of your lower abdomen,
once provided to you, and continue to do so without ceasing,
year in and year out. When it turns clockwise it automati-
cally draws in energy from the universe, transforms it for you,
and delivers it to whatever parts of your body may need this
energy for development. When it reverses direction (turning
counterclockwise), it sends out whatever matter is no longer
needed by your body, in the form of energy, which disperses
once it has been sent far away from you. New energy is then

44
taken in again, thereafter. And I should add that the energy
sent out will be of benefit to whomever is nearby you. This is
in keeping with the Buddhist belief in helping all of human-
ity, in saving all life—not just oneself. And so others might
benefit in any of various ways, such as by having their bodies
put into balance or healed, even though you didn’t intend it.
But you won’t be losing energy when it’s sent out. New energy
will be brought in again when the falun turns clockwise. And
this is sure to happen, since it turns perpetually.
Some people find it hard to imagine how the falun could
manage to turn, or keep doing so. It’s hard for them to make
sense of, even though they might be accustomed to the
idea that energy can be condensed into a cluster, as in other
practices. A parallel might help to explain it. The universe is
moving, as are all of the Milky Ways and galaxies; the nine
planets of our solar system are orbiting the sun; and the earth
itself is constantly rotating. But you wouldn’t be able to make
sense of how they move or what drives them if you were to try
to do so with the common logic of our world. There is simply
a mechanism at work behind it. The same holds true for our
falun. It simply turns. And by doing so, it extends the time
that your practice sessions go for and resolves the challenge of
finding enough time to practice while still living a normal life.
How so? By turning constantly, it allows you to continually
be drawing in energy from the universe and transforming it.
So when you go off to work, for example, it will be doing the
work of practicing on your behalf. And this is true not only
for the falun, of course, but also for the many mechanisms
and capabilities that we provide to your body, which will
be automatically operating and moving in connection with
the falun. So this is a practice that automatically transforms

45
you, leading us to say that “the mechanisms are practicing
for you,” and that “the Way is working on your behalf.” Even
when you aren’t doing the exercises, the mechanisms will
be working on you, just as when you are doing the exercises.
And these mechanisms will be working to transform your
body even as you are eating, sleeping, or doing your job. This
might lead you to wonder what need there is for doing them,
then. Doing them serves to strengthen the falun as well as the
many capabilities and mechanisms that I give you. And this
is characteristic of spiritual practice at higher stages, which is
done without active intent; you needn’t direct or will things
with your mind, or via breathing techniques, and the phys-
ical movements that you do will simply be following along
with the mechanisms that are in place.
In our practice you also don’t need to worry about the
time or location that you do the exercises at. I am sometimes
asked what phase of the day is optimal for doing them—such
as late night, early morning, or midday. The phases of the day
don’t matter in our practice. The mechanisms you have will
always be at work, practicing on your behalf, whether it’s at
night or in the morning, and no matter whether you are sleep-
ing, walking somewhere, or at work. So this greatly cuts down
on the time you need to spend exercising, as you’d imagine.
Many people come to our practice with a sincere wish to
gain enlightenment, and that’s of course the goal of spiritual
practice—to ultimately become enlightened, or divine. But
some of these individuals might be faced with a challenge,
which is, that there aren’t many years left in their lives, and so
normally they might not have sufficient time to achieve that
goal. Falun Dafa can solve this issue by shortening the course
of spiritual practice for them. And along with that, ours is

46
 a practice of mind and body, and so a person’s life will be pro-
longed as he or she continues to practice. This means there
should be enough time for those who are older and who have
good innate foundations. But there’s one condition, in this
scenario: the days that you may gain beyond those originally
allotted to you, are only provided so that you may continue to
practice. And so you may be at risk if your thinking gets off
track, for your life was supposed to have already ended. The
exception to this rule is when someone progresses in prac-
tice to the stage where he is no longer subject to the laws of
the human realm, which is a different matter.
You also don’t need to concern yourself with things like
which direction you face while doing the exercises or how to
“close” each session, as in other practices. That’s because our
falun turns constantly and never needs to be “closed.” In our
practice you can stop abruptly if you need to, as when you have
to take a phone call or answer the door. That’s because when
you switch gears like that, the falun will promptly respond
by turning clockwise and drawing back in any energy that
may have been scattered around your body at the moment.
By contrast, in other practices that involve things like direct-
ing energy into the crown of the head, the energy would be
lost if you stopped abruptly, no matter how long your ses-
sion had gone for. The difference is that the falun has its own
intelligence and will know what needs to be done. Facing in
certain directions isn’t a concern for us, meanwhile, because
our practice is attuned to the workings of the greater uni-
verse. Even if you wanted to pinpoint north, south, east, or
west, you couldn’t with the scale we are working at, since all
of the universe is in motion, the Milky Way is in motion, the
planets of the solar system are orbiting the Sun, and Earth

47
itself is revolving. So whichever way you face as you exer-
cise amounts to facing every way, to all four of the cardinal
directions at once. Another feature of Falun Dafa is that our
students will be protected. This takes some explaining. The
falun will protect those who genuinely do our practice. My
roots are planted in this universe, and so someone would
have to be able to harm me in order to harm you, which
means that they would have to have the power to harm this
universe. Don’t worry if this sounds a bit far out. It will make
sense later on as you come to understand the practice better.
I could say more, but I don’t want to divulge things that are
too advanced for you right now. What we will do is to system-
atically explain the higher insights of the Way to you, going
from the simple to the profound. But things might not work
out well for you if something isn’t right on your part, and you
have other agendas mixed in. I’ve seen many students who
have practiced for a while but who now have deformed falun.
But how could that be? They have added things in from other
practices, which they like. The falun didn’t protect them from
those things since it had been given to them and was theirs,
and so it heeded their will. It’s a principle in this universe
that you are the one who decides what you want. So if you
don’t really want to practice, nobody is going to force you to;
it would be wrong to, in fact. Nobody can force someone to
have a change of heart, after all. You are the one who sets the
bar for yourself. When you start “drawing on the strengths”
of other practices, and learning all sorts of things from others,
it’s usually driven by a wish to get healed. But it never works
out in the end. At most it will only serve to postpone your
condition. With advanced practice you have to commit to one
discipline and devote your heart to it. It’s only acceptable for

48
you to learn something else after you have gained enlighten-
ment and all possible powers in one practice, as you would be
dealing with a whole new system then. Any authentic spiri-
tual practice will have been carefully passed down over many
centuries, and the means by which it transforms one’s body
will be highly complex. And so it’s foolish to think that you
could combine sophisticated practices like these and figure
out something new just going by what feels right to you. The
real changes that one’s body goes through in spiritual practice
take place in other dimensions, and are exceptionally intri-
cate and profound, with no margin for error. The processes
are no less exacting than assembling a precision instrument,
where adding even just one wrong component would result
in a breakdown. With our practice your bodies in multi-
ple dimensions are undergoing changes, and it’s incredibly
profound, and here too there is no margin for error. What
I said earlier applies here as well: you only need to do your
part practicing, and your teacher will handle the rest. If you
freely add in other people’s things, the energies they carry
will disrupt our practice’s workings, you will be heading off
course, and the problems that result will manifest themselves
in your regular life and be similar to the kinds of problems
that non-practitioners have. But as I said, you are the one who
decides what you want. If that is what you want, then I can
only say there’s a problem with your judgment. Whatever you
add into the practice will foul up the mechanisms I gave you
and ruin your spiritual prospects. But I have never said that
anyone has to practice Falun Dafa. I’m not opposed to your
learning some other, true practice if you don’t do Falun Dafa.
But I would just remind you that you must commit to one
practice if you want to ever make significant spiritual progress

49
and reach a higher realm. And there’s something else I should
share. Currently there is nobody else offering instruction like
this that truly brings people to greater spiritual heights. You
will one day realize what I am doing. So I hope that you make
the right choice. Many people have longed to become better,
more spiritual people, and to go to a higher place. I am now
laying this out right before you, offering what I have—only
you might not realize it. You could spend a fortune traveling
the world to study under spiritual mentors far and wide but
never find something like this. And today I am delivering it
right to your door. I just hope you can realize what this is!
Ultimately, whether you can be saved from this world is up
to you, and it begins with your discernment.

50
 the
second talk

The Inner Eye*

the inner eye (tian-mu) is something that many spiritual
teachers have spoken of. However, it should be remembered
that the Way reveals itself according to each person’s level of
spiritual attainment. And so any individual will only be able
to see things that correspond to his stage of progress; higher
realities will neither be visible to him nor believable. And so
he may think that what he sees, at his level, is absolutely true.
And until he has reached higher realms himself, through
practice, it will be hard for him to imagine that still higher
things exist or are possible. So his level of attainment acts as
a limiting factor, as it limits his realm of thought. And this
accounts for why there are such widely divergent explanations
of the inner eye, which makes things confusing. And so far
nobody has explained it very well. This shouldn’t be surpris-
ing, though, because the inner eye isn’t something that can
be explained well by those at a low stage of attainment. The

51
structure of the inner eye used to be considered the secret
of secrets and not something to disclose to the uninitiated,
so little has been revealed about it throughout history. I am
not going to go into past ideas about it, but instead, will use
modern science and the simplest, current language possible
to explain it. I will get to the heart of it.
When we use the term “inner eye,” we are actually refer-
ring to the spot a little bit higher than the midpoint between
your eyebrows, which is connected to your pineal gland. This
is its main channel. There are many eyes throughout the body,
and in Daoist thought it’s believed that each aperture of the
body can be an eye. Daoists call the acupuncture points of the
body apertures, while in Chinese medicine they’re called acu-
puncture points, or “acupoints” for short. Buddhist thought
holds that each pore of the skin can be an eye. And this would
help explain why there have been people who could decipher
words with their ears, hands, the back of the head, or even
their feet or stomachs. All of these are possible.
Before going into the inner eye further, let’s first talk about
the pair of physical eyes that we as humans have. Nowadays
there are people who believe that their eyes can see all that
there is to this objective, material world. And so some people
stubbornly believe that only what the naked eye can see is
real. They don’t believe in the unseen. People like this used to
be regarded as “having little faith,” though now people might
have a hard time explaining exactly what faith has to do with
it. After all, it sounds sensible enough—not believing in the
invisible. But it doesn’t seem very sensible to the beings at
even just the next higher plane of existence. Other worlds of
existence are just as material and real as this one, only their
physical makeup and how lives appear there are different.

52
 Let me illustrate it. Spiritual traditions have taught that
the phenomena of the human world are illusory, or not real.
But how so, one might wonder? Who would say that a solid
object right in front of you is not real? The way that objects
appear is different from how they actually are. But our eyes
have the ability to stabilize the appearance of objects in this
dimension so that they look as they do. But that isn’t in fact
their true state, not even in this dimension. For example, what
would a person look like under magnification? The whole
body would seem loosely comprised, with molecules moving
all about that are small and round, like grains of sand. Elec-
trons would be orbiting around atomic nuclei and in motion,
with the entire body pulsing and moving. And the surface
of the body would be irregular, not smooth. The same holds
true for any object in the universe—even iron, steel, and stone.
The molecules that make up all things are moving, only you
can’t see the full picture. Nothing is in fact static. Even this
table before me is moving, only our eyes can’t perceive the
reality of it. Our eyes can mislead us.
It’s not that we cannot see what is invisible, that we are
incapable of it. We have an innate ability to perceive realms
invisible to the naked eye, up to a certain point. But precisely
because of our eyes from this physical dimension, we are given
a false picture of reality and unable to see beyond. And so,
traditionally, it’s been said that those who don’t believe in the
invisible have, as religious believers put it, “little faith”—for
they have been misled by the false appearances of this world
and become lost here. People of faith have long seen it this
way, and it makes sense from our perspective.
Yet these eyes serve to do little more than stabilize the
things in this physical dimension so that they appear as they

53
do. The images that we see don’t actually take shape in our
eyes. Rather, our eyes are just like a piece of equipment, similar
to a camera lens. When a camera is used to capture a distant
image, the lens will extend, just as our eyes will adjust for
distances; or our pupils will dilate under dark conditions,
similar to how the aperture of a camera expands in poor
lighting to ensure adequate exposure. And conversely, our
pupils shrink when we walk outside into bright light so that
we won’t experience a blinding glare. And the principle is
the same for a camera, as the aperture has to similarly con-
tract when flooded with light. So a camera merely captures
the image of an object. It’s just a tool. When we see the form
of a person or an object, it is actually in the brain that the
image takes shape. The image merely enters through the eyes
and then is relayed by the optic nerve to the pineal gland, in
the rear part of the brain. And it is in this area that it is ren-
dered into an image. This suggests that when an image is
rendered and we see something, it actually happens in the
region of the pineal gland. Modern medical science has also
come to realize this.
We believe that opening the inner eye is a matter of bypass-
ing the optic nerve and opening up a channel between the
eyebrows that allows the pineal gland to see outward directly.
Some people may think this isn’t realistic, and will object that
the physical eyes play an important role, since they capture
the images of things, and we couldn’t get by without them.
But the medical sciences have discovered through dissection
that the frontal portion of the pineal gland has the full struc-
ture of the human eye. They take it to be a vestigial eye since
it grows inside the skull. Those of us engaged in spiritual
practice may have reservations about that interpretation, but,

54
whatever the case, the sciences have come to understand that
in the center of the cranium there is an eye. The channel that
we open goes precisely to that location. So this is anatomi-
cally consistent. And this eye won’t present you with a false
picture of reality, as our normal eyes do. It can see past the
appearances of things and affairs to perceive them as they
really are. Someone whose inner eye has opened at a high
level can see beyond this dimension into other space-times,
and perceive what is invisible to ordinary people. And if the
eye is at a level not that high, it may still have powers like the
ability to see through walls and into the body.
Buddhist thought holds that there are five levels of mastery
in this regard, namely, mastery of the naked eye, the celes-
tial eye, the wisdom eye, the dharma eye, and the divine eye.
These are the five major levels of the inner eye, and each is
additionally divided into upper, middle, and lower levels. In
Daoist thought there are nine times nine, or eighty-one, levels
of spiritual vision. While we will open the inner eye for all
of you here, we won’t open it to the plane of celestial eye or
below. The reason is, though you have begun spiritual refine-
ment as you sit here, you have only just begun to leave your
ordinary self behind, and still have many worldly attachments
to let go. Were your eye to be opened at the level of celestial
eye or below, you would have what are commonly known as
psychic powers and would be able to see through walls or see
inside people’s bodies. It would seriously disrupt this world
and its ways if we were to impart such powers on a large scale,
opening the eye like that for everyone. State secrets might
be at risk; clothes would do little to cover people; you could
observe people inside their own homes from outside their
walls; and you could spot the winning ticket in any prize

55
 drawing. These things would really be a problem. It would
change the face of this world if everyone were to enjoy celes-
tial vision, wouldn’t it? Anything that seriously disrupts the
human world is strictly prohibited, however. Were I to indeed
open your eye like that, you might turn right into a chi-gong
“master”—something that you might have once longed for.
And with your open inner eye you would now be in perfect
position to do healings. I would be leading you down the
road to ruin, in that case.
Then to what level will I open the eye for you? Straight to
the level of wisdom eye. Were it opened higher, your charac-
ter wouldn’t suffice; were it opened lower, it might severely
impact the way of the world. But by opening it to wisdom
eye there is no risk of your seeing through walls or into peo-
ple’s bodies, since it hasn’t that capacity. You will be able to
see things in other dimensions, however. The benefit of this
is that it can strengthen your faith in the practice. You will
actually be seeing things that are invisible to others, and will
be able to sense that they are real. So whether you have clear
visions or not, your eye is being opened to the wisdom level,
to the benefit of your spiritual development. Those who are
sincere in their practice of Dafa and strict about bettering
their character will experience what I’ve described by read-
ing this book.
So what determines the level of someone’s inner eye nor-
mally? Not everything becomes visible to the inner eye once
it is opened. Rather, it depends on what the eye’s level is.
Three factors determine this. The first factor is what we refer
to as an essential energy. This energy fills the range of space
spanning from the inside of the inner eye to the outside, and
it is needed for the eye to see. Its function is similar to that

56
of the screen in a television set: the screen, which has phos-
phors on it, is what allows the television to display images;
without it the television would amount to little more than
a light bulb. It is the phosphors that make pictures possible.
The analogy isn’t perfect, of course. We see things directly,
while the images on a television are mediated by a screen.
You can get the general idea, though. The essential energy
I’m describing is exceptionally valuable, as it is refined from
virtue and something of utmost quality. Most everyone has
a different amount of it; only two out of every ten thousand
people might have equal amounts of it.
The level of your inner eye is a direct result of the workings
of the Way. It has a spiritual dimension to it and is closely
connected to one’s character. Someone of poorer character
will have a lower level of inner eye. That’s because his poor
character will have cost him more of his essential energy. By
contrast, someone of excellent character will go through life
without getting caught up in worldly things like status and
money, interpersonal disputes, self-interest, or feelings and
desires, and so his essential energy is likely to have been pre-
served better. So once his inner eye is opened he will see with
greater clarity. Children who are six or younger have lucid
visions after their eyes are opened, which is easily done. One
sentence is all it takes.
The human world has a strong corrupting influence on
people, and its powerful currents are hard to resist. Under
its sway, people often confuse right and wrong. It’s natural
to want to have a good life, but that tendency can lead one
to deprive others or become more selfish; and one might
gain at other people’s expense, take advantage of them, or
harm them. But vying and fighting for one’s own gain surely

57
goes against the nature of the universe. So, what people con-
sider right isn’t necessarily right. Parents often teach their
kids to “be a little smarter” so that they will make it in life,
in a worldly sense. But being “smart” like that is wrong in
view of the universe. We believe in letting things take their
course and worrying little about how things will turn out for
us, whereas someone who has learned to really be clever will
always try to come out on top. He might have been taught
[to not let things go, and] that if any kid crosses him, to “get
them in trouble” with teachers or parents, and to “pocket any
money” he sees lying around. And the more he learns such
things growing up, the more selfish he becomes in life. And
his mistreatment of people will cost him virtue.
When virtue, which is physical, is lost, it doesn’t simply
dissolve. It undergoes a transformation and is given to the
party that was wronged; one’s essential energy, however, does
dissolve in such cases. Someone who is cunning from his child-
hood up into adulthood, and is very selfish and always puts
himself first, will usually find that his inner eye doesn’t work,
or work well, after it is opened. But that doesn’t mean it will
never work. That’s because we seek to return to our original
state of purity through spiritual practice, and the essential
energy will be constantly replenished and restored for us as
we keep practicing. So your character is vital to all of this, and
we stress that your entire person must improve and elevate. As
your character is perfected, all things will improve in kind. But
if your character doesn’t change for the better, your essential
energy, which powers your inner eye, won’t be replenished.
You should be able to see the connection now.
There is also a second factor to explore. Some people might
find, if their innate foundation is good, that their eye opens

58
when they are practicing, even if on their own. It’s often fright-
ening when the inner eye first opens. The reason is, people
usually choose to meditate or do energy exercises late at night,
when all is still. They will be practicing away when suddenly
a large eye appears before them, out of nowhere, giving them
a scare. It’s frightening enough that it scares them away from
practicing again. It’s incredibly unsettling—such a large eye,
blinking and looking at them, and all of it so vivid. This has
led to its being called by some “the Devil’s eye,” though others
call it “the Divine eye.” But this eye, in fact, belongs to you.
Remember that one only needs to worry about putting in
the effort of spiritual practice, and the rest is in the hands
of one’s teacher. The elaborate process of developing higher
energy for a practitioner all takes place in other dimensions.
And not just in one dimension, but in all dimensions asso-
ciated with the person; his body will be undergoing changes
in each. That’s obviously not something you could do. These
things are in the hands of one’s teacher; it is he who does
them. And this is why it’s said that one only needs to focus
on practicing and one’s teacher will handle the rest. It is actu-
ally he who handles things, whatever you might hope or try
to accomplish.
So some people experience the opening of the inner eye
while practicing on their own. While we do consider it to be
an eye that belongs to them, it’s not something a person can
develop himself. What happens is that a person’s teacher, for
those who have one, will develop for them something called
a “true eye” once he sees that their inner eye is open. Or in
other cases, as you might imagine, the person may not have
a permanent master but one in passing. There is a religious
belief that higher beings are so abundant as to be omnipresent,

59
or everywhere. It has also been thought that spirits are so
numerous as to be right beside you. So a passing-by master
might take an interest in someone after seeing that he has
practiced well and has an open inner eye, but just lacks a true
eye. And so a true eye gained in this fashion does count as
a result of the person’s own practice. Beings like these are far
superior to any worldly role models or heroes, for they are
motivated solely by compassion and a wish to save people from
this world; so they give of themselves freely, without terms,
and have no thought of being rewarded or recognized for it.
The first time someone’s inner eye opens, his human eyes
may be overwhelmed by light and bothered by it. Yet it’s not
the eyes that are finding it harsh, but the pineal gland. It
only feels as though it’s the eyes that are bothered. This hap-
pens when the person doesn’t yet have the true eye; the eyes
won’t be bothered by light once the true eye has been bestowed.
A portion of us will be able to sense or see the true eye. Its
nature is the same as the universe’s, and so it is innocent and
inquisitive, and will look inward to see whether your inner
eye has opened and can be used to see. It will stare inward at
you. If your inner eye has opened, you might unexpectedly
catch sight of the true eye staring at you, and be startled by
it. But it is actually a part of you now. And it will be this eye
that enables you to see into other realms thereafter. Without
it you would have no visions, even with an opened inner eye.
Then there is a third factor, which really makes a difference
in which level your inner eye is working at; namely, the
changes that take place in you across dimensions as you prog-
ress in spiritual attainment. When people see through their
inner eye, they make use of not only a primary passageway,
but also many sub-passageways. Buddhist thought holds that

60
each pore of the body can be an eye, just as Daoist thought
believes that each aperture, or acupuncture point, of the body
can be an eye. What they mean is that this is possible with
a kind of altered bodily state brought about by the Way, where
one can see from anywhere in the body.
But we hold that there is still more to the inner eye’s level.
There are also several major sub-passageways in addition to
the main passageway I mentioned, and these are above the
eyebrows, above and below the eyelids, and at the Mountain
Root acupoint at the bridge of the nose. Breakthroughs in
inner eye level are a matter of whether these passageways
can be used. For a regular believer to be able to make use of
these passageways is quite an achievement, of course. There
are people who can use even their naked eyes to see realms
beyond this one, after having developed various powers in
them via spiritual practice. But if these powers aren’t utilized
skillfully, the person will only see objects in one dimension
but not in others, or only in other dimensions but not in ours,
which isn’t ideal. And so some people will be using one eye
for this dimension and the other eye for a dimension beyond
this one. Now, this eye (the right eye) doesn’t have a sub-
passageway beneath it, for reasons directly related to the Way:
people tend to use the right eye for doing wrongful things.
My remarks so far are about the main sub-passageways that
people develop while at a point in their practice where they
are still subject to the laws of the human realm.
At a highly advanced stage of practice, where one has gone
beyond the human realm, a person can also develop a type
of eye that resembles a compound eye. A large eye that spans
the top half of the face can develop, with countless smaller
eyes within it. And some divine ones who have reached very

61
high planes have developed so many eyes that they are all
throughout their faces. All of these eyes will see via the one,
larger eye, and anything that is willed can be seen; all planes
of existence can be seen with one look through this eye. The
zoologists and entomologists who research flies have found,
through microscopy, that flies have large eyes that are made
up of countless smaller ones. And these are referred to as
compound eyes. Something like this may come about when
someone achieves an extremely high level of spiritual attain-
ment, but it must be a level far surpassing that of tathagata.
Regular people won’t be able to see these eyes, however, and
nor will the typical practitioner be able to. Everything here
will appear as normal, for the eyes are in another dimension.
This should offer a sense for what happens when higher levels,
or other dimensions, are broken through to.
For the most part I have explained the structure of the
inner eye for you. We use an external force to open your inner
eye, so it happens rather quickly and easily. Each of you should
feel a tightening at your forehead as I explain the inner eye,
as if the flesh there were pinching together and burrowing
inward. You are sure to feel it. Each of you will sense it as long
as you can really set your attachments aside and learn Falun
Dafa. And the force that you will feel pushing inward should
be strong. We are sending out an energy meant specifically to
open your inner eye, and it is doing just that, while we also
send out falun to repair it. While I teach about the inner eye
we will open it for each of you, as long as you are practicing
Falun Dafa. Not everyone will necessarily have clear visions,
if any at all. This owes to things on your part. You needn’t be
anxious, though. It’s not a big issue if you can’t see right now;
it will gradually come with spiritual refinement. Visions will

62
gradually come to you as you steadily progress, and they will
evolve from being hazy to clear. As long as you go about the
practice with a sincere commitment, all of what you may
have lost before will be replenished.
It’s rather challenging for a person to open the inner eye
on his own, by contrast. Let’s talk about the ways that it hap-
pens. One way involves gazing at the forehead, where the
inner eye is, while meditating. At first the forehead will be
dark for someone who does this, with nothing there. With
time, however, the color will gradually become less dark. And
as more time goes into the practice, the forehead gradually
brightens until ultimately it takes on a red glow. At this time
it will seem as if the forehead is blossoming, with a scene sim-
ilar to how flower buds open almost instantly in nature films.
The red part of the forehead, which originally appeared flat,
will bulge suddenly in the center and bloom, again and again.
If a person tries to work through this process all on his own,
even eight or ten years might not be enough, for his entire
inner eye would have started out being completely blocked up.
Some people’s inner eyes are not completely blocked and
the person has an open passageway, but no energy is pres-
ent there since they haven’t ever done spiritual exercises. So
when they first start, something dark and round will sud-
denly appear before their eyes. With continued practice, it
will gradually turn white, and grow progressively brighter, to
the point that the eyes might be bothered by it. Some people
may think that they’ve seen the sun or the moon. But what
they saw was neither, in fact; it was actually their own pas-
sageway. Some individuals can see other realms as soon as
they are given a true eye, as they make quick breakthroughs
to new levels. But for others, seeing may prove to be difficult.

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As they move through the passageway they find that it’s like
a tunnel, or perhaps a well, which they rush outward through
whenever they do their exercises, or even as they sleep. The
experience varies from person to person, and it could seem
like anything from riding a horse to flying, running, or speed-
ing along in a vehicle. But it will always seem as if the end
can’t be reached. That owes to the fact that it’s really hard
to open the inner eye on one’s own. Daoist thought [can
help shed light on this, as it] considers the human body to
be a micro universe, and if the body really is like that, then
we can just imagine how far of a distance it would be from
the forehead to the pineal gland. That would explain why
some people feel as if they are always rushing forward along
a passageway but never reaching the end.
The Daoist idea that the human body is a miniature universe
is quite sound. The concept isn’t that the body’s composition
and structure are like those of the universe; it’s not about the
body in this physical dimension. To understand it, we should
consider what the sciences now know the body to be like at
a level beneath cells. They have found that there are a variety
of molecules there, and smaller than molecules are atoms, pro-
tons, atomic nuclei, electrons, quarks, and neutrinos—with
the latter being the smallest particles researched so far. But
what is the smallest particle, ultimately? It’s really not some-
thing research can answer. The Buddha once remarked in
his later years that the universe is both “infinitely large and
infinitely small.” This suggests that even to a divine being
such as he, the universe is at once so large that its perimeter
can’t be seen, and so small that its tiniest particles can’t be
made out. And this would be what led to his statement.
The Buddha described the vastness of the universe through

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his teaching about multiple worlds. He explained that within
the Milky Way galaxy of this universe there exist three thou-
sand planets with beings who have carnal bodies similar to
ours, and that even in a single grain of sand there exist a great
many worlds. This would mean that a grain of sand is like
a universe, with intelligent beings like man and worlds like
ours, with mountains and rivers. This might sound rather far-
fetched, I realize. But assuming it’s valid, you would expect
to find sand once again in those smaller worlds, and then
inside of it you would again expect to find still more worlds.
And then in those worlds you would again expect to find
sand, inside of which there would again be multiple worlds.
It appeared endless even to the Buddha, with his level of
spiritual attainment.
What was said about sand could also be said of people’s
cells and their molecules. People wonder how large the uni-
verse is. I can tell you that this universe does have a boundary,
though to a being at the Buddha’s level it would seem to go on
forever, and be incomparably large. Although it may be hard
to fathom, the interior of the human body, which spans from
the molecular level to that of the tiniest of invisible particles
that make up the body, is in fact equal to the universe in size.
At the time of a person’s, or any life’s, creation, a composition
unique to his being and his innate qualities will be formed
in the most micro of realms. These sorts of things are well
beyond the reach of modern science—a science which pales
in comparison to that of the advanced life forms found on
planets throughout the universe. Our science can’t even break
through to other dimensions that exist at the same time and
place as us, while the spacecraft of other planets can read-
ily travel through different dimensions. Space and time are

65
altogether different there from how we know them, and so
those entities can come and go instantly—so fast that it’s hard
for people to believe.
I am talking about this in conjunction with the inner eye
because you might have had the sense, as you were rushing
outward down your own passageway, that it stretched on
forever. Some of you might have seen something different.
You might have had the impression that you were not going
down a tunnel but instead a road that is broad and never-
ending, with mountains, waters, and cityscapes off to the
sides. It sounds hard to imagine, I realize. The words of one
master come to mind: that within just a single pore of your
body a city may be found, with trains and vehicles moving
about. Some people who heard this were taken aback, as it
didn’t seem very believable to them. But consider this: what
if research were to go further than just studying particles like
molecules, atoms, and protons, and to reveal for us the plane
of each such level, and not just any isolated particle—if we
could see the plane of the molecular level, the atomic level,
the proton level, and the atomic nucleus level—we would
see how things really are in other dimensions. Any physical
thing, including our bodies, exists in parallel to, and in con-
nection with, various planes of other dimensions in the uni-
verse. The research done in modern particle physics merely
studies particles in isolation by splitting them through fis-
sion, after which it looks to see what matter results from the
breaking of the nucleus. If instead there were an instrument
that could reveal to us all that exists at the plane of atoms
or molecules, and give the entire picture, it would represent
a breakthrough to another dimension, and we would be seeing
the reality of that world. People’s bodies correspond to other
dimensions, which are like I just described.

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 There are other things that might be experienced when
a person opens the inner eye on his own. So far I’ve been dis-
cussing the fairly common ones. It’s less common for people
to see that their inner eye is turning, but it does happen. This
is most frequent in Daoist energy practices, where there is
a tai-chi disc that has to be split open before the adherent
can see things. But it’s not that the person had a tai-chi in
his head. Rather, it was that his master, right at the outset,
installed things for him that would make his practice possi-
ble, one of which was the tai-chi. His master would seal up
his inner eye using the tai-chi. Then, when the time came for
the inner eye to open, the tai-chi disc would be split apart.
So, having it was part of his master’s designs for him, and it
was not something originally in his head.
There is also a small segment of people who want to open
their inner eye, but who only make it less likely the more they
try. Yet they aren’t aware of what is happening. It doesn’t work
out mainly because the inner eye isn’t something you should
yearn for, and doing so will only make it less likely to open.
Your inner eye won’t open if you long to have it. Instead,
a certain greyish material will ooze out of the inner eye and
cover it. And if it goes on for long, more and more of this
material will leak out, covering a large area. And if you keep
wanting the inner eye, even as it fails to open, more of this
material will leak out, such that it might encase your entire
body. It could even become dense and have a large presence to
it. Even if you were to open your inner eye at that point, you
still wouldn’t be able to see anything, since your eye would
have become sealed up as a result of your attachment. That
material will only start to break up and dissolve once you stop
thinking about the inner eye and get rid of the attachment

67
entirely. But you will have to go through a long and painful
phase of practice to remove that material—a situation that
never should have come about in the first place. Some people
don’t realize any of this, though, and they repeatedly ignore
warnings from their master to stop trying for the inner eye,
and end up with the opposite of what they hoped for.

The Power of Clairvoyance

One extrasensory power that’s directly connected with the
inner eye is clairvoyance. There is a person who has claimed
that while seated in one location he could perceive things in
Beijing, the United States, or on the other side of the world.
It’s hard for people to know what to make of such claims, since
there’s no science to support it. So they are left to wonder
if it’s possible. There is no shortage of theories for it, but
none are that convincing. Part of the problem is that they’ve
been working under the assumption that it’s a superpower,
which is not the case. People who are in the stage of spiri-
tual practice where they are still subject to the laws of the
human realm don’t have truly superhuman powers. What
they see through clairvoyance or other powers occurs only
within a certain dimension. The furthest reach of their abil-
ities doesn’t exceed this physical dimension where we exist,
and usually they don’t go beyond the dimensions associated
with their own bodies.
One’s body has a field in a designated dimension. This field
is not the same as that of virtue. They don’t occupy the same
dimension, though their reach is the same. This field corre-
sponds to the universe, so a mirror image of anything that

68
exists in the universe could appear in it. But these are merely
reflections of the real thing. For example, on this earth there
is an America and a Washington, D.C., and so a mirror image
of either could appear in your field, but they wouldn’t be the
real thing. Still, though, these mirror images do physically
exist. What appears in your field will change in keeping with
what happens in the universe, since the two correspond. So
what people call clairvoyance is a matter of viewing things
that are present in the dimensions associated with one’s own
body. But you won’t see in this manner once you have reached
a stage in your practice that is beyond the human realm. You
will perceive things directly then, and that is in fact a divine
ability that is incomparably powerful.
Let’s take a look at how clairvoyance works during the
stage of practice within the human realm. In the dimension
where your field exists, there is a mirror at the position of
the forehead. It is face-down for those who don’t practice,
and turned over for those who do. When a person is about
to gain clairvoyance the mirror starts to spin. As you may
know, motion picture film looks fluid when viewed at a rate
of twenty-four frames per second, while anything less than
that gives a choppy feel. The mirror spins at a speed faster
than twenty-four frames per second, capturing on its surface
the images of whatever is in its trajectory, and turning over
to let you see them. As it turns over again, any images that
it had captured are erased. It does it again and again, non-
stop—capturing images, turning, and erasing. And this is
why what you see appears to be in motion. It allows you to
see the things that it picks up from the dimensions associ-
ated with your body, and the images will be counterparts to
actual things in the larger universe outside.

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 You might be wondering whether such a small mirror
could manage to capture everything around one’s body. As
we’ve established, when a person’s inner eye is open at a level
beyond celestial vision and is about to attain wisdom vision, it
is going to surpass this dimension. Right when the full break-
through is imminent, a change will occur with the inner eye:
it will no longer see the physical things of this dimension,
be they objects, people, or even walls; they will all be gone.
What happens, more specifically, is that when you probe more
deeply with your vision in that other, designated dimension,
your body will no longer be visible there. Only a mirror will
be there, positioned in the space associated with your dimen-
sion. And this mirror, while in that space, will fill completely
the space associated with your dimension. And that is why
there is nothing that it can’t capture as it turns there. As long
as what is in the space associated with your dimension corre-
sponds to the universe, the mirror can capture it and reveal
it fully to you. This is our take on clairvoyance.
Scientists who research extrasensory powers have a hard
time verifying this ability. Here’s why. Suppose they want
a clairvoyant to try to tell them what a certain person’s relative
is doing while at home in Beijing. They provide the clair-
voyant with the relative’s name and some general facts, and
soon he begins to have a vision. He provides a description
of the building, the path leading to the door, and how the
room inside is furnished. And all of it is accurate. Then the
researchers ask what the relative is doing, and the clairvoy-
ant responds that the person is currently writing. To verify
it, they pick up the phone and call the relative to find out.
But he informs them that he had just been eating, which
contradicts what the clairvoyant saw. Scenarios like this one

70
have led people to dismiss the ability. But what’s confusing
is that the clairvoyant’s account of the physical setting was
flawless. All of this can be explained by the fact that there
is a discrepancy in time between this dimension, or “space-
time,” and the one where this power is. Time as we know
it is different in the two places. In the scenario I described,
as it turns out, the person’s relative was writing earlier, but
was eating at the time of the call. So there was a time lag. If
psi researchers keep basing their ideas and research on con-
ventional theories, or current science, they aren’t going to
get very far anytime soon. These phenomena reach beyond
this world, and so there needs to be a change in thinking in
order to understand them. People shouldn’t keep interpret-
ing them as they have.

The Power of Knowing Fate

There is another power that shares a direct connection with the
inner eye, which has been termed “the power of knowing fate.”
Six extrasensory powers are now generally acknowledged in
the world, among which are the inner eye, clairvoyance, and
knowing fate. What the power of knowing fate refers to is
the ability to know another person’s past or future. Someone
whose power is well-developed may be able to foresee the rise
and fall of a society; or if it’s particularly advanced, the laws
of change governing all of the cosmos. All of this is possi-
ble with the power of knowing fate. That’s because there are
certain principles at work regarding the movement of matter,
and so objects that exist in a given dimension also exist simul-
taneously, in various forms, in many other dimensions. We

71
can illustrate this by looking at what happens when a person
moves his body. All of the cells of his body move when he
does, and in invisible, micro realms, all of his molecules, pro-
tons, electrons, as well as the tiniest of his particles—all that
he is made up of—move as well. Although each particle exists
independently, the movement of each that happens here is
reflected in his bodies in those other dimensions and realms.
Remember the law of the conservation of matter. Whatever
a person does in this world has a physical reality in another,
designated dimension; and this is true for even a simple ges-
ture, like a swiping motion. Whatever one does will leave
an image and information there. They are conserved in that
dimension and will exist there forever. Those with psychic
powers can know what took place in the past just by looking
at the corresponding scenes that are still present there. One
day, if you yourself have the power of knowing fate, you will
be able to see the class we are holding here today, as it will still
exist there; it is already there now. Right from the moment
of birth, your entire life already exists elsewhere, in a special
dimension where time as we know it doesn’t exist. And for
some people more than one lifetime is there.
It might be hard for some people to come to terms with this,
as it would mean that their striving to achieve things and to
change their lives for the better amount to little. But indeed,
the hard work that people put in can only change minor or
little things in their lives. And in fact, it is precisely on account
of all those efforts to change things that you may have made
karma for yourself. If people’s efforts truly didn’t impact any-
thing, there would be no chance of doing wrong in life, and it
would be impossible to incur karma. When you force things
to go your way it will be at someone else’s expense, and so

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you will have done wrong. This is why in spiritual practice it
is always stressed that you should let things unfold naturally.
You might end up harming people if it takes effort to get your
way. You will incur a debt to them if you, through your efforts,
end up seizing what was meant to be theirs.
Ordinary people can’t change their lives in any significant
way, try as they may. The only exception is if they do noth-
ing but evil and have no moral boundaries. But while that
can change one’s life, what lies ahead is utter destruction. We
can see from higher realms that the soul doesn’t perish when
a person dies. How is that? Here’s what we have observed. The
body of the deceased that’s placed in the morgue consists only
of the cells of this dimension. The entire body, including all of
its organs and tissues—that is, all of the cells in this dimen-
sion—has been shed. Yet in another dimension this person
has a body made of particles smaller than molecules, atoms,
or protons that is very much alive, and it lives on there, in
that invisible and micro dimension. But what lies ahead for
those who do relentless evil is the total disintegration of their
cells on all levels, or what Buddhism has called “the perdi-
tion of body and soul.”
There is another way to change your life, and it is really
the only way to go: to take up spiritual practice. But why
would this enable your life to be changed? And who would
have the power to do that? What makes it possible is that
your intention to practice shines like gold and resonates with
higher lives throughout the universe—or what in Buddhist
thought is referred to as “ten directions of worlds.” This hap-
pens because being human, in the eyes of higher beings, is not
the goal of human life. As they see it, your life originated in
one of the dimensions out there in the universe, and shared

73
in its qualities; it was good and kind, and imbued with the
physical properties of zhen, shan, ren. It is only that as lives
like these enter into community and interact with others,
they might change for the worse and fall. And upon falling
to a lower plane of existence, they might again change for the
worse and be unable to stay, and so they fall to a plane still
lower. This process of falling can repeat itself again and again,
until ultimately they fall to this human world.
Any being that falls to this plane should have been destroyed
or annihilated. Yet they have been spared by higher divin-
ities who created this special dimension and human world,
out of a great sense of compassion. Here, beings are given
an additional, mortal body, along with a pair of eyes that are
limited to seeing only this material world. So it’s as if these
beings are put under a spell of ignorance that prevents them
from seeing the universe as it truly is—which is not the case
in any other dimension. By being put into this state of igno-
rance, they are given an opportunity, however. It is extremely
painful here, while lost and confused, and the human body
is fashioned to suffer. Yet if a person in this setting wants to
find his way back to his true, heavenly home, or return to his
original state of purity, as Daoists put it, if he wants to ded-
icate himself to spiritual practice, it means his innate divin-
ity has shone through, and higher beings will help him, for
they value that intention above all others. It would mean that
this person hasn’t lost his way, even in such a trying setting,
since he wants to go back. And so higher beings will help him
unconditionally and in every way possible. And so this is why
we can do so much for those who practice, but not others.
We can’t help you, then, if you are just a regular person
who is looking for healing. There is nothing exceptional about

74
a regular, worldly person, and he is supposed to experience the
human condition. Many people believe that it is Divine Will
to help humanity and be merciful to all. But that shouldn’t be
equated with doing healings for people, and there is no scrip-
tural basis for it. It is false energy healers who have confused
people about this in recent times. The authentic teachers of
energy practices in China, who paved the way, never sug-
gested doing healings for others. They simply taught people
how to do energy exercises and improve their own, personal
health. It’s really a stretch to think that you, as a regular person,
could do healings for people after learning how for just a few
days. If you were to try to heal, you would be misleading
people. And it would only make you more attached. You
would be trying to use higher powers to promote yourself
and gain from it, which would never succeed. So this explains
why some people never get the powers they hope for; were
they to get them, it would undermine the human condition.
A principle of this universe is that if you wish to return to
your true home, higher beings will help you. As they see it,
your soul is not meant to stay in this world, but to go back.
Yet if someone were to free you of sickness and life was all
good, then the idea of going to heaven would lose its appeal.
You might think it would be great to be free of illness and suf-
fering, and have everything go your way, leading a charmed
life. But it was because you turned bad that you fell this far,
so it’s not supposed to be pleasant. People, in their state of
ignorance, are apt to do wrong here, and for their transgres-
sions there will be what Buddhism calls “karmic retribution.”
The ordeals that people go through or the misfortunes they
experience are often cases of them paying off karma. People
often wonder how come the divine, which some religions

75
believe to be all around us, doesn’t heal all of humanity—
especially when doing so would, in fact, take but a wave of
the hand. Well, it’s because the ordeals people face trace back
to their own misdeeds and debts. So if someone then heals
them with supernatural means, it amounts to undermining
the laws of the universe. It would mean that they could do
wrongful things and rack up debts without paying for them,
which is not allowed. Higher beings all try to preserve the
human condition, not violate it. If you want to truly enjoy
a pleasant, illness-free existence, and finally be freed of the
human condition, there is only one way: through spiritual
practice! Getting people to do real spiritual practice is some-
thing that truly benefits all of humanity.
Then what explains all of the energy healing that’s being
done and taught out there? In most cases it’s that the people
involved have gone down the wrong road. True masters of
energy practices like chi-gong, by contrast, develop compas-
sion in the course of their spiritual progress, and become sen-
sitive to people’s suffering. And so it is allowed, when that’s the
case, for a master to help someone if he feels moved to do so.
But what he does won’t cure the person. He can only miti-
gate the ailment for the time being, or push it off to a later
date in the future; or he might transfer it to someone else in
the person’s family. He can’t thoroughly dissolve the karma
for the person. You can’t freely do that for a regular person;
it can only be done for people engaged in spiritual practice.
So there are principles at work in all of this.
The Buddhist teachings about “saving all living things” are
actually about taking people to higher planes, where they will
be outside of the human condition and its pain, liberated and
free of suffering. And this is what the Buddha’s remarks about

76
“crossing over” to nirvana referred to. But you wouldn’t be
interested in such a spiritually elevated existence if your life on
earth were full of joy, overflowing with wealth, and free of all
adversity. So the course of your life can be changed, if you are
someone doing spiritual practice—but for this reason alone.
The power of knowing fate involves having a small screen,
much like that of a television, at the position of the forehead.
For some people it is on the forehead, for some at a slight
distance from it, and for others inside of it. Some people
will be able to see it only with their eyes closed, while some,
if the power is strong, will be able to see it with their eyes
still open. It won’t be visible to other people, though, since
it exists in another dimension that is associated with your
body. Another power is still needed, then, to act as a carrier
and allow the images that are captured from other dimen-
sions to be reflected onto this screen and seen by your inner
eye. With the power of knowing fate you will be able to see
people’s pasts and futures, and with great accuracy. Fortune-
tellers can’t make out the details of what they see, no matter
how skilled they are. But with this power, you will be able to
see things with great clarity, including even the time period
and the details of how things change. This is possible because
what you see will be accurate reflections of persons or things
in other dimensions.
I open the inner eye for every practitioner of Falun Dafa.
However, I won’t make available to you the other powers we’ve
discussed. The power of knowing fate will naturally come to
you as you advance in practice; it will be something that you
experience down the road. And that’s why I have given this
teaching now—so that you will know what’s happening when
the power comes to you.

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Surpassing This Material and
Mortal Realm
It’s somewhat delicate to discuss spiritual concepts such as
surpassing this material and mortal realm, or [as Chinese
thought calls it,] “surpassing the five elements” and “three
realms.” Many teachers of energy practices who have broached
these topics have had a hard time responding to skeptics. They
often get hit with tricky questions like, “Who can you name
that’s achieved these things?” Some of these teachers have
not been masters, however, even if they fancy themselves so.
But they would try to respond to the questions when they
should have just kept quiet; they were in no position to answer
them. And so they would get tongue-tied. This has hurt the
credibility of spiritual practices in general and muddied the
waters. And people have used episodes like these as a pretext
for discrediting these practices. Terms related to surpassing
the five elements and three realms are spiritual in nature and
have religious origins; they came out of a religious context.
So it’s important for people to be aware of the historical back-
ground of the terms.
So what does it mean to surpass the five elements of this
material world? The physics of ancient China, much as with
physics today, believed that the theory of five elements was
valid. And it is indeed the case that the five elements of metal,
wood, water, fire, and earth give rise to all of creation, so we
subscribe to the theory. For someone to surpass the five ele-
ments means, in contemporary terms, to transcend the phys-
ical world that we know. I realize it might sound a bit hard
to believe. But bear in mind that true spiritual teachers carry

78
a higher energy, known as gong. I have undergone testing to
assess my energy, as have many teachers of chi-gong. There
are many instruments now that can detect the material ele-
ments of higher energy, which these teachers emit; all it takes
is the right instruments. Instruments can now detect radia-
tion including infrared, ultraviolet, ultrasound, infrasound,
electricity, magnetism, and gamma rays, as well as atoms and
neutrons. True chi-gong teachers emit all of these, and more—
only they are things that instruments can’t yet detect. So all
it takes is the right instruments, and it’s now established that
these teachers emit many types of matter.
True spiritual teachers exude a powerful and beautiful aura,
which can be seen with the right kind of electromagnetic field.
The stronger someone’s energy is, the larger the aura that he
emanates. Ordinary people have auras as well, only they’re
really quite small. From research in high-energy physics we
know that energy is in fact things like neutrons or atoms.
Many chi-gong teachers have had their energy assessed, and
that’s the case for most of those who are renowned. I too have
been assessed, and it was found that the amount of gamma rays
and thermal neutrons I released was eighty to one hundred
and seventy times greater than what matter normally emits.
And that was only what the equipment could measure, as the
indicator had reached its limit. The researchers found it hard
to believe—neutrons that powerful. It shouldn’t be humanly
possible. So we can say that it has been scientifically affirmed
that masters of energy practices do have higher energy.
It takes a practice of both mind and body to transcend
the five elements. Practices that don’t involve the body will
develop the kind of energy that facilitates spiritual attainment
only, and aren’t concerned with surpassing the five elements.

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Practices of mind and body, by contrast, store up energy in
every cell of your body. When most adherents first develop
higher energy, the particles of energy that they give off are
coarse and low in density, with gaps between them. That
makes it not very powerful. At a more advanced stage of
practice, the density of energy might be greater than even
that of water at the molecular level, by a factor of a hundred,
a thousand, or even 100 million. It’s all possible, because your
energy becomes more dense, more fine and smooth, and more
powerful as you progress. The energy is stored in every cell
of your body. And not just your body in this dimension, but
your bodies in other dimensions, too. The energy will fill your
cells, from the plane of molecules to atoms, to neutrons, to
electrons, all the way to the cells at an extremely subatomic
level, and over time your body will come to be brimming
with higher energy.
This higher energy has intelligence and is quite capable.
As you gain more of it and it grows denser, it will fill all of
your body’s cells and easily inhibit them, since they are weak
in comparison. And as this happens, the process whereby
old cells are shed and replaced by new ones will cease, since
high-energy matter will replace the matter originally making
up your cells. While it’s easy to describe, reaching that point
of spiritual refinement is a long process. But when it does
happen, your entire body will have been remade at the cel-
lular level with high-energy matter. Then it would no longer
be the five elements that make up your body. It would instead
be material from beyond this world that forms you—you
would have a body of high-energy matter harvested from
other dimensions. On another note, virtue, similarly, is made
up of matter from other dimensions and not subject to the
time of this dimension.

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 The sciences now hold that time has a field, and that
time’s influence cannot extend beyond it. It’s not possible
for time, in one dimension, to have influence over things
in other dimensions which are ruled by altogether different
laws of time and space. So time, here, would have simply no
impact on matter of other dimensions. And the same would
be true for your body, which would no longer be mortal in
any sense. It would have, as the ancients put it, “surpassed
the five elements.” But your body would look no different
to people than before. That’s because, despite the dramatic
changes in you, your practice wouldn’t be done. You would
still have breakthroughs to higher realms to make. And to do
that you would need to keep practicing in this world. Being
invisible to people wouldn’t do you much good.
So what comes next, then? By this point in your practice
your cells at the molecular level will have all been reconsti-
tuted with high-energy matter. But the atoms one level down
have a specific configuration, just as do molecules and atomic
nuclei; the configuration doesn’t change for any of them. The
molecular configuration of cells makes one’s flesh soft to the
touch; the molecules of bone are configured with a greater
density, and so they are hard to the touch; while the density
of the molecules of blood is very low, so it’s liquid. Others
won’t be able to tell from your appearance what a change
you’ve undergone, however, since at the molecular level your
cells will retain their original structure and configuration. So
the energy inside of you will have changed, even if your cel-
lular structure hasn’t. This means that you will no longer be
subject to aging. Your cells will no longer decay and die, and
you will forever stay young. So spiritual practice can bring
you a youthful look that never fades.

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 It’s only natural that a body like this might still suffer
a fracture if hit by a car or bleed if cut by a knife. That’s because
its molecular configuration hasn’t changed, even if it is free of
aging or metabolic processes. So this is our take on surpass-
ing the five elements. It’s well-founded and can be explained
scientifically. It’s unfortunate that terms like this get a bad
rap as being religious imaginings when they are carelessly
used by people who don’t know what they are talking about.
People aren’t familiar with the terms since these have an older,
religious background, and aren’t necessarily in the idiom of
our day.
Next let’s look at what it means to “surpass this mortal
realm”—or the “three realms,” as it’s also known. As I explained
the other day, perfecting your character is the key to devel-
oping higher energy. The qualities of the universe will no
longer limit you as they come to define your character. And
as your mind elevates, your material virtue will be trans-
formed into higher energy. Eventually this energy will form
into a column as it grows and climbs higher. The higher that
the column is, the greater your energy. We like to say that
“anything is possible through Dafa.” It all comes down to how
sincere and committed you are. Any height is possible if you
have the grit and tenacity that it takes. And even if you one
day have converted all of your white matter, more can still
be had by reworking your black matter through suffering.
And if that’s still not enough, you can take on the sins of your
close friends or family who don’t practice, and increase your
energy that way. But, this only applies to you if you have pro-
gressed to an extremely advanced stage. You shouldn’t even
think of assuming others’ sins when you only recently came
into the practice as an ordinary person. That much karma

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would doom most people’s practice. The guidance I am giving
here applies to different stages of practice.
“Three realms” is a religious term that describes three hier-
archical realms of existence—namely, the “realms” of minor
deities, this world, and the underworld. Within these three
there are nine major planes of existence, and a total of thirty-
three planes in all. An accompanying belief is that all things
within the three realms, no matter the plane, reincarnate cycli-
cally and may be reborn on any of several possible tracks. So
someone who is a human in this life might become something
else, such as an animal, in the next. And so Buddhism has
taught that you should really make the most of your life as
a human being, for the chance to do spiritual practice might
not come again. They say this because animals are forbid-
den from practicing or hearing the Way. Or if an animal did
learn to practice, it would never reap the divine rewards of
spiritual effort; higher beings would slay it once it built up
much energy. You may have waited hundreds of years, or
more, for a human body, only to not cherish it now, when you
finally have one. If you reincarnate as a rock, it might be eons
before you are freed—if ever. You would never be freed if it
didn’t break, crumble, or erode away. Human bodies are not
easily come by! A person who truly learns Dafa, the “Great
Way,” is incomparably fortunate. This should give you a sense
for how hard it is to get a human body.
There is such a thing as “levels” of attainment in spiritual
practice, and they are simply the outcome of how well you do.
If you want to enjoy eternal life, keep on practicing, and when
your column of energy reaches to a great height, you will be
outside of [the cycle of reincarnation]—or the “three realms.”
There are people whose souls leave their bodies when they

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meditate, and rise to a higher point. One of my students did
a write-up about his progress in the practice and described
visiting heavenly realms and what he saw there. I told him to
try going higher. But he said that he couldn’t go further, and
indeed, he wasn’t able to at that point. Why would that be the
case, though? It was because he had visited those realms by
riding atop his column of energy; it was as high as he could
go at the time. Ascending to greater heights, as I had sug-
gested, would mean that he had achieved, to use a religious
term for it, “divine standing.” But greater things are still pos-
sible for a practitioner. Whatever height you have reached,
you can still continue to perfect yourself and advance in your
practice. And if, in the process, your energy column breaks
through the outer limits of the three realms, then you will have
indeed “surpassed” them. We measured it once and deter-
mined that the three realms described in some religions lie
within the scope of the nine planets; and I should add here
that there is no basis for the claim that there are ten planets.
I have seen that the energy columns of some past masters had
reached great heights and broken through the boundary of
the Milky Way, which means that they very much had sur-
passed the three realms. So it should be clear now that doing
so is a matter of spiritual attainment.

The Problem with Having Intentions

There are many who come to the practice with intentions.
We see all sorts of motives, from wanting psychic powers
to hoping to hear new theories, to getting healed, or getting
a falun. People have even offered to pay our class fee to get

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a falun for someone in their family who didn’t attend. Imag-
ine that, expecting to buy a falun—something born of gen-
erations of effort over a staggering number of years—with
a little cash. But if it’s that valuable, why do we give it to you
at no charge? Because you are someone who wants to lead
a spiritual existence, and that aspiration is worth more than
any sum of money. A falun can only be given in cases like
this, where your innate divinity has shown itself.
You should ask yourself whether you are here because of
something you hope to get out of it. Whatever thoughts you
have are known to my spiritual bodies* in another dimension.
Space and time are different there, and so your thoughts, as
my spiritual bodies behold them, are extremely slow to form.
And so those bodies of mine know your thoughts even before
you could. The point is that you should change any thoughts
that aren’t appropriate. Since ours is a Buddhist discipline, we
believe in destiny, and I would say that it is the workings of
destiny that have brought you to the practice. It could be that
you are meant to learn it. So I would suggest that you cher-
ish it and get rid of any worldly intentions that might have
initially motivated you.
In religious practice, Buddhists have traditionally stressed
the concept of “emptiness,” teaching adherents to keep the
mind free of thoughts and to shun the secular world. And
Daoists, likewise, have stressed the idea of “nothingness,”
asking followers to forgo material possessions and to not
want or try to get them. This is similar to how in energy prac-
tice you are taught to put your mind on practicing, not on
the energy you will get from it. If you can be free of intent as
you practice and simply focus on perfecting your character,
you will make spiritual breakthroughs and naturally come to

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have whatever is meant to be. It’s only fitting to call whatever
occupies your mind, or that you cling to, an “attachment.” The
teachings I offer are quite advanced, right from day one, so
I have high expectations for you in terms of character, and
this includes my hope that you are here free of intentions.
I feel a sense of responsibility to guide you in the right
direction, and that means I need to spell out my teachings in
full. As I mentioned, some people have the intention of get-
ting their inner eyes opened, but it only results in their eyes
getting blocked up and sealed off. And as I indicated, any
powers that come to people while they are still practicing
at the human level are no more than innate abilities, even if
they are now called things like “psychic powers.” They can
only do things in this dimension and affect regular people.
So I don’t see any point in wanting or trying for those lesser
things. If one day your practice reaches a higher level beyond
this world, you will see that they don’t do anything there and
aren’t worth all the trouble. At that stage any lesser powers
like those will have to be disposed of by removing them to
a deeper space, where they will be stored and serve only as
a memento of your spiritual journey.
When you progress to a higher stage of practice, beyond
this world, your journey begins anew. Your body will be one
that has transcended this material world, or “five elements,”
as we just discussed, and it will only be fitting to call it holy.
Your holy body will need to be cultivated anew and develop
new powers, only now they should be referred to as sacred
powers of the Way. Their strength is truly extraordinary and
they can work in multiple dimensions. And these do have
impact. Lesser, worldly abilities should have little appeal next
to these. What attracts people to them is always the prospect

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of using them to build oneself up in this world, or show what
one is capable of, as they don’t offer much benefit otherwise.
And besides, they’re even less useful than, say, a nice object,
which at least could be used for decoration purposes, since
it’d be tangible and visible. I can guarantee that if you want
them, on some level, it’s to use them for something. And
remember that they aren’t like normal skills in this world
that you can work honestly towards. Rather, psychic powers
are something higher altogether, and are not meant for you
to show off with in front of people. Wanting to show off is
a strong attachment, a bad intention, and one that someone
with spiritual aspirations should break. And it’s all the worse
if you want to use these powers to make money or get wealthy,
or to achieve some worldly goal that you’re after. You would
be disrupting the designs for this world by using those higher
means, and that’s an even worse idea than showing off. So for
these reasons nobody is allowed to use higher powers freely
in this world.
Extrasensory powers usually come to those at two ends
of the life spectrum, children and older folk. They are most
common among older women, who tend to be of solid char-
acter and less attached to this world than others are. When
powers come to them they are apt to handle it well, since
they’re not looking to show off and promote themselves.
Younger people, by contrast, are less apt to develop higher
powers—especially young guys. That’s because they still want
to work hard towards their goals in life, and they would use
any powers they gained to these ends, as if they were tools
for achieving things. But it is forbidden to use them like that,
and so no powers will come to those people.
Spiritual things like these are sacred, and not to be treated

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like toys or normal skills. Your mind needs to dwell on
a higher plane if you want to get anywhere in spiritual prac-
tice. You can just imagine what a mess it would be if some-
one who didn’t understand these things managed to get the
powers he was craving. Spiritual progress would be the last
thing on his mind, and there’s no telling what evil he might
do, since his thoughts would be wed to this world and his
powers would have come to him in the wrong way. He might
magically remove money from the bank or hit the jackpot in
a lottery. Yet things like that never happen, and it’s worth con-
sidering why. I don’t agree with the teachers who claim that
unvirtuous people are prone to doing wrongful things when
they get supernormal powers. That’s not the case at all. Those
who are unvirtuous or don’t try to become better people will
never gain such powers. The closest thing to it would be cases
where someone with good character gets powers somewhere
along the way but doesn’t handle it well, and does something
inappropriate. But his powers will be weakened or even lost if
he abuses them. And any such loss would be permanent. Yet
the more serious risk is that he would get attached to them.
Some teachers have claimed that people can do healings
after just three to five days of learning their energy practices.
It’s like marketing—as if they were in the business of energy.
But let’s pause to think: could the average person heal some-
one’s ailment just by sending out a little basic energy, [like
they advertise]? Both parties, in this case, merely have the
basic energy known as chi, with the only difference being
that one of them has just started practicing and can take in or
project energy since the Palace of Toil acupuncture point on
his hand is open. So if one of the two tries to heal the other,
there’s no telling who might heal who, since both just have chi!

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There’s no reason that one of these people’s energy should
be more powerful than the other’s. Energy like chi does not
heal. And another thing is, a person will be connected with
whoever he tries to heal, and it’s possible that the sick energy
in the recipient’s body will come over to the healer’s, such
that he ends up with just as much of it. Though the root of
the person’s ailment won’t be transferred, the healer might
still become ill if he takes on too much of it. And it’s easy
for a person to get attached once he believes that he can
heal. He might set up a practice and welcome all who come.
And how happy he’ll be about it—being able to heal! But he
hasn’t given thought to what makes it possible. It turns out that
false healers like these are getting their energy from entities
that have attached to them. And then they turn around and
share a little of that energy with those who take their classes,
to win their confidence. But these students’ energy will disap-
pear for good after they’ve treated a handful of people. What
little energy they had will be gone, since doing that consumes
it. It wouldn’t be a higher energy that they were using since
they wouldn’t have had any in the first place. A master such
as myself will have gone through decades of practice, and it
really wasn’t easy in the past. Spiritual progress is very diffi-
cult for those who haven’t found a true practice, and it’s hard
to get very far in a lesser one.
The well-established masters of energy practices each had
to practice for decades to get the higher energy that they
have, however little. So it’s a bit naive for people to think that
they could get it by attending a brief class and without ever
engaging in spiritual practice. And they come out of those
healing classes attached. And then, when their attempts at
healing don’t work, they get anxious. Some people are so

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concerned about their reputations when they do healings
that, would you believe, they even think about taking on
the person’s illness so that he or she can get well. But this
isn’t coming from compassion. Compassion can hardly arise
in a mind that’s occupied with things like money and rep-
utation. To want to take on someone’s illness just to protect
your reputation indicates that there is a serious attachment!
And so they get what they asked for. It really can result in
the illness being transferred to their own body, and then it
sets in. So while the ill person may now be well, those who
do the healing will end up suffering for it afterward. And yet
they might be pleased with themselves, and delighted about
it. They think that they’ve healed someone and people start
calling them a “master.” But it should be obvious that it’s an
attachment. The fact that they get visibly dejected when it
doesn’t go well is a telltale sign that ego and money are moti-
vating them. And as if that weren’t bad enough, as I indicated,
they are bringing sickly energy from people onto their own
bodies. The pseudo master who supposedly taught them how
to heal might have claimed that they could learn to “dispel”
any sick energy, but I know for a fact that people can’t do that,
since the average person doesn’t have the ability to tell good
energy from bad. And over time the insides of their bodies
will turn dark from karma.
If that kind of person wants to do genuine spiritual prac-
tice at some point, he will really be in a difficult spot, with no
simple solution. It’s going to be awfully tough—and painful—
for him to rework all of that karma into white matter. Those
who have a better innate foundation are more susceptible to
landing in this predicament. Some people are just insistent
about wanting to do healing. Animal spirits can see that kind

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of intent and will affix themselves to the person’s body, which
is called entity attachment. They see that the person wants
to do healing, and they will help out. But they don’t help for
nothing, as everything comes at a cost. And this makes it dan-
gerous. You can just imagine how hard it would be to make
spiritual progress after bringing animals onto yourself. All of
your spiritual efforts would have been for naught.
Some people exchange their good innate foundations for
others’ karma, by healing them. Yet people with medical con-
ditions have large amounts of karma. Someone who heals
people like that is going to feel wretched afterwards. Many
who heal have had that experience; the other party gets well,
while they themselves get seriously ill afterwards. And if they
keep at it, significant amounts of karma will be transferred to
them, at the cost of their virtue. But that would be the price
they pay. Even though it’s sickness they want, the laws of
exchange still hold: even to get karma, virtue has to be paid.
That’s how the universe works. If that’s what you want to do,
it’s up to you, and nobody is going to intervene—though it
doesn’t necessarily mean they approve. There is something
that has been decided in this universe: whoever has a lot of
karma is a bad person. Yet the people I just described are
trading their own virtuous foundations for karma. It’s going
to be very hard to do spiritual practice then, with all that
karma. They will have ruined their own foundations. What
a horrible prospect. While the people they healed may feel
fine now, they themselves have to suffer. And just imagine
how dangerous it would be if they healed a couple of cancer
patients—the healers might have to die in their place. Most
people don’t realize how these things work.
However well-known some false masters may be, it

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doesn’t necessarily mean they know much. Most people easily
fall for hype. Though it might seem like everything is going
fine for these false masters, they are not only harming others
but also themselves. You will see what becomes of them in
a year or two. Nobody is allowed to abuse things like these
that are meant for purposes of spiritual refinement. And while
spiritual refinement can bring healing powers, that is not
what it’s meant for. It is something higher and not an ordi-
nary human endeavor. So it is strictly forbidden to use such
powers haphazardly, in ways that undermine spiritual prac-
tice. Some pseudo masters are creating a tremendous mess
now, using energy work as a way to build a following and
make money. These nefarious groups that they’ve formed are
constantly expanding in influence, and the so-called masters
involved now outnumber the genuine ones by a wide margin.
It’s a mistake to think that chi-gong or energy healing is how
they portray it—even if others, who don’t know better, are
taken in by it. Now you know what’s really going on.
For selfish reasons the average person will do wrongful
things in his dealings with others in this world and incur debts
to people, which he will have to suffer the consequences of
and pay for. Then even if someone did indeed have the ability
to heal whoever he wanted to, it surely wouldn’t be allowed.
Higher beings are all around us, and yet they don’t do that,
do they? You would think it would be wonderful of them to
bestow wellness upon all of humanity. And yet they don’t.
That’s because people must pay off their own karma, and no
beings dare to violate this law. It might be fine for someone
who is still developing spiritually to help a person out by alle-
viating his suffering a little, out of compassion. But even then
he is merely postponing the ailment until later. So the person

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may feel well now, but will have to suffer later; or instead of
sickness it might take the form of losing money or some other
mishap. A person’s karma has to be purged in one shot if he
is to be genuinely healed. And it can only be done for those
engaged in spiritual practice, not just anyone. What I am
explaining here isn’t true for just our practice, but is appli-
cable to the entire universe. This should give you a sense for
what’s really involved in many spiritual matters.
We won’t teach you how to heal here, but we will guide
you to something greater—to the great Way, a true path—and
raise you up. And that is why I always say in my classes that
practitioners of Falun Dafa are not allowed to do healings.
You aren’t one of us if you heal people. We are showing you
the virtuous course to take, and I am purifying your body
again and again. And I will keep doing so while you prac-
tice in this world, all the way until you have been completely
transfigured by high-energy matter. But if you are always
getting dark things on your body, how are you going to get
anywhere? That’s karma! You will have no hope of spiritual
progress. You wouldn’t be able to bear all that karma, and
the pain would prove too much for your practice. So there’s a
reason for our rule. You might not have realized how special
this practice is, given how public I’ve made it. But I have ways
to protect it, even so. If you do healings, my spiritual bodies
will take back all of what your body was given for your spir-
itual refinement. We can’t let you rashly ruin such valuable
gifts while you chase after worldly goals. You are not one of
us if you don’t follow what Falun Dafa teaches. So your body
will be reset to an ordinary state and all of the bad things it
once carried will be returned to you, since you are choosing
to be an ordinary person.

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 Beginning yesterday, after class, many of you began to
experience a lightness to your bodies. But a few individu-
als who have serious medical conditions became the first
to feel unwell. The majority of you felt wonderful yesterday
and completely unburdened after I took the bad things out
of your bodies. But there is a law in this universe, that any-
thing comes at a cost, and so we couldn’t remove everything
for you; you definitely have to bear something. What we have
done is to remove the root causes of any ailments or poor
health. But a cloud of sickness will still remain. If your inner
eye is open, even at a lower level, you might see lumps of dark,
turbid, sick energy inside your body, which are concentrated
masses of dense, dark energy. If let loose, this energy would
spread throughout your body.
Some of you will find, starting today, that your whole body
feels chilly, as if you’ve come down with a heavy cold, and your
bones might even ache. Most of you will find that some part
of you doesn’t feel good; it could be an aching leg or a dizzy
head. Or you might seem to have a relapse of some issue
that you thought you’d resolved through an energy practice
or healing. That’s because it didn’t actually heal your condi-
tion. It had merely been postponed, and was still lodged in
its original spot, ready to relapse at a later date. So we have to
make it surface and drive it out of you, and remove the whole
thing from its root. This might make you think that you’re
having a relapse, but what’s happening is that the karma at
the root of it is being purged. And so you will have reactions.
They could be in any part of your body and could take any
form. But it’s all normal. I would encourage you to really try
to keep coming to the class, however unwell you might feel.
Your symptoms will vanish once you get to class, and you

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won’t be at risk. A true spiritual teaching is hard to come by,
so don’t let whatever you might be going through physically
get to you. The worse you might feel, the closer you are to
the turning point, and your entire body will be, and must be,
fully cleansed. The roots of any ailments that you had, have
been taken out, and all that remains is some dark energy that
is coming out on its own and causing you a little misery or
trouble, since you can’t get off completely scot-free.
You might be living a very competitive life, trying to build
a name for yourself or make a good living, and your body
might be paying the price for your seldom eating properly or
sleeping well; in other dimensions even your bones may have
become dark. A body like that can’t help but have reactions
when it’s swiftly purified, like we do. So reactions should be
expected. For some of you it may take the form of vomiting
or loose bowels. Students everywhere have told me in writ-
ten accounts about having to look for a bathroom all the way
home from our classes. That happens because your internal
organs need to be purified. A few of you might fall asleep
during the class, only to wake up after I finish my talk. That
happens because there was something wrong with your head,
and it needed to be put right. You needed to be anesthetized
so that you wouldn’t feel anything. Yet in some cases the
faculty of hearing isn’t affected, and you won’t have missed
a word even if you were sound asleep. Afterwards you will
feel invigorated, and you might even go on for a couple of
days without needing sleep. You might be coming here with
any of various conditions. But whatever they may be, they all
need to be dealt with since your whole body must be purified.
If you are sincere about practicing Falun Dafa, you will,
starting today, experience physical reactions when you leave

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attachments behind. Some people aren’t able to leave them
behind, even if they may tell others that they have, and in
that case it’s hard to purify their bodies. There might also be
people who come to understand things only at the end of the
classes and then get over their attachments, at which point
their bodies will be cleansed. Others will have already expe-
rienced their bodies lightening, while this group will only
then begin to have their ailments removed and feel unwell.
In each class there are some who don’t catch on as quickly
and who lag behind. So whatever you experience is normal.
Wherever I’ve taught, I have always found that there are some
who feel so ill that they stay in their seats, hunched over and
not wanting to leave. They hope that when I come down
from the stage I might heal them. But I won’t do that. If you
can’t overcome even this hurdle, I worry what will become of
your practice when you meet with serious ordeals down the
road. That little bit of discomfort really shouldn’t be a big deal,
and surely you can get through it. So please don’t come to me
for healing anymore. It’s not something I do, and I’d prefer
not to even hear the word “illness.”
It’s hard to save people from this world. In every class
there are always around five to ten percent who fall behind.
Not everyone can attain enlightenment. It remains to be
seen whether those who stick with the practice can keep
up their commitment to spiritual development and succeed
at it. Divinity isn’t possible for all. You will experience the
same benefits from reading this book as you would attend-
ing a class, and not miss out on anything, as long as you are
sincere about practicing Dafa.

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 the
third talk

I Regard All Who Learn as

My Students
though many don’t realize it, I regard everyone who learns
our practice as a student to guide, and this even applies to
those who are sincere about it but are learning on their own.
It would actually be irresponsible, and risky, for me to do
anything less, since these are teachings that take people to
greater spiritual heights. We give so much to you and dis-
close so many things that the average person isn’t suited to
know. I am teaching you the Way, and much will be given
to you. And I purify your bodies as well as deal with other
matters. So it would really be a problem if I didn’t take you
as my students; it would amount to freely revealing so many
secrets to non-practitioners, which is forbidden. But with that
said, times have changed and we needn’t use initiation ritu-
als involving things like prostrating and bowing to me. We

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don’t perform those rites. They don’t serve any purpose for
us and would look overly religious. And besides, they would
be pointless if afterwards you lapsed into your old, worldly
ways, vying for things like status and wealth. The ceremony
wouldn’t have served any purpose, then. And you might even
err further and hurt Dafa’s image by doing wrongful things
while claiming to be associated with me.
In true spiritual practice everything comes down to how
sincere you are about working on yourself. As long as you
are able to practice, and do so with a sure footing and com-
mitment, I will take you as my student; it wouldn’t be right to
do otherwise. Yet some people won’t really see themselves as
practitioners and keep up the practice—it’s just not possible
for some. But many of you will, and I will regard those who
can as my students and guide you in the practice.
Then what about those who just do our exercises each
day—do they count as students of Falun Dafa? Not necessar-
ily, because it’s not genuine practice unless someone strives
to develop his or her character as we’ve taught, and does so
in earnest. If you just do those exercises without working on
your character, there won’t be powerful energy to strengthen
everything, and it won’t amount to spiritual practice. So we
can’t consider you a student of Falun Dafa in that case. And if
you carried on like that, doing the exercises but not working
on your character as Falun Dafa teaches, and stuck to your old
ways with people, you might run into added trouble. Worse
yet, you might even claim that Falun Dafa brought you those
troubles. This could very well happen to you. You are a true
practitioner only when you sincerely work on your character,
as we’ve taught. Now that I have spelled this out, I hope that
you won’t come looking for me anymore for student-initiation

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ceremonies. I will regard you as my student as long as you
are practicing in earnest. And you can rest assured that you
will be under my care, however many learners we have, since
I have countless spiritual bodies that can help.

Buddhist Energy Practices

and Religious Buddhism
My remarks should make clear that Buddhist energy practices
are not the same as religious Buddhism, and Daoist energy
practices are not the same as religious Daoism. Some of our
practitioners often conflate the two. Some Buddhist monks,
or even lay Buddhists, consider themselves knowledgeable
about Buddhism and have been busy promoting it among
our community of learners. But they should not do that, for
these are different disciplines and should remain distinct.
What I am now teaching is the part of our discipline related
to one’s own, personal spiritual development, and so there
are no religious trappings, as a formal religion might have.
The only ones who should be engaging in any religious rites
are the adherents of Falun Dafa who are monastics or have
been religiously ordained. So our practice shouldn’t be mis-
taken for latter day Buddhism.
The teachings of Buddhism are but one small part of the
greater Way of the universe. Many other profound teachings
exist as well, with there being different truths and insights
at each and every plane of existence. The Buddha indicated
that there are eighty-four thousand avenues to enlighten-
ment, yet only a handful are to be found in Buddhism, such

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as Tiantai, Flower Garland, Zen, Pure Land, and Tantric. The
number hardly adds up to anything. So Buddhism’s teachings
don’t encompass all of the Way and are but a small part of it.
Our Falun Dafa is one path among the eighty-four thousand
mentioned, but has never been connected to religious Bud-
dhism at any point in time, from Buddhism’s earliest days on
up to its latter days, and nor does ours have anything to do
with today’s religions.
The Buddha began what’s known as Buddhism twenty-five
hundred years ago in ancient India. Upon reaching enlight-
enment and having his powers freed, he recalled what he
had practiced previously and made it public in order to save
people. His practice can be summarized in just three words,
even if there are thousands of Buddhist sutras: precept, con-
centration, wisdom. In Buddhism, precepts are meant to put
an end to all the desires people normally experience, and it
has prohibitions for monks that cut them off from all that
is secular, and that are meant to end their selfish longings,
among other things. The adherent’s mind thus becomes empty,
and deep meditative concentration becomes possible. So
precepts and concentration go hand in hand. The heart of the
practice is carried out while immersed in deep concentration,
meditating; progress is dependent on a still mind. So this is
where the real spiritual labors take place in their practice.
They don’t teach anything involving physical movements or
techniques, or transform the person’s innate body; they just
practice for the type of higher energy that is connected to
one’s spiritual attainment. So they work solely on character,
rather than the body, and don’t concern themselves with
developing higher energy for the body. Through medita-
tion the practitioner of Buddhism can increase his powers

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of concentration, and in the process work off his karma by
suffering. The term wisdom, meanwhile, is about becoming
enlightened and gaining a greater intelligence and spiritual
insight. With enlightenment, the workings of the universe
will be revealed to the believer and its many dimensions will
be seen in full. Miraculous powers will also come about. This
process of coming to a greater wisdom, or becoming enlight-
ened, is also referred to as the freeing of one’s powers.
Back when the Buddha founded his discipline, there were
eight religions active in India. One of them, called Brahman-
ism, was well established. Throughout his life the Buddha
battled with these religions on doctrinal grounds. The dharma
that he taught was a genuine embodiment of the Way, so it
grew ever stronger and more prosperous over the course of
his ministry. The other religions of his day steadily declined
and weakened, by contrast, with even Brahmanism, despite
its strong foothold in India, ending up on the verge of extinc-
tion. After the Buddha’s nirvana, however, the other religions
enjoyed renewed popularity, especially Brahmanism. So what
exactly happened to Buddhism, then? Certain monks expe-
rienced the freeing of their powers and enlightenment to
differing degrees, but none were very advanced. Many monks
never achieved the status of tathagata as the Buddha had.
The Way manifests itself differently at each plane of exis-
tence, with higher planes being progressively closer to its
truest form and lower planes further from it. After the monks
I described gained enlightenment and had powers freed, at
lower stages of attainment, they went and interpreted the
Buddha’s words in light of their own limited visions of the
universe or realizations about it. And so there were widely
ranging understandings of the Buddha’s teachings. Some

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monks preached their own interpretations to people while
attributing them to the Buddha, rather than conveying what
he originally had said. In this manner his teachings were
altered beyond recognition, and became something altogether
different from what the Buddha had once taught. This ulti-
mately led to his teachings dying out in India. It is a serious
lesson left to us from history, and explains why Buddhism
later disappeared from the face of India. It also underwent
multiple reforms before dying out, with it ultimately being
mixed with doctrines from Brahmanism, becoming a new
religious movement in India known as Hinduism. Faith is
no longer placed in the Buddha there, or even any Buddha;
other entities are now enshrined instead. This is what has
taken place with Hinduism.
Buddhism has gone through several major reforms. One
happened not long after the Buddha’s passing. This was the
creation of Mahayana, or “Greater Vehicle,” Buddhism, which
was based on the Buddha’s more advanced teachings. Its
founders held that the dharma that the Buddha taught pub-
licly was meant for merely the average listener and could lead
only to self-liberation, i.e., attaining the heavenly rank known
as arhat, since it didn’t advocate the salvation of all living
things. They thus referred to this publicly taught dharma
as Hinayana, or “Lesser Vehicle,” Buddhism. But that was
the original practice from the Buddha’s days, and is in fact
the form that Southeast Asian monks still observe today. In
China people have likewise referred to it as Hinayana Bud-
dhism. Of course, Southeast Asian monks don’t think of it that
way—i.e., as being “Lesser”—since they believe that they’ve
carried on the Buddha’s original practices. And they’re cor-
rect in thinking that. For the most part they have preserved
the forms of practice from his day.

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 Mahayana’s reformed version of Buddhism assumed a
set form after spreading to China, and it is the Buddhism
seen there today. But it is nothing like the one from the
Buddha’s day. Everything has changed, from the monastic
garb to how people study for and gain enlightenment, to the
means of spiritual practice. Buddhism originally enshrined
and venerated only Shakyamuni as its founder, yet now it
has come to have a plethora of Buddhas and bodhisattvas; it’s
now a polytheistic faith. People place faith in many tathagata
Buddhas, such as Amitabha, Medicine Buddha, and Vairo-
chana, and there are many senior bodhisattvas in the pantheon
as well. All of this makes for a Buddhism that’s radically dif-
ferent from what Shakyamuni began.
Along with those changes came another reformation. The
bodhisattva known as Nagarjuna unveiled in India an eso-
teric practice, which was later transmitted to Afghanistan and
eventually made its way to Xinjiang province, from which it
spread to the interior of China. It was in the Tang Dynasty
that this happened, so the practice has been known as Tang
Esoteric Buddhism. The people of China have different values
and concepts than most nations, owing to the legacy of Con-
fucianism. Esoteric Buddhism involves the practice of men
and women in Tantric union—something not acceptable
to society at the time. And so it was eradicated during the
Buddhist purges in the Tang Dynasty’s Hui Chang era, and
vanished from the interior of China. There is still a school
of Esoteric Buddhism in Japan, however, known as Shingon,
but its founder, who learned the practice in China, never
underwent ritual anointment. Yet Esoteric Buddhism holds
that anyone who learns its dharma without first undergoing
anointment is stealing its teachings, and won’t be recognized

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as a legitimate heir to the transmission. Another branch orig-
inated in India and passed through Nepal before being trans-
mitted to Tibet. It’s referred to as Tibetan Tantric Buddhism,
and has been passed down to this day. This is just to give you
a very basic sketch of how Buddhism as we know it came to
be. Other Buddhist disciplines have come about along the way,
such as Zen Buddhism, which Bodhidharma founded, Pure
Land Buddhism, and Flower Garland Buddhism. In each case
it was begun by an individual who came to a certain under-
standing of something that the Buddha once taught, so all of
these count as reformed Buddhism. Each of the dozen or so
Buddhist denominations that exist has assumed a religious
form, and should be considered religious Buddhism.
The new religions that came into being this century are
by and large false, as are many that were begun around the
world in recent centuries. A divine being who comes to save
people will necessarily have a heavenly kingdom of his own,
and this has been the case for each Buddha that has come
offering deliverance, from Shakyamuni to other well-known
ones such as Amitabha and Vairochana. In this Milky Way
galaxy alone there are more than a hundred paradises such
as these, and our Falun Dafa has a corresponding paradise
known as the Falun Paradise.
Then where would the followers of false religions go to, if
they were in fact saved? These religions haven’t the ability to
save people in the first place, as it turns out, since what they
teach is not the Way. Of course, when religions like these first
began it wasn’t necessarily the founder’s intent to play the dev-
il’s part and undermine true faiths. Rather, the person may
have experienced some level of enlightenment and had his
powers freed, and gained insights, though incomplete, into

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 reality. Yet his spiritual attainment would have been quite lim-
ited, in fact, and he would be far from sufficiently divine to
save people. He would merely have gained insight into certain
facets of reality and have come to see some of the problems
with this world. So he would counsel people to do good, and at
least initially would not have been in opposition to established
religions. Later, however, people would come to place faith in
figures like this and venerate them, since people would find
their teachings compelling. Their faith in the person would
increase over time, such that eventually they came to place
faith in him instead of a true religion. His desire for worldly
influence would grow and lead him to adopt some spiritual
title or other, with which he would establish his own, new
faith. I can tell you that in all such cases it amounts to heresy.
Even if those faiths don’t overtly harm people, they are still
deviant beliefs since they lead people away from the true faiths.
The true faiths offer salvation, whereas the false cannot. And
over time the latter do underhanded things. Many of these
have spread to China in recent times, such as the so-called
“Quan Yin Method.” So be on guard, by all means. Reportedly
one country in East Asia has over two thousand practices
like these, and in Southeast Asia as well as the West there
are all sorts of beliefs. In one country they have what is bla-
tantly black magic. All of these are the devil’s doing in these
latter days. The term “latter days” isn’t meant to apply to the
circumstances of just one religion, but to the decline expe-
rienced by a great many realms spanning from high to low.
It refers to the decline of the Way in true religions as well as
the fact that humanity has lost its innate moral compass and
the self-restraint that would normally come with it.

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Staying True to One Practice
We say that you have to stay true to one practice. Regardless
of which discipline you decide to do, you shouldn’t mix other
things into your practice and foul it up. For example, some
laypersons practice what’s taught in Buddhism right along-
side our Falun Dafa. But doing so will ultimately cause them
to gain nothing for their efforts; nobody will bestow anything
upon them. Though both practices count as Buddhist, there
is a problem with your thinking as well as the issue of not
staying true to one practice. You have just one body to work
with, so which of the two’s energy is your body supposed to
develop? What kind of transformation would your energy
go through? And where are you trying to go? The discipline
that you practice will take you to its domain. Practicing Pure
Land Buddhism leads to Buddha Amitabha’s Paradise of Ulti-
mate Bliss, for example, just as following Medicine Buddha
leads to the Lapis Lazuli Paradise. What we’re discussing is
a common religious tenet, referred to as “only one way.”
With spiritual practice, all that’s involved in developing
higher energy proceeds according to your specific disci-
pline’s designs. So those who dabble in different practices,
and haven’t figured out where they are headed, will end up
with nothing to show for their efforts. Just as energy practices
and religious practice shouldn’t be mixed, neither should two
spiritual disciplines, two different energy practices, or even
two religions. Even different denominations within the same
religion shouldn’t be combined. You have to settle upon one.
If you practice Pure Land, then it’s Pure Land and nothing
else; and the same goes for if you choose Tantric Buddhism or
Zen, for example. Those who dabble in multiple practices will

106
attain little. So even religious devotional practices should be
exclusive and avoid the mixing in of other doctrines or prac-
tices. Those faiths are a means of developing higher energy,
too, and qualify as spiritual practice just the same, so how
they form energy follows the designs specific to their own
practices. The means by which higher energy comes about
in other dimensions is extremely intricate, profound, and
mysterious, and not something to be trifled with as when
you freely mix foreign things into your practice.
When some people who are lay Buddhists hear that this
is a Buddhist practice, they try to drag learners to a temple
for conversion. If anyone here is doing that, you should not
be. You would be violating our practice as well as the ordi-
nances of Buddhism, disrupting our learners, and causing
them to get nothing out of it. All of which are problems.
Spiritual practice is a serious matter, and one must stay true
to a single practice. Though the part of our practice that the
general public* engages in isn’t religious, we do share in the
same goals as religions have, for we all seek to experience
awakening and be spiritually perfected.
The Buddha stated that in the latter days it would be hard
even for temple monks to gain salvation, much less lay Bud-
dhists, who would no longer be watched over by higher beings.
You might have formally become a student of some teacher,
but if that individual isn’t doing genuine spiritual practice,
then he will be no different from an adherent himself; spiritual
progress isn’t possible without working on the mind. The cere-
monies of conversion are human affairs, and couldn’t possibly
be all it takes for you to become, for instance, Buddhist, and
enjoy the Buddha’s care and protection. That’s not how it
works. And neither will praying and bowing to a statue so

107
 fervently that your body aches, nor lighting scores of devo-
tional candles, change anything. What you have to do is really
work on your heart and mind with all due sincerity. In the
latter days the universe has changed dramatically, and even
many places of worship are in a troubled state. Those with
special powers (monastics included) have observed this. At
present I am the only one anywhere publicly teaching what
could actually be called the Way. Never before has anyone
done what I am doing, let alone been as welcoming as this,
and in these latter days. An opportunity like this is normally
very, if not extremely, rare. But your deliverance from this
world rests in your own hands, and comes down to whether
you have what it takes for spiritual practice. What I teach
covers an enormous scope of the universe.
My point isn’t that you have to learn Falun Dafa, but to
convey a principle. Namely, that in spiritual practice you need
to stay true to one practice. Otherwise it simply won’t work
out. So naturally, if you aren’t interested in our spiritual prac-
tice, we won’t try to coerce you in any way; the teaching is
meant for those who are sincere about practicing. So you
must commit to one practice and not even mix in concepts
from other ones. Nor should you incorporate any techniques
related to the mind. Our Falun Dafa doesn’t make use of those,
and they are not something I teach. This point really has to
be heeded. There are basically no mental techniques used in
our discipline. This is consistent with the Buddhist belief in
“emptiness” and the Daoist idea of “nothingness.”
On one occasion I allowed my mind to be linked with
the minds of four or five enlightened ones in extremely
high realms. Their level of attainment was so great that non-
practitioners would think I was exaggerating were I to

108
describe it. They wanted to read my mind. Others have no
way of doing that, given how many years I practiced for; their
powers have no way to breach my space. Nobody is able to
know me or what I am thinking. Yet in this case, I consented
to their wish to know my thoughts, and linked my mind with
theirs for a period of time. But once the connection was made
I found it hard to take. That’s because regardless of my level
of attainment, I am part of this mortal world and acting with
a purpose—to save people—and my mind is on that. Whereas
their minds were so still it was unsettling. Were it just one
being who was that still, it wouldn’t have been that significant,
but there were four or five sitting over there, with stillness
like a pool of standing water, and I couldn’t sense anything
from them. Those few days my mind really felt uneasy; the
sensation that was lingering would be hard to describe. That
kind of complete emptiness, free of all intention, is beyond
what most people could imagine or ever experience.
In advanced practice, the mind is not in any way con-
sciously directed. You were at the beginning stage when you
started, as a regular person, and so foundational work was
needed. The foundational work, however, has been done for
you. Normally by the time more advanced stages are reached,
all of the mechanisms related to one’s body or energy will have
become fully automated, and our practice is a good example
of this: you will keep developing higher energy, independent
of the exercises, as long as you work on your character. Our
exercises merely serve to strengthen the automated mecha-
nisms, while the meditation, which is motionless, brings us
to a state of complete inaction. While you might see Daoist
practices teaching an array of physical regimens, mental exer-
cises, and ways to guide energy with the mind, all of those,

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I can tell you, are dispensed with as soon as adherents prog-
ress past the stage of more basic chi; visualizations aren’t used
past that point. Yet some of our practitioners have a hard time
moving on from the breathing methods and ways of using the
mind that they’re familiar with from previous energy exercises
or practices. I am offering them university level instruction,
so to speak, only to have them ask about elementary things
like “guiding energy” and “directing awareness.” Those have
become the norm for them. True energy exercises for spiri-
tual development are different from what they imagine.

Supernormal Powers
and Spiritual Power
There are many who don’t have a good command of spiri-
tual terminology, and they get certain terms mixed up. One
example is how people confuse the term “supernormal powers”
with “spiritual power.” The higher energy that comes from
working on your character is attuned to the qualities of the
universe, and it is derived from virtue. This energy is crucial
because it determines your level of spiritual attainment, as
well as your spiritual prowess and divine standing. Supernor-
mal powers are something that comes about in the course
of practice, and we call them “powers” for short. The higher
energy that I just mentioned, which determines your level
of attainment, is what’s referred to as your “spiritual power.”
The higher your level of attainment, the greater this will be,
and the more potent your powers.
When supernormal or psychic powers appear they are

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but a byproduct of the spiritual journey. Experiencing them
doesn’t say anything about your progress or degree of achieve-
ment, nor your spiritual power; they are simply more avail-
able to some people than others. Nor should these powers be
treated as the main goal of practice; they are not something
to be had by effort. They can only be developed through sin-
cere spiritual practice. But they still shouldn’t be a motivating
goal. If they are, you should ask yourself why. Do you plan
to use them around people? They are forbidden from being
used like that, and the more you want them, the less likely
they will come about. That’s because you would be wanting
them, and that would be an attachment. And attachments
are precisely what spiritual practice aims to do away with.
Plenty of people have reached great spiritual heights with-
out having any powers come to them. Their masters sealed off
their powers for fear that they wouldn’t exercise self-restraint
and would misuse them; their masters prevented them from
using their powers along the way. This has been the case for
many individuals. Your powers are governed by your thoughts,
and so, were the situation otherwise, you could very well lose
control over them while asleep in a dream, and awake the next
morning to discover that everything around you was laid to
waste. Which of course mustn’t happen. Since our practice is
done in the secular world, whatever great powers someone
has generally won’t be available to him. The vast majority will
be sealed off. But this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Many individ-
uals who make solid spiritual progress are allowed to experi-
ence some of their powers, since they have good self-control.
These are people who would firmly refuse to show them off,
if people wanted them to. They have self-control.

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Reverse Practice and
the Borrowing of Energy
There are people who have never done an energy practice
or have maybe just learned a few techniques at a tai-chi
or chi-gong class, for health reasons rather than spiritual
growth, and yet overnight they unexpectedly get energy.
I want to explore together how this kind of energy comes
about. There are several means.
One way is what’s called reverse practice. This happens
when someone who is older wishes to do spiritual practice,
yet hasn’t enough time left to begin the journey from scratch.
When chi-gong was in its heyday in China not long ago, there
were older folks who wanted to practice it, like everyone else.
They knew that it could not only lead to self-improvement,
but also benefit others. So they were motivated to practice it
and better themselves. But remember that when the surge of
interest in these practices took place, the teachers involved
were only serving to popularize them; none were offering
true instruction of a more advanced sort. To this very day
I remain the only person to be truly, publicly instructing in
a higher practice. At that time the people who experienced
reverse practice were over fifty. They were somewhat older
but had excellent innate foundations, and what their bodies
carried was excellent. They were almost good enough to be
selected as apprentices or successors to a master. But these
individuals were getting on in years, and it would have been
really hard for them to practice. Simply finding a qualified
teacher who would instruct them would have been difficult.
Yet their wish to practice shined from their hearts like gold,

112
and would echo throughout the universe. It would mean
that their divine nature, to use a religious term for it, had
shone through.
A person’s life, as seen from higher realms, is not meant
to be lived as a human being. His or her life was produced in
a dimension in the universe, and so it was naturally attuned
to the universe’s qualities of zhen, shan, ren and was originally
good and kind. But as beings form relationships with one
another and as their numbers increase, certain ones among
the group turn selfish or bad. At that point they can no longer
remain in the higher, heavenly realm where they began, and
must drop to a lower one. If they become bad yet again in the
lower realm, they must drop again, with the process repeating
until finally they drop to this mortal world. Lives are supposed
to be annihilated upon descending to this plane of existence.
Yet higher beings decided, out of mercy, to give man one last
chance by placing him in the most trying of settings. And
that was how this dimension came to be.
In other dimensions people do not have bodies like those
here, and they can float in the air and enlarge or shrink. In
this dimension, by contrast, people are saddled with the phys-
ical bodies that we now have. With this kind of body, cold
or heat will be unpleasant, and it’s difficult when you are
tired or hungry. Pain is inevitable. There are the miseries that
come with illness, and you are subject to the cycle of being
born, aging, becoming infirm, and then dying. All of which is
meant to pay off your karma, through suffering. You are being
given one more chance to go back, and that is why you are in
this beguiling place. After dropping here, you are furnished
with eyes as you now have, which prevent you from seeing
other dimensions or seeing the material world for what it is.

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Those who make it back, however, will find that the worst of
their suffering here was in fact the most valuable. Practicing
by relying on faith while in this confusing place is extremely
trying, yet it is also what makes a swift return to heaven pos-
sible. But if instead you become still worse here, then your
soul will be extinguished. So the point of human existence,
as higher beings see it, is not to be human but to recover
our original purity and go back to our heavenly home. The
average person doesn’t realize this, however, for this secular
world is all he knows, and what tends to occupy his mind is
figuring out how to get ahead and live the good life. But the
better off he is, the more selfish and greedy he may become,
in which case he strays only further from the qualities of the
universe and heads for destruction.
That is the view of things as seen from higher realms. What
you think of as progress might in reality be heading backward.
People think that they are progressing forward, with science
advancing to new frontiers, when in fact things are merely
unfolding according to cosmic patterns. Even few Chinese
know why the Daoist figure known as Master Zhang Guo
rode his donkey sitting backwards. He decided to ride it
backwards upon realizing that forward progress was actu-
ally a regression. And this is why higher beings consider it
so precious when a person has the wish to do spiritual prac-
tice, and will freely help him. And similarly, I will do all that
I can to help the learners sitting here today who decide on
practicing. But I can’t help you, and it won’t work out, if you
are just like the average person who comes in order to get
healed, or for other motives. The reason is, in that case you
just want to be a regular person, and regular people are meant
to experience the cycle of being born, aging, becoming ill, and

114
dying. It is how it should be, and there are deeper workings
behind these things that shouldn’t be disrupted. Previously,
true spiritual practice may not have been a part of your life.
But now that you have decided to take it up, the life ahead
of you needs to be redesigned, and so we have grounds for
rebalancing your body.
So when a person wants to do spiritual practice, higher
beings see that intent and consider it simply precious. But [in
recent times] it hasn’t been possible for these higher beings to
support people by finding a teacher in this world to instruct
them. What’s more, the people I’ve been describing would
have been over fifty and getting on in years. Higher beings
cannot come and teach people directly; to reveal themselves
and teach the Way and exercises would amount to divulging
higher secrets, and their divine standing would be lowered
for doing that. Human beings fell into this maze on account
of having done wrong, and so they must rely on faith and dis-
cernment as they practice here. And for this reason, higher
beings cannot teach them. Were a divine being to appear in
full glory and teach the Way and exercises, even those who
are guilty of unpardonable evil would come to learn, and
everyone would believe. Faith and discernment would no
longer be involved. That would be a problem, since everyone
fell into this maze of their own doing and was supposed to
be destroyed—only they have been given a chance to work
their way back out. Some will manage to work their way back
out, while some won’t, and will continue to reincarnate until,
eventually, they are destroyed.
The spiritual journey must always be one’s own. What
could those higher beings do to help, then, if a person wanted
to practice? They figured out an approach. As I mentioned,

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there was a surge of interest in energy practices at the time,
which resulted from cosmic changes. So, in keeping with
these cosmic tides, the higher beings supplied energy to such
a person on the merits of his character. They would attach
to his body a type of soft tubing that would act like a water
faucet; energy would come forth whenever he turned it on.
He would find that energy would come to him if he wished to
project it, and wouldn’t if he did not. This then is what’s meant
by “reverse” practice; i.e., the person works towards spiritual
perfection in reverse, from what would normally be a higher
stage of practice, towards a more foundational one.
Usually a person will progress in practice from a basic stage
towards more advanced ones, all the way until his powers
become available to him and he achieves spiritual perfection.
But in cases of reverse practice, the person is older and there
isn’t enough time for him to follow the standard progres-
sion from basic to advanced; quicker progress could be had
by starting directly from the advanced stage. This phenom-
enon was a product of the times. The person would have to
have excellent character, as this would determine how much
energy he was given. But what, then, was the purpose of all
this? For one thing, it was to support cosmic developments
then occurring. Also, the person experiencing it would get
to face ordeals while doing good deeds [with his newfound
powers]. Since he would be dealing with worldly folk, he
might have to interact with all sorts of people. For example,
there might be some who misunderstand his healing of them.
Though he removes many bad things from their bodies while
treating them and cures them of their ailments, that might
not be apparent at first. So they might be unhappy about it
or might not show him any gratitude. And they might even

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accuse him of swindling them. Trying scenarios such as these
would thus serve to temper the practitioner’s mind. So the
second purpose of giving him energy was to enable practice
and make it possible for him to grow spiritually. And while
doing good works he could develop his powers and increase
his energy. Not everyone experiencing this would realize it,
however. But as I said, the Way couldn’t be taught to them
and it was up to them to realize what was taking place. It was
a question of discernment. And so nothing could be done to
help those who were failing to realize what was happening.
When energy came to them, some individuals would sud-
denly feel unbearably hot as they slept one night, and would
have to peel off their blankets. After rising the next morning
they would find that they felt static electricity from whatever
they touched. Realizing that they now had energy, they might
use it to help someone in pain, such as by rubbing the ailing
area with their hands, and it would seem to do the job. And
they would know that this energy would be at their disposal
going forward. So they would act like masters and start an
energy healing practice, declaring themselves experts and
making a business of it. At first, being good people, they
would turn down the money or gifts offered to them for their
healings. But the corrupting influence of this world would
prove too much for them over time, and they would end up
polluted by it. This owed to the fact that those who did reverse
practice hadn’t gone through the process of working sincerely
on their character, and it was hard for them to handle things
well. They would gradually go from accepting small tokens
of appreciation to accepting larger gifts, to at some point
even taking offense at lesser gifts. And they might eventually
reject gifts altogether, demanding money instead. And they

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would take issue if the money offered wasn’t enough. They
would grow full of themselves from all the praise that they
heard, and no longer be respectful of true teachers. Criticism
from anyone would upset them. Their attachments to worldly
things like status and wealth would grow, and they would
think that they outshined everyone else and were something
special. They mistakenly believed that they were given energy
so that they could become masters and strike it rich, when in
fact, it was to make spiritual development possible for them.
But as they became increasingly worldly by wanting status
and wealth, their character only worsened.
Remember that your energy will only be as great as your
character. Not much energy can be provided to someone
whose character has sunk, for it is given on the merit of
character, and the two are proportionate. The stronger some-
one’s worldly desires are, the lower he sinks in this mundane
world, and his energy will drop in kind. Energy will no longer
be given if he eventually bottoms out, and he will be left
without a trace of it. This has been the case for many in recent
years, with a large number being women over fifty. A typical
case would involve an older woman who does an energy
practice but hasn’t ever received true instruction; at most
she would have learned a few exercises for health at a class.
But then out of the blue, energy comes to her one day. Her
character isn’t solid, though, and she begins to crave status
and wealth, and ends up falling, with nothing to show for
her efforts—not even energy. Many who experienced reverse
practice have fallen like this, and just a scant few remain who
have energy. Their failing was that they didn’t realize that
the energy given to them was for the purpose of spiritual
development, and they mistook it as a means to worldly ends

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and to a distinguished career as a master, enjoying wealth and
renown. But in reality it was meant as a means for spiritual
practice.
Another phenomenon involves people borrowing energy.
In this case age isn’t a factor, but for it to happen the individ-
ual involved must be of especially noble character. Typically
the person will know that there is something spiritual about
energy practice, and they are drawn to it by this. But despite
their interest, where would they even begin to look for a good
teacher? And even the reputable teachers who were around
a few years ago would have only been offering instruction
meant for health and wellness. There was nobody teaching
the kind of practice that leads to higher spiritual realms; no
one was doing so.
There is something I want to discuss while on the topic of
borrowing energy. Human beings have not only a true soul
(a conscious mind), but also a secondary soul (a subconscious
mind). An individual might have anywhere from one to as
many as five of these secondary souls. Their gender isn’t
necessarily the same as that of the person, as they might be
either male or female, and it differs from person to person.
And in fact, the true soul isn’t necessarily the same gender
as the physical body, either. We have observed that there are
now an unusually large number of men with female souls, and
women with male souls. This is consistent with the Daoist
belief that yin forces are dominant in these times, due to
a cosmic reversal of yin and yang.
One’s secondary soul usually comes from a higher plane
than the true soul, with some having come from realms of
exceptional height. Secondary souls should never be con-
fused with possessing entities. These souls are born with you

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at the same time from the womb, and have the same name
as you, as they are physically part of you. Normally it is the
true soul that decides what you think about or do. The main
task of the secondary soul is to prevent the true soul from
doing wrong. Yet when the true soul is headstrong about
something, the secondary soul is powerless to help. The sec-
ondary soul isn’t misled by the secular world, while the true
soul easily falls for it.
Some secondary souls hail from realms quite high, and
it’s possible they are on the verge of attaining a divine standing.
The secondary soul might wish to engage in spiritual prac-
tice, but it is powerless to do so if the true soul doesn’t want
to. What used to happen during this time when interest in
energy practices in China was at its height, was that the true
soul of a certain individual might one day wish to do spir-
itual practice. The thought was simple and pure, of course,
and not tainted by desires for worldly things. The secondary
soul would be delighted by this, for it had long wanted to
do spiritual practice but hadn’t any say, and now this person
wanted to as well. But where would this person find a true
guide? The secondary soul would be quite resourceful and
take leave of the body to seek out the higher beings that it
knew from a previous life; it might be possible for it to leave
the body since it could be a soul that had come from realms
quite high. Upon visiting the higher beings, it would convey
its wish to practice and ask to borrow energy. Beings such
as these would see that the person was quite good, and nat-
urally be happy to help since it was for purposes of spiritual
practice. So this would be how the secondary souls borrowed
energy. Often the energy would be a dispersed type that was
delivered to the individual via a tube-like conduit. In other

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cases what was borrowed would come in finished form, and
it would typically bring with it supernormal powers.
That being the case, the person might gain powers along
with energy, and experience something like what I described
earlier, where he’s unbearably hot while sleeping at night and
awakes the next day with energy. He would feel static elec-
tricity from whatever he touched and find that he could do
healings for people. He would know that energy had come
to him, though not where from. He would just have a sense
that it came from somewhere in the universe, but without
knowing exactly how. His secondary soul wouldn’t tell him,
since it was the one engaging in practice, rather than the
true soul. All that the individual would know is that energy
had come to him.
Age usually wouldn’t be a factor in deciding who could
borrow energy. The borrowers in recent years have tended to
be younger, with people in their twenties, thirties, and forties
experiencing it as well as older folks. Younger people find it
harder to handle themselves well, however. They might be
good people under normal circumstances, and take worldly
things lightly when they’re nobody special. But after a taste
of success they are apt to fall prey to the lure of things like
status and wealth, and start becoming ambitious about life,
and want to throw their hat in the ring and fight for their
piece of the pie. So it’s quite possible that they would regard
their powers and newfound abilities as a means of achieving
selfish, worldly ends. That’s a problem, though. Those powers
aren’t to be used in that way, and doing so will come at the
cost of energy. So these individuals would end up devoid of
any energy. Even more of this group have fallen; not one is
left now, from what I’ve seen.

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 In both scenarios I just described, the individuals involved
had excellent character initially. Their energy wasn’t the result
of practicing, but rather, was provided by higher beings. So
naturally the energy was good.

Entity Attachment
Many of you may have heard from various religious traditions
about animal spirits such as those of foxes, weasels, hedge-
hogs, or snakes attaching to human bodies, and wonder what
it’s about. People claim that energy practices can develop
psychic powers, but that’s not how it works; what people
are taking to be psychic powers are actually innate human
abilities. It’s merely that as the world progresses, people are
increasingly fixating on the tangible things of this physical
dimension and growing more dependent on modern tech-
nology. This has led to a steady decline of our innate abili-
ties to the point we are at now, where they are disappearing
altogether.
To gain psychic powers you have to first recover your orig-
inal state of purity through disciplined spiritual practice. Ani-
mals, on the other hand, haven’t the complicated thinking that
man does. The qualities of the universe flow through them,
as a result, and so their innate powers are available to them.
Some people claim that snakes or other animals know how to
practice or that foxes know how to amass energy. But that’s not
the case; they too begin with no knowledge of it. It’s merely
that their innate powers are available to them. That said, it is
possible for animals to gain energy or even psychic powers
with the right conditions, the right setting, and enough time.

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 In this manner animals can come to have certain abilities,
which have previously been referred to as psychic energy or
special powers. To ordinary people, animals like these might
seem formidable and easily able to dominate man. But I would
say they’re nothing of the sort. They pale in comparison with
a true practitioner. It would take barely your little finger to
crush them, even if they have practiced nearly a thousand
years. So while we do believe that animals have certain innate
powers and can gain abilities, there remains a law in this
universe that animals may not practice, let alone succeed
at it. That’s why in ancient texts you might read of disasters
large and small wiping out animals every several centuries.
If at some point an animal does manage to develop energy,
it might be eliminated by a thunderbolt or the like. They are
forbidden to practice since they don’t have human nature
and cannot practice as man does. They lack the qualities that
human beings have and would surely become fiends if they
were to practice and succeed at it. So they aren’t allowed to
and would incur divine wrath if they did. And they are aware
of this. But the world has declined terribly, as I’ve indicated,
and there are people who do all manner of evil. I think you
would have to agree that humanity is in peril.
But the pendulum always swings back eventually. We have
found that each time in prehistory when civilization was
cyclically destroyed, it occurred when people’s moral values
had been terribly corrupted. The dimension in which we now
exist is in imminent danger, as are many others; the same
is true for other dimensions at this plane. Animals want to
quickly flee and climb to higher planes since they think that
this would bring them safety. But it’s not that simple, since
a human body is necessary for spiritual progress. So this is

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one reason why some spiritual practitioners have fallen prey
to entity attachment.
Some people might wonder why no higher beings or pow-
erful masters have put a stop to this. It’s because the way this
universe works is that nobody is going to stop you if you’ve
decided upon something. Here we simply teach you how to
go about the practice correctly and explain the teachings in
depth, while leaving it up to you what to make of them. You
decide for yourself whether you want to learn the practice. As
it’s said, “the master teaches the trade, but the apprentice’s skill
reflects his own efforts.” Nobody will force you or coerce you
to practice, for it is always your own personal decision. This
means that nobody will try to dissuade you once you have
decided upon a certain course, or try to change what you
want or hope to gain. Others can only try to encourage you
to do what’s best.
When some people do an energy practice, the benefits of it
are all in fact reaped by attached entities. Then how common
is this on a national scale, and how did those entities get on
people in the first place? It’s so common that the number is
alarming; many people would be scared away from these
practices if I were to give figures. This begs the question of how
the problem came about, then—something as serious as spirit
entities disrupting the world. It turns out that it’s something
people have brought upon themselves. Demons lurk every-
where now, due to people’s depravity. Those entities on the
bodies of false teachers are a telling example, and those teach-
ers in fact spread these when they teach. Yet never in history
were animal spirits allowed to attach to human bodies. Any
that tried to would be killed; no one who saw it would let it
slide. But in today’s world people pray to them, ask for them,

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and even worship them. Now while you might be thinking
that you’ve never done anything like that knowingly, you may
have wanted to get extrasensory powers. The divinities who
oversee the authentic spiritual traditions would never grant
you such powers, since your yearning is a worldly attach-
ment that should go. Only animals or demons from other
realms would grant them to you. Those entities will come to
you when you try to gain special powers, for it’s as good as
inviting them.
You’d be surprised by how many people start practicing for
the wrong reasons. In spiritual practice one needs to strive
to be virtuous, do good works, and act with kindness at all
times and in all places. Yet despite all the people doing energy
practices out in the parks or at home, few are thinking in that
way. In some cases, I don’t even know what they are doing.
They will be swaying all about as they practice, and even com-
plaining about things like how neglectful their daughter-in-
law is or how bad their mother-in-law is. And some people
go on about anything and everything, from issues at work
to national affairs, even getting angry about the things that
aren’t agreeable to them. But could that count as practicing?
Another example might be someone who practices by holding
a stance so long that his legs start to tremble, yet his mind
isn’t at peace. He might be thinking about how expensive
things are getting nowadays, and be worrying about whether
his workplace can make the payroll, which gets him thinking
about supernormal powers and how he could become a healer
with them and get wealthy. And he will only get more anxious
about it when he sees others gaining powers, and then try
all the harder to get powers like higher vision or the ability
to heal. Think about just how far that is from the qualities

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that underlie the universe—zhen, shan, ren. It’s completely
counter to them. You could say that his practice has turned
evil. But he wouldn’t be aware of this. And if his mind goes
further down that road, the thoughts that he emits will grow
only worse. But this is someone who hasn’t learned the Way
or the importance of being virtuous. So he mistakenly thinks
that powers will come to him by his own efforts in practicing,
and that he can get whatever he wants through effort.
It is only because the person’s thoughts aren’t wholesome
that he attracts bad things. Animal spirits can see when some-
one wants to gain renown, wealth, or powers from practicing.
They’ll be delighted by this, since the person’s physical makeup
might be pretty good and his body might have great things
in it. And they will see that his thoughts are awful, since he
seeks paranormal powers. But they won’t be scared off even
if he in fact has a master. They know that the more someone
wants those powers, the more determined his master will
be not to grant them; particularly the master of a true prac-
tice, who would see it as an attachment to be broken. So the
person’s strong attachments will only make it less likely that
he’s granted special powers. But if he doesn’t come to realize
it, he will keep at it and his thinking will grow only worse.
Ultimately his master will have no choice but to sadly aban-
don him, since he seems hopeless. Some individuals who
don’t have a master might have one in passing, who keeps
an eye on them for a bit. This is common, given how many
higher beings are present in other worlds. He will observe the
person a bit after spotting him. But after only a day or so of
following and observing the person, it will be apparent that he
hasn’t got what it takes, and the master will depart. The next
day the same scenario might play out with another master,

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only to have him, too, discover that this person isn’t suitable,
and so he departs as well.
An animal will know that the person’s master, be it his own
or one-in-passing, won’t grant him what he wants. Animals
can’t see the realms of higher beings, and so they aren’t afraid
of those beings and exploit one of the laws of the universe,
namely, that normally nobody should try to stop someone
from going after what he wants. So animals figure there is
nothing wrong with giving the person what he wants, and
they do just that. At first an animal won’t have the nerve to
latch on. What it does instead is to give the person some
energy as a test-run. So one day, unexpectedly, the person
really does get energy like he’d hoped for and can even use it
for healing. But that was just the opening act, so to speak. The
animal will see that it’s going over well and that the person
is receptive, and decide to get on his body under the guise
of providing more energy, more directly. It will see that this
person wants to have his inner eye opened, and it’s happy to
give him everything. And so it affixes itself to his body.
So the person’s inner eye gets opened, just as he longed
for, and what’s more, he gains the ability to project energy,
along with other, lesser powers. He’s delighted by all of this
and thinks that he has finally achieved what he has been prac-
ticing for. But the truth is, none of it has resulted from his
efforts practicing. And nor has his inner eye actually been
opened, even if it seems that he can see into people’s bodies
and discover what ails them. Rather, it’s that the animal is
manipulating his brain. What the animal does is to convey
what it sees with its own eyes to the person’s brain, which leads
him to believe that his inner eye has opened. And he’s sure
to try to project energy. But what happens is that when he

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extends his hand to send out energy, the animal extends a paw
out from behind his body; or perhaps, in some cases, it’s a
snake that has attached to the person, which sticks out its
forked tongue from its little reptilian head toward the per-
son’s ailment or tumor, and licks at it. Many cases of entity
attachment fall into this category, where it’s something the
person brings upon himself.
So, as a result of his longing for worldly things, the person
now has extrasensory powers, can do healings, and see with
his inner eye, all to his great delight. The animal might see
that he yearns for money and fulfill his wish. It’s incredibly
easy to manipulate the minds of ordinary people. And so the
animal might direct droves of people to come see the person
for energy healing. Goodness, he’ll be giving treatments there
while the animal is off directing the media to give him pub-
licity. It can make ordinary people do things like that. And if
those who come to him for treatments don’t pay him enough,
the animal can make them have a headache or do whatever it
takes to coax more money out of them. So status and wealth
both come to him; not only does he get a windfall, but also
a dose of fame as some kind of master. The people this applies
to aren’t typically attentive to their character, and make out-
landish claims, as if they were second only to God. They might
go so far as to say they’re the Queen Mother of Heaven or
Jade Emperor in the flesh, or even a Buddha. They never went
through the process of earnestly working on their character,
and so they want to get psychic powers with their practice.
And this is how they end up with an animal spirit on them.
Some of you might be thinking that it’s not a big issue,
given all the prestige and income that would come from
it. And no small number of people are thinking that way.

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But I can tell you that the animal has its own agenda, and it
won’t give you something for nothing. The way the universe
works is that everything comes at a cost. Something is in it for
the animal, as I just touched on, which is a chance to obtain
the limited bit of essence that your body has. This can then be
used to develop a human form; they seek to take the essence
of people’s bodies. But your body has just that limited bit of
essence, and your spiritual progress is dependent upon it. If
you let an animal take it away you might as well forget about
practicing, for you wouldn’t have what it takes; the material
needed simply wouldn’t be there. Progress just wouldn’t be
possible. Now, some people might dismiss this concern since
they’re not interested in spiritual practice to begin with and
just have their sights set on money. But I think you’ll want
to reconsider it after I explain a few things. Here’s why. Your
limbs might be lame after the animal leaves your body, even if
it doesn’t stay on you long. And that could be a lifelong con-
dition, since it might have taken too much of your essence.
Worse yet, if it leaves your body later than this, you could
become a vegetable and be bedridden for the rest of your life,
hanging by a thread. So even if you did get rich or famous,
could you enjoy it? It’s a frightening prospect.
What I described is a significant problem among people
who do energy practices today, and there are many cases
of this. Those entities not only possess the body but kill off
the person’s soul; they burrow into the Niwan Palace and
stay there. So while the person might seem to be human,
he is not. It’s a telling reflection of the state of the world.
There are people who won’t be convinced if you see them
doing wrong and point it out, for humanity’s moral fabric
has changed. They think that the endless pursuit of wealth is

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perfectly justified, and will trample on and hurt others and
stop at nothing for it. But those spirit entities, which want
to take from your body, won’t let you enjoy such wealth for
free—everything comes at a cost. So these problems are of
people’s own making; they stem from people’s thoughts not
being right or virtuous.
Now let’s see how this applies to Falun Dafa. You won’t
experience any of the problems we just discussed while doing
our practice, as long as you can keep your thoughts in check,
since good is a far greater force than evil. But if you can’t keep
your thoughts pure, and you have other intentions mixed in,
then you are asking for trouble. Some people just can’t let
go of what they formerly practiced. We teach that you have
to commit to one practice, as any legitimate discipline will
tell you. You shouldn’t think so highly of teachers of prac-
tices who have been published. I can tell you that in some
cases their books are plagued by the same sorts of things that
their practices are, such as snakes, foxes, and weasels. If you
read those books, the animals will leap out from behind the
words at you. As I’ve indicated, charlatans outnumber the
true masters many times over, and you can’t tell them apart.
It’s vital that you realize this. My point here isn’t that you
have to practice Falun Dafa. It’s fine for you to do whatever
practice you’d like. But there used to be a saying: better to go
a thousand years without learning a true doctrine than spend
one day practicing a false one. It’s advice you definitely want
to heed. With real practice of the true Way, you don’t want
to mix anything in—not even mental techniques. Some peo-
ple’s falun have become deformed. If you probe why, they will
say that they didn’t practice anything else, and wonder what
happened. But the fact is, when they do our exercises they

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add things in with their minds from their former practices.
And naturally that’s going to bring foreign things in. I’ll just
say this much on the topic of entity attachment.

Cosmic Tongues
There is a phenomenon that’s sometimes referred to as speak-
ing in “cosmic tongues.” It happens when a person is spon-
taneously able to speak a kind of confusing babble, which
even he or she can’t understand. Someone with telepathic
abilities might have a general sense for it, but won’t be able to
make out the specifics of what’s being said. And some people
can speak multiple languages. Some who do this think it’s a
special power or gift, and take pride in it. But it’s not the
kind of power or gift that a practitioner would have, and it
doesn’t indicate spiritual achievement. So what is it, then? It
is a case of one’s mind having been taken over by an entity
from another dimension. And yet people may think it’s a great
thing, be pleased to experience it, and be happy about it. Yet
the happier they are, the tighter that entity’s grip on them
becomes. I think you would have to agree it’s not befitting
a practitioner to let something like that control you. And
besides, those entities come from awfully low realms. Since
we are people engaged in true spiritual practice, we don’t want
to invite that kind of trouble.
Man is the most precious life form and the highest of all
creatures. So it’s terribly inappropriate to let those entities
take over you. How sad that people would relinquish con-
trol over their own bodies! Some of those entities attach to
a person’s body, while some don’t but instead keep a short

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 distance and manage to direct you or control you all the same.
These entities grant the ability to speak their languages to
people who want it, and these individuals then find that they
can speak a sort of gibberish. This ability can also be spread
from one person to another. Maybe an onlooker wants to
learn to do it, so he plucks up his courage, opens his mouth,
and finds that he too can speak it. But in reality, what hap-
pens is that those things come in swarms, and if someone
wants to speak in tongues, one of them will get on him and
make it happen.
So why has this phenomenon come about? It’s similar to
what I described earlier; i.e., that those entities want to go to
higher realms, but since there is no suffering in their dimen-
sion, they have no way to practice or elevate. So they came up
with the approach of trying to do good things for people. But
they didn’t know how to go about it, though they did know
that the energy they emit could have a soothing effect on the
sick and temporarily alleviate pain, even if it couldn’t effect
a cure; and they saw that they could accomplish this by using
people’s mouths to emit their energy. So this is what it boils
down to. People have referred to it as a “divine language” or
“Buddha’s language.” But that’s blasphemous and downright
absurd.
You should know that divine beings speak only with great
discretion. If they spoke in this dimension they might trig-
ger earthquakes in the world. It would be terrible, with such
a thundering sound. So while some people may claim that
they saw with their inner eye that a higher being spoke to
them, that’s not what happened, in fact. And the same holds
true in cases where people believe that my spiritual bodies
spoke to them. What happens is that the thoughts they project

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 are accompanied by stereo sound, and so to you it seems as
if they have spoken. They are capable of speaking in their
dimensions, but if people in our world were to hear them
directly, it would be unintelligible. This owes to differences in
space-time between the two dimensions: a two-hour block of
time in this dimension might be a year in the large dimensions
where they are. Time is slower in our world than over there.
Yet there is a saying that “a day in the heavens amounts to
a thousand years on earth.” The saying refers to independent
worlds where there is no such thing as space or time; namely,
the worlds where divine ones reside, such as the Paradise of
Ultimate Bliss, the Lapis Lazuli Paradise, the Falun Paradise,
and the Lotus Paradise. The time in the large dimensions
I mentioned, by contrast, is faster than ours here. If you have
the ability to receive and hear what a being there says, as when
your celestial ear has opened [and you have clairaudience],
you will be able to hear those divinities speaking. But you
won’t be able to make out what they say. Whatever you hear
would sound like the twitter of birds or a turntable playing
at a high speed. You wouldn’t be able to make out a single
word. Of course, there are people who can hear music or
speech from another dimension. But for that to be possible
they must have a power that serves as a vehicle and fixes the
discrepancy in time, and only then, when it’s transmitted to
their ears, can they hear with clarity. So that is what’s at work.
“Cosmic tongues” are most definitely not some kind of divine
speech, contrary to what’s been claimed.
When two divine beings meet, they need only smile to one
another to convey whatever they intend. They may use a type
of silent telepathy that takes the form of stereo sound in the
ears of the receiver. With but a smile they can exchange their

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thoughts. However, they don’t rely on one method alone, and
sometimes use other means. You may know that the lamas
of Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism hold mudras in high regard.
They will tell you, if asked, that mudras are the supreme yoga.
If you probe further you will find that they don’t know more
beyond that. Mudras are hand movements that are actually
a language of the divine. Divine ones use larger mudras in
the presence of a larger audience, and they are both exqui-
site and diverse; in the presence of a smaller group they use
smaller mudras, which are also pleasing to the eye and widely
varying. Mudras are very sophisticated and rich, since they
are a language after all. All of this used to be a guarded secret,
but now I’ve disclosed it. Tibetan mudras represent just a few
of the many that exist, having been drawn from them and
systematized for use in Esoteric practice. They just amount
to a language that’s been adopted for purposes of practice,
and there are only a few, limited forms associated with this.
Actual mudras are quite elaborate.

What I Do for Learners

When some people meet me they grab hold of my hand
and shake it, and just don’t want to let go. And others, upon
seeing this, want to shake my hand in a normal way. I know
what thoughts are behind it in each case. For some learners
it’s simply that they are happy to be able to shake hands with
their teacher, but for others it’s about getting energy, and that
is why they hold fast to my hand and won’t let go. But let me
remind you that true practice is about you. We are not here
to heal you or build up your health, so we aren’t about to give

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 you energies or do healings. We don’t engage in those things.
Any diseases that you have will be eliminated by me right here,
while those who learn the practice at our exercise sites, or
by studying the book on their own, will have theirs handled
by my spiritual bodies. It’s humorous, isn’t it, to think that
people could get higher energy just by touching my hand?
Higher energy comes only through working on your char-
acter. It won’t increase if you don’t sincerely work on yourself,
for the quality of your character is the limiting factor. Beings
in higher realms can see that higher energy develops when
you remove your attachments and their material, and that
atop your head a measuring stick materializes. The stick exists
in the same way as your energy column, and its height will
determine that of your energy. It signifies how much of it you
have cultivated and it reflects your quality of character. It’s not
something that anyone can boost for you. Even if just a tiny
bit were added, it wouldn’t hold and would have to fall off.
I could have you instantly reach the stage of practice known as
“three flowers gathered at the crown,” but the energy involved
would fall off as soon as you left here. It wouldn’t be yours
since you hadn’t cultivated it, and so it couldn’t remain there.
Nobody could put energy there for you since your character
hadn’t reached that stage. It must be the fruits of your own
spiritual efforts, of your own refinement of the mind. Spiritual
progress is only possible if you work solidly on developing
higher energy, constantly improve, and attune yourself to
the qualities of the universe. And this is why I’m reluctant to
accommodate autograph seekers. If I did, they would show
off by telling others about it, and hope to get protection from
the energy that the autographs have. But isn’t that again an
attachment? You have to do your part in spiritual practice,

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so there’s no point in hoping for protective energies. Some-
one who is well advanced in practice would hardly concern
himself with such things. They don’t amount to much and
are only relevant to people who are into energy practices for
health purposes.
The higher form of energy that you develop through spir-
itual practice is, on a deep, subatomic plane, composed of
particles in your image. Once your practice has gone beyond
the human realm, it will be a divine body you are developing.
Your energy will then have the image of a divine being, and
this being will sit atop a lotus flower and be exceptionally
beautiful. And every tiny particle will be like this. The energy
that animals have, by contrast, is always in the image of things
like small foxes or snakes, and even their tiny particles at
a deep, subatomic plane are like that. Another thing is that
some people drink teas that supposedly have “psychic ener-
gies” mixed in, without giving thought to what kind of energy
is involved. Most ordinary people are happy to just postpone
and suppress their health problems, as long as they can get
temporary relief. That’s only to be expected. But however
much harm they might be doing to their bodies, it’s none of
our business, still. I am only disclosing these things to you
because you are practitioners. You shouldn’t be dabbling in
psychic energies or going in for those things anymore. You
should want no part in them. Some teachers of energy prac-
tices claim that they can transmit psychic energies to people
around the country. But I don’t know what you could expect
to get out of that. I can share that it won’t do much for you,
and even if there is something positive to it, it’s just for health
purposes. As people engaged in spiritual practice, we have
to depend on our own efforts to develop energy; any psychic

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energies supposedly sent to you wouldn’t do anything for
your spiritual growth. They only offer health benefits for reg-
ular people. It’s critical that you keep your thinking straight.
Nobody can do spiritual practice on your behalf. Progress
can only come from your own, sincere efforts.
You’d probably like to know what I do give you, then. Many
among us here have never practiced before and have vari-
ous ailments, as you might gather. There are also many who
have done energy practices before, even for years, but who
still linger at the basic stage of chi energy and who haven’t any
higher energy. And of course there may be some among you
who do healings, but don’t realize what’s involved. When
I discussed the problem of entity attachment, I took off all
such things from your bodies, regardless of what they were,
inside or out. They are gone now from the bodies of all of
you who are sincere in practicing Dafa. And similarly, I will
cleanse the bodies of anyone who becomes sincere in the
practice after learning it on their own. Your surroundings
at home need to be cleaned up as well. You should get rid of
any shrines to the spirits of what may have in fact been foxes
or weasels; those spirits have now been cleaned out and are
gone. We can do all of what I’ve described and make things as
easy as possible for you because you have the desire to prac-
tice. But this only holds true for those who are sincere about
it. Some people have no real interest in spiritual practice, of
course, and even at this point still haven’t come around. So
we can’t look after them. We can only take care of those who
are sincere about the practice.
There are also people who at one time were told, or had
sensed, that entities were attached to their bodies. I removed
those for them, yet they still worry that the problem persists,

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that those things are still there. But this counts as an attach-
ment, and it’s called doubt. And if they go on like this they
might just bring those entities back again. So they should
stop having doubts, and know that I eradicated those things
for them during my classes. All of those things were removed.
Early stages of Daoist practice require certain foundations
to be laid, which include forming a cosmic orbit and energy
center along with other things. What we do here is to place in
you a falun, energy mechanisms, and a wide array of things
needed for spiritual development—thousands upon thou-
sands. All of these must be given to you, and they are planted
in you like seeds. Once your ailments are purged for you, all
that should be done for you will be done, and all that should
be given to you will be given in full. Only then will true spir-
itual achievement be possible for you in our practice. Were
we to do anything less, and not provide much, the practice
would only serve health purposes. And actually, anyone who
isn’t serious about character would probably be better off just
doing regular physical exercises.
We take responsibility for true practitioners. All that I’ve
described will be done for you as long as you are sincere about
spiritual development, even if you are doing our practice on
your own. As I’ve said, we need to take all of you as students
and guide you in earnest. Along with this, it’s a must that you
learn the Way of higher realms thoroughly and know how to
practice it. I will instruct you in our full program of exercises,
all five, right from the start, and you will find that you can
master them all. Eventually you might well attain spiritual
heights beyond what you could imagine, and even a divine
standing will be possible. As long as you keep at the practice
you will find that the teachings always offer the guidance you

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need at different stages, since there are many dimensions to
what I teach.
Now that you practice, the course of your life will be
changed. My spiritual bodies will rework things for you. Let
me explain. There are some people who only have limited
time left to live, though they wouldn’t realize it; serious ill-
ness might strike in half a year or a year, and could go on for
years; or it could be that a stroke will occur or some condi-
tion comes on, which leaves them immobile. But practice
wouldn’t be possible if that were the life ahead of you. So we
have to clear those things out for you and ensure that they
don’t take place. But there’s one thing: this can only be done
for those who are sincere about practice. It would be wrong
for me to freely do such things for regular, worldly people.
There are reasons for the ordeals of life that people are sub-
ject to, and they can’t be rashly undone.
We regard those who engage in spiritual discipline as the
most valuable of all people, so their lives can be altered—but
theirs alone. Here’s how it works. If a teacher has great spiri-
tual power, i.e., if the strength of his energy is great, then he
can dissolve karma for you. A teacher whose energy is great
can dissolve much of it, while one whose isn’t can only dis-
solve a small amount. To give you a sense for it, let’s say that
we gather together the various forms of karma that await
you in your life, and dissolve a portion of it—say, a half. But
if even just a half were to remain it would be too much for
you, as it would still be larger than a mountain. Then how is
it dealt with? Many people stand to benefit from your gaining
enlightenment someday, and so they will be given a portion
of the karma to bear for you. It normally doesn’t amount to
anything for them, since the karma will be distributed among

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so many other entities, as well—from the many supernatural
beings that you will have developed within your body, to the
many other selves that you have, not to mention your true
and secondary souls. This means that there will be relatively
little left to bear when you go through ordeals. Little as it may
be, though, it is still sizeable, and you still wouldn’t be able to
bear it all at once. The solution, then, is to divide the karma
up into many, many portions and distribute them throughout
different stages of your practice so that you may perfect your
character and develop your energy as you work through them.
It should be said that spiritual practice is not easy. It’s a
very serious matter, as I see it. It is greater than anything of
the mundane world and more challenging than anything
known. It goes beyond this world, doesn’t it? And so the
demands it places on you are greater than anything people
know. This is partly because every person’s soul is immortal.
So your soul is apt to have done wrongful things to people in
previous incarnations. You might have killed people, become
indebted, been abusive, or hurt people. Those whom you
wronged will see clearly, in other dimensions, the progress
you make as you practice here. If you were just practicing
to heal your body, they wouldn’t think anything of it, since
they would know that you were just deferring the payback
on your debts, which would only be worse later on. And so
they wouldn’t mind if you didn’t pay up for the time being.
But if you take up spiritual practice, they won’t stand for
it. They will think, “You’re trying to do spiritual practice and
leave here, but once you have higher energy I won’t be able
to get you anymore, I won’t be able to touch you.” So they
won’t go for it, and will try to block your practice and do any-
thing and everything to get in your way. They will plague you

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in all kinds of ways, and may even try to kill you. Of course,
they won’t be able to do that and behead you, for example,
right there as you meditate, since that would be out of place
in this world. So it might happen that you are hit by a car
when you go out, that you fall off a roof, or meet with some
other form of danger—any of which would be quite perilous.
True spiritual practice isn’t as easy as you might have imag-
ined; progress doesn’t happen just by wishing for it. So you
might face imminent, mortal danger once you really begin
the spiritual journey. A large number of teachers won’t even
attempt to bring their students to higher stages of practice, for
this very reason. They haven’t the means to protect them.
Many past teachers could only mentor one student at a time,
for that was all that they could protect. Most wouldn’t attempt
to take on and protect as many as we have. But as I have indi-
cated, I can do this due to the countless spiritual bodies I have,
each of which is endowed with the same great powers of the
Way that I have, and they can exercise these with the force of
the Way. Also, there is more to what we are doing today than
meets the eye; I didn’t undertake this on an impulse. I can
share with you that there are many higher beings focusing
their attention on this, for this is now, in the latter days, the
last time we shall impart a true Way. So with something as
great as what we’re doing, it’s imperative that we not veer from
the right course. Nobody will dare to rashly do anything to
you as long as your practice stays on track. And besides, you
have the protection of my spiritual bodies. So no harm will
come to you.
Accounts do have to be settled, though, so it’s possible some
dangerous things will take place on your spiritual journey.
But those events won’t be frightening to you nor result in any

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serious harm coming to you. I can give some examples. There
was one person who was taking our class in Beijing. She was
crossing the street on her bike when a car suddenly rammed
into her while rounding a corner. This learner was a woman
over fifty. The car hit her out of nowhere, and it was a terrible
collision. Her head hit the roof of the car hard, with a loud
bang. The impact was so sudden and hard that she was still
astride her bike when her head hit the car, yet she didn’t feel
any pain. And not only that, but there wasn’t any blood or
even swelling. The driver was scared out of his wits, though.
He sprang from the car and said, “Are you hurt? Let’s get you
to the emergency room.” She responded by telling him that
she was “just fine.” It goes without saying that this was some-
one of excellent character. She wasn’t about to give the driver
a hard time. Though she was fine, as she indicated, the colli-
sion had left a big dent in the car.
Events like that are meant to take your life, but you won’t be
at risk. To give another example, the last time we gave a class
at Jilin University, there was a learner who had just left the
campus and walked his bike through the front gate. When
he was crossing the street, two cars came at him from out of
nowhere and were about to sandwich him. Even at that instant,
though, he wasn’t the least bit scared. And that’s common for
our practitioners in these kinds of episodes. As it turned out,
the cars came to a halt just before hitting him, and he was fine.
Another incident happened in Beijing. Nightfall comes
early in the winter there and people retire for sleep somewhat
early; the streets are usually deserted and still. Someone who
was learning the practice was biking home swiftly, and the
only thing ahead of him on the road was a jeep. The jeep was
driving along when suddenly it hit the brakes. Our student

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didn’t notice it, and kept pedaling with his head down. But
the jeep abruptly went into reverse, and was backing up at
a fast speed and going to crash into him. The colliding of the
two forces was meant to take his life. But just as they were
about to collide, out of nowhere there came a power that
pulled the student’s bike back more than half a yard, and
the jeep came to a halt just as it touched his wheel. Maybe
the driver realized that someone was behind him. This stu-
dent wasn’t scared when it happened. And that’s true for all
the others who have gone through things like these; at most
they might have felt frightened after the fact. In this case,
our student was merely surprised and his first thought was
that he should thank whoever pulled him back. He turned
around to thank them, only to discover that the street was
quiet, without a soul in sight. Then it dawned on him that it
was actually his teacher who had protected him!
There was another incident, this time in the city of Chang-
chun. A building was going up near the home of someone
who was learning the practice. Buildings are built really high
nowadays, and the scaffolding used during the construction
phase consists of steel poles two inches wide and four yards
long. This practitioner hadn’t gone far from home when a steel
pole fell vertically from the scaffolding of one such build-
ing, and was coming down right straight toward his head.
The passersby froze with fear when they saw it. But the next
instant, our student was asking who had patted him, as he
thought that someone had patted him on the head. He turned
around and noticed a large falun spinning overhead. Only
then did he realize that a pole had fallen and just grazed
his head, barely missing him. It fell with enough force that
it stuck into the ground, straight up. You can just imagine

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what would have happened if it had struck him with all that
force—it would have been like skewering fruit on a stick. It
could have been disastrous.
There have been countless incidents like these, but no
danger has ever really materialized. Yet you won’t necessarily
go through anything like that, personally. Only a very few of
us will. But either way, I can assure you that practitioners
of ours won’t be in any true danger. There are some people,
however, who act without regard to character, unlike what
the teachings set forth. They only do the exercises and don’t
work on their minds, in which case they can’t be considered
practitioners.
So you now know what I give you as your teacher. My spir-
itual bodies will constantly protect you until the day comes
when you can protect yourself, at which point you will be
about to surpass the mundane world in your practice and
gain enlightenment. You have to see yourself as a true practi-
tioner, though, for that to ever be possible. If you are sincere
in the practice you will never be like the person who once
walked down the street waving my book, shouting about
having “Master Li’s protection” and not being afraid of traf-
fic. Doing that was harmful to Dafa, and someone like that
won’t be protected.

The Field That Our Energy Has

A field forms around us when we do our exercises. As for what
it is, exactly, people have given various descriptions, from its
being a chi field, to a magnetic field, to an electric field. But
none have been very fitting, for the field around us consists

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of extremely diverse types of matter. Virtually every kind of
matter that makes up the universe’s dimensions is found in
the kind of higher energy that we develop. So it’s more fitting
to call it an energy field, and that’s how we usually refer to it.
Let’s talk about what exactly this field does. As you know,
we are practicing a true Way that embraces compassion and
that’s perfectly attuned to the universe’s qualities of zhen,
shan, ren. And so, many of you know or have experienced
that you don’t have any bad thoughts while attending our
class; and those who have a history of smoking won’t even
think of doing so. It feels very serene and pleasant in this
space. And that is what the energy of practitioners of a true
Way is like and how it feels in their presence. By the end of
this class the vast majority of you will have really, truly devel-
oped higher energy, since I am giving you what’s needed for
authentic practice, while you, on your part, are working on
your character in light of our teachings. And as you continue
to do so, and keep at the practice, your energy will grow only
more powerful.
We subscribe to the belief in saving all living things, and
not just achieving our own liberation. And so the falun ben-
efits you as it turns inward, and others as it turns outward.
When it turns outward it disperses energy, to the benefit of
others. So whoever is within the range of your energy field
will benefit, and might find it noticeably pleasant. And you
might have this effect on people wherever you are, be it out
on the street, at the workplace, or at home. You might be
unwittingly rebalancing the bodies of whoever is in your
presence, since it has the power to correct anything not right.
And that includes the ailments of the body, since the human
body is meant to be free of such things; illness is not the

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normal state of the body. Similarly, your field could have the
power to alter any improper thoughts that might be going
through the mind of someone immoral who is in your pres-
ence. Or it might cause someone who was about to use foul
language to change his or her mind suddenly and not do so.
But this is only possible with the field of energy that comes
from doing true spiritual practice. You should now be able
to understand an old Buddhist saying that goes, “Bathed in
divine light, conduct and thought become right.”

How to Introduce the Practice

to Others
Many people think highly of the practice after attending our
classes, and want to share it with their family and friends.
That’s fine to do. You can share it with anyone. But there is
one thing I need to explain. There’s no way to put a price on
all that we have done for you. It is done solely on grounds of
practicing, and wouldn’t be possible otherwise. This means
that when you share the practice with others, you shouldn’t try
to gain from it personally. So you can’t collect fees the way we
do for our classes. Fees are necessary for us to cover the costs
of printing books and materials, as well as for all the travel
involved when teaching this practice. The fees that we have
are the lowest in the country, yet we offer more than anyone
else does, as you know, since we are truly guiding people to
greater spiritual heights. We have the following two rules for
you, as students of Falun Dafa, for when you introduce the
practice to people.

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 The first rule is that you must not charge a fee. All that we
give you is to save you and prepare you for spiritual prac-
tice—not to benefit you in worldly ways. If you charge a fee,
my spiritual bodies will recall everything that was given to
you, and you will cease to be a practitioner of Falun Dafa.
You wouldn’t be teaching people Falun Dafa in that case. You
should introduce it to people without any thought of gain-
ing from it personally. It should be a voluntary gesture in the
service of others. Our students everywhere have taken this
approach, and our volunteers in each locale have set a good
example with this. Everyone who is interested is welcome to
come and learn the practice, and we will always help them
free of charge.
The second rule is that you mustn’t confuse Dafa proper
with your own experiences or interpretations of it. For exam-
ple, when you introduce the practice to someone you should
simply explain Falun Dafa on its own terms, and not in terms
of what you may have seen with your inner eye or come to
know through special powers. Those limited insights you have
gained at your current stage of practice really don’t amount to
much, and cannot begin to compare to the actual teachings in
profundity. So it’s crucial that you be careful about this when
you introduce the practice from now on. By doing so we will
be able to preserve the integrity of Falun Dafa’s teachings.
It’s also not permitted for you to teach the practice the way
I do, addressing large audiences like when I give a teaching,
for the Way is not something you yourself can teach. That
is because what’s being taught is deep and far-reaching, and
has many dimensions to it. You are still working your way
through the various stages of practice, however, and will find
that you keep making progress and arriving at new insights,

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 with new rewards in store for you, as you keep listening to
the recordings of our teachings. And that’s even more the
case with reading the book. There are many layers to what
I teach, and it’s not something you could instruct in. Nor
should you use my words as your own, as that would amount
to plagiarizing my teachings. What you should do is to say
precisely what I have said and indicate that it’s what I have said
or written. And that’s really the only way to go. The reason
is, when you say it this way it will carry the power of Dafa.
But if, instead, you tell people your own ideas as if they were
Falun Dafa proper, then you are not in fact sharing our prac-
tice with them, and it amounts to undermining it. Your own
ideas and opinions are not Dafa’s teachings, and haven’t the
power to save people or do much of anything. None of you
can teach the Way as I have.
You can introduce the practice to newcomers by play-
ing the audio or video recordings for them at the practice
site or wherever you offer instruction, and afterwards have
a volunteer teach them the exercises. You can also have group
discussions where you learn from each other and share your
insights together. Those are the formats we use. Another thing
is, you should refrain from calling any learner (or student)
who introduces Falun Dafa to people things like “teacher” or
“master.” There is only one teacher of this practice. Everyone
else is a practitioner, regardless of how early on they may
have begun the practice.
Some of you might be concerned that you won’t be able to
give people a falun when you introduce the practice to them,
or bring their bodies into balance, as I do. But there’s no need
to worry. Each of you is accompanied by one or more of my
spiritual bodies, as I have indicated, and they are the ones

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who handle these things. People will get a falun right then
and there, while you instruct them, if it’s in their destiny. And
if it’s not destined just yet, they may still come to have one,
though gradually, as they do the practice and my spiritual
bodies bring their bodies back into balance. It’s also possi-
ble for other people [who don’t come in person] to obtain all
that they should, I can assure you. It’s possible as long as they
really regard themselves as practitioners and manage to learn
the teachings and exercises, even if on their own—whether it
be from reading the books, watching the videos, or listening
to the audio recordings that we have.
Healings are another thing that we don’t allow you to do.
Anyone learning Falun Dafa is strictly prohibited from giving
people treatments. We are teaching you how to progress to
higher realms, and we don’t want you to form new attach-
ments or harm your body. Joining our group exercise sessions
is better than anything similar you could do, and you will
find, if you practice at one, that it does more for your health
than any therapy or form of treatment ever could. My spir-
itual bodies sit in a circle there, and above the practice site
is a shield, with a massive falun on it, and a gigantic, spiri-
tual body watching over the site from above the shield. This
isn’t like most sites where regular people gather to do exer-
cises, but a place for spiritual refinement. Many among us
with extrasensory powers have seen that wherever we gather
to practice Falun Dafa the spot is enveloped by a shield of
red light, and all within is bathed in this light.
My spiritual bodies [that accompany you] can directly
bestow a falun upon people, but you shouldn’t get attached
to the idea. When you teach newcomers our exercises they
might sense that they have received a falun and tell you about

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it in excitement. And you might think that it was your own
doing, when it wasn’t. I’m sharing this with you to discour-
age you from letting this attachment form. The work is done
by my spiritual bodies. You should now have a good sense
for how practitioners of Falun Dafa are to share the practice.
Whoever tampers with the exercises of Falun Dafa is vio-
lating our practice and our discipline. An example would
be the person who turned the instructions for our exercises
into little rhymes. That was completely out of line. Any true
means of spiritual practice will have been passed down from
before recorded history and date back to a remote past. And
it will have given rise to countless divine beings. Normally
nobody would dare to alter something of this nature. Only
in these latter days would something like that happen. Never
at any point in the past would something like that occur. So
you need to be careful about this.

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 the
fourth talk

Costs and Rewards

costs and rewards are often discussed in connection with
leading the religious life as well as by people more broadly.
How we look at these is different from how most people do.
The “rewards” that people usually hope to experience for their
efforts consist of worldly things, like living a more prosperous
and pleasant life. For we who practice, however, the rewards
that we look to enjoy are of a completely different nature, and
would be something regular people could never experience,
even if they wanted to—unless they took up spiritual practice.
We aspire to give of ourselves on a scale far greater than
people normally would think of. People usually consider
themselves to be giving when they perform acts of char-
ity, give aid to those in need, or perhaps help the homeless.
Those are one facet of being a giving person, of course, and
do involve making sacrifices. But they only mean that you

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are less attached to money or material things. We aspire to
much greater sacrifices than just those, as significant as they
may be. As part of our spiritual refinement we strive to give
up a wide range of attachments, from self-promotion to jeal-
ousy, from competitiveness to being excitable. We want to let
go of each and every possible thing that we might be holding
on to. So the “costs” of leading a spiritual existence are for
us far broader than what people might normally imagine,
as it entails forgoing all attachments and wants common to
this world.
This might seem worrisome to some of you, as it sounds
like we’re taking vows of poverty just as monks and nuns do,
but even less feasible, since we are supposed to do this while
living and practicing as part of this world. But in our prac-
tice, for all of us who are still part of this world, we strive to
lead lives that are as normal as possible while going about our
spiritual practice. And so you aren’t asked to give up anything
in a material sense. You can enjoy a high-power position or
be extremely wealthy as long as you aren’t attached to it, as
that is what’s key for us.
Our practice aims squarely at your attachments. What’s key
is to try to worry little about your own self-interest and the
disputes that might arise with other people. The spiritual prac-
tice done in monastic settings or the wilderness is meant to cut
one off from the world and forcibly break one’s attachments
to it; you are denied material comforts and made to let them
go. Doing spiritual practice in the world, by contrast, entails
a different approach. It demands that you find a way to care
little for material things while still leading a regular life. This
is hard to do, of course, but it is the crux of our practice. So
what “costs” are entailed in our practice aren’t what people

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might normally think of. And it’s worth noting that the acts
of charity and goodwill that people engage in [might not be
as meaningful as they seem], since nowadays some of the
beggars out there are pros, and may have even more money
than you. We should expand our vision and have bigger goals,
and not get hung up on the smaller things. In spiritual prac-
tice you should confidently set your sights on the things that
matter. Ultimately you will find that spiritual practice is really
only at the “cost” of bad things.
People tend to believe that the things they want are good,
when in fact, from a higher perspective these might be seen
as self-serving or shortsighted. The world’s religions have
taught that wealth and influence, however great, last only
a few decades and don’t go with you to the next life. What
makes the higher energy we get from practice so precious,
by contrast, is that it accumulates and is stored on your soul,
and it does go with you across lifetimes. And what’s more, it
has the potential to earn you divine standing, and so it’s not
something easily come by. All that you will be sacrificing are
undesirable things, and yet by doing so you will be able to
regain the purity you once had. The “rewards” for our efforts
are great, thus, and include not only the elevation of your
soul, but the chance to one day achieve spiritual perfection
and truly become divine. What’s solved is the fundamental
problem of existence. Of course, it’s not realistic to think that
you could give up all worldly longings and meet the bench-
mark for a true practitioner overnight. A process has to be
allowed for. But you shouldn’t take this as license to approach
practice in a casual and leisurely way. You need to be strict
with yourself even if we allow for gradual progress. Nobody
becomes divine overnight. It takes a process, and with time
you will get there.

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 Our spiritual efforts, in fact, only “cost” us something we
don’t want anyway: karma. It’s something that goes hand in
hand with attachments. For example, when someone has all
sorts of unhealthy attachments he will act selfishly and be
driven to do wrongful things. And for his actions his only
reward will be the black material known as karma. So karma
is directly connected with attachments. If you want to free
yourself of this undesirable thing, you will first have to change
your ways.

Reworking Your Karma

Black matter and white matter can be changed into and
replaced by one another. Getting into a dispute with another
party is one thing that triggers this process. Doing good works
will earn you white matter, virtue, while wrongful acts mean-
while will get you black matter, karma. Karma can also be
passed on. It doesn’t just come from earlier in your life, as
people may imagine, but is accrued across multiple lifetimes.
There has long been a belief that the soul is immortal. This
would mean, then, that one’s soul likely became indebted to
others, took advantage of others, or did other forms of wrong
such as taking life during its previous incarnations—and any
of those acts would result in karma. Karma is something that
accumulates in other dimensions and always goes with you,
like virtue. There is another possible source for these, which
is from within the family line, or from one’s ancestors. The
older generation used to make comments about accumulat-
ing virtue or blessings, and how someone’s ancestors did so,
or about someone “losing” or “squandering” these. What

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they said was remarkably accurate. Most people nowadays
wouldn’t take such comments to heart. Kids these days really
wouldn’t take you seriously if you tried to tell them they are
lacking or short on virtue. But those comments were actually
quite profound, for how “virtuous” someone is isn’t simply
about him or her having noble thinking or exemplary moral
conduct, as people take it to be. Rather, it also has a physical
reality, and both types of matter that I’ve been describing
accompany our bodies.
I have been asked whether black matter prevents you from
progressing to advanced stages of practice. You could say so,
for having too much of it will affect one’s ability to believe.
That’s because it will form into a field that envelops the body
and encases the person, cutting him off from the qualities of
the universe, zhen, shan, ren. He is apt to have little faith as
a result. And so he will regard talk of spiritual or energy prac-
tices as naive, and won’t believe any of it; he may even find it
humorous. That’s often the case, at least. But this doesn’t mean
that spiritual practice will be impossible for him, or that he
won’t achieve much, should he try it. We hold that anything
is possible through Dafa, so anyone can practice if they have
the heart for it. As it’s been said: a master can teach the trade,
but it is up to the apprentice to do the actual work entailed
for progress. Anyone who is willing to patiently endure, put
in what it takes, and suffer a little will find that spiritual prac-
tice is doable. There will be nothing you can’t overcome if
you are deeply committed, and I can say that your karma
will not be an issue.
Those who have more of the black matter usually need to
put in more effort than those with more white matter, since
the latter is by nature in sync with the universe’s qualities

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of zhen, shan, ren. So someone with more white matter will
get higher energy simply by elevating his thought and char-
acter; it can happen just by handling interpersonal disputes
well, for example. Those with more virtue have greater faith,
are able to take hardship, to endure physically, and discipline
the will; and they will still increase their energy even if they
suffer more physically than psychologically. The same can’t be
said for those with more of the black matter, however. They
have to first go through a process whereby that material is
reworked into white matter, and the experience is agonizing.
So it’s usually the case that people with weaker faith have to
endure more, since it bespeaks of having more karma. And
so spiritual practice is much harder for them.
Let’s look at a concrete example of how this plays out in
someone’s practice. Buddhist meditation requires the legs
to stay in the lotus position for a long time, and they start to
feel like pins and needles as the length of time increases. It
grates on the mind and is terribly trying. It’s trying for both
mind and body, and pleasant in neither regard. Some people
can’t bear the pain that the legs experience, and uncross them
rather than persevere through it; some hold out a bit longer
but still end up uncrossing them. But doing so renders their
efforts for naught. It doesn’t do any good to stretch out the legs
and shake out the pain before continuing on. That’s because
the pain that the legs experience comes from black matter
assailing them, in our observation. That black matter is karma,
and suffering has the power to eliminate it and convert it into
virtue. When pain arises in the legs it means that karma is
being dissolved, and greater pain reflects greater pushback
from the karma. So the pain felt in the legs is not without
rhyme or reason. The pain experienced in meditation usually

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comes in bursts. A rush of pain might come and be especially
hard to take, but after it passes, things settle down again, only
for the pain to ensue again afterwards. That’s often how it goes.
Because karma is eliminated piece by piece, the legs will
feel better after a piece is dissolved and feel pain again when
another piece comes up. The black matter doesn’t just break
down and disappear after it’s eliminated. The conservation
of matter holds true here, too, and so karma that’s dissolved
is converted straight into white matter, i.e., virtue. This con-
version is possible because the person suffered, put in the
effort, and endured the pain. We hold that virtue comes to
those who bear pain, endure adversity, and do good works;
and that’s why the above happens during meditation. Some
people uncross their legs and straighten them out as soon as
pain appears, and shake it out before crossing them again. But
that achieves nothing. And the same holds true when people
are doing an exercise where they need to hold their arms up,
but put them down due to fatigue. What’s a little pain? Spiri-
tual achievement takes much more than simply holding your
arms up. So this is some of what happens when meditative
exercises are part of one’s practice.
That’s not the main approach our practice takes, though
it does play a certain part in it. In ours, most typically, the
majority of your karma is reworked via interpersonal things
that grate on your mind. When people you don’t get along
with really irritate you, it can be even more trying than phys-
ical pain. I would say physical pain is much easier to bear, as
you can simply tough it out. It’s much harder to take it when
someone is scheming against you.
To illustrate it, suppose someone who is learning our prac-
tice arrives at work and overhears two people speaking badly

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of him. What they have to say is really unpleasant, and his
anger starts to flare. But as we have taught, a practitioner
should refrain from fighting back and always hold himself to
high standards. So he remembers that I’ve taught that prac-
titioners are different from others and should take the high
road, and he avoids getting into a dispute with his co-workers.
But often tensions like these won’t count or achieve what they
are meant to, or help you to improve, if they don’t actually
bother you. For that reason this practitioner isn’t able to get
it off his mind, it proves irritating, and it may really provoke
him. And so he can’t resist looking over his shoulder to catch
a glimpse of those two colleagues speaking badly of him. But
he won’t be able to take it when he sees the looks on their
faces, and his anger will surge. He might even get into an
argument with them right then and there if his anger gets
the best of him. It is the mind that’s hardest to control when
you aren’t getting along with someone. While it would be
nice and easy to work through it with meditation, that’s not
always possible.
This means that you will meet with all kinds of ordeals
going forward in your practice. But just think, could spir-
itual progress be possible without them? Your character
wouldn’t develop if everyone got along well with you, nobody
quarreled with you for selfish reasons, and worldly attach-
ments never preyed upon you. You have to truly temper your-
self through real, lived experience if you are to grow and
progress. Some people don’t understand why they have so
many challenges after taking up the practice, and the chal-
lenges are surprisingly ordinary. But that’s because you do
your practice in the world. You won’t experience anything
radical like suddenly getting yanked up into the sky, feet first,

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and being tormented there. It won’t be anything out of the
ordinary. Your challenges will always take the form of normal
events, such as being provoked, angered, mistreated, or being
insulted for no apparent reason. All of which is to see how
you respond.
You encounter those things on account of your karmic
debts, though we have reduced the debts for you greatly. The
few that do remain are allotted to different stages of your
practice and will take the form of ordeals. These are meant to
develop your character, strengthen your will, and break the
attachments you have. They are ordeals fashioned just for you,
and we make use of them to perfect your character. And we
can help you to overcome them. All of them can be overcome
as long as you elevate your mind. You should be able to pull
through unless you are not determined to. So, going forward,
don’t think that the issues you experience with people are by
chance. They’re not, even if they come out of the blue. They are
meant to perfect your character. You will manage to handle
them well as long as you act as a practitioner.
Naturally, you won’t be forewarned when challenges or ten-
sions are coming your way. Little spiritual growth would be
possible if everything were disclosed to you, and those events
wouldn’t serve their purpose. They will usually come unex-
pectedly so as to test your character and help you to grow;
and by doing so your character will be revealed for what it is.
So tensions with others don’t happen by chance. Challenging
situations will unfold throughout the course of your practice
and facilitate the reworking of your karma. They are far more
trying than suffering physical pain, contrary to what people
imagine. It’s not realistic to think that higher energy could
be developed just by putting in long hours meditating or

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exercising, or standing in some special position until the arms
and legs ache. That only serves to transform your innate body.
You still need strengthening from energy of a higher plane;
merely doing exercises doesn’t foster spiritual growth. The
key to real spiritual progress is to train your will. If physical
strain was all it took, you would expect that China’s farmers
would all be great saints, given the strains that they endure.
Whatever you might put your body through, it wouldn’t match
their efforts, working the earth day after day under the scorch-
ing sun, tired and spent. So it’s not that simple. Mastering the
mind is the real key to spiritual attainment, as I see it, and is
what truly makes progress possible.
We should try to keep compassionate and pleasant while
karma is being reworked. By doing so, your judgment won’t be
clouded by the situation at hand and lead you to mishandle
things, as might normally happen for people. And you will
be able to handle anything unforeseen that comes along. If
your heart is always very kind and compassionate, you will
usually have breathing room and space to think when situ-
ations come up unexpectedly. By contrast, if you are always
a contentious person and getting into disagreements with
people, then I think it’s inevitable that you will fall into an
argument when issues come up. So as I see it, the tensions
you experience are meant to change your body’s black matter
into white matter, virtue.
With humanity having reached this point, virtually every-
one is born with karma rolled over from previous lifetimes,
and the amount on each person’s body is sizeable. So, often the
way it works is that while your karma is being dealt with and
reworked, your energy and character will be developing in
tandem. So if you find that someone is testing your character,

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it could be a reflection of that process at work. If you perse-
vere through it, your karma will be reduced, your character
will grow, and your energy will increase. They go together.
People in the past were very virtuous and had noble charac-
ter, and persevering through even just minor ordeals could
result in their gaining higher energy. But people aren’t like
that today. They tend to lose their enthusiasm for spiritual
practice as soon as the going gets tough, and then they have
only less belief in it, which makes things even harder.
The altercations or mistreatment that you encounter as
you practice might be either of two scenarios. One is that you
mistreated the other person during a past life. Perhaps the
situation preys on your mind, and you can’t believe someone
would treat you as they are. Well, then you shouldn’t have
treated them that way in the past. You might say that you
didn’t know better back then and that this lifetime has noth-
ing to do with that one. But you can’t write it off like that.
Another thing is, karma is surely being reworked with any
altercation you get into, so we should be magnanimous and
not handle it like most people would. This should hold true
at the office or wherever you work, and even if you run your
own business. And the interactions you have with the general
public are no different. You can’t avoid having some sort of
interaction with the world. If nothing else, you have dealings
with your neighbors.
You will experience a range of difficult encounters while
interacting with others as part of society. For those of us who
practice in the world, it doesn’t matter how rich or power-
ful you may be, or whether you are self-employed and work
alone, or have a business to run, or do any type of business:
the key is to deal fairly and act with integrity. The various

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trades and professions in this world are meant to exist. Your
heart is what counts, not your occupation. People have long
had a perception that most businessmen are dishonest, but
that’s not a very insightful take on it. I would say that the
problem lies with people’s hearts. You will do business fairly
if you have a good heart, and if you make more money than
others it will be a reflection of your efforts; you would have
worked for the money that you got. Getting paid for doing
honest work follows from the laws of costs and rewards. You
can be a good person in any strata of society. Each class has
its own, unique interpersonal challenges, and this includes
the upper class. But there are always proper ways to handle
them. You can be a good person whatever your strata of soci-
ety, and have few wants and attachments. Spiritual progress is
possible in any segment of society, and you can always show
yourself to be a good person.
The interpersonal things that people now experience in
China are quite abnormal, be it at the state-owned enterprises
or elsewhere. It’s not something you see in other countries or
that would have happened in the past. People get into heated
disputes while trying to get ahead, and scheme against each
other even for petty things. The thoughts people have and
the tactics they resort to are terrible. It’s hard to be a good
person there. For example, you might arrive at work one day
and notice that things don’t feel right. Later you find out that
someone spoke terribly of you and complained about you to
your supervisor, making you look awful. And you find that
your co-workers are looking at you strangely. The average
person wouldn’t be able to take the humiliation. He would
try to get back at whoever caused this, and rally people to
his side. Responding like that might win you the respect of

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worldly people, but it’s beneath a practitioner. When you
retaliate like an ordinary person, you become one, or worse—
if you’re more worked up than people normally would be.
Then how should we handle situations like these? When
we get into a disagreement we should first of all stay calm
and not act like others. Of course, it’s fine to try to explain
things with good intent; there’s nothing wrong with trying
to clear things up. But if you do it with too much attachment
it won’t work out. When we experience these trying situa-
tions we shouldn’t respond in kind. If you stoop to the other
person’s level, then you are no different from them. And not
only shouldn’t you respond like them, neither should you
feel hatred or resentment. And I sincerely mean that. Any
bitterness towards another person means that anger got the
best of you. And in that case you have failed to live up to the
standard of ren, and even less so shan. Yet we practice zhen,
shan, and ren. So you mustn’t act as the other party does, and
really mustn’t become angry—even if they made you look so
bad that you can’t hold your head up high. And rather than
being angry at the other party, you should thank them in
your heart, and genuinely so. Worldly people might think
that responding this way makes you a self-deluded fool. But
I can assure you that that’s not the case.
So it only follows that you should hold yourself to high
standards, since you are a practitioner. You can’t just do things
as others do. Greater treasures await those who engage in
spiritual practice, and so you have to live by higher principles.
Yet when you act like the person who you’re experiencing
problems with, you are the same as him or her. I’ve said that
you should feel thankful towards that person rather than bitter.
To understand why, just consider what you are going to get

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out of it. The laws of this universe hold that nothing can be
gained without some cost being entailed; everything comes
at a price. The other person may have caused you to look bad
and get a raw deal, and so he gained from it in a worldly sense.
But the worse he made you look and the bigger the ruckus
he caused, the more you had to endure, and so he will lose
that much more virtue for it—all of which is passed on to
you. And while enduring it all, it’s possible it won’t even get
to you or weigh on you.
The laws of the universe also hold that the karma of some-
one who suffers greatly will be reworked. In the scenario
just described, you were the one who took abuse, and so
your karma will be converted into virtue equaling what you
endured. And virtue is of course something practitioners
want. So there’s a second benefit, in that your karma was
reduced through it. Also, it would be hard to perfect your
character without going through situations like the one that
person created. We couldn’t expect our energy to increase if
everyone got along well and just meditated away as one happy
family. It was in fact due to the situation that the person cre-
ated that you had an occasion to work on your character and
grow. And assuming you did, then that’s a third benefit. And
since you are a practitioner, your energy is going to grow
whenever your character does. That makes it a four-for-one
deal. What’s not to feel thankful for, then? You really should
feel thankful towards that person, and I mean it.
Of course, the other person’s intention was bad or else he
wouldn’t have given you virtue. But he did provide you with
an opportunity to strengthen your character, and for us that
should be the heart of spiritual practice. That’s because spir-
itual growth is only possible by whittling away your karma

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and having it turn into virtue, and all of this happens while
working on your character. So they go hand in hand. Those
in higher realms look at the happenings in this world quite
differently from the average person. Things will look radically
different to you if you view them from a higher plane. What
seems “right” to us here in the secular world might be seen
otherwise. More often than not, only what is seen as right
from higher planes turns out to really be so.
I have explained the workings of the universe to you in
depth in hopes that, with them clear to you, you will sincerely
apply yourself to spiritual practice. Some of you might, being
still in this world, find the immediate lure of worldly things
too great to resist. The secular world holds too much sway
over some people and they don’t aspire to higher standards.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with looking up to heroes
and role models if someone just wants to be a good person
in the normal sense. But those can only serve as an example
to non-practitioners. Successful spiritual practice all comes
down to how much heart you put into it and your own dis-
cernment. There’s no template to follow. You are fortunate in
that Falun Dafa has been explained to you, whereas, before,
something like this was never openly taught, even to those
who sought spiritual growth. So with the knowledge you
have, you can now put Falun Dafa into practice in your life,
and I believe you will do well. How it goes and how far you
progress is all up to you.
Of course, the reworking of your karma won’t always take
place in the ways I just described; there are other possibili-
ties as well. It could take place out in the world as well as on
the domestic front. You might run into challenges as you are
walking down the street or in another public setting. You will

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be made to give up all of the worldly attachments that you
hold onto. Any and all attachments you have must be ground
down, and it will take place through any of a number of sce-
narios where you will be made to stumble or do poorly, and
from these come to new spiritual insights. This is how you
will make it through and succeed.
Here’s an example of a fairly typical scenario. We have
many people who find that their spouses get really upset
when they do our exercises. No sooner do you start to prac-
tice than your spouse launches into a fit. Yet when you do
other things he doesn’t mind. He might not be happy if you
take up too much time playing table games, but it’s nothing
like how angry he gets when you exercise. Your practice does
nothing to bother or inconvenience him, and it should be seen
as a good thing since you are taking care of your body. But as
soon as you practice he erupts. In some cases it has reached
the point where couples have even considered divorce. Yet
few practitioners have given much thought as to why this
happens. Your spouse will have no explanation if you ask
him to explain his anger after one of these episodes. He really
won’t be able to, and will agree that he shouldn’t get so upset
and allow his anger to flare like that. So what’s really going
on, then? Your karma needs to be reworked for you as you
go about your practice. Yet for that to happen, there have to
be costs involved. But take heart in knowing that whatever
costs are entailed, you will be better off for it.
Let’s look at another possible scenario, where your wife
gives you a hard time as soon as you walk in the door. If you
can manage to patiently endure that kind of situation, you will
make progress in your practice that day. But it might prove
too much for you, even if you’re normally on good terms as

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a couple since you know how central virtue is. Her outburst
might feel like an affront to you, and be just too much, and so
you get into an argument with her. But that would, in effect,
offset the progress you might have made in your practice that
day. The episode happened because karma was right there
at that moment and she was helping you to remove it. You
didn’t go for it, however, and instead succumbed to fight-
ing. So it wasn’t removed. There are many instances like this.
A lot of you have experienced similar things without giving
them much thought. But just consider that she always gives
you a hard time about your practice—something good—and
yet is okay with whatever else you might do. The reality is
that she’s unknowingly helping you to remove karma. That
doesn’t mean she is just fighting with you outwardly, though,
while still feeling good toward you inside. Her anger truly
comes from within. You can be sure that whoever your karma
is distributed to will feel upset about it.

Perfecting Your Character

Many people have let their thoughts get the best of them,
and this has caused a lot of problems and led to their spir-
itual progress stagnating. There are some individuals who,
for example, are naturally endowed with quite good charac-
ter (xin-xing), and their inner eye might suddenly open to
a higher realm after they start practicing. They develop higher
energy rapidly since their innate foundations are good and
their character is excellent. But eventually, when the progress
of their energy catches up with that of their character, the ten-
sions and interpersonal things that they experience will have

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to be intensified if their energy is to develop further. So these
practitioners, who are spiritually well-endowed, are apt to find
that their practice goes well at first and energy comes to them
readily, only to then, unexpectedly, and much to their confu-
sion, find themselves plagued with troubles. Everything seems
to suddenly go wrong, from others treating them badly to
upset supervisors and tense situations at home. Issues spring
up everywhere, and it doesn’t seem to make sense. But the
initial smooth sailing they had was due in fact to their having
quickly reached a certain level of attainment, thanks to their
good innate foundations. Yet that would be nowhere near the
kind of attainment it takes for a practitioner to achieve spiri-
tual perfection. Further progress is still needed. So the bar has
to be raised. And only when that new, higher bar is cleared
will they progress beyond where they had reached with the
initial smooth sailing, which owed to their good endowment.
There are also people who hold off on starting spiritual
practice on grounds that they want to first build up some
savings and make sure their family is financially secure and
worry-free. But that sounds like wishful thinking to me. For
one, you don’t have the power to change another person’s life
or fate, ultimately, even if they are your closest of kin. Could
you really change a person’s destiny? And secondly, if you
really were to have no worries on the home front and be free
of all troubles, what would your spiritual practice consist of?
It’s hard to grow spiritually if your life is full of comfort and
ease. So it’s not how you may have imagined it, with conven-
tional thinking.
In spiritual practice you have to go through ordeals, and
they serve to test whether you can become free of your emo-
tions and desires and the sway they hold over you. Being

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attached to those things will impede your progress. There are
reasons behind everything. What makes people human? It is
the presence of emotion, as people simply live for it. There is
love for family members, romantic love, love towards parents,
emotions associated with relationships, and the affection that
goes with friendship. People act for the sake of emotional
bonds, and emotion follows you everywhere you go. Every-
thing human about this world stems from emotion, from likes
to dislikes, from joys to sorrows, love to hate. And so you will
have problems in spiritual practice if you don’t manage to
free yourself of it. Those who do, will be free of human sen-
timents and unflappable. In its place will arise compassion,
something far more noble. Of course, you’re not likely to end
emotion overnight; spiritual development is a long journey
of gradually stripping away attachments. But you have to be
strict with yourself.
Tense situations with others will come up unexpectedly for
those of us who practice. How can you be prepared, then? If
you can always be compassionate and calm, you will handle
the issues that arise in your life well since you will have a
buffer, in a sense. Things will work out well if you are always
compassionate and good to others, thoughtful towards people,
and handle whatever situations you get into with people by
first pausing to consider how well your actions will go over
with the other party and whether anyone will be hurt by them.
You should hold yourself to high standards and raise the bar
still further as you practice.
There are people who always seem to lack faith. For exam-
ple, they might see visions of a higher being that they worship,
and pray to it, but when they do so they mix in all sorts of
complaints about their unanswered prayers, as they think

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that this being hasn’t done much for them or made life easier.
But that higher being won’t respond to their wishes, of course,
since the ordeals in their lives were in fact planned by him and
meant to develop their character; things like interpersonal
strife can do a lot to perfect one’s character, after all. And so
divine beings typically won’t help as people wish. There is
no way to perfect your character or increase your energy if
a higher being answers your worldly prayers; it would defeat
the whole purpose of the ordeal. Our human lives are not
ends in themselves, but are for returning to heaven, as divine
ones see it. They hold that the more adversity you experience,
the better, since you can pay off your karmic debts more
quickly that way. Some people just don’t catch on, however.
When their prayers go unanswered, they might start to com-
plain to their god about receiving no assistance despite all
of their worship. And some get so worked up that they even
smash their religious images and curse their god from then
on. Their character declines with all of this and any higher
energy they had disappears. And they will only feel more
resentful toward their god when they realize that they have
nothing now, thinking that he is ruining their lives. They use
human logic and criteria to judge a higher being’s character
and things of a higher order, which isn’t appropriate. So it’s a
common failing for people to view the difficulties in their
lives as unfair, and many have fallen as a result.
Many well-known teachers of energy practices have fallen
in recent years. The true masters, however, retired from
the public eye after fulfilling their historic missions. Only
those who lost their way in the world, whose character has
declined and who have lost the higher energy they had, have
remained active. Some of the figures who are still publicly

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active and who have enjoyed some degree of fame have had
their secondary souls led away by their teachers, and their
energy went with them. Their teachers had seen that they
had fallen for worldly things like fame and fortune, and that
they wouldn’t be able to free themselves. Cases like these are
common and not out of the ordinary.
In our discipline it’s rare to see people fall like that, and
what instances there are, aren’t that noteworthy. But the
positive changes that people’s characters undergo with our
practice are noteworthy. We once had a student in Shandong
province who worked at a textile mill and who taught Falun
Dafa to her co-workers after she had learned it. The attitude
of the entire factory changed for the better as a result. It used
to be that employees would hide small towels in their cloth-
ing and take them home. After this woman had learned our
practice, though, not only did she stop taking things, but she
even decided to return the items she had taken before. Others
at the factory stopped taking things as well when they saw
the change in her, and some even returned what they had
taken. This happened throughout the factory.
In another city the coordinators from our practice site
went to a factory to see how things were going for everyone
who was learning Falun Dafa there. The factory’s manager
personally came out to receive them, and told them, “Since
learning Falun Dafa these workers have been putting in extra
hours and working conscientiously and with a lot of heart.
They don’t quibble over the work they’re assigned to do, and
aren’t just thinking about themselves. Just by being like that
they’ve changed the morale of the whole factory, and our
profits have grown. Your practice is fantastic. I want to attend
your classes the next time your teacher is in town.” While

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 the main goal of Falun Dafa is spiritual progress, and not, in
fact, to bring about changes like those, it can nevertheless do
a great deal to foster civility and moral living in society. If
each and every person were to self-reflect and give thought
to how they should act, I would say the world would become
a more stable place and people would become moral again.
Another case involved a woman in her fifties who was on
her way to my class in the city of Taiyuan, together with her
husband. As they were crossing the street a large car sped by
and snagged the woman’s clothes with its side-view mirror.
It dragged her over ten yards before she hit the ground, hard.
The car went another twenty-some yards before coming to
a halt. The driver got out of his car and lectured her for being
careless, which is typical nowadays; people often react to
mishaps by trying to shift the blame, even if they are at fault.
A passenger who was with him told him to see if she was hurt
and needed medical attention. The man came to his senses
and quickly asked if she was okay, and offered to take her to
the hospital. Our student slowly got to her feet and replied,
“It’s nothing. You can head on your way.” She brushed herself
off and continued on to our class with her husband.
They shared the story with me after they arrived. It made
me happy, since it clearly meant that she had grown in char-
acter. She told me that she wouldn’t have handled the incident
so well if it weren’t for learning Falun Dafa. Just consider how
well she did. This was a woman in her fifties who was retired
and without benefits or an income at a time when prices are
so high, and she had just been dragged a long way by a car
and thrown to the ground. If she were an ordinary person
she might have responded by just staying there on the ground
and telling the driver that she was injured in multiple places.

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And she might have readily accepted the offer of going to
the hospital, and stayed there as long as she liked. But she is
a practitioner, and didn’t do that. We believe that one thought
can determine the outcome of things, for better or for worse.
If she were just an ordinary woman at that age, could she pos-
sibly have gone unscathed? And yet she wasn’t even scuffed
up. One thought made all the difference. If she had lain there
on the ground instead, moaning in pain, pleading for help
and thinking that she had sustained this or that injury, then
maybe she would have suffered a broken bone or been para-
lyzed. And she might have been hospitalized and bedridden
for the rest of her life—a fate that no amount of financial com-
pensation would offset. The crowd that had gathered around
after the accident was puzzled that she didn’t try to get money
out of the driver. People’s values are a mess nowadays. The
driver hadn’t meant to hit her, even if he was wrong for speed-
ing. It was an accident after all. But with the way people are
today, even witnesses to an accident will get worked up if you
don’t try to get money out of the driver. Many people have
lost their moral compass, and won’t listen to you if you tell
them they are doing something wrong. And with the change
in moral standards that has taken place, some people put
profit before all else, and will do anything for money. Some
people now even live by the motto, “Every man for himself.”
There was once someone who was learning our practice
in Beijing who took his son for a stroll after dinner down
the Qianmen pedestrian street. They spotted a stand that
was offering a draw for a prize. His child wanted to join in
the fun and give it a try. The father told him to go ahead if
he’d like, and gave him a dollar to do so. He drew a ticket,
and lo and behold he’d won a second-tier prize—a deluxe

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 children’s bike. It was awarded to him on the spot, much to
his delight. But then it dawned on the father, “I’m a practi-
tioner. I really shouldn’t have tried to get this. I’ll probably
lose quite a bit of virtue if I take it, since it’s not something
I’ve earned.” So he told his child, “We should just buy one
ourselves if we want one.” The kid was upset, and responded,
“I kept asking for one and you didn’t buy one. Now I win one
and you won’t let me have it.” He cried his eyes out, leaving
his father no choice but to take the bike home. After return-
ing home, the more the father thought about it the more it
didn’t feel right. So he decided to simply give money to the
people who were holding the drawing. But then it occurred
to him that the drawing would be over by now, and the indi-
viduals would just divide up the money he gave them and
pocket it. In the end he decided to donate the money to his
own workplace.
The father was lucky in that many of his colleagues were
learning Falun Dafa and management had a good under-
standing of them. Normally, at your typical workplace, people
would think there was something wrong with you if you
didn’t want to keep the bike that you won and were planning
on donating an equivalent sum of money to your workplace
since you’re a practitioner; even your boss would think you
were mad. And rumors might start up about how something
went wrong in your practice or made you lose your mind.
As I indicated, people’s values have become fouled up. In the
1950s or 1960s what the father did wouldn’t have seemed like
a big deal. Gestures like that were common back then and
anything but a cause for concern.
We believe that however badly people’s values may change,
the underlying qualities of the universe—zhen, shan, ren—will

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never change. The criteria that people use to judge things have
become all confused, and so those who people deem to be
good or bad aren’t necessarily so. Only those who embody
the qualities of the universe are good people. And these qual-
ities are the sole measure of one’s person; these are what are
recognized throughout the universe. While humanity may
seem to have made great strides, people’s morals have declined
significantly, and the social fabric of the world is changing
for the worse; many people now put profit before all else. But
the universe doesn’t change in keeping with humankind. So
as someone with spiritual aspirations, you can’t rely on the
standards that other people have. You can’t do things on the
grounds that everyone thinks they’re right. What the average
person considers good or bad isn’t necessarily correct. Peo-
ple’s values are so fouled up now that they won’t even listen
to you if you point out to them that they are doing some-
thing wrong. So as practitioners you have to view things in
light of the qualities of the universe if you are to really tell
right from wrong.

Ritual Anointment
In certain religious or spiritual communities there is a practice
known as ritual anointment (guan-ding). It is a religious
rite that was originally used in Tantric Buddhist practice.
Its objective is to ensure that the adherent remains loyal to
the discipline, and it is a way of formally recognizing him
as a disciple. What’s strange is that this religious rite is no
longer just seen in Tantric Buddhism, but also in chi-gong and
Daoist practice. I’ve indicated that deceit is involved whenever

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someone is publicly teaching what they claim to be Tantric
Buddhist methods. I say that because Chinese Tantrism dis-
appeared from the face of China over a thousand years ago,
and it’s simply non-existent now. And Tibetan Tantrism never
fully came to China, due to the language barrier. Also, being
esoteric practices, their adherents are supposed to engage
in secretive practice off in a monastic setting and receive
veiled instruction at the hands of a master, who guides them
in secret practice. It is never supposed to be taught without
those conditions first being met.
Many people travel to Tibet in search of a master to teach
them Tibetan Tantrism and such practices, hoping to become
a high-profile, well-to-do master of an energy practice down
the road. But consider that an authentic Tibetan lama who
is the keeper of a true teaching will have great powers and
be able to make out what is on the learner’s mind. He will
easily see what the person is up to. He will know that the per-
son’s incentive for learning is to become a master for worldly
ends, which would defile their practice. But as you might
figure, they aren’t about to let someone just come along and
defile a serious spiritual discipline like theirs, let alone some-
one whose motives are surely impure. So, little will be taught
to this sort of person, much less the heart of the teachings. At
most he might learn something superficial somewhere, with
all the temples and monasteries that are out there. It’s likely
he will fall prey to entity attachment if his heart is impure
and he seeks to become a master for the wrong reasons. And
while those entities or animals might have energy to offer him,
it’s surely not from Tibetan Tantrism. Those who go to Tibet
sincerely in search of the dharma are apt to settle down there
and never leave; those are the true ones.

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 It’s strange that there are now many Daoist practices doing
anointment with energy. Daoist practices make use of the
body’s energy channels, so it doesn’t make sense for them
to do that. Anointment has become especially popular in
Guangdong province, from what I learned during my trav-
els in southern China when I was there to teach. There are
a dozen or so practices in the region that have made a real
mess of things doing anointment. The idea is that you sup-
posedly become their disciple through anointment, and
shouldn’t learn any other practices after that—lest you be
punished for it. And they do that. But isn’t that cunning and
evil? What they offer is just for healing and wellness, and
people are drawn to it simply by the prospect of good health.
What business have they punishing their followers for disloy-
alty, then? The many who take this approach are really doing
people a disservice, since they aren’t about to guide anyone
to spiritual perfection.
So anointment is now seen in Daoist practice, though it
doesn’t belong there. The Daoist chi-gong master who makes
the biggest deal about anointment has an energy column
that’s merely two or three stories tall, from what I observed.
It’s really a pity to see the energy of a famous master having
fallen so fast. Many have lined up for anointment from him.
Yet his energy was limited from the outset and quickly con-
sumed. And after that, he couldn’t possibly have had any
energy left for doing anointment. So he’s been conning people.
True anointment, as seen from other dimensions, transforms
the bones from head to toe such that they resemble white
jade. It involves the use of gong—a high-energy matter—to
purify the body, and it is poured through the whole body
from head to toe. So it’s not something that the master I’ve

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been describing could do. And it’s not for religious purposes
that he does anointment, if you are wondering. Rather, it’s to
have you belong to him after learning his practice, since then
you will have to attend his classes and study with him. The
motive is to get your money. He wouldn’t make money if
nobody was learning his practice.
Committed practitioners of Falun Dafa will have anoint-
ment done for them many times by their master, just as hap-
pens in other Buddhist disciplines—even though you may not
sense it. Those with paranormal powers or who are especially
sensitive may be able to. The anointment might take place
while you are sleeping or at another time, and what happens
is that a warm current suddenly flows through your entire
body, from head to toe. The objective isn’t to heighten your
energy, since that must come from your own efforts. Rather,
it is a means of blessing whereby your body is purified and
cleansed one step further. The procedure needs to happen
multiple times, for at each stage of practice you need assis-
tance cleansing your body. We don’t practice any rites of
anointment, since, as I’ve indicated, you just need to focus
on practicing and your teacher will take care of the rest.
Yet there are people who still wish to pay homage to me.
I want to talk about this in light of what was just said, as this
applies to many people. This era of history is different from
that of older, bygone times, and so you don’t need to kneel
down or prostrate yourself before me to count as my student.
Those rites don’t feature in our practice. It’s funny that many
people now think that they can get energy just by outward
acts of religious devotion and becoming a bit more pious.
True spiritual progress is the product of one’s own efforts, and
prayerful wishes do little. There is no need for religious acts of

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devotion such as offering incense and paying homage. Higher
beings will smile upon you if they see you sincerely engaging
in disciplined spiritual practice. But they will be displeased
with you if you engage in wrongful acts, however much you
might worship them. I think the idea should be clear. Genu-
ine spiritual practice is up to you, and there is little point in
paying respects to your teacher if afterwards you turn around
and do whatever you please. So religious rites really have no
place in our practice. And ironically, you might even hurt
my reputation if you do those things.
We have given all of you so much. I will consider you my
student and guide you as long as you strive to put the teach-
ings into practice and are strict with yourself about following
the Great Way. I will do this as long as you practice Falun
Dafa. If you don’t practice it, however, there is nothing we
can do and there is no point in formally seeking to be named
a student. Those who just do the exercises aren’t my students
even if they were among the first to attend our classes. You
have to do sincere spiritual practice and work on your charac-
ter as we’ve taught, if you are to gain a healthy body and really
progress to higher stages. So rites like anointment don’t have
a place in our practice. You will be one of us as long as you
do the practice. My spiritual bodies are all-powerful and
all-knowing, and know even your thoughts. But they will
not look after you if you aren’t someone who practices. For
those of you who do practice, however, help will be provided
straight through to the finish.
The adherents of some practices have never met their
teachers but are told to bow facing a certain direction and
pay hundreds of dollars and then they can be counted as
students. But isn’t that misleading? And these people go in

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for it quite willingly, and get protective of the practice and
its teacher afterwards, even telling people that they can no
longer study other practices. It strikes me as quite absurd.
I also wonder what, if anything, is achieved when some teach-
ers do what they refer to as “touching the crown of the head.”
Any energy practice that promotes itself as being “Tan-
tric Buddhist,” or even just part of religious Buddhism more
generally, is false. Bear in mind that the methods and dis-
ciplines of practice found in authentic Buddhism date back
thousands of years. Any alterations people might now make
to them change them into something else. The disciplines
of spiritual practice are for the solemn purpose of achieving
divinity, and are incredibly profound and intricate. Even just
a slight alteration will foul things up. The process of convert-
ing matter into higher energy is extraordinarily complex, so
what a person can sense of it really isn’t reliable and should
never inform how he goes about practicing. The religious
rites that Buddhist monks engage in are a means of prac-
tice, in fact, and any changes made will turn their practice
into something else. Every true practice has a higher divinity
presiding over it, and each such practice will have produced
many divine ones of its own via its methods of spiritual dis-
cipline; nobody would be so bold as to rashly alter the meth-
ods involved. Then what business would the teacher of some
lesser energy practice, who lacks spiritual might, have altering
a religious tradition’s means to divinity? And besides, sup-
posing he did really alter it and make his own practice, then
it could no longer be considered part of that religion, and he
would have no business borrowing its name under false pre-
tenses. So you should be able to make out inauthentic prac-
tices in cases like these.

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The Mystery of the Mandorla*
In ancient Chinese religious texts like Principles of Mind-
Body Practice, the Daoist Canon, and various alchemical
manuals, one comes across references to “positioning” some-
thing known as a mandorla, or how this mandorla “presides
over an aperture.” Many spiritual teachers have a hard time
explaining what’s meant, since most of them, at their stage of
practice, cannot perceive these things and aren’t allowed to.
Someone needs to have reached at least the stage of wisdom
vision in his spiritual development to see them, and this is why
most run-of-the-mill instructors can’t—they haven’t reached
that point. There have long been religious discussions about
what the mandorla is, where the “one aperture” is located,
and how it’s positioned. The ancient texts don’t shed much
light on these questions, however, and are apt to be confus-
ing; they only discuss the phenomena in the abstract and
don’t say much of substance, despite all that’s been written
on the topic. This was done intentionally so as to keep out-
siders from learning the heart of the teachings.
I would like to offer you a bit of advice, on the grounds
that you are students of Falun Dafa: stay away from the
mess of books about energy practice that are now out there.
I don’t mean the ancient texts that I was just speaking about,
but the deceptive energy-related books that are now being
written. You shouldn’t even flip through them. The entities
carried by those books will attach themselves to your body
as soon as you find even just one line of the text agreeable to
you. Many of the books were written at the direction of pos-
sessing spirits that seized upon the writer’s attachments to
status and money. Deceptive books on energy practice are

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everywhere these days. Many people just aren’t being respon-
sible, and write at the command of evil spirits or whatever
attaches itself to them. And generally speaking, it is best not
to read even classical works like the ones I was mentioning
a moment ago, for there’s the matter of committing to one
discipline and not disordering your energy.
Someone high up in the Chi-Gong Association of China
shared something with me that had me laughing hard. He
spoke about a man in Beijing who was always taking chi-gong
classes and who thought he had learned all there was to know
about it after a while. What gave the man that impression
was that everything taught in the various classes was equally
basic; everyone was teaching more or less the same things.
This led him to believe, as do false masters, that there was
nothing more to chi-gong than that. And so he decided to
write his own book on chi-gong. But just consider the absur-
dity of it: someone who didn’t even practice chi-gong was
going to write a book about it. Yet that’s typical of chi-gong
books nowadays, as plagiarizing is common. He got stuck in
the writing process when he got to the topic of the mandorla.
Few really understand what it is, after all; even just a handful
of genuine spiritual masters are clear on it. So this person
inquired with a master who wasn’t legitimate, not realiz-
ing it, though, since he didn’t understand chi-gong that well.
This false master was worried that he would be exposed as
an impostor if he couldn’t answer the man’s questions. So he
went so far as to make up some nonsense, and said that the
one aperture of the mandorla is located at the tip of the male
excretory organ. As ridiculous as it may sound, it’s no laugh-
ing matter, as his book has since been published. This sug-
gests just how absurd chi-gong books have become. Reading

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those things won’t do you any good and can only bring harm.
Let’s explore what’s meant by “positioning the mandorla.”
As a person goes about spiritual practice in the human realm,
he will, when he has passed the middle stage and is practic-
ing at an advanced stage, begin to develop an angelic body
within. The angelic body is different from what are known as
cherubs. Cherubs are small and rascally, and joyfully spring
about and play. In contrast, the angelic body does not move,
and simply sits in place, motionless, atop a lotus flower with
its legs folded meditatively and its hands conjoined in the
mudra of jie-yin;* the only exception is when one’s soul moves
in to control it. The angelic body is born from one’s energy
center and can be seen in an invisible, micro realm while
smaller than even the point of a needle.
There is something else I should explain. There is just one
true energy center (dan-tian) in the body, and it is located
at the lower abdominal area. It is inside the body and spans
from above the perineum to the lower abdomen. Many higher
energies, powers, and other abilities as well as spiritual bodies,
the angelic body, and cherubs—an enormous array of super-
natural beings—are born from this center.
In the past there were a handful of spiritual practitioners
who fostered the idea that there are upper, middle, and lower
energy centers in the body. But the idea isn’t accurate, even
if it allegedly has a doctrinal basis and was passed down by
masters for generations. Bear in mind that there was cer-
tainly nonsense in ancient times. Having an ancient pedi-
gree doesn’t necessarily make something accurate; lesser, folk
practices have always circulated among the public, but they
don’t amount to spiritual practice or anything significant.
When people claim that there are upper, middle, and lower

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energy centers, what they mean to say is that wherever an
energy cluster can be made counts as an energy center. But
it’s folly to think that. An energy cluster can be generated at
any location in the body if a person just concentrates his mind
on that spot for long enough. Anyone who doubts it can verify
this for themselves by focusing their mind on their arm and
fixing their attention there, and after some amount of time an
energy cluster will indeed form there. This fact has led some
observers to claim that energy centers are found throughout
the whole body. But that’s even more of a stretch. They are
under the impression that wherever an energy cluster forms
is an energy center. While it is an energy cluster, it’s not an
energy center. It would be okay to say that clusters of energy
can be made anywhere, or that there are upper, middle, and
lower energy clusters. But the center that can truly give rise
to countless powers has only one site, and it is at the lower
abdomen. So what people have said about upper, middle,
and lower energy centers is wrong. The truth is simply that
an energy cluster will form wherever the mind focuses for
a sustained amount of time.
The angelic body comes into being in the energy center at
the lower abdomen, and gradually grows larger in size. When
it has grown to be the size of a ping-pong ball, the contours
of its body can be made out, with the nose and eyes having
been formed. And while it is this size, a small, round bubble
will come into being beside its body. The bubble will grow
from then on in parallel with the angelic body. When the
body has grown to a height of just over five inches (thirteen
centimeters) tall, the first petal of a lotus flower will appear.
Once the body has reached six-and-a-half to eight inches
(seventeen to twenty centimeters) in height, all the petals of

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the flower will have basically come into shape, forming one
tier of a lotus flower, and it will be upon this that the angelic
body sits, golden and radiant, and simply beautiful. It is an
incorruptible Divine body, and has been traditionally referred
to as a “Buddha Body” by Buddhists and as an “Immortal
Infant” by Daoists.
In our discipline both this and the body you were born
with are developed and needed; this means that your innate
body also needs to undergo transformation along the way. But
as you might imagine, a divine body isn’t something that may
be revealed in the secular world. Some people may be able
to reveal the form of theirs if they go to great lengths; they
might be able to display a glowing figure that’s visible to the
naked eye. The body of this dimension, however, will look no
different from any other, despite its transformation. The dif-
ference won’t be perceptible to people, though this is a body
that can travel between dimensions. When the angelic body
has grown to be between five and six-and-a-half inches tall,
the bubble will have grown to the same size and be translucent
like an inflated balloon. The angelic body will sit still in med-
itation, motionless. At this point the bubble will take leave of
the body’s energy center. It is fully developed now and condi-
tions are ripe for it to ascend inside the body. The process of
ascension is an extremely slow one, but its daily movement
can be perceived. Slowly but surely it moves upward, ascend-
ing. You can sense its existence if you pay close attention.
After the bubble has ascended to the spot where the Middle
of the Chest acupoint is, it will stay there for a period of time.
It does so because the most essential things of a person’s body
are there, and much more (the heart is also located there),
and the bubble needs to form a system of these within it. The

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most essential things need to be supplied into the bubble for
its enrichment. Then, after some time, it continues to ascend.
Things will feel constricted when it passes through your neck,
as if your blood vessels were constricted or swollen, and it
feels awful. But after just a day or two the condition will pass.
When the bubble has arrived at the crown of the head, we refer
to it as “reaching the Niwan Palace.” Though we put it that
way, it’s actually as large as your head, and your whole head
will feel swollen. Since the Niwan Palace is a critical location
for a human being’s life, the bubble will again need to form
some essential things within itself while there. Afterwards it
squeezes outward through the passageway of the inner eye,
and the sensation is hard to bear. That area will feel swollen
to the point that it aches, and the temples will feel swollen
as well, while the regular eyes will feel sunken. Things will
carry on like this until the bubble has squeezed out, at which
point it promptly hangs at the position of the forehead. And
this is in fact what “positioning” the mandorla refers to—its
presiding over that spot.
A person who does Buddhist or Daoist practice and has
an open inner eye won’t be able to see out of it at this point
in time, which expedites the formation of things inside the
mandorla. At the front as well as back there will be a set of
doors, both of which are closed now; it will resemble the two
doors on either side of the passage at Tiananmen Square, in
Beijing. The doors will remain closed except for in extremely
special circumstances. This enables the formation and enrich-
ment of the mandorla to happen as swiftly as possible. So
those who can normally see through the inner eye won’t be
able to at this point, as it’s prohibited. As for why the man-
dorla is hung at this position, it’s because the many channels

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of the body converge at this point, and at this time all the
channels must traverse through the mandorla for one loop
before going on; each channel must travel the mandorla so
as to help lay certain groundwork inside it, so that ultimately
a system of interconnecting elements is formed. The human
body is a microcosm, so the mandorla will ultimately develop
into a miniature world in which is found all that is essential to
the human body. But what has formed thus far, at this stage,
are merely facilities that aren’t yet fully operational.
In practices known as the Mystical Ways, the mandorla
stays open, by contrast. When it’s ejected out, it will be in the
form of a straight tube, and only gradually become round
again. And the doors on both sides of it remain open. Since
the Mystical Ways are neither Buddhist nor Daoist, their
adherents aren’t watched over by the many masters who pro-
tect followers of the other two systems. Buddhist and Daoist
practitioners can go for a time without seeing through their
inner eyes and still be safe, whereas practitioners of the Mys-
tical Ways can’t, and need to be able to see with them in
order to protect themselves. However, when they view things
through their inner eyes in this scenario, it’s as if they are look-
ing through the optical tube of a telescope. [Whatever the
practice,] in the month or so that follows, after a few things
that are needed and that work together are formed there, the
mandorla starts its return. It begins by coming back inside
the head, which is referred to as a “shifting” of the mandorla.
As the mandorla goes back into the body, there will again
be an unpleasant sense of pressure. Afterwards it will squeeze
out of the body again, this time through the acupoint at the
nape of the neck called the Jade Pillow. The sensation as it
squeezes out will be hard to bear, and it will feel as if the head

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were being split open. But the tension will dissolve promptly
after the whole mandorla comes out. It then hangs there in
a deep dimension after exiting the body. It won’t be in your
way when you lie down to sleep, however, as it will be present
on your body of another, much deeper, dimension. But one
thing you may sense when the mandorla is first being posi-
tioned is that something is before your eyes. Though these
things are happening in another dimension, your vision in
this world might seem hazy, as if something were blocking
your view, and it won’t be too pleasant. The Jade Pillow acu-
point is a key one and a major juncture, and so a few things
will also be formed there that will work together, at the back
of the head. The mandorla will then start to go back in again.
The phrase I referred to earlier about the mandorla presid-
ing over an aperture isn’t really about one aperture alone,
since the mandorla needs to change its position several times.
Once back inside the body, it returns to the Niwan Palace and
begins to descend, proceeding straight down to the acupoint
between the kidneys, known as the Life Gate. And here it is
ejected out again.
The Life Gate is a crucial and central “aperture,” as Daoists
call it, or “juncture,” as we put it. But more than just a major
juncture, it is actually like an iron gate—like countless layers
of them, in fact. We know that there are many layers to the
body, with the cells of the flesh being one layer, and the mole-
cules within them another. There is a gate at every plane, from
atoms to protons, electrons, and so on, down to infinitely
small particles. And so an enormous array of powers and
magical skills are locked up by the gates of each layer. Other
practices take the approach of forming an energy cluster that
is eventually exploded, and when that happens, the first spot

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 to be blasted open is the Life Gate; this is necessary in order
to free up one’s powers. Here the mandorla forms a system of
things once again, and then re-enters the body. It then returns
to the lower abdomen, which is referred to as the mandorla
“returning to its seat.”
When the mandorla does this, it doesn’t in fact go back
to its original spot. By this time the angelic body will have
grown quite large, and the bubble will cover and enwrap it,
and grow in tandem with it. In Daoist practice the angelic
body is generally allowed to take leave of one’s body when it
has reached the size of a six- to seven-year-old. This is known
as the “birth of the Immortal Infant.” This happens when
a person’s soul takes charge of the angelic body and uses it to
leave the physical body. His or her physical body will stay put,
motionless, when the soul leaves it. In Buddhist practices like
ours, however, the angelic body will usually be out of danger
when it has grown to the same size as the person. And at that
point the angelic body is normally allowed to take leave of
one’s body, and can separate from it and go out. By this time
the angelic body will have grown to be the same size as the
practitioner, and the bubble—which is the mandorla—that
envelops him or her will be large and have surpassed the size
of the person’s physical body. This is only natural, given the
angelic body’s size.
You may have observed that the statues and images of
divine beings seen in temples or other religious settings, and
especially the paintings, often depict these beings surrounded
by a circle or oval behind them. A large number of images
are like that, and it’s always the case with the paintings in
ancient temples. Nobody can offer a good explanation why.
But I can disclose to you that it is the mandorla. So in the

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process I was just describing, the mandorla, at this point
of maturity, should now be called otherwise. It should be
called a “paradise,” even if it isn’t one in the fullest sense of
the term yet. It merely has the facilities needed, so to speak.
It’s like a factory that has the equipment it needs but which
can’t produce anything owing to a lack of energy and materi-
als. A few years back a number of spiritual figures were stat-
ing that their energy had surpassed that of various divinities.
Those who heard them thought it was a stretch. But what they
said wasn’t an exaggeration by any means, as your energy
does need to be developed to a great height while you are
still in this world.
It’s hard to fathom that they could have surpassed divine
beings in achievement. But we shouldn’t understand remarks
like theirs so superficially. Yes, their energy did reach very
high since it was sure to be that way once they had progressed
to an advanced stage and the point of enlightenment, and
of having all of their powers accessible to them. But right
at the point when that would occur, eighty percent of their
energy would be snapped off and taken down together with
their measure of character. The energy would then be used
to enrich their very own paradises, which I was just refer-
ring to. As we know, the energy and the height of character
that a practitioner achieves are extremely precious, as they
were developed through countless trials and tribulations over
his lifetime. Eighty percent of this precious, higher energy
will be used to enrich his paradise. And that is why one day,
when his spiritual journey has come to a successful close, he
will only have to extend his hand to have whatever he wants,
and it will instantly manifest; and whatever he wills to be
done, shall be done. His spiritual authority will mean that

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all of these are possible for him in his paradise. And all shall
be the rewards of his spiritual labors.
The energy of a being who is divine like this can be trans-
formed into anything at his command. And so he is free
to consume or enjoy whatever he would like, and whatever
he wishes for shall be, since these are the fruits of his prac-
tice. They come with his Divine status; anything less than
this status would mean that his practice was ultimately not
a success. At this time, what was formerly the mandorla can
now be rightfully called his own “paradise,” or “world,” and
he will achieve spiritual perfection and attain enlightenment
with the twenty percent of his energy that’s left. Though only
twenty percent remains, no part of his body will be locked at
this point in time—if he even has a body, that is. And if he
does, it will have been fully remade with high-energy matter
by now. His powers will be revealed in all their glory and be
unrivaled in their might. They will no longer be held back, as
they previously were, despite all of the progress he had been
making while practicing in this world.

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 the
fifth talk

The Falun’s Design

the falun is the symbol of our Falun Dafa. People with
special powers can see that the falun rotates, such as those
on falun pins. Our practice is guided by the cosmic qualities
of zhen, shan, ren. The scope of our practice is simply enor-
mous, since it is based on the laws governing the changing
universe. The falun as illustrated at the front of our book is, in
a sense, a microcosm of the universe. Buddhist thought con-
ceptualizes the universe as a group of worlds that exist in ten
directions. There are the four sides and a total of eight direc-
tions.* Some people might have seen that there is a column
of energy both atop and beneath the falun. So counting these
two additional directions of above and below, we have a total
of ten directions upon which are built worlds—the worlds
that make up the universe. This is the Buddhist concept of
the universe, in simple terms.

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 This universe has innumerable galaxies, of course, one of
which is the Milky Way. The universe as a whole is in motion,
as are all the galaxies within it. And this is why the tai-chi sym-
bols and smaller srivatsa symbols inside the falun design
rotate, as do the larger srivatsa in the center and the design
as a whole. So in a certain sense, [the larger srivatsa ] rep-
resents the Milky Way galaxy; and this Buddhist symbol is
at the center since ours is a Buddhist practice. That’s how to
look at the face of it. Yet, in other dimensions everything has
extraordinarily diverse and intricate forms of existence, and
the process by which any given thing comes into being is
similarly complex. So the falun design is a miniature repre-
sentation of the universe. In all other dimensions it has forms
of existence as well, along with processes through which it
evolves, and so I consider it a world.
When the falun turns clockwise it automatically draws in
energy from the universe, and when it turns counterclockwise
it sends out energy. One feature of the falun is that it benefits
the person it resides in when rotating inward (clockwise), and
benefits those around him when rotating outward (counter-
clockwise). People have asked why there are tai-chi symbols in
it when ours is a Buddhist practice and tai-chi are something
Daoist. The reason these are included is that what we practice
is immense, and equivalent to working with the entire uni-
verse. Just consider what would happen if either of the two
major systems of practice in the universe—the Buddhist and
Daoist—were excluded from the falun: it wouldn’t amount
to a complete universe or be appropriate to call it that. So we
include something Daoist. People have asked why Christi-
anity, Confucianism, and other faiths aren’t represented in
the falun, while the Daoist system is. What I can disclose to

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you is that Confucian practice is considered Daoist when it
reaches a really advanced stage; and many Western religions
are considered Buddhist, and part of its system, at advanced
stages. There are just two systems that are major.
You might be curious why there are tai-chi with red and
blue in them as well as red and black, when usually the tai-chi
is thought of as consisting of black and white matter, or the
energies of yin and yang. But the latter is a rudimentary
understanding of it, since the tai-chi displays itself in dif-
ferent ways across dimensions, and at the highest planes it
manifests in the colors that we are using here. Daoist practice
as we know it does in fact have a tai-chi made of red and
black. Let me illustrate the idea that’s at work here. Some of
us whose inner eyes are open have found that what appears
in this dimension to be red is green in another dimension
next to ours. And what appears as golden yellow here may, in
another dimension, appear to be purple. So there is variation
in the colors that people see, and this owes to the fact that
colors differ across dimensions. The tai-chi with red and blue
in it belongs to the Great Way of the Prior Heavenly Realm,
which includes the Mystical Ways. The small srivatsas on
the four sides are Buddhist, and, like the one in the center,
belong to the Buddhist system. The falun is vivid with these
colors, and so we have made this design Falun Dafa’s symbol.
The falun that some of you see via your inner eye
won’t necessarily be of the same color as our symbol. The
color of the background may change, though the design will
not. And when your inner eye perceives the turning falun that
I place at your lower abdomen, the background color might
be red, purple, green, or perhaps transparent. The color reg-
ularly changes among red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,

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and violet. So you might see a different color from the one
that our symbol has. Neither the colors nor the layout of
the srivatsas and tai-chi will change, however. We liked
the look of the falun symbol with the background color that
you now see, and so we settled on it. There are many things
that people with higher powers can see in the falun beyond
this dimension.
Some people comment that the srivatsa calls to mind
Hitler’s emblem. But that shouldn’t be a concern, as the
symbol isn’t by nature connected with any particular group
of people. Another concern I’ve heard is that if it were tilted
to the side, it would be the same as Hitler’s. But that’s a non-
issue since ours spins, and in two directions. The symbol came
to be widely known in the world some twenty-five hundred
years ago, during the time of the Buddha. By contrast, it has
only been a matter of decades since Hitler and World War II,
and what’s more, he usurped it. Also, his was black, unlike
ours, and was used standing on end, with the tip pointing
upward. We’ll leave the discussion of the falun at that. Note
that I’m limiting my remarks to just its outermost form.
You might be wondering what the srivatsa represents in
the Buddhist system. Regular people think of it as symbol-
izing fortune and happiness, but that’s a rather worldly take
on it. I can disclose to you that the srivatsa indicates the
level of a Buddha’s attainment; only beings who have achieved
the divine status of a Buddha have it. Lesser divinities such
as bodhisattvas and arhats don’t, except for the Four Great
Bodhisattvas. We have seen that these eminent bodhisattvas
have far surpassed the attainments of a typical Buddha, and
are even higher than tathagata Buddhas. There are countless
Buddhas who have surpassed the level of tathagata, which has

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but one srivatsa . Those who achieve a level of attainment
above tathagata have more srivatsas . A Buddha whose
status is twice as high as tathagata will have two srivatsas ,
while those still higher may have three, four, or five, and so
on. They might be so many as to cover the body, including the
head, shoulders, and even knees. And when no room is left
they will even appear on places like the palms of the hands,
the pads of the fingers, the arches of the feet, or the pads of
the toes. The number of srivatsas will keep increasing in
proportion to one’s level of attainment, without end. So the
srivatsa represents a divine status, with the number increas-
ing proportionally to one’s rank.

The Mystical Ways

Alongside the Buddhist and Daoist practices there is another
type known as the Mystical Ways (chi-men)—or “Mystical
Practices,” to use their own term for it. It’s usually held, and
has been since ancient times in China, that the Buddhist
and Daoist approaches to spiritual practice are orthodox, or
“proper.” The Mystical Ways, by contrast, have never been
made public and their existence is known to few. At most,
people may have come across them in fictional works.
This might lead some to wonder whether the Mystical
Ways really do exist, when in fact, they do. During my own
journey of spiritual practice—in the later years, to be spe-
cific—I encountered three accomplished members of the
Mystical Ways who transmitted to me the best parts of their
disciplines; what they imparted was exceptionally unique and
good. And because what they have is so unique, the things

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 gained from their practice are quite peculiar. Most people
wouldn’t be able to make sense of them. Mystical Ways have
been described as neither Buddhist nor Daoist, since their
practice doesn’t fall into either category. And that led to their
being labeled as “alternative” or “unorthodox,” while they
prefer to call themselves Mystical Ways. While it might seem
derogatory to call them alternative or unorthodox, it defi-
nitely doesn’t mean that people are opposed to them. People
aren’t saying they are evil. Those terms don’t imply anything
nefarious. Historically in China both Buddhist and Daoist
practices have been called true, or central, spiritual disci-
plines, and so when practices such as the Mystical ones are
misunderstood, they end up getting called alternative—as
opposed to being completely proper or mainstream. And
as for the “unorthodox” label, it was just meant to suggest
“a clumsy approach.” It often had this sense in classical Chi-
nese. So hopefully this sheds some light on the label.
There is nothing malevolent about the Mystical Ways, as
they are morally strict and align their practice with the qual-
ities of the universe. They don’t violate the features or norms
of the universe, nor do anything wrong. So their practices
shouldn’t be thought of as deviant. And Buddhist and Daoist
practices shouldn’t be considered virtuous on account of
the universe’s qualities aligning with them, but rather, vice
versa: they are virtuous because they align their practice with
the qualities of the universe. The Mystical Ways certainly
aren’t evil if they do the same, and deserve to be called virtu-
ous as well. What is good or evil, or virtuous or wicked, must
be measured against the qualities of the universe. The Mys-
tical Ways are virtuous and true practices in that they abide
by these. The only difference is that they require different

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things of their adherents than do Buddhist or Daoist prac-
tices. They don’t offer their teachings to many students, and
prefer to keep the scale of instruction small. Daoist practices
are similar in that they will only pass on the true teachings
to one student, even if many are trained. Buddhist practices,
by contrast, believe in benefiting all lives and welcome who-
ever is willing and able to practice.
The Mystical Ways pass their teachings down to just one
recipient; over a long stretch of time only one person is
selected for the transmission. And for this reason what they
do has never been revealed to regular people. When chi-gong
was in its heyday a few years back, I observed that, naturally
enough, a few people from these practices came out to teach.
But their attempts to teach the public were repeatedly unsuc-
cessful, for there were certain things that their masters strictly
forbade them from divulging. When teaching to the general
public, one cannot pick and choose students, and those who
come to learn will include people of both good and poor
character. People with all sorts of preconceived notions will
come, and so it’s not possible to be selective. For this reason
the Mystical Ways aren’t suitable for a wider audience. Their
unique approaches would likely put students at risk if they
were taught publicly.
If Buddhists aspire to become enlightened and Daoists
to become perfected beings, what about those in the Mys-
tical Ways? They will become boundless immortals who
are not tied to any one specific domain in the universe, as
would happen with a heavenly paradise. As you may know,
the Buddha, Shakyamuni, presides over the Saha Paradise,
Buddha Amitabha over the Paradise of Ultimate Bliss, and
Medicine Buddha over the Lapis Lazuli Paradise, with each

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divine figure like these having a paradise of his or her own.
Each great divinity has a heavenly kingdom of his or her own
making, where many followers reside. Successful adherents
of the Mystical Ways, by contrast, have no set domain in the
universe and will be boundless immortals with no specific
post in heaven.

Practicing an Evil Way

Practicing an evil way can assume any of several different
forms. Some individuals practice evil means exclusively, and
what they practice goes back for generations. What motivates
them to do so is the lure of worldly things such as status,
material gain, and wealth. Of course, these are people of poor
character and they will not be developing higher energy. What
they will get, however, is karma. One feature of karma is that
if enough of it is amassed, it forms into a type of energy; yet
this type of energy is nothing to speak of, and no match for
the energy of practitioners. But it will be able to exercise
power over regular people, since it is a form of energy and can
strengthen the powers of the body if its density grows high.
This is why people have passed these practices down through
the ages. Adherents claim that they can develop energy by
doing bad deeds and verbally abusing people. But they can’t.
What they are doing is increasing the density of their black
matter, or karma, through wrongful things. So they can, in
effect, strengthen and develop the lesser powers of the body
by way of karma, but those powers don’t amount to much.
So they’re mistaken in thinking that they can develop true
energy by doing wrongful things.

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 While it’s been said that “evil is more powerful than good,”
that is a harmful secular view. The Devil’s powers will never
surpass those of the Way. Some background is in order. The
universe known to man is but one small universe among
countless ones, and we just call it “the universe” for simplic-
ity’s sake. Each time this universe has passed through a great
number of ages, a cataclysm of cosmic proportions has vis-
ited it and destroyed everything in its wake, including planets
and all life. The motion of the universe follows a set pattern,
and in this current cycle more than just humanity has turned
bad. Many lives have now observed that it has been a long
time since the last explosion occurred in this dimension of
the universe. Astronomers today can’t observe the last explo-
sion because what’s seen with the most powerful telescopes
today are events that are one hundred and fifty thousand light
years removed. Not until an equal number of light years are
spanned will the changes currently happening in the uni-
verse be visible here.
The entire universe has undergone immense changes as
of now. Past changes of this scale have always spelled com-
plete destruction for all life throughout the universe. In each
instance, all of the universe’s traits and material elements were
to be obliterated by explosion, with nothing remaining and
lives across the board perishing. However, in each instance
the explosion has not been total. So whenever divine ones of
an extraordinarily high realm have constructed the universe
anew, there have always been certain beings that were pres-
ent in the universe already, as a vestige from the past. Yet the
new universe that the divine ones were remaking would be
done according to their own traits and criteria, which were
different from those of the past.

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 The beings that didn’t perish in these explosions would
bring with them into the new universe the traits and ways of
operating that they knew from the last. However, the newly
formed universe would be governed by the traits and laws of
the new universe. And so the beings that carried over from
before would serve as evil that hindered the operations of the
new universe. Such beings are not outright evil, however, since
it’s simply that they embody the traits of the previous uni-
verse. They have been known as dark forces. They don’t pose
a threat to regular people and certainly wouldn’t harm them;
the issue is simply that they hold fast to the old ways of doing
things. This is something that ordinary people were previously
forbidden to know. I would say that those entities are noth-
ing really, and pale in comparison to the many divine beings
in the heavens far above, beyond the tathagata level. Aging,
sickness, and death are also kinds of dark beings, though they
exist in order to uphold the nature of the universe.
Buddhist teachings on the transmigration of souls men-
tion what are called asura. Asura are really just creatures of
another dimension that don’t have the innate nature man does.
They are exceedingly low in level and powerless in the eyes
of the greater divine beings, but to ordinary people would
seem terrifying. They carry a certain amount of energy and
consider humans to be beasts, and so they delight in feed-
ing upon them. In recent years some have come out to teach
energy practices. But they are nothing, and don’t even have
a human appearance. They look frightening. When a person
learns their things he inevitably crosses over to where they
are and becomes one of them. When some people do energy
practices their thoughts aren’t right, and those entities might,
if the thoughts agree with them, come over to teach these

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individuals. But as it’s said, “Good is a far greater force than
evil.” No one will tamper with you unless you have bad
motives. But if you do harbor bad intentions they will come to
assist you, and you may end up heading toward the dark side.
Another phenomenon is what’s known as unknowingly
practicing evil, and it refers to instances of people practic-
ing in an evil manner without realizing it. This is something
extremely common and far too widespread. It relates to what
I said the other day about many people having inappropriate
thoughts in mind while practicing. You might see someone
who by all appearances is practicing hard, holding some spe-
cial posture, arms and legs shaking from fatigue, but his mind
might be elsewhere. That person might be anxiously think-
ing about needing to make some purchase or other before
prices go up, for example. Or he might be worried about get-
ting passed over for housing, which his company is allotting,
due to the person in charge having personal grievances with
him. And he will only get more worked up as he dwells on
it further, thinking it’ll surely go wrong, and he might even
start calculating how to challenge the person on it. The mind
could go anywhere, from family matters to national concerns,
with some things even triggering anger.
Virtue has to be a priority with any energy practice. If
you aren’t having good thoughts as you practice, at least you
shouldn’t have bad thoughts. Having no thoughts at all is best,
because certain foundations have to be laid in the beginning
stages of practice and will play a critical role later on, and
one’s mind does exert a certain effect. If you are mixing things
into your energy as you practice, could what you’re developing
be good? Wouldn’t it be dark? Yet few people are free of this
problem. Most never stop to consider why they don’t enjoy

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good health even after practicing at length. In other cases
people might not be thinking bad thoughts as they prac-
tice, but they are always wanting to gain psychic powers or
other things as they practice, with strong longings and inap-
propriate mindsets. That in fact amounts to practicing evil
unknowingly. But they won’t want to hear it if you point it
out since they are convinced that all’s well since they learned
from some master or other. But he might have told them the
importance of being virtuous, which they didn’t take to heart.
So, little good will come of their practice if they are always
adding in bad thoughts. It would amount to practicing evil
unknowingly. This is something quite common.

Tantric Union Practices

There are methods of Tantric practice that are referred to
as “union practices.” You may have seen Tibetan Buddhist
statues or paintings depicting a male and female figure con-
joining as a means of practice. In some cases the male figure
has the look of a Buddha and will be embracing a woman
who is unclothed; in others the figures are transformations
of Buddhas, such as warrior deities with oxen or horse heads,
which are similarly embracing an unclothed female figure. If
we’re to make sense of this we have to delve into a few things
first. Centuries ago in the ancient past, humanity’s moral
values were more or less the same throughout the world; the
conservative values seen in China weren’t simply the result
of Confucian influence. This suggests that the practices of
Tantric union didn’t in fact originate here on this earth, but
came from another planet. The method can indeed serve as

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 a component of spiritual practice, however. When the method
was transmitted to China at one time, people weren’t receptive
to it on account of its having men and women conjoined in
practice, as well as its having secretive components. And so
it was abolished by the emperor during the Hui Chang era of
the Tang Dynasty. It was forbidden from being taught in the
interior of China. At that time it was referred to as Tang Eso-
terica. But it has been passed down ever since in the unique
setting of Tibet. Then how does it serve a spiritual purpose,
you might be wondering? Tantric union practices strive to
achieve a balance of yin and yang by gathering yin to supple-
ment yang and vice versa, through mutual supplementation
and refinement.
As you might know, both Buddhist and Daoist thought
hold that the human body innately has both yin and yang; this
is especially apparent in the Daoist concept of yin-yang. And
it is the presence of both yin and yang in the body that makes
it possible for you to develop higher powers, an angelic body,
cherubs, spiritual bodies, and other supernatural beings. Yin
and yang are what make these possible with spiritual practice;
this holds true for the male as well as the female body. These
supernatural beings can be generated in the energy center of
either gender’s body. So the Buddhist and Daoist views on yin
and yang in the body make plenty of sense. Daoist practice
often regards the upper half of the body as yang and lower
as yin; some regard the back of the body as yang and front
as yin; and others regard the left side of the body as yang
and right as yin. So this is where the Chinese saying about
“man left, woman right” comes from, and there is merit to
it. Because the human body naturally has both yin and yang,
the body can, through the interplay of yin and yang, achieve

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a state of yin-yang balance and generate an abundance of
supernatural beings.
This tells us, then, that we can progress to great spiritual
heights without adopting Tantric union practices. What’s
more, using them runs the risk of falling prey to evil and
lapsing into a dark practice, if it’s not handled well. These
practices are normally used by a monk or lama only at a very
advanced stage of Esoteric Buddhist practice, and so he will
be spiritually accomplished; and he will be guided through
the practice by a master. And because this individual’s mind
will be virtuous, he will be solid and able to handle it well, and
not succumb to evil. By contrast, someone who is not very
spiritually developed has no business using it, as he would
surely fall prey to evil. His character wouldn’t suffice. He
would still have worldly, covetous thoughts along with sexual
desire, and that would be the plane on which he dwelled. So it
would be sure to turn out evil. This is why I believe it’s devious
to teach such things to those who are still not very far along
in their practice.
A number of teachers of energy practices have been teach-
ing Tantric union in recent years. And oddly, it’s seen in Daoist
practice too; and this isn’t just a recent development, but
goes back many centuries to the Tang Dynasty. Yet it makes
no sense for Daoist practice to go in for Tantric union. The
Daoist theory of tai-chi holds that the body is a microcosm of
the universe and naturally endowed with both yin and yang.
Any true spiritual teaching that has been authentically trans-
mitted will have been passed down from a distant age. Any
casual alteration or anything that’s arbitrarily introduced into
it will compromise its practice and make the goal of spiritual
perfection no longer attainable. So under no circumstance

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should you do Tantric union practices if they aren’t part of
the discipline you follow. Doing so would take you astray and
lead to problems. This very much applies to anyone who does
Falun Dafa. We don’t have Tantric union practices or any-
thing like them. So now you know our take on this.

Practice for Both Mind and Body

Practice for both mind and body is something I’ve touched
upon. It occurs when the spiritual practice that you do works
on both your mind as well as your physical body, such that
your body changes from its core. With this process your cells
will be gradually replaced by high-energy matter, and the
aging process slowed. Your body will show signs of changing
and reverting to a more youthful state, incrementally, until
in the end the material of your body will have been replaced
entirely by high-energy matter, and your body will no longer
consist of the same material it once did. It will be the kind
of body I was describing earlier, which has transcended and
been freed of the five elements. It will be a body that is truly
immortal.
The practice done in Buddhist monastic settings deals
solely with the mind and doesn’t make use of physical tech-
niques or work on the body. Instead, the focal point is an
approach taught by the Buddha, called nirvana. His practice
was profound, in fact, and he was fully capable of transform-
ing his innate body into high-energy matter and taking it
with him after death. But as an example to others, he opted
instead to enter into nirvana, wherein the body is left here. He
decided upon this approach in order to help people abandon

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attachments to the utmost extent, giving up everything—
including even their own bodies, ultimately. All attachments
were to go. So he opted for nirvana in order to help his fol-
lowers become as detached as possible, and so successive
generations of monks have gone the same route. With nirvana,
the monk’s physical body is cast off with his passing while
his soul ascends and carries forth his energy.
In Daoist practice the emphasis is on developing the body.
They are selective about students and don’t try to save all lives,
so those whom they deal with are excellent and outstanding
persons, and can be taught magical skills and how to spiri-
tually transform the body. In Buddhist practice, by contrast,
those approaches generally can’t be taught. This is especially
so for religious Buddhism. Not all Buddhist practices shun
such methods, though. There are a number of profound,
great Buddhist practices that do use them. Our discipline
is one example. In Falun Dafa the innate body and angelic
body, which are two different things, are both desirable. The
latter is also a physical body, one composed of high-energy
matter, though it’s not something that can be freely revealed
in this dimension. It’s necessary to have an innate body, as
we do, if you are to maintain a normal human appearance
in this dimension. So you will still look about the same as
a regular person after your innate body has changed, since
your body’s molecular configuration will be the same; it’s only
that your cells will have been replaced by high-energy matter.
But your body will be different from a regular person’s, as
yours will be able to cross over into other dimensions.
By doing a practice for both mind and body, you will gain
a youthful appearance and look much younger than your
years. I was once approached by a practitioner who asked me

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to guess her age. I would have thought she was in her forties,
when it turned out she was almost seventy. With no wrin-
kles, a glowing complexion, and a rosiness to her skin, she
hardly looked like someone approaching seventy. Changes
like that are likely to happen when you practice Falun Dafa.
If I’m allowed to tease a little, I’d say that young women will
naturally achieve the beautiful skin tone they’re always after,
provided they sincerely do mind-body practice—and with-
out needing to go to the lengths they once did. I’ll leave it at
that. People used to consider me young since it was mostly
older people who made up China’s workforce. Things are
better now, with more younger professionals out there. And
I’m not young anymore myself, in fact. I am now forty-three
and quickly approaching fifty.

Spiritual Bodies
Have you ever wondered why it is that some religious images
seem to radiate energy? Few people can explain it. Some offer
that it stems from monks having chanted scriptures before
these images, or in other words, from their having engaged
in spiritual practice facing them. But when a monk or anyone
else practices, the energy that’s emitted is dispersed rather
than directed at one spot. There should be even and equal
amounts of energy over the floor, ceiling, and walls of the
place of worship. So it doesn’t explain why only the images
give off such strong energy. Much less does it shed light on
why many religious statues found deep in the mountains, in
certain caves, or carved into natural edifices exude energy.
Many interpretations have been offered as to why this is, yet

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none have hit the mark. The real reason for the energy on
those statues is the presence of a divine being’s spiritual body
(fa-shen). The statues have energy because a spiritual body
is present.
We can begin to understand how spiritual bodies come
into being if we stop and consider that well-known divinities
[who have these], such as the Buddha or Guan Yin, must have
once upon a time been regular practitioners themselves. They
would have formed them, as people do, when their spiritual
development reached a certain height beyond the human
realm. Spiritual bodies are generated in the body’s energy
center and are formed from the Way as well as from higher
energy. They materialize in other dimensions. A spiritual
body is endowed with the original person’s considerable
powers, yet its consciousness or thoughts will be dictated
by the person’s main body. That said, a spiritual body is in
fact a complete, independent, fully bona fide life in its own
right, and so it can do anything on its own. Its actions will
be consistent with, and even identical to, whatever the per-
son’s conscious mind would want done. The spiritual bodies
will do things however the person himself would if he were
to do them. So this is what we refer to as a spiritual body.
Whatever I wish to have done—such as mending the bodies
of sincere practitioners—will be carried out by my spiritual
bodies. Bodies like these have to materialize in other dimen-
sions since they aren’t equipped with a regular human body.
These supernatural beings are not fixed and unchanging, but
can expand and contract. In some instances one of them
might become so large that not even all of its head is visible,
while at other times it might become so small as to be tinier
than a cell.

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The Blessing of Sacred Images
A religious statue fresh out of the factory is merely a piece of
art. And so sacred images are often formally blessed in order
to invite the spiritual body of the divine one they represent
to reside on them. And thereafter the statues can serve as
tangible representations of that being for people to wor-
ship. The spiritual body will provide sincere believers who
worship these statues with protection and look after them
as they go about their practice. This is what the blessing of
images is meant to accomplish. But the ritual that’s involved
will only achieve its intent if the person doing it has virtuous
thoughts; if divine ones of higher planes are involved; or if
it’s done by someone who is spiritually accomplished and
has the powers for it.
In Buddhist temples it’s commonly held that Buddha stat-
ues will have no power if they don’t first go through this kind
of procedure, which is referred to as “image consecration” in
Asia. There are few monks still alive today in temples who
have a mastery of the Buddhist teachings. In the wake of Chi-
na’s Cultural Revolution and its destruction, junior monks
who were never fully initiated into the teachings have since
become abbots. Much of what was once transmitted has been
lost. If you ask them what consecration is for, they will say
that the statue has power afterwards, but they can’t really
explain what that means in concrete terms. So they are merely
holding a ceremony in that case, and what they call conse-
cration only amounts to placing a small piece of paper with
scripture on it inside of a statue, sealing it up with paper, and
then chanting to it. But does it serve the purpose that conse-
cration is meant to? It depends on how they do the chanting.

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The Buddha taught about “right mindfulness” and that rec-
itation of scriptures must be done with a focused mind, free
of distraction, and only then will one’s words have resonance
in the paradise connected to one’s practice. And that’s what
it takes to summon a divine being. Unless one of his or her
spiritual bodies engages the image, the objective of conse-
cration won’t be met.
It happens that some monastics or religious figures may
be preoccupied as they recite scripture at a consecration
ceremony, thinking about how much they will be paid for
it afterwards. Or they might be mulling over how some-
one has wronged them, since now there’s even infighting in
monastic settings. There is no denying that these things are
happening now, in these latter days. My point here isn’t to
criticize religions, but to say that certain religious settings
simply aren’t pure in this age. And as you might imagine,
a consecration ceremony won’t achieve its purpose if the
minds of those involved are preoccupied with worldly and
inappropriate thoughts, and these are what they’re projecting;
the ceremony will fail to summon a divine being. But that
said, there are still some monasteries and religious settings
that are good, even if they are rare.
In one city I observed a Buddhist monk doing a consecra-
tion procedure whose hands were as dark as coal. He would
stuff a scripture into the hollow interior of the statue, seal it
up, mutter a few words, and then pronounce the consecra-
tion complete. He would then grab the next statue, mutter for
a moment or two, and make forty more dollars for another
consecration. And monks now even treat it as a kind of enter-
prise, gaining wealth by consecrating images. But I could tell
at a glance that the procedure hadn’t achieved what it should

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have, as the monk involved really didn’t have the powers
needed. Yet monks are now going in for such things. I have
seen other surprising things as well. At one Buddhist temple
I observed a man who looked like a lay follower. He claimed
that he was doing consecration for the Buddha statue there.
He had a mirror in hand and was angling it to reflect the
sun’s light upon the body of the image. And he claimed that
by doing so, he was performing a consecration.* So it has
reached the point of absurdity. Yet things like this are quite
widespread, with Buddhism being what it is today.
There is a giant bronze Buddha statue installed on Lantau
Island, in Hong Kong, that was made in Nanjing city. It’s an
enormous statue. At the time of its inauguration a large
number of monks assembled from around the world to
partake in its consecration. Someone there was holding up
a mirror angled toward the sun, trying to reflect its light onto
the statue’s face, thinking that this would consecrate it. To see
something like that transpire at such a sacred gathering, on
such a solemn occasion, was really tragic. But the Buddha
did say that it would be hard for even monks to ensure their
own salvation in the latter days, let alone save others. Things
are in turmoil now, with many monks interpreting the scrip-
tures in light of their own, limited perspectives, and with
non-Buddhist scriptures having made their way into the tem-
ples. It should be noted, of course, that there are monks who
are sincere about spiritual practice and quite good. So conse-
cration is ultimately about inviting a divine being’s spiritual
body to reside on a religious image, and when that happens
it is successful.
A religious statue that hasn’t been successfully conse-
crated or blessed should not be worshipped, as doing so

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 can have serious consequences. Recent scientific research
can help us to understand why. Researchers have found that
a person’s thoughts, or the ideas in his brain, can generate
something material. And we do find thoughts to have material
form when we look upon them from higher planes, though
the form we’re referring to shouldn’t be mistaken for the
“brain waves” that research has uncovered; rather, this mate-
rial assumes the form of a complete human brain. Normally,
any brain-shaped material that a regular person emanates
while thinking will dissipate before long, since his or her
thoughts don’t have energy behind them. But the material will
last much longer in the case of practitioners, owing to their
energy. So bringing this back to the topic of religious statues,
we shouldn’t expect them to have the faculty of thought at
the time of their production. A statue won’t if it hasn’t gone
through the procedure of consecration, and been through
a successful one, at that—even if it took place in a religious
setting. And if the procedure was done by a false master or
someone involved in the dark arts, then it’s worse [than noth-
ing being done at all], and dangerous, since a fox or a weasel
might get on the statue.
This means that significant danger is posed by venerat-
ing unconsecrated images. I’ll give you a sense for just how
dangerous it is. I have indicated that humanity has been
declining in every regard in recent times, and everything
about this world as well as the universe has been declining in
turn. People are reaping what they have sown. True, virtuous
teachings or practices are hard to find. Obstacles of every sort
await those who try to find them. And even simply praying to
one’s god might go wrong, since people have no idea whether
what’s on the statue or icon they’re praying to is the entity they

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intend. So things are really complicated now. I can explain
why, for anyone in doubt. Things go downhill quickly when
people start praying to an unconsecrated statue, since few
today do so for the salvation of their souls. Most pray in
hopes of lessening the adversity in their lives or making out
better financially. But there is no scriptural basis for prayers
and longings like those.
When someone seeks financial help and bows before an
image of the Buddha, his god, or a holy being, and prays for
monetary support, lo and behold, a complete thought forms
and issues forth. And it will land right on the statue, since it
was directed toward it. The form of the statue in other dimen-
sions can expand or shrink. So after the person’s thought
rests on the statue, the statue will come to have a brain and
the ability to think, though not yet a body. The prayers from
others that follow provide it with a certain amount of energy.
And if it is practitioners doing this, the danger is all the greater,
for the statue will receive their energy right from the outset,
and it will form into a tangible body in another dimension.
That body will reside in another realm and know the work-
ings of the universe to some extent. And so it will have the
power to do things that help people, and it can develop some
amount of energy. But whatever it does for people comes with
conditions attached, or at a price. It moves about freely in
another dimension and can readily control ordinary people.
But its appearance will be identical to the statue from which
it arose. So although you might have a vision of what appears
to be a holy being, and it might look just like the image you
prayed to, it would be a false entity and the product of wor-
ship or prayers. The minds of false entities like these will be
terrible and think only of money. Yet they won’t attempt to

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do anything gravely wrong, since they were born in another
dimension, have the faculty of thought, and know to some
extent how the laws of the universe work. They will, however,
venture to do bad things of a lesser degree. And sometimes
they will help people, for if they didn’t make such gestures they
would be purely evil and be slain. But just consider what kind
of “help” they offer. Suppose someone prays before a sacred
image, asking for an ailing family member to be healed. Very
well, then—that bad entity will lend a hand. It will have you
put money into the donation tray beside it, since money is
what’s on its mind. And the more money you offer, the faster it
will make your family member recover. From another dimen-
sion it can impact an ordinary person using the energy that
it has. The stakes are even greater if someone with higher
energy prays to that entity. Of course, it should go without
saying that someone dedicated to spiritual practice has no
business praying to get things, let alone asking for money. And
yet some do. Even just praying for your family’s well-being
is considered an emotional attachment to them. As much as
you might want to positively influence someone’s life, you
have to understand that everyone has his or her own fate. If
you pray to a false entity and ask for financial blessings, it will
respond by helping you. It is all too eager to see you asking
for more money. It can take more from you in exchange, in
that case. And it’s a fair trade. So it will let you have some of
the money that people put into the donation tray, since there
is plenty there. It might play out as your stumbling upon
a wallet or handbag as you walk down the street, or getting
a bonus at work. It will try all avenues to get you money. But
it comes at a cost. Nothing is to be had for free, after all. And
so it will snatch a portion of your energy cluster, if that’s what

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your practice generates, or your energy, since it lacks these
and wants them.
These false entities can be quite dangerous. Many who are
involved in spiritual practice and whose inner eyes have been
opened believe that they have seen higher beings. Some have
claimed that groups of them have come to their temples, with
one named something-or-other leading the groups. And they
described how they were visited frequently by them, with
one group coming one day and then another the next, and
so on. So what was going on? These belong to the category
I’ve been describing. They were not true holy beings, but false
ones. A considerable number fall into this category.
What I’ve described is all the more dangerous if it unfolds
in a religious community, as that entity will take charge of
the monks who venerate it. And it would have grounds for
doing so, since they would clearly be praying to it. And so it
would watch over them and direct their practice. But where
would these monks go even if they did manage to complete
their spiritual journey under it? No deities above would wel-
come them, since they would have been under this lower
entity’s guidance and would belong to it. So the monks’ efforts
would be for naught. It is terribly hard now for people to
gain true divine standing through spiritual practice. The phe-
nomenon I just described is quite common. While many
people have thought that they saw a divine light or presence
in well-known mountains and river valleys, the majority of
it came from these false entities, since they have energy and
can cause apparitions. True divine beings, by contrast, would
not reveal themselves so readily.
At one time there were fewer of these false entities, whereas
now there are many. Any wrongful acts that they commit will

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result in their being slain by those above. But they may manage
to elude the retribution by taking refuge on a religious image.
Higher divinities won’t generally intervene in the affairs of
the world without good reason. The higher a being’s realm,
the less likely it is to disrupt the affairs of the secular world,
and it will try to avoid any intrusions altogether. So they
generally wouldn’t do anything radical like destroying the
statue that harbors such an entity with a lightning bolt, and
so it’s ignored. And those entities know to flee when their
execution is imminent. This means that there is no telling
whether the apparition that someone sees is real.
This might raise for many of you the question of what to
do with any religious statues or images that might be in your
homes. A number of you may have thought of asking me for
help. I want to help anyone learning our practice, so you can
handle it as follows. While holding my book (since it contains
my photo) or a photo of me, hold the statue or image and
form the mudra known as greater lotus. Then, just as if I were
really present, you can simply request that I bless or conse-
crate it for you, and it will be done in a matter of seconds. But
I should add that this only works for our practitioners. Trying
to do this on behalf of your friends or family won’t work, for
I only look after our practitioners. Some people claim that you
can ward off evil for friends or family by placing my picture
in their homes, but I am not going to do so for non-practi-
tioners. Your doing that is about the most disrespectful thing
you could do to your teacher.
Having talked about false apparitions, there is something
else to address. Many people in ancient China did spiritual
practice deep in the mountains or woods, though it seems
that few still do. But that’s not the case. Rather, it’s that they

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keep from being seen by regular people; their numbers hav-
en’t dwindled at all. They have higher powers at their disposal
that can keep them veiled. It’s not that they are no longer
around. They are still there. There are thousands in the world
today, with China having relatively more. Their population is
greater in the famous mountains and valleys there, and they
can be found on some of the higher peaks as well. They use
their powers to seal up the entrances to their caves so that no
one can see them. Their practice is rather slow and their meth-
ods somewhat inefficient, since they haven’t understood the
keys to spiritual development. By contrast, we focus directly
on the mind and base our practice on the highest qualities,
or way, of the universe. So our energy naturally develops
quite fast. The methods of spiritual practice can be thought
of as having a pyramid-like shape, with only the center axis
being the main avenue. Those practicing on the side paths, or
in lesser ways, might have all of their powers released even
though their character isn’t necessarily that elevated or their
spiritual progress that advanced. But such approaches are far
inferior to the main path of true practice.
The teachers of the lesser ways also pass down their
teachings and have disciples. There are limits to how far one
can progress in those disciplines or to what extent they can
change one’s character, so the spiritual development of their
followers is necessarily limited. The further from the main
path that a lesser, worldly practice is, the more elaborate its
theories will be and the more complicated its methods, since
it hasn’t understood the keys to spiritual progress. They hav-
en’t grasped that the mind is what matters most in spiritual
practice, and instead believe that progress can be made just
by enduring hardships. So it takes them years of prolonged

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practice, even hundreds or thousands, to gain even just a little
bit of higher energy. But the fruits of their practice are not
in fact the result of hardships. Rather, they stem from the
wearing away of attachments over all those strenuous years,
similar to how the passions of youth naturally fade with
age and the passing of one’s dreams. So while followers of
lesser paths may find that they can develop higher energy
via meditation, concentration, and hardship as they make
strides in their practice, what they don’t realize is that it comes
from the removal of their attachments. And this is something
that’s happening only slowly, by wearing them out over the
course of many long and grueling years.
Our practice has a well-defined focus. It really makes your
attachments evident and sees to it that they are removed.
This accelerates your spiritual development. While traveling
I have often run into people like I was describing, who have
practiced for many years. They would tell me that nobody has
realized that they are there, and that they wouldn’t intervene
in or try to disrupt what I’m doing. They could be consid-
ered relatively good.
There have been bad ones as well, however, and these we
have had to deal with. One example stems from when I went
to Guizhou province to teach the practice for the first time.
Someone approached me right in the middle of my class,
stating that he was the student of someone who studies under
such-and-such master, and that this master had practiced for
a great many years and wanted to see me. I looked and saw
that this person carried awful yin energy, which gave him
a sallow complexion. I declined his request by saying that
I didn’t have time to meet with the master. This made the
master upset, and so he started to meddle with me, making

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trouble day after day. I don’t have any interest in contesting
with others, and there was no need to. So whenever he sent
bad things my way I would simply clear them out and go
back to giving my teaching.
Back a few centuries ago, during the Ming Dynasty, there
was a person who became possessed by a snake during his
time practicing. He eventually passed away without succeed-
ing at his practice. At that point the snake took over his body
and assumed a human form. And this “master” who wanted
to see me was none other than that snake-in-human-form.
As he was still the same creature essentially, he changed back
into a large snake and began meddling with me. It really went
too far, so I clasped it in my hand and used an extremely
powerful type of energy, called “dissolving energy,” to dis-
solve the lower part of its body and reduce it to water. After
that its upper body slithered back home.
One day, the female volunteer who ran the Falun Dafa
center in Guizhou was also sought out by someone whose
teacher studied with that snake, claiming that their master
wished to see her. And so she went. Everything was pitch
black when she entered the cave where their master resided.
She could only make out a silhouette sitting inside, with green
light emanating from a pair of eyes. The cave would light up
when the eyes opened and go dark when they closed. The
shadowy figure said in a local dialect, “Li Hongzhi will be
returning. Next time none of us will do those things that we
did. That was wrong. Li Hongzhi has come to save people.” His
student’s follower interjected, “Grandmaster, are you able to
stand? What’s happened to your legs?” He responded, “I can
no longer stand because my legs were injured.” He was asked
what had happened to them, and so he recounted how he

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had made trouble for us and the consequences that followed.
But then the following year, in 1993 at the Asian Health Expo
in Beijing, he again started trouble with me. At that point
I destroyed the snake completely since it was always doing
evil and trying to disrupt my teaching of Dafa. After I did so,
people from the same discipline, old and young alike, male
as well as female, wanted to take action against me. I then
said a few words to them that startled and frightened them.
They abandoned their plans for revenge upon learning what
had happened. Some of them were no different from worldly,
ordinary people, even after having practiced for so long. So
this is just to share a few incidents while on the topic of
consecration.

Occult Healing
Occult healing is something that many spiritual teachers
instruct their students in, since they regard it as a spiritual
art. But it shouldn’t be seen as part of spiritual practice. It is
more akin to a kind of secret trick, incantation, or technique
that’s passed on. The forms it assumes, such as making talis-
mans, burning incense, burning paper effigies, or chanting
spells, do have the ability to heal, and its approach to heal-
ing is rather unique. Consider how a boil on the face might
be treated, for example. A practitioner of these arts will dip
a brush in cinnabar ink and draw a circle on the ground,
which he then makes an “X” inside of. The person with the
boil will be asked to stand in the middle of the circle while
the practitioner begins to chant a spell. Then he dips the
brush in the cinnabar ink again, and this time draws a circle

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on the person’s face. He chants a spell while drawing, and
keeps going like this until he finally makes a dot on the boil.
At that point he will be finished chanting, and will declare
that the boil is healed. When the person touches his face to
check, he will indeed find that it has shrunk and no longer
hurts. So it worked. Minor ailments can be treated, though
not major ones. Another example might be a treatment for
an aching arm. The occult practitioner will begin chanting
a spell and ask that the person extend her arm. He will then
blow a puff of air into the Union Valley acupoint of the hand
that’s extended, and have it exit the person’s body via the same
point of her other hand. She will feel a breeze go through her,
and then find that her arm is no longer sore to the touch like
it was before. Other methods include burning paper effigies,
making talismans, and putting up protective charms.
The lesser Daoist practices of the secular world don’t teach
about the spiritual development of the body. They just con-
cern themselves with things like fortune-telling, feng-shui,
warding off evil, and healing. Occult healing is common to
them. While occult techniques can heal, the methods used are
not by any means good. But I am not going to spell out exactly
how it is that they heal. Followers of Falun Dafa shouldn’t use
those techniques, for the energy involved is both low and bad.
In ancient China healing methods were categorized into dif-
ferent divisions, such as bone setting, acupuncture, massage,
naprapathy, acupressure, energy healing, herbal medicine,
and so on, with many categories. Each method of healing
was referred to as a “division.” The occult healing that we’ve
discussed here was categorized as the thirteenth division, and
so its full designation was “occult healing, the thirteenth divi-
sion.” Occult healing doesn’t belong in our spiritual practice.

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Its powers don’t come from the energy born of spiritual prac-
tice, but rather, by way of magical arts.

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 the
sixth talk

The Fear of Practice Going Wrong

there is a misconception in China that has affected many
people, both spiritual and otherwise: that energy practice can
go wrong and lead you to the dark side, or madness. Some
have hyped it up enough to scare people away from practic-
ing, as it sounds frightening. But I can tell you that the prob-
lem simply doesn’t exist.
I should start by saying that many people involved in
energy practices have brought entity attachment upon them-
selves, due to their bad intentions. A person like this isn’t in
control of his mind, and yet he might attribute his abnormal
state to “powerful energy.” But what has happened is that
his body has been taken over by a foreign entity, and so he
isn’t himself when he practices, and may stagger about, yell-
ing and screaming. People get scared away when they see
someone acting like that. And yet many individuals attri-
bute their abnormal states to having strong energy. But they

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 could hardly have real energy if that’s what they are doing.
The altered states that they experience are lower ones, and
at best have only physical benefits. And they are dangerous.
If someone gets used to being that way, with his conscious
mind never in control, it’s possible that his body will be con-
trolled by his subconscious, by foreign energies or signals, by
entities that attach to him, or other things. And they might
even prompt him to do dangerous things. These episodes
really do a disservice to energy practices more broadly. Prob-
lems like these stem from the person’s having had impure
intentions and being driven by attachments to show off. It
is not that these practices make people crazy. There may be
people who have somehow assumed the title of this-or-that
“master” and who buy into the idea, but the fact is that doing
an energy practice will not make anyone crazy. People who
have that idea often get it from fictional stories, like martial
arts movies or books. You won’t find it anywhere in classical
works or religious texts, if you feel compelled to check. And
it is not something that will ever happen to you.
There are actually several phenomena that tend to confuse
people, and what I’ve been describing is one type. A person
could go off track and bring on entity attachment, or seek
to show off by using a supposedly higher “energy state,” and
both of these involve impure states of mind. Some people
even focus on getting psychic powers as they practice, or do
practices that aren’t legitimate, and become accustomed to
letting their minds go whenever they exercise. They lose all
self-awareness and turn their bodies over to other beings or
forces, like their subconscious or foreign energies or signals,
which make them act in bizarre ways. They might leap out
of a window or jump into a lake if those things tell them to.

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They relinquish their will to live and turn their bodies over
to others. This isn’t the fault of the practices these people are
doing, however; it’s that they have strayed from them. They
started off by doing those things willfully, and eventually it
turned into a bigger problem. Many people mistake being in
a trance-like state for being a way of practice, when in reality
it’s not, and it is going to have serious consequences. So any
problems that follow shouldn’t be blamed on the practice itself,
but on the attachments and intentions that got mixed into it.
There is another scenario that confuses people. It’s when
energy gets stuck or can’t pass through some place, such as
the top of the head, and it frightens the person. This is more
likely to happen in Daoist practice, where the human body is
seen as a micro universe and a student will work on getting
energy to move through its “gateways.” He may encounter
energy stagnation issues, such as having his energy pool at
a gateway if it fails to advance through it. This can happen
at other places in the body, too, not only the head; it’s just
that the top of the head is the most sensitive spot in the body.
So, if energy ascends to the top of the head and is ready to
gush down, yet the person can’t break through the gateway,
his head will feel heavy or bloated, as if it were wrapped in
a thick blanket of energy, or he may experience other simi-
lar things. But the basic kind of energy involved, called chi,
doesn’t have any real effect on things or cause real issues for
people; and it certainly won’t make them ill. So it’s a problem
when people who don’t understand what is really happening
make irresponsible and mystical-sounding remarks about
it that confuse people. People then start believing that they
might go crazy or get into trouble if energy gets stuck at the
top of the head, and it scares them.

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 If energy does get stuck there, it’s only a temporary condi-
tion. It might persist for as long as half a year in some instances,
however. In that case the person can seek out a true instructor
to help guide the energy down. But anyone who can’t advance
through a gateway or whose energy won’t descend should
examine their character for the cause and consider whether
they’ve stalled at a certain stage for too long and not done the
inner, spiritual work that they should. They will find that the
energy comes down swiftly after they have made the necessary
progress. If you are focusing on changing your body’s energy,
rather than your character, sweeping changes aren’t going
to happen; you have to make spiritual progress first. Energy
that really isn’t moving as it should will not result in much of
a problem. The problems that do occur are usually the product
of a person’s own psychological factors, plus fear, which sets
in if someone hears misleading claims about the problems
in store for him. And once the person is frightened, it’s an
attachment—fear—which has to be dealt with, then. And
so the greater the person’s fear, the more it will seem that he
has some condition. He simply must be made to break the
attachment, learn a lesson, and grow from it spiritually by
letting go of his fears.
Nor will the spiritual work that’s in store for you, as a prac-
titioner, be easy. Many forms of higher energy will develop in
your body, and all of them will be powerful things that move
to and fro inside you and which might feel unpleasant. The
main reason it feels that way is that you always worry your
body has some condition or other. The reality is, powerful
things have come about inside of you; what your body has
developed are energies, powers, and many supernatural
beings. If any of them move about, your body may have

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a sensation of itchiness, pain, or something unpleasant, as the
peripheral nerves are sensitive; a whole range of phenomena
are possible. These are good things, though, and you will
experience them up until your body has been remade with
high-energy matter. But if you always regard yourself as an
ordinary person and mistake such things for health issues,
you are going to have a hard time practicing. If you still take
yourself to be an ordinary person when you meet with chal-
lenges in your practice, then your character has dropped to
the human level, at least in those instances.
A true practitioner will look at things from a higher plane,
rather than through a human lens. By believing that you are
sick you might just make yourself sick. That’s because when
you take it to be sickness your thoughts are no higher than
this world. Neither energy practice nor true spiritual prac-
tice will result in health problems, and particularly not the
type I was describing, where energy gets stuck somewhere.
It’s known that illness is actually seventy percent psychologi-
cal and thirty percent physical. When a person’s health takes
a turn for the worse, it’s usually that he is first worn down
mentally, stressed out, and having trouble coping. I’ll give an
illustration. There was once a person who was tied down to
a bed. His arm was lifted and he was told that he was going
to be made to bleed. Next he was blindfolded. His wrist was
then scratched (without drawing any blood), and a water
faucet was turned on so that he heard a dripping sound. He
mistook it for blood dripping, and in no time he was dead.
Yet he didn’t lose a drop of blood; it was the tap water that
was dripping. His mind was what caused his death. You might
just bring yourself health problems by often thinking that
you have them. That’s because your thoughts have sunk to

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the same starting point as the average person, who, naturally,
does experience illness.
If a practitioner always thinks he is ill, he is in fact asking
for it—asking to be ill. And then that illness can push its
way in. A practitioner’s plane of thought should be high. You
shouldn’t always worry that something ails you, for your fear
is an attachment and will bring you trouble just the same
as other attachments. In spiritual practice you must elimi-
nate karma, and that is painful. A higher energy like gong is
most definitely not something gained through comfort and
ease. Without suffering, there would be no way to break your
attachments. Let me share a story from Buddhism. There
once was a person who went through a great deal of spir-
itual effort and was on the verge of becoming a holy being
(arhat), with divine standing. So it was hard not to be happy—
he was about to depart the three realms and gain eternal life,
after all! But joy is an attachment, and it meant he was excit-
able. A holy being should be completely detached, however,
and not stirred by anything. So he fell and his efforts were
in vain. He had to start all over again and work his way back
up. After enormous efforts he made it back to his previous
stage of achievement. Yet this time he was worried, and had
to tell himself not to get excited or he would fall again. And
with that fear, he fell again. For that too was an attachment.
Another scenario that confuses people comes about when
someone who is mentally ill does an energy or spiritual prac-
tice. And there are those who want me to cure this for them.
But it is not a disease, as I see it, and I haven’t the time to
remedy it. It’s not a disease in the sense that the mentally ill are
not afflicted with a virus; their bodies haven’t had pathological
changes, as when ulcers form. So it’s not a disease, in my view.

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Being mentally ill is simply a matter of a person’s conscious
mind being very weak. So weak, in fact, that the person isn’t in
command of his own body. It’s as if his spirit has no wish to
take charge of his body, and so the person is never mentally
present or very “with it.” When that’s the case, his subcon-
scious mind and foreign energies or signals might interfere
with him. There are so many planes in each dimension, and
information from any of them might try to disturb him. And
it’s possible that his soul did wrongful things in a past life,
and so there would be creditors who would want to harm
him. A range of things might come about. So this is what we
understand genuine mental disorders to be and what causes
them. It should now be apparent why I can’t readily treat
these for people. As for what you can do in these cases, you
could try speaking with him very seriously and help him to
become more mentally present. But that’s not easily done. If
you watch what happens when a physician at a psychiatric
hospital is preparing to administer electroshock therapy, with
the electrodes in his hands, you will see that the patient goes
quiet with fear. What happens is that the fear of the shock
makes his soul alert right then.
People who give spiritual practice a try usually find it
agreeable and like to continue with it; everyone has divinity
within them, after all, and on some level wants to grow spiri-
tually. So practice becomes a lifelong pursuit for many who try
it. They have spiritual aspirations and may practice regularly,
even if they don’t ever learn the Way through their practice or
progress very far with it spiritually. The people around them
such as co-workers, neighbors, and community members
might know that they practice. But bear in mind that a few
years back, few people who were doing energy practices were

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making true spiritual progress—which could change their
lives. So they would still be regular people who just benefit
from their practice in terms of health; nobody would be re-
engineering their lives for them. And since they are still regu-
lar people, they might unexpectedly develop some condition,
become mentally ill, experience other problems, or even pass
away. That’s just how things go for ordinary people. And even
though others might have seen them doing energy exercises
publicly, it was not true spiritual development that was hap-
pening. Or even if they did have genuine spiritual goals, they
wouldn’t have learned a true teaching or have attained much.
So despite their spiritual aspirations, they would have been
mired in the basic stages of practice, and their lives would
not have been re-designed for them. This would mean that
illness was inevitable for them. Only a life of virtue can free
you from illness. Energy practice alone can’t achieve that.
A person has to do sincere spiritual practice and focus
on his character for healing to occur. That’s because these
practices differ from regular physical exercises in that they
reach beyond this world. So adherents have to live by higher
principles and standards to achieve the goal of practice. But
many people don’t do so and are just like everyone else. And
so at the appointed time they will still fall ill. They might
unexpectedly suffer a stroke one day or come down with
something, or become mentally ill. And others who know
that they practice might blame it for their woes. But I think
you would agree that it’s not warranted. Outsiders to energy
practice do that only because they don’t know what actually
happened; even insiders to it aren’t likely to know. It’s less of
an issue if a mental disorder ensues while someone is at home,
in private, though others might still blame his practice. But

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it’s very serious if an episode occurs while someone is prac-
ticing publicly, as people will attribute it to the practice. And
public opinion about it would be hard to change. The media
might even run stories about how practicing made this person
lose his sanity. Some people find nothing but fault with energy
practices, and in scenarios like these they highlight how the
person was fine not long ago, before taking up practice. But
the fact is that the individual who experiences those kinds
of issues is an ordinary person and so would still encounter
whatever life had in store for him. It makes no sense to blame
his practice for whatever ailments or problems he experiences.
No one would expect a physician to never again get sick after
becoming a doctor, so why would they expect that from some-
one who does an energy practice? That expectation isn’t fair.
From the irresponsible things that are said about energy
practices, we can tell that many people don’t understand their
realities or how they work. They are quick to label them neg-
atively whenever there are problems. Practices like chi-gong
haven’t been known to the public for very long, and a good
number of people are closed-minded toward them; they never
see them as valid, and always dismiss them and shun them.
One almost wonders what’s going through their heads, given
how annoyed they are by these, when such things shouldn’t be
of their concern. And they are quick to write off energy prac-
tices as imaginary. But these practices are a science, a higher
science. It’s just that their critics can’t realize this, because
their minds are so closed and they know so little about them.
Yet another scenario that confuses people involves what
is called the “chi-gong syndrome.” It refers to when some-
one gets into a hypnotic kind of state. But it’s not that some-
thing has gone wrong in his practice, or that he’s gone over

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to the dark side. The person will still be very rational. I can
explain what it’s about. Your innate foundation is important
in chi-gong, as we know. A common belief among people of
faith everywhere, which includes Buddhists and Daoists in
our country over the millennia, is that good is rewarded and
evil punished. Yet some people no longer subscribe to this.
In China this was especially so during the era of the Cultural
Revolution, which saw traditional beliefs publicly denounced
and labeled as “superstition.” And so there were people who
thought that nothing is valid unless it’s explainable, or is
something they’ve read about, or is known to modern sci-
ence and officially recognized. That mindset isn’t as prevalent
nowadays, though, since a number of inexplicable things have
happened in the world, even if some people would rather not
think about them; and many people have witnessed or heard
about the miracles of chi-gong.
Some people are so closed-minded that they laugh to
themselves anytime someone brings up chi-gong. They think
the person has fallen for superstition, and that it’s ridiculous.
And if you try to talk about certain phenomena in it, they
think you are really ignorant. Though these people might be
closed-minded, their innate foundations aren’t necessarily
poor, and so if they ever try chi-gong they might experience
paranormal powers or have higher visions with their inner
eye. So while they may be able to keep their minds closed
to chi-gong, they won’t be able to keep their bodies free from
sickness. So someone like this will go to the doctor when he
gets ill, naturally enough. If Western medicine doesn’t prove
helpful, he might give Chinese medicine a try. And if that’s not
effective, and folk remedies don’t work, the person’s thoughts
may turn to chi-gong. After turning it over in his mind he

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might decide to try his luck with it. So he would come to
it with reservations. Yet right from the start he might excel
at it, thanks to his good foundation. And it’s possible that
a teacher from another dimension, or a higher being, would
decide to take him as a student and give him assistance. This
person’s inner eye might then open or he might find him-
self partially enlightened. In that case his eye would likely be
opened to a high plane and allow him glimpses of how the
universe really is. And certain powers would come to him. As
you might imagine, all of this would be hard for the mind of
someone like I’ve been describing to take. You can just picture
how psychologically trying it would be. The very things that
he had always considered imaginary and simply impossible,
to the point of laughing at them, would now be unfolding
before his eyes and confronting him. It would be too stress-
ful for his mind to take. And his remarks about what he sees
and experiences wouldn’t go over well with others, though his
reasoning would be sound; he wouldn’t be able to reconcile
the two dimensions that he sees. He would have discovered
that the way people do things here is wrong, whereas what
people do in other dimensions is often right. And yet if he
goes by what he sees there, people here will say he’s making
a mistake. So people wouldn’t understand all this and might
think that chi-gong has driven him out of his mind.
But it wasn’t that he went off the deep end in his prac-
tice, and the vast majority of us will never experience what
the person in this example did. Only those who are espe-
cially closed-minded possibly would. The inner eye has been
opened for a sizeable number of you here, and you have
indeed had otherworldly visions. It was a pleasant experience
rather than shocking, and it didn’t jar you in any way or lead

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to any kind of supposed “chi-gong syndrome.” The people
who do experience this are quite rational, in fact, and what
they say is apt to be highly philosophical; the logic of their
remarks is really sound. The problem is just that what they
say isn’t believable to non-practitioners. They might startle
people by telling them that they have seen so-and-so, who
is deceased, and how they were asked by him or her to do
certain things. It wouldn’t be something most people could
believe. Later it will become evident to those experiencing
this that they should keep these things to themselves. And
all is well once they learn to reconcile what they see in other
dimensions with this one. The people I’ve been describing
often have psychic powers. So again, it’s not that anything
dark or deviant happened to them.
Another source of confusion is something that’s known
at higher spiritual levels as “true insanity.” It is something
very rare. Yet it’s not about truly going insane, but rather,
about practicing what is true. I can explain it for you. It’s so
rare in the spiritual arena that there might be only one case
in a hundred thousand people. So it’s not something wide-
spread or that has any impact on the world.
Usually there are preconditions for true insanity: an
excellent innate foundation and an advanced age. But these
people’s age means that they won’t have the years needed
to go through the full process of spiritual development. Yet
this group, with their excellent foundations, have often come
to this world from higher realms and have a mission. The
prospect of coming to the human world is frightening to all,
for a being will know nothing after arriving here and having
had his memory cleared. The world and its inhabitants have
a corrupting effect on people, and so those who come here

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learn to value worldly things like status, money, and influ-
ence. So ultimately this sort of person might fall and have
no hope of escape. This setting is thus frightening to higher
beings, and all dread the prospect of coming here. But some
do come, like the type I’m describing. Yet they tend to fare
poorly in this mortal world. Some of them commit many
wrongs over the course of their lives, and really end up on
the brink of falling to a lower plane. A person does much
wrong and incurs many debts as he fights in life to get ahead.
This sort of person’s teacher in another dimension won’t just
stand by when he sees this and passively let this being fall, for
he was once divine. But his teacher will grow worried as he
anxiously searches for a solution; most likely he wouldn’t be
able to steer the person to spiritual practice, since chances
are there would be no true teachers available. So it would be
nearly impossible for him to return all the way to his heavenly
home. And compounding the problem would be the fact that
he’d be quite old by this point and not have enough time left
in life to complete his practice, even if he did find the right
kind of mind-body discipline.
The approach of making a person insane for spiritual ends
won’t be employed unless the person has an excellent foun-
dation and the circumstances are truly exceptional. It’s only
adopted when there is no hope for the person and no chance
of his returning by his own means. And so, in these rare
cases, insanity is induced by deactivating certain parts of his
brain. For example, the areas that make people dislike cold
or filth might be deactivated, with the result that psycholog-
ical problems appear and the person will start acting com-
pletely beside himself. But someone like this usually won’t do
wrongful things. He won’t get into altercations with people,

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and might even do good deeds from time to time. Yet he will
treat himself terribly. He might walk barefoot in the snow
of winter, oblivious to the cold, wearing just a thin layer of
clothes, with the skin of his feet cracked and bleeding from
the cold. And he may even consume excrement or urine since
he’s oblivious to filth. I once knew of someone who would
gnaw away at horse manure that was frozen hard like a rock,
and even enjoy it; he was capable of suffering beyond what
the sane could handle. We can just imagine what ordeals
the insanity would have caused him. Typically these people,
often older women, have psychic powers. Many from the
older generation went through foot-binding, yet I know of
one woman who could easily scale walls six or more feet high.
At one point her family members decided to lock her inside
after witnessing her frequently run off, due to her insanity.
But after her family headed out, she opened the lock just
by pointing her finger at it, and off she went. So then they
decided to use chains. But all she had to do was give them
a little shake and they fell off. They couldn’t contain her. She
suffered greatly with her condition. But precisely because
she suffered so much, and it was so intense, she swiftly paid
off the bad things that she owed. It usually doesn’t take more
than three years at most for people like her, and usually one or
two terribly painful years suffices. Her mind returned to her
as soon as the whole episode was behind her. At that point
many powers that she had developed became available to her,
since she had finished her practice, in effect. Cases like hers
are extremely rare, yet they have indeed occurred. The phe-
nomenon would never be possible for someone of average
stock. You might be familiar with stories of crazy Buddhist
monks and Daoists. There were indeed people like that in

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history, and there are records of them. There are many allu-
sions to these figures, such as crazed Daoists and the mad
monk who swept dirt at the wicked minister named Qin Hui.
So we can say with confidence that nobody is about to
lose their minds, or “conjure fire,”* due to spiritual practice.
And besides, even if someone really were to conjure fire, well,
that’s rather impressive. Starting a fire with your mouth or
palms, or igniting things with just your fingertips would seem
to mean you’ve got superpowers!

How Practicing Provokes Evil

To say that practicing “provokes evil” means that many of
you will likely face intrusions to your practice after you start,
and this topic deserves an explanation. Enormous difficulties
ensue after you decide to practice, in fact. You wouldn’t be able
to really do this practice without the protection of my spiri-
tual bodies. Your life would be in imminent danger without
them. If the soul is immortal, as we’ve said, then it’s possible
that you might have incurred debts to others in a previous life,
pushed others around, or done wrongful things, and those
who were on the receiving end are going to want compen-
sation. In Buddhism it’s held that life is simply the working
out of karma. So the beings you owe will come for payback;
and if you overpay, the next time around it will be they who
pay you. If a child isn’t respectful or obedient to his parents,
for example, in the next life the roles might be reversed. So
turns the wheel of karma. However, we have actually observed
that there are also malevolent entities at work who try to dis-
rupt and stop your practice. But there are deeper reasons for

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this. They wouldn’t be allowed to meddle if they didn’t have
grounds for it.
I’ll start by describing the most common form of evil
that’s encountered during practice. You are likely to be
enthused about practicing once you learn how, but the moment
you sit down to meditate, the peace and quiet normally
around you may suddenly be gone. It might be due to cars
and buses beeping, footsteps echoing in the hallway, people
talking and slamming doors, or even a radio that’s turned
on outside. So the quiet is gone. Your surroundings might
be pretty pleasant normally, when you aren’t practicing, yet
the minute you start to, things get noisy and chaotic. Seldom
do people realize what’s really going on. Most just find it
odd and get discouraged that it’s so hard to practice. And so
these abnormal occurrences might end up blocking you. But
what’s actually happening is that evil entities are disrupting
you; they are directing people to disrupt you. This is one
of the most basic forms that disruption takes, and it serves
the purpose of stopping you from practicing. They do that
because they can’t bear the thought of your gaining enlight-
enment and being absolved of all your unpaid debts to them.
But I should note that this only happens at a certain stage
of practice; it’s not allowed past a certain point. No entities
will be allowed to visit you and disturb you once your debts
have been worked off. You can reach that point with Falun
Dafa, because our students make rapid progress and advance
through the different stages of practice quickly.
There is another form of evil that might intrude upon you.
As you know, your inner eye may open as a result of practic-
ing, and what could happen is that you see frightening scenes
or monstrous faces while you are practicing at home. There

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might be figures with disheveled hair that appear, some of
which may chase you and try to kill you, or lash out at you
wildly; or in some cases they might stare in through your
window. It’s awfully frightening. All of these things can be
explained, though, as the doings of evil entities. But they are
very rare in Falun Dafa. Maybe one out of a hundred people
will experience them; the vast majority won’t. Evil entities
are generally prohibited from using those approaches on us
since they don’t serve any constructive purpose in our prac-
tice. But they are common in conventional spiritual prac-
tices, and might even persist for some time. They can be so
frightening that some people give up practicing. You can
just imagine what it must be like: someone opts to practice
at night, when all is calm and quiet, and then suddenly as
he practices, there is some demonic-looking creature before
him that’s sub-human. It’s enough to scare a person out of
practicing. Generally this doesn’t happen in our Falun Dafa,
though it does occur in a few exceptional cases. Some peo-
ple’s circumstances are rather unique.
Another type of evil that plagues some people is one
that’s specific to practices that have both martial arts and
energy exercises. Mostly these are Daoist methods. I’ll
describe what this kind of evil typically looks like. But note
that these aren’t things encountered in most practices; they
only come about in martial arts practices with an energy
component. What happens is that someone will seek out
the adherent for a contest of martial skills. As there are
many Daoists in the world today, a good number do martial
arts alongside spiritual practice. Those who do so have the
potential to develop higher energy. It’s possible for them to
develop this if they can become detached from things like

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status and wealth. But competitiveness is harder to let go,
and takes longer, and so when they are at a certain stage
of practice they will be prone to getting into fights while
sleeping or meditating; their consciousness might be hazy
while they sleep or meditate, yet aware that a certain other
person is practicing, and so their soul leaves their body to
find that person for a contest of skills. These things happen
in other dimensions. And there might be others who seek
them out for a fight, and who will genuinely try to kill them
if they don’t fight back. So heated fights break out between
the two parties. And the fact that this happens once they fall
asleep means that it ruins their night of rest. This indicates
that it’s time for them to stop being competitive. But if they
can’t, and keep acting like that, then things may drag on for
a long time, perhaps for years, while they are stuck at that
stage. All of the nightly combat will leave them exhausted,
with so much energy having been spent, and they will be too
physically tired for spiritual practice. It could even ruin their
bodies if they don’t handle it right. So this is something that
happens in practices that feature both energy exercises and
martial arts, and it’s quite common. It isn’t seen in practices
of a purely spiritual nature, like ours, as it’s not allowed in
those cases. The types of ordeals I’ve been describing up to
this point are relatively commonplace.
There is one more type of evil that you will face, and it’s one
that all of you, without exception, will encounter. And this is
the demon of lust, something very serious. Marital relations
are normal for ordinary husbands and wives to have, as it
makes successive generations possible. It allows the human
race to continue on, and so feelings and emotions are basic to
this world. So for ordinary people such behavior is perfectly

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natural in marriage. Counted among the feelings and emo-
tions that people have are anger and happiness, love and hate,
enjoyment as well as dislike, admiration and disdain, along
with fondness and aversion. Ordinary people just live for
feelings and emotions. Then, as practitioners who aspire to
spiritual greatness, we mustn’t let feelings or emotions influ-
ence how we see things. We have to break free of them. We
should care little for the many attachments they cause, and
ultimately, forsake them completely. Sexual desire and attrac-
tion both count as human attachments, and both should go.
Yet we aren’t asking those of you who live and practice
in the secular world to become quasi-monks or nuns. The
young adults among us should form families as one normally
would. Then what about the perils of sexual desire, you may
wonder? As I’ve explained, our practice goes straight after
human attachments and doesn’t take the approach of depriv-
ing you materially. Just the opposite, we have you temper
your will right here in this materialistic world, and this is
truly to the betterment of your character. If you can break an
attachment mentally, then you can let go of the actual thing,
whatever it may be; and then you would be able to forgo it
materially, of course, if you had to. But if you can’t break the
attachment mentally, then you won’t be able to let go of the
actual thing that you’re attached to. The goal of genuine prac-
tice is to remove the underlying attachments. In monastic
practice people are forced to let go of things materially, and
the goal is the same; i.e., to eliminate the attachments behind
things. It’s forcibly done, making people sever all ties to things
and give up even the thought of them. So while they take that
approach, we don’t. We instead ask that you find a way to take
the material things around you lightly, and the results we get

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are the most solid. We don’t ask that you all embrace poverty
and chastity like monastics do. It would really be a problem
if in the future, when our practice is widely done, everyone
were to become like a quasi-monk—since our practice is
done in the world. I tell everyone in our practice that it’s a
problem if your marriage to a non-practitioner ends up in
divorce because of the practice. We ask that you simply care
less about marital intimacy; just don’t put so much stock in
it, like people normally do. This is especially important now-
adays, in the wake of the sexual revolution, when lewd and
pornographic things are really affecting people. Some people
really fall for these things, but they should have little appeal
to us as practitioners.
Viewed from a higher plane, it’s as if man is submerged
in mud while in this world; and yet he wallows away in it,
oblivious to its filth. With our practice you shouldn’t be caus-
ing a big falling out with your spouse on these grounds. So
it should be fine to just take it lightly at your current stage
and be intimate as normal, like before. When you progress
to a higher stage later on, you will experience a state unique
to that phase, but for now, it is what it is, and it’s fine to do as
I have taught. And it goes without saying that you mustn’t go
in for the kinds of deplorable things that are common now-
adays, which I was alluding to.
Another factor comes into play. The bodies of practitioners
carry energy, as we know. Eighty to ninety percent of us will
not only be free of illness after finishing these classes, but will
also have higher energy. So the energy your body has will be
powerful. At first, the energy that you carry will be dispro-
portionate to the quality of your character; your energy will
be higher, since we increase it rapidly for you. The process

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of developing your character will follow. Your character will
catch up, slowly but surely, in the time to come. And so we
boosted your energy for you in advance. This means that you
carry a significant amount of it now. There’s a palpable air
of peace and compassion here, since the energy that results
from following a true teaching is pure and compassionate.
Those were the qualities that I developed in my own days
of spiritual cultivation, and so I carry them with me. You
can feel a sense of harmony as you sit in my class, and your
mind is free of wicked thoughts. The smokers among us
won’t even give it a thought. The energy that you develop
in the time ahead will have the same traits as mine, for you
will have been following the ways of our Dafa. The power of
your energy will keep growing, and your body will come to
emit a remarkably powerful energy. And even were it not that
powerful, it would still be more than enough to have sway
over the typical person who is in your presence, or perhaps in
your home. So your family members are likely to be positively
affected and subdued by your energy. How so? People will
naturally have a hard time thinking of or doing bad things
around you, because your presence is one of purity, serenity,
and compassion—for you exude proper thoughts. You can
expect to see this.
The other day I mentioned the saying, “Bathed in divine
light, conduct and thought become right,” and the idea
was that the energy radiating from our bodies has the
power to set things straight. So it follows that when you
have no lustful thoughts, the energy you give off will keep
your spouse’s desires in check. If you don’t entertain such
thoughts—and I don’t think you will, being a practitioner—
neither will your spouse. But this may not always be the

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case. It’s easy to get aroused in this day and age. Things like
television expose you to all sorts of unseemly images from
the moment you start watching. So under normal circum-
stances, at least, you will be able to exert the kind of influence
I’m describing. Later on, when your practice progresses to
higher stages, you will know for yourself what to do without
my having to tell you. You will then experience a different
state, but it will be one which allows for your marriage to
be harmonious. So you don’t need to view marital relations
as something so grave. Being overly worried about it is an
attachment, in fact. So, while married couples don’t have to
worry about lusting after one another anymore, there might
still be sexual desire. Just don’t give it much importance, keep
a balanced perspective, and that will be good enough.
Then in what forms might you encounter the demon of
lust? You might be visited by it as you meditate, or, if your
level of stillness isn’t deep enough, perhaps while you sleep.
Suddenly you will find that before you is a gorgeous woman;
or, if you’re a woman, the man of your dreams. And in either
case the figure will be naked. If it arouses you in any way you
might have an emission and the dream will become reality.
But consider that in our practice we utilize the body’s most
vital energy and essences to change your body and extend
your life. Having regular emissions would deplete these pre-
cious substances. And it would mean that you haven’t passed
the test of sexual desire yet, which is a problem. So I’m letting
you know that each and every one of you is sure to face this
test. I am sending a powerful form of energy into your brain
through my teaching here. You might not be able to recall
the specifics of what I said afterwards, but if and when you
do have challenges with sexual desire, you should be able to

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recall what I’ve taught. The moment you regard yourself as
a practitioner, you should be able to remember my teachings
on this, exercise self-control, and pass the test. If you fail the
test the first time, the next one is going to be harder. But if
you feel sincere regret when you wake up after failing the
test the first time, it might leave a deeper impression in your
mind and increase the likelihood that you will exercise self-
control next time and pass the test. Anyone who isn’t con-
cerned after failing the test will have a much harder time
exercising control with future tests, for sure.
Episodes like these might be a matter of evil entities trying
to disturb you, or a test from your master, who conjured up
what you saw. Both possibilities exist, since everyone has to go
through this test. This is step one when you have just begun
the practice and are still somewhat worldly, and nobody will
be exempted from it. One example would be what a young
man, who was thirty at the time, experienced when I was
holding a class in Wuhan city. He went home and meditated
after hearing me teach the same material I just explained to
you. In no time he entered into a state of deep stillness. He
then saw Buddha Amitabha appearing out of nowhere to
one side of him, and the Daoist sage Lao-tzu on the other; he
relayed this in a paper he wrote reflecting on his experiences
with the practice. The two looked him over but didn’t utter
a word. They then faded out of sight, and Bodhisattva Guan
Yin appeared with a vase in hand. A white smoke issued forth
from the vase. He felt happy seeing all of this unfold so viv-
idly before him as he meditated. Then suddenly the smoke
turned into stunningly beautiful, angelic figures. They danced
before him, and their delicate movements were a sight to
behold. He thought that these ethereal beauties were a reward

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 from the Bodhisattva for his efforts. He was delighted at
the thought of it. But then suddenly they were naked and
began to act seductively, embracing and caressing him. The
young man’s character had grown a lot from our class, so he
quickly regained his vigilance. The next thought he had was,
“I’m not just anyone. I am a practitioner. You shouldn’t act
this way toward me, since I practice Falun Dafa.” And with
that thought, the whole scene vanished in a flash. It had
been conjured up, as it turned out. Amitabha and Lao-tzu
then reappeared. Lao-tzu gestured with his hand toward the
young man, and said to Amitabha with a smile, “The lad is
teachable.” It meant that he approved of the young man and
deemed him worthy of spiritual instruction.
The degree to which a person has sexual desire or inter-
est has traditionally been, and still is, in higher dimensions,
a critical factor in gauging whether he or she has what it
takes for spiritual practice. So it’s essential that we care little
for these things. But, since our practice is done in the regu-
lar world, you needn’t abstain completely—or at least, not in
this current phase of your practice. What you need to do is
value it little and change from how you may have been before,
becoming more like a practitioner. Any time you experience
disruptions of any sort, you should proactively think about
what caused them and what you still need to let go.

How the Mind Can Lead Astray

I would like to explain how the mind can lead one astray.
There are many dimensions, each physical and real, that
are associated with a person’s body, and in one particular

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dimension everything from the universe may be reflected,
much like a mirror image. And while they are just reflections,
they’re nevertheless physical. Everything that exists in that
dimension associated with your body is governed by your
thoughts. This means that when you look at something with
your inner eye without having any thoughts, and your mind
is still, your visions will be accurate. But with the slightest
thought added in, they will be false, and you might be led
off track; the phenomenon is sometimes referred to as “alter-
ation by thought.” It comes about when people fail to handle
themselves as practitioners or curb their longings. They might
yearn for psychic powers or be attached to petty magical skills,
or even the things they hear from other dimensions. These
individuals are the most apt to be led astray by their minds
and fall. Regardless of what spiritual heights someone may
have reached, he will fall sharply and will swiftly come to ruin
if this happens. It is a terribly serious problem. It’s not akin to
other problems, like failing to pass a single test of character;
in those cases you can always get back up after a fall and keep
on practicing. But someone who allows his mind to lead him
astray is in serious trouble, and may be destroyed by this. This
problem is especially likely for those whose inner eyes are
open when they reach a certain stage of practice. Another
group that’s vulnerable are those whose consciousnesses are
interfered with by foreign messages, energies, or images, and
who put their trust in them. Some of us will be subject to
interference like this from many sources after our inner eye
has opened.
Let’s look at some examples. It’s hard to keep from being
swayed by these things when your practice is still in its infancy.
Suppose that you can’t see your teacher in other dimensions

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very well, but then, one day, out of the blue, you see a towering
godly figure come to you. This striking figure might pay you
a couple of compliments and then try to impart instruction
to you. You might be delighted by this and accept him as
your teacher, and proceed to learn from him. But accepting
such a being’s instruction would foul up your energy. And
then there’s the fact that he himself wouldn’t have earned true
divine standing; it’s merely that shape-changing is possible
in the dimension where he resides. So if you allow yourself
to be excited at the sight of that imposing figure before you,
there’s little chance you will resist his attempts at instruction.
But a practitioner must be able to maintain his composure
if we are to save him; failing to do so will likely lead to ruin.
The lives in higher dimensions within the three realms are all
heavenly beings, but they haven’t earned true divine standing
and are not free from the cycle of reincarnation. Then how
far could that godly figure, whom you might impulsively take
as your teacher and follow, really bring you? Your efforts at
spiritual practice would be for naught, since figures like those
aren’t fully divine and learning from them would disorder
your energy. It’s hard to keep your composure in scenarios
like these. I want you to see that this is a really serious prob-
lem, and many of us may encounter a similar episode at some
point. I have made my teaching clear on this; it’s up to you
to put it into practice. What I just shared was one example.
You should also stay composed if you see higher beings from
another school of practice, and stay true to the discipline you
are in. Your practice will have a good chance of success if you
can disregard any supposed Buddha, Daoist deity, divinity,
or fiend that tries to tempt you.
Then there are other ways in which the mind can lead

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you astray. You might see deceased family members who
come to plague you, sobbing or imploring you to do certain
things that you shouldn’t. Anything is possible. The ques-
tion is, will you let them sway you? Just imagine how hard it
would be if a child or parent that you loved dearly, but who
has passed away, visited you from the grave and asked you
to do things that would be ruinous for you. Spiritual practice
isn’t easy. And what’s especially confusing is that now, with
Buddhism “in disarray,” as some people put it, you even see
non-Buddhist doctrines from Confucianism like filial piety
and the parent-child bond being taught. But what’s the prob-
lem? What truly constitutes your life is your soul, so only
the mother who gave birth to your soul counts as your true
mother. You will have had countless “mothers,” both human
and otherwise, over the course of your reincarnations. And
the same could be said for how many children you’ve had
over all your lifetimes. Neither mother nor child recognizes
the other in their next life, and any karmic debts that remain
between the two will have to be settled just like with anyone
else. But people can’t see these things for what they are, and
so they often can’t move beyond their affections. Some people
are inconsolably grieved at the passing of a beloved child, or
mother, and long for them for the rest of their lives. But it
never occurs to them that these ordeals are meant to wear
them down, and are intent on making their lives difficult.
It might be hard for the average person to grasp that being
attached to such things can make spiritual practice impossi-
ble, yet that’s the case, and that is why things like filial piety
and the parent-child bond aren’t taught in Buddhism. True
spiritual practice entails that you let go of human feelings and
emotions. Of course, we go about our practice in the secular

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world, and so we should still be devoted and respectful to our
parents and care well for our children; we should be good to
others, not to mention our own families, in whatever setting
we may be, and treat everyone with kindness. We should treat
everyone well, which of course includes parents and children,
and think of others first at all times. Your heart will not be
selfish, then, but will be loving, kind, and compassionate.
Common people, by contrast, tend to just be motivated by
feelings and emotions.
Many people don’t have good self-control, and this makes
for trouble in their spiritual lives. For instance, some are happy
and accepting if a heavenly being personally reveals some-
thing “helpful” to them. But I can tell you that it is evil beings
at work anytime something is revealed to you that benefits you
in worldly ways, be it your getting forewarned about adver-
sity or your being prompted to try the lottery and being told
the winning number. The only exception is cases where your
life is at risk and you are told how to stay safe. If things go
well in a worldly sense, thanks to that “help,” you won’t have
had to overcome the trial that was planned for you or made
the progress that you were supposed to. Spiritual growth is
unlikely if your days are filled with earthly pleasures and
spent in ease. How could you work off your karma then? You
wouldn’t have the circumstances necessary to do so, nor to
develop your character. So be sure to bear this in mind. Evil
entities might also resort to flattering you, telling you what
great heights you have reached, or what a special or hallowed
figure you are. But all of it will be false. You must break from
every attachment to truly make great spiritual progress. So
by all means, if you encounter any of the temptations I’ve
described, keep up your guard!

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 Unique challenges come with having your inner eye open
as you practice, just as challenges come with having it closed.
Spiritual practice isn’t easy either way. With your inner eye
open, you might really find it hard to keep out all of the
extra-dimensional information that you might be exposed to
and that would seek to disrupt you. All of what you behold in
other dimensions might be a feast for the eyes, and extraor-
dinarily beautiful and pleasant, which might stir you. Inter-
ference might come upon you once you are stirred by it, and
your energy could be thrown into disarray. Being stirred is
often the trigger. Also, other problems can ensue for people
who don’t handle things well and allow their minds to lead
them astray. They might have wrongful thoughts that prove
dangerous. Suppose one day your inner eye opens and you
have lucid visions. You might think, for example, that you’re
the only one whose eye has opened well at your practice site,
which makes you think you’re special and that you have
learned my Falun Dafa really well or even better than others—
meaning you are ahead of them. But even just thinking that
way isn’t right. If your mind goes further, you might even
think that you’re some kind of divine being, like a Buddha.
And then, when you look at yourself through your inner eye,
it really may appear to you that you are. That can happen
because, as I mentioned, all matter in an associated dimension
around one’s body will transform, or be “altered,” according
to one’s thoughts.
Any reflections that come over from the universe will be
shaped by your thoughts, because everything that exists in the
dimension associated with your body is under your command,
and reflections are no exception; they too physically exist. So
in the scenario I was just describing, if the person wonders

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to himself whether he’s also dressed as a Buddha, then that
will be what he sees. By now he’ll be enthralled, thinking that
he really is a Buddha. And if he wonders whether he might
be a greater Buddha, and looks again, then that will be what
he sees. And if he wonders whether he’s perhaps higher than
me, that will be what he sees when he looks. In other cases
a person may hear voices. An evil being might interfere with
the person by telling him that he’s “higher than Li Hongzhi,”
and he falls for it. This means that he has forgotten how he got
to where he is in his practice or who it was that taught him,
and he hasn’t thought about what will happen down the road.
And regardless, any genuine Buddha or divinity that comes
to the world must begin the spiritual path from scratch, with
none of his original energy available to him; the only differ-
ence is that he will progress somewhat faster in practice this
time. The problem I’ve been describing is really hard to pull
out of, due to all of the attachments that tend to come up.
Those attachments might even embolden someone to claim
he’s a Buddha and that people should just follow him, since
he can guide them, as a Buddha.
That’s indeed what happened in the city of Changchun.
There was someone learning our practice there who was quite
good at first, but who eventually landed himself in the kind of
mess I was just describing. He thought he was a Buddha and
ended up believing that he was above everyone else. That hap-
pened because he lost his grounding and let attachments get
the best of him. Let’s look at why this happens. Buddhism has
taught that one should disregard any visions that are experi-
enced, for such things are illusory; all focus should instead go
to making spiritual progress through meditative trance. The
reason they don’t encourage visions or want people getting

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attached to these is that they fear the above will happen. In
religious Buddhist practice there aren’t any specific meth-
ods that would strengthen one’s defenses against such things,
and its scriptures don’t offer guidance on how to break out
of these snares. The Buddha didn’t address this in his teach-
ings, hoping that his disciples wouldn’t have to deal with the
problem of being misled by the mind, or having reality altered
by thought, as they would just consider any visions that they
experienced to be illusory. He knew that the presence of any
attachment could turn a vision into something deceptive,
which would be hard to resist. And it could send a person
down the road to ruin, to the dark side, if he didn’t pull out of
it. Calling himself a Buddha would mean that he was already
headed that way, and he might even bring possessing entities
upon himself or other things, and end up in utter ruin. His
heart would turn evil with all of this, and his fall would be
terrible. There have been many cases of this. Even in this class
now there are those who think highly of themselves and have
an air about them when they speak. So even in Buddhism,
attempting to figure out how you are doing in your practice
is frowned upon. The episode I mentioned in Changchun was
an example of someone being led astray by his own mind, or
having reality become distorted by his thoughts. There have
been learners in Beijing and elsewhere who have experienced
this, and it has been terribly disruptive to other practitioners.
People have asked me why I don’t just straighten these
kinds of things out. But think about how hard it would be
to make spiritual progress if we resolved for you all of the
challenges you face. It is precisely when evil intervenes in your
life that you can demonstrate your spiritual resolve, your dis-
cernment, your ability to stay on track, and your commitment

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to one practice. The spiritual journey tries men’s souls, and
only the most devout make it through. I would say that your
journey would be too easy without the sorts of ordeals I’ve
been describing. The divine beings in higher realms would
have an even harder time with it, and would question what
I’m doing, wondering how it could amount to salvation. It
wouldn’t seem like spiritual practice to them if your journey
was unimpeded and if everyone could make it. And they
would take issue if things only got easier and smoother for
you as you progressed. So this was the dilemma I faced, and
I had to think it over. At first I wiped out much of the evil
of this kind. But even from my perspective it wouldn’t have
been right to keep doing that all the time. I have also heard
remarks that I’m “making spiritual practice too easy for you,”
since you “only have small ordeals and interpersonal things
to work through,” and “many of your attachments go unad-
dressed.” And they doubt whether you could “stay true to
Dafa when things are tough and confusing.” So in light of
all this there are sure to be trials and tribulations. What I’ve
been describing is one particular form of evil. People are so
hard to genuinely save, yet so easy to ruin. Trouble is in store
for you if your thinking is off.

The Importance of a Strong Mind

The wrongful things people have done over their many life-
times result in adversity for them, or for those on the spiri-
tual path, what are known as karmic obstacles. And it is on
this account that people are born, go through aging, become
ill, and pass away. Those are normal forms of karma. There

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is also a powerful form of karma that has a large impact on
those leading spiritual lives, called the karma of thought.
Thinking is a natural part of existence. But since people get
lost in the secular world, they often have thoughts that revolve
around things such as status and influence, power, wealth,
lust, or pride, and over time, these shape into a powerful
form of karma, known as the karma of thought. In other
dimensions everything is alive, and karma is no exception.
With any true practice one must eliminate karma. To elim-
inate karma means to destroy it, to transform it. Naturally,
the karma won’t go for it, and so you will face adversity and
obstacles. The thought karma can directly interfere with
your mind and cause you to silently swear at me or Dafa, or
have wicked thoughts and hear abusive words in your mind.
Some practitioners don’t realize what is happening at the time,
and even mistake those things for their own thoughts. And
some think that they are suffering from entity attachment,
though they are not. Rather, those are the result of thought
karma surfacing in the brain. Some people are not very in
control of their minds and so they go along with it and do
bad things, which is ruinous for them and causes them to
fall. Most people can, however, repel it and deny it by having
strong, self-aware thoughts. This indicates that they are sav-
able and can discern right and wrong; it means that their faith
is strong. My spiritual bodies will then help them by elimi-
nating a large proportion of their thought karma. What I’ve
described is quite common. If it does occur, it is a test to see
whether you can conquer the wicked thoughts. Hold your
ground and the karma will be dissolved for you.

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Your Thinking Needs to Be Right
When a person regularly fails to conduct himself as a practi-
tioner, it means that his thinking isn’t right. Practitioners
meet with adversity as they go about spiritual practice. And
the adversity might take any form, from strife with others to
people scheming against you. Most often it will directly test
your character. But other things will come about as well. Your
body might suddenly feel unwell, since that’s one of many
ways that karma can be paid off. And at a certain point in
time you might be made to doubt whether the teachings are
true, whether you have higher energy, whether you are cut
out for spiritual practice and can really make progress at it,
or whether higher beings really exist. You might be made to
go through this in the future, and be given a false impression
that leads you to question and doubt all of this. It’s done to
see whether you can stay committed. If you can hold fast to
the thought, “I must stay firm and not waver,” then you will,
with that determination, indeed do so when going through
this kind of test, and naturally handle it well, for your char-
acter will have grown. Were such an ordeal brought upon
you right at the outset, however, you would have no way to
understand it and it would put an end to your practice since
you would not yet be solid. So there is no telling what form
your ordeals will take.
Ordeals like these are a necessary part of spiritual prac-
tice, and what makes progress possible. Some of you mistake
the unpleasant sensations in your bodies for medical condi-
tions, and often fail to regard yourselves as practitioners; you
take those things to be health problems and wonder why you

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have to endure so much. I can tell you that many of the trib-
ulations you would have had, have been taken away, and the
troubles that you do experience have been greatly reduced.
Had we not done this, those ordeals might have brought an
end to your life or left you bedridden. So while you might
find the minor troubles that you do experience hard to bear,
that’s only to be expected; since when was spiritual progress
made with comfort and ease? There’s a story that relates to
this. When I was holding a class in the city of Changchun
there was one individual who had an excellent foundation and
was really cut out for spiritual practice. I had high hopes for
him. So my plan was to ratchet up his trials a bit so that he
could repay his debts and become enlightened sooner. Then
one day he seemed to suffer a stroke, unexpectedly. He fell
down and couldn’t move, and had no sensation in his limbs.
He was taken to a hospital for emergency medical care. But
not long after, he was back on his feet. Had he really experi-
enced a stroke, he never would have been back on his feet with
control of his arms and legs again so quickly. Yet surprisingly,
he blamed Falun Dafa for his mishap. It didn’t occur to him
that people normally don’t recover from a stroke so quickly.
He might have died right there in the street after the fall, had
he not learned Falun Dafa, or he may have been paralyzed
for the rest of his life, having had a real stroke.
This suggests just how hard it is to save a person. So much
had been done for him, yet he didn’t manage to realize it and
even blamed us for his ordeal. Then there are people who have
been learning for some time but who still tell me that their
whole body just doesn’t feel right and how they’ve gone to
the doctor for shots or medication, but to no avail. And they
weren’t even embarrassed to say so. It’s only to be expected

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that those things wouldn’t help, since it is not a matter of
illness. You can go for an examination and they won’t find
anything; it’s just that you don’t feel well. One practitioner
who went for treatment found that the needle of the syringe
wouldn’t pierce his skin, and several needles even bent in the
process; the contents of the final syringe even squirted out
without it having pierced his skin. It then dawned on him
that he’s a practitioner and hasn’t any business getting shots.
It was only at that point that it occurred to him. So let this
be a reminder that you should keep this larger perspective
in mind when you meet with difficulties. Some people are
under the impression that I simply prohibit going to see the
doctor, and so they figure they will just see an energy healer
instead. They still think it’s a health problem and are hoping
someone can help. But there is little chance they will find
a true healer. And if it’s a false one that they see, they will be
ruined right then and there.
Our stance is that you would have no way to tell whether
the alleged healer you saw was an authentic one. Many sup-
posed masters are self-proclaimed. I have been verified and
have on file the results of the testing done by the scientific
agencies that handle research of this kind. Many masters
are false, though, and have given themselves their own
titles; there are all too many who put on airs and defraud
people. False masters can do healings, but we should ask what
makes that possible. It’s because they have entity attachment.
They wouldn’t be able to do that otherwise. The entity that’s
attached can emit healing energy, since it is a form of energy
itself and can readily overpower the average person. But few
realize what it passes on to people when it heals them. Far
below, in a realm imperceptible to the eye, all of what it emits

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is in its image, and there will be little that you can do about
it after it has transmitted its things to your body. “The spir-
its are more easily invoked than dispelled,” as an old saying
has it. If you were just regular people who didn’t practice, we
wouldn’t say anything, since you would just be interested in
leading a normal life and finding short-term symptom relief.
But you are a practitioner, and you want to continually purify
your body, don’t you? You have no idea how long it’s going to
take to clean up what those spirits put into you; their things
have energy, after all. Some of you might be wondering why
the falun or my spiritual bodies wouldn’t be protecting you.
But the way the universe works is that nobody will get in
your way if you, of your own choosing, desire something or
are trying for something. My spiritual bodies will try to hold
you back, and drop hints, but they will give up if they see that
you are insistent. Your doing our practice wouldn’t count if
you were goaded into it. No one can be coerced or forced to
do spiritual practice. True growth can only come from you,
yourself; nobody can help if you don’t want to grow. I’ve laid
out the teachings for you and discussed how they work. So if
you still don’t wish to make progress, that is your choice and
you can’t blame anyone else. You are the one who decides what
you want, and you can be sure that neither the falun nor my
spiritual bodies will try to bend your will. Some people go
to hear other energy teachers give talks and then feel unwell
afterwards, as might be expected. You might be wondering
why my spiritual bodies didn’t protect these people. Well,
what business did they have going there in the first place?
They must have been hoping to get something out of it, or
they wouldn’t have gone. So whatever entered their bodies
and caused them to feel unwell was something they brought

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upon themselves, since they took it in willingly, through their
own ears. Some people act recklessly and thereby injure their
falun, deforming it, which should never happen; the falun
is a higher being and is more valuable than your life. False
masters abound at present, and some enjoy great fame. I once
remarked to the head of the Chi-Gong Research Society of
China about how the famous concubine named Da Ji had
brought havoc to the imperial court in ancient times, and how
fierce that fox spirit was. And yet, I went on to tell him, the
harm that she did was minor compared to what today’s false
masters have done. They have been a scourge to the country
and harmed countless people. It may not seem that there is
anything wrong with them, yet you have no idea how many
of them have bad entities on their bodies. Those things will
get on your body if a false master projects energy toward you.
Things are out of control now. The average person can’t see
these things for what they are.
Some people might be really impressed by how pro-
found chi-gong is after attending my classes and hearing
what I have to say, and so they plan to go and hear the next
teacher that comes to town. But I would urge you not to
do that. The bad things you hear will pour in through your
ears. It’s hard to save a person and bring about changes in
mind and body. False teachers abound. And even those who
are genuine and have received a proper training might not
really be clean. Some animal spirits are fierce, and a teacher
might not be able to drive them away even if he can keep
them off his own body; and he wouldn’t have the power to
repel them on a greater scale. And it shows with his stu-
dents. All sorts of bad things might be mixed in and present
among them, since they might not be upstanding, even if he is.

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They could be carrying various entities on their bodies.
If you are serious about practicing Falun Dafa, don’t go
to other spiritual or energy-related talks. Of course, if you
don’t want to do Falun Dafa and just want to try whatever is
out there, then you’re free to go ahead. Since this would mean
you aren’t an adherent of Falun Dafa, you would be on your
own. So don’t blame Falun Dafa if something goes wrong
in that case. A genuine Falun Dafa practitioner is someone
who aligns his conduct with our teachings on character and
puts into practice what we teach. I have been asked whether
it’s okay to mingle with people who do other practices. My
reply would be that you are practicing the Great Way, which
goes far beyond what they are doing, and by the time you
have completed this class your level of attainment will be
far greater than theirs; you have a falun that took us gen-
erations of practice to form, and its power is enormous. So
naturally, it won’t be much of a problem if you interact with
people of other practices, provided you don’t take in or have
a desire for anything of theirs and just remain normal friends.
But that said, if the person’s body does indeed carry some-
thing, it could be quite bad, in which case interaction is best
avoided. But I don’t think there is much cause for concern
if it’s a matter of your spouse doing another practice. One
thing you should know is that others benefit just by virtue of
your practicing, since what you practice is a true Way. Your
spouse’s body will also be cleansed, for your safety, if he or
she does another practice and has bad things on his or her
body. Everything will be cleansed for you in other dimen-
sions, including your home. It would be awfully challenging
to practice if that setting weren’t cleansed and all manner of
things lurked there, disrupting you.

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 There is one scenario, however, where my spiritual bodies
cannot clean things up. One day, someone who was learning
our practice saw a spiritual body of mine come to his home.
He was elated by this, and invited him in. But my body replied
by telling him that it was a mess inside, and that there were
too many things there. And he left upon saying that. Gener-
ally speaking, my spiritual bodies will clear out any entities in
other dimensions for you, however many there may be. But
in this case the person’s place was one big mess of chi-gong
books. He then caught on and packed them up, after which
he sold some and burned the rest. My spiritual body returned
after that. This is what the person relayed to me.
Then there are people who seek out fortune-tellers. Some
people are quite keen on things like the Book of Changes and
fortune-telling, and want to know if those are still okay to use,
now that they practice Falun Dafa. Here’s how I view it. If you
now have a considerable amount of energy, the words you
say will have an impact. If something that wasn’t supposed
to happen, does happen, because you said it would, then you
will have done wrong. Non-practitioners are quite weak. The
energies and information in their bodies are not that stable
and are prone to change. If you predict some mishap for some-
one, it might just come to be. Or suppose the person’s karma
is sizeable and needs to be paid off, yet you always tell him
that good things are in store, which then prevents him from
paying off his karma. That’s a problem. Aren’t you hurting
him, in effect? Some people are too attached to these things
to give them up, as they think that they have a knack for
it. But it should be obvious that this is an attachment. And
besides, even if you really do know the future, you can’t just
divulge divine plans to a regular person; practitioners should

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exercise restraint. So that’s why it’s a problem. When people
try to make predictions based on the Book of Changes, for
example, the predictions are bound to be a mixture of true
and false, since some of what’s in the book is no longer valid.
And that is why it’s okay for things like fortune-telling to exist
in this world. But a true practitioner, who in fact has higher
energy, will want to hold himself to a high standard. And yet
some practitioners still seek out people to tell their fortunes.
They ask to have readings done to find out how their prac-
tice is going or what troubles might lie ahead of them. They
actually seek people out to predict these things. But how
could you make progress if your troubles were predicted
for you in advance? Your life was changed once you became
a practitioner, and so the information carried by your palm
patterns, your facial characteristics, your birth horoscope,
and your body have changed and aren’t what they originally
were. The very fact that you ask someone to tell your for-
tune indicates that you believe them, or you wouldn’t ask.
What they disclose to you are just things as they appear on
the surface and will be based on past designs. But things
have since changed for you, in fact. If you go to them you
are surely listening to them and putting faith in them, and
so you will be creating a psychological burden for yourself.
And that self-made burden is going to weigh on your mind,
which makes it an attachment, of course, and that will take
additional work to remove. So this means you have made
things unnecessarily harder for yourself. Won’t having a new
attachment require extra suffering to remove it? With every
test and ordeal there is the potential for you to either progress
or regress in your spiritual development. Spiritual practice
is hard enough to begin with. You are setting yourself up for

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failure if you make it even harder of your own doing. So you
might be making added ordeals and troubles for yourself.
Nobody can see what your new, reworked path of life entails.
Being told what’s in store for you would make it hard for you
to carry out your practice, so others aren’t allowed to see
any of that. And this goes for both your fellow practitioners
as well as for those who do other practices. Whatever they
might predict wouldn’t be accurate, for yours is a changed
life—a life meant for spiritual practice.
I am sometimes asked whether it’s okay to read the books
of other religions or practices. Our take is that religious works
teach people to develop their character, and Buddhist texts
particularly emphasize the mind. Our practice is Buddhist, so
in principle there’s no problem. But that said, many passages
of scriptures are inaccurate due to the translation process,
and many commentaries were made with varying degrees
of understanding and baseless interpretations—all of which
undermine the teachings. Those who have irresponsibly inter-
preted the scriptures are far from the Buddha’s realm of aware-
ness, and don’t know what the texts truly meant. And this is
why so many interpretations exist. Coming to a full under-
standing of the scriptures isn’t easy, especially on one’s own.
Maybe you are thinking that you just find them intriguing.
But if you are always dabbling in the teachings or writings of
another practice, you are, in effect, doing that practice. The
problem is, built into any religious scripture are the energy
and teachings specific to that practice, and learning anything
from such a text will equate to learning that practice. And
if it happens that you really immerse yourself in the text,
and allow it to inform your practice, then you might have
taken up that discipline in effect and no longer belong to ours.

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Spiritual practice has always demanded that you commit to
one approach. You should read only our books if you really
wish to do this practice.
If you want to do our practice you shouldn’t so much as
look at the other spiritual or energy-related books out there.
The books that are coming out nowadays are especially to be
avoided. And older works should be avoided, too, such as
the Yellow Emperor’s Classic on Internal Medicine, Principles
of Mind-Body Practice, and the Daoist Canon. While they
don’t have the bad things that contemporary books do, they
nonetheless carry energies from other planes in them. Each
of those works amounts to a way of spiritual practice, and so
reading them adds their things to what you have and affects
you. When you find a sentence agreeable to you, well then,
those things will be added to yours. You will be adding in
something foreign, even if it’s not necessarily bad. But adding
in even just a little of something else will undermine your
practice and cause problems. To help you picture it, just imag-
ine how quickly a television would malfunction if even just
one extra electronic part from something else were added
in. And what’s more, many of today’s spiritual books don’t
provide genuine instruction, and carry all sorts of impure
things. We had one learner who was browsing through one
such book when suddenly a large snake lunged forth, but I’ll
spare you the details. Cases like these are always a matter of
practitioners getting into trouble by not handling things right;
or in other words, they brought on trouble by not thinking
right. It’s for your benefit that we spell these things out. It
should help you to see things for what they are and know how
to handle them. Hopefully this will save you trouble down
the road. It’s critical that you keep in mind what I just talked

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about, even if it didn’t sound that serious. Know that what
I have been describing is a common pitfall. Spiritual practice
is extremely demanding and a serious affair. Even just being
a little careless might prove to be your undoing and ruin
you in no time. So it’s imperative that your thinking be right.

Martial Arts with

an Energy Component
While some energy practices are purely spiritual in nature,
there are others that belong to the martial arts and that are
sometimes called “martial chi-gong.” But before going into
more detail, I want to first say something about all of the
names and terms now going around in China that have
“chi-gong” in them.
People are using the term “chi-gong” to describe all sorts
of supposed practices, from “artistic chi-gong” to “musical
chi-gong,” from “calligraphy chi-gong” to “dancing chi-gong.”
But we should ask whether those are actual chi-gong. They
seem bizarre to me. I would say they’re really muddying
the waters, if not ruining chi-gong. They have no grounds
for what they’re doing. They are implying that all someone
has to do is get into a trance-like “chi-gong state” and then
paint, or sing, or dance, or do calligraphy and it amounts
to chi-gong. But that’s not the case. I think anyone would agree
that that’s demeaning to chi-gong. Chi-gong is a far-reaching
and profound body of knowledge for physical transformation.
And yet people are now reducing it to some kind of hypnotic
state. If it were as simple as that, and someone were to go to

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the bathroom while in that kind of state, then wouldn’t that,
too, count as chi-gong? It’s demeaning to chi-gong, as I see it.
A couple of years back, at the Asian Health Expo, there was
something being billed as “calligraphy chi-gong.” I went over
to their booth to see what it was about. The person there
picked up his calligraphy brush and proceeded to write a few
words, after which he used his hand to project energy at the
words. But all of the energy he sent out was dark, unlike how
higher energy would be. He wouldn’t have had any higher
energy, in fact, as his mind was preoccupied with money
and status. So his energy was bound to be bad. And he was
even selling the calligraphy he had on display there at a high
price, though only foreigners bought it. Whoever bought it
and took it home was in for bad luck, I would say, since dark
energy isn’t good for anyone. Even the man’s face was dark.
It was money that was on his mind, and he was hungry for
it. He couldn’t possibly have had a higher type of energy. Yet
the man’s business card was loaded with titles like “Interna-
tional Chi-Gong Calligrapher.” Gimmicks like that hardly
deserve to be called chi-gong.
You should know that some eighty to ninety percent of
you here today will not only be illness-free after our classes,
but will also have formed real, true, higher energy. Your body
will carry extraordinary things, beyond anything you could
form on your own—even with a lifetime of practice. Even
those who are young couldn’t develop what I am giving you
with a whole lifetime of practice; and that’s assuming you
could find a true teacher to instruct you. It has taken us many
generations to form the falun and the mechanisms we use,
and yet they are bestowed upon your bodies right from the
beginning. So I should tell you: don’t let these slip away just

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 because they came to you easily. They are immensely valuable,
simply priceless. What you will carry after these classes is true
gong—a form of high-energy matter. If you return home and
write a few words they will each have higher energy on them,
even if you’re not much of a calligrapher. But that doesn’t of
course mean that each of you is going to pick up a “master”
title and become some kind of “calligraphy chi-gong master.”
That’s not the right idea. The fact is simply that anyone who
really does have an energy like gong will leave traces of it on
whatever he or she touches, shining and radiant, without even
consciously emitting it.
I once saw a piece in a magazine talking about an upcom-
ing calligraphy chi-gong class. I gave it a cursory look to see
what was going to be taught. The piece described how you
would learn a breathing technique and then meditate upon
the idea of chi at your energy center for fifteen to thirty min-
utes. Then you would use your mind to lift energy from your
body’s energy center through to your forearm, before taking
up your brush and dipping it in ink. Then you would learn
to move the energy to the tip of your brush and start writ-
ing, once your focus had reached the tip of the brush. But
that’s misleading, isn’t it? It’s not as simple as just moving
your energy somewhere and then it becomes a new breed
of chi-gong. By that token, at mealtime we could just medi-
tate a bit before picking up our utensils, and then move our
energy to the tips of them before we ate and we could call it
“dining chi-gong,” I suppose. And you’d be dining on energy,
by that logic. It’s degrading to chi-gong to make it seem so
superficial, and that shouldn’t be done.
By contrast, the kinds of chi-gong found in certain mar-
tial arts are a genuine tradition in their own right. I say that

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because they have been passed down for millennia and have
well-developed spiritual underpinnings as well as a full system
of practice. So they are comprehensive. That said, these kinds
of energy practices are lower in level than the methods used
in purely spiritual practice. Here’s a case that makes this
point, involving “hard chi-gong,” as it’s called—a type of mar-
tial practice where energy meant specifically for combat is
physically amassed. In Beijing there was someone new to
our practice who found that he couldn’t press on anything
with his hands after taking our class. When he went to the
store to purchase a baby stroller and pressed on it with his
hand to check its sturdiness, it broke with an audible snap.
He found it odd. Another episode happened when he was
at home and he went to sit down. When he pressed on his
chair with his hand, it broke. He asked me what was hap-
pening. I didn’t offer an explanation, as I didn’t want him to
get attached. I just said that anything like that is natural and
that he should just let things take their course, and not give
it too much thought, since it’s all for the best. With the power
that he had he could crush even a piece of stone to powder
with just a pinch of his fingers, if he’d had a good command
of it. That surely amounts to hard chi-gong, then, and yet he
hadn’t been practicing for it. It’s actually common to gain
powers like these while doing meditative practices; it’s only
that often they aren’t at people’s disposal since they would
be hard to use appropriately. This is particularly so in the
early stages of practice, when your mind has yet to elevate
much; any powers that form then are sure to be unavailable.
Nor will these powers necessarily be given to you when you
reach advanced stages of practice later on, since by then they
would serve no purpose.

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 Let’s take a look at one example of how energy practice
might factor into martial arts. Mobilizing the body’s chi energy
is a big part of it. This energy isn’t so easily mobilized at
first, and might not go where you want it to. To address this,
a person will have to work his hands, chest, feet, legs, arms,
as well as head. Training these might involve striking the
trunk of a tree with your hands, or palms, or repeatedly slap-
ping your hands against slabs of stone. You can just imagine
how painful it would be for your bones to hit stone in that
manner; even just light impact might result in bleeding. Yet
that’s not enough to mobilize the body’s chi. For that, the
person has to swing his arm so that his blood pools in the
arm and causes his arm and hand to swell. They really do
swell a bit, and then when he next strikes stone his bones
will be cushioned. It won’t hurt as much since now his bones
won’t be making direct contact with the stone. As he carries
on practicing in this manner, his teacher will give him further
instruction, and with time he will learn to mobilize energy.
But that alone doesn’t suffice, for in a real-life fight your oppo-
nent won’t wait for you to mobilize your energy. By the time
a person has learned to mobilize it, he will have gained the
ability to ward off blows, as might be expected; he might not
feel any pain even if he’s struck with a long staff, for the chi
he mobilized would provide a kind of cushioning. But chi is
just a very basic thing, which belongs to the initial stage of
practice; over time, with consistent effort, it will be converted
into high-energy matter. It will gradually form into a dense
mass of energy as this happens. An energy mass like this will
have an intelligence of its own. And so it is also a mass of
supernormal abilities, or a type of power. Yet this power will
only be good for things like attacking and defending against

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blows; it won’t be useful for healing. This high-energy entity is
in another dimension and doesn’t travel through this dimen-
sion here, so its time passes faster than ours. That’s why if you
strike somebody, the necessary energy will be deployed to
the relevant part of your body without your having directed
energy there or having willed it in any way. If someone strikes
you and you move to block it, the energy will have arrived
at that part of your body even before you make your move.
It goes faster than you, however quick you might be, owing
to the different workings of time in the two dimensions. So
doing the kind of energy practice found in the martial arts
can develop exceptional abilities such as Iron Sand Hands,
Cinnabar Palm, Vajra Leg, and Arhat Foot—and all of these
can in fact be attained by regular people through training.
The biggest difference between the martial type of energy
practice and the purely spiritual, or “internal,” type of practice
is this: in the martial context the practice is done in motion,
and so your chi travels just beneath the skin. And with all the
motion involved, you wouldn’t enter into a state of stillness or
have chi go to your energy center; it would travel beneath the
skin, instead, and just go through your muscles and tissues.
And so these practices don’t extend one’s lifespan or develop
higher powers. Energy practices of a purely spiritual sort,
by contrast, require that the body be still. Typically they do
have chi enter the body’s energy center, or the lower abdomen,
and they make a point of practicing in stillness and trans-
forming one’s innate body. They can extend one’s lifespan and
lead to higher stages of spiritual attainment.
You may have come across extraordinary-sounding
kung fu abilities like Golden Bell, Iron Shirt, and incredi-
ble bowmanship in martial arts works. Some depict people

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with the ability to become weightless, who sail to and fro at
great heights, and some figures even manage to cross over
into other dimensions. But are those powers for real? They
are, to be sure. Only you won’t see regular people wielding
them. Someone who really has developed advanced powers
like those wouldn’t readily reveal them. Powers as extraor-
dinary as those don’t come about simply by practicing mar-
tial arts; internal practice is needed to develop them. It takes
being attentive to the mind and character, and a disinterest
in material things. And even if someone does gain higher
powers with practice, he won’t be allowed to use them freely
in worldly settings at any point; only when no one is around
to see will it be okay to use them. Then going back to mar-
tial arts stories, something doesn’t add up. The very people
who they portray fighting and killing over worldly things like
a swordsmanship manual, treasure, or a certain lady always
have fantastic powers, coming and going like a shadow. Yet
powers like those can only be gained through spiritual prac-
tice. A person must work hard on his character and become
indifferent to status, wealth, and worldly things in order to
get powers like those. Killing and money-lust would be the
complete opposite. When you see supernormal heroes with
those traits, it’s the product of writers taking artistic license;
they know that consumers just want whatever is stimulating
and won’t object. Writers often seize on this fact and do what-
ever they can to meet the demand. And the more incredible
the story is, the more readers or viewers go for it. So it really
comes down to writers taking artistic license with things.
Anyone who actually has powers like those in martial arts
works would never act like those characters do, much less
showcase their powers.

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Showing Off
Owing to the fact that they practice in the secular world,
a number of practitioners have a hard time breaking many
attachments, which have become second nature and aren’t
detectable. A tendency to show off can be a part of many
actions, including even good deeds. It’s common for people
to build themselves up and show off a bit in their daily lives,
hoping to make a name for themselves or gain from it mate-
rially. They want people to see how competent they are and
to think that they’re better than others. We see something
like this, too, such as when someone is doing better with the
exercises, has lucid visions, or does the movements a little
more gracefully—and it leads to showing off.
Some people draw a crowd by claiming to have heard
something from me, but what they tell people is a combina-
tion of hearsay and their own ideas. What leads them to do
that is a desire to show off. And then there are people who
spread gossip around, all excited and pleased with them-
selves, since they feel like an insider. They like to think that
they’re more informed than other practitioners, that no one
knows as much as they do. This trait has become second
nature for them, and they might not be aware of it. What’s at
work on a subconscious level is a desire to show off, or else
they would have no motive for gossiping. Some people
spread rumors about how I will stop teaching and “return
to seclusion” at such-and-such date. But I didn’t come out
of “seclusion,” so it’s baseless. And there are some who have
claimed that on such-and-such day I revealed something to
this or that person and gave them personalized instruction.
But gossiping like that serves no purpose other than to reveal
their attachment—a desire to show off.

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 Still others want my autograph. The purpose? It’s still
for worldly ends, even if they just think of it as a keepsake
or memento. But there is no point in an autograph if you
don’t genuinely practice. And what need is there for an
autograph when each and every word of our books has my
image and falun behind it, and every sentence is from me?
What some people are thinking is that my energies will pro-
tect them if they have my autograph. They are still thinking
about “energies” somehow, when those aren’t things we dabble
in. This book alone is beyond any measure of value. What
more could you want? Hoping for my autograph reflects
attachments, in fact. I should also mention that some people
emulate the practitioners that they see accompanying me,
without first thinking about whether it’s appropriate to do.
You shouldn’t look to anybody as your example. No one is
a substitute for the teachings; only Dafa itself can serve as your
guide. Those who accompany me don’t get any personalized
instruction and are treated just like the rest of you. They are
merely staff of our Association, and nothing to get fixated
on. Being attached like that is harmful to our practice, even
though you don’t mean for it to be so. You might make things
up for dramatic effect, which ends up being divisive, or you
might provoke attachments in other practitioners that lead
them to try to get closer to me and get extra instruction for
themselves, and so on. It should be apparent that all of this
goes back to the same problem.
The problems with showing off typically reach beyond
what I just described. I have been teaching Falun Dafa for two
years now, and it’s possible that among those who are veteran
to the practice, a group of you will soon find that all of your
powers become available to you; and another group might

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find that they suddenly experience gradual enlightenment.
These higher states weren’t possible for you before since you
still had many human attachments, and so it wasn’t suitable
for me to push you to such heights in one go. Your charac-
ter surely had improved a great deal, yet many attachments
remained, and so it wouldn’t have been appropriate for you to
have had higher powers at your disposal. So gradual enlight-
enment is in store for people once they have passed the initial
phase and become solid. The inner eye will be opened to great
heights with gradual enlightenment, and many powers will
come to them. And I can share that with true spiritual prac-
tice, in fact, you start to develop many powers right from the
outset. Some of you have now reached very advanced stages
of practice and have numerous powers. Many of you might
have recently begun to experience what I’ve been describing.
There will also be some who, though not that advanced, have
all of their powers freed and become enlightened—and fully
so—at a lower level of attainment. That will happen because
what these students’ bodies have and their capacities for hard-
ship are connected, and these won’t change, since they were
predetermined.
I bring this up to convey to you that you really mustn’t put
whoever experiences these things on a pedestal and regard
them as enlightened beings. The stakes are high for your spir-
itual development, for only Dafa itself can guide you right.
Don’t start following someone or giving him an audience
just because he has special powers or visions. You would
be hurting not only yourself, of course, but also bringing
harm to that person; he might become full of himself and
end up losing all that he had, have his powers revoked, or fall.
Even those who are enlightened and have miraculous powers

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at their command may fall if they don’t exercise good self-
control. This holds true even for Buddhas, much less people
such as you who practice in the world. So it’s vital that you
exercise self-restraint, however great or many your powers
may be. Recently there was someone in attendance who had
the ability to suddenly vanish and then reappear a moment
later. Powers like these exist, along with even greater ones.
So you might ask yourself how you would do if such powers
came to you. As practitioners, or adherents, of Falun Dafa
you shouldn’t put anyone with powers like these on a pedestal,
yourself included, or yearn for such things. You will quickly
experience problems if those things stir up longings in you,
and your level of attainment will drop. It’s possible that
the person whose powers you are admiring and coveting
hasn’t made as much spiritual progress as you, and it’s only
that your powers aren’t accessible to you. By admiring and
coveting someone else’s powers, you have, on this matter at
least, slipped and fallen. I would like everyone to really be
vigilant about this. I’m putting this in serious terms because
the changes I described may soon take place, and it could be
ruinous for you if you don’t handle things well.
When a practitioner develops higher energy, has his powers
freed, or becomes fully enlightened, he still mustn’t think
of himself as special; the visions he has are limited by his
level of attainment. It’s just that he has reached that point in
spiritual practice, and it means that he has a corresponding
level of faith, quality of thought, and amount of wisdom. So
it’s possible that he won’t believe that still higher beings or
things exist, since he will think that he has seen the ultimate
reality and that there is nothing more. But that is far from
being the case, since his level of attainment is limited.

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 Some people will have all of their powers come to them at
their present stage, since they will have reached their limits
in spiritual practice; the restraints will be lifted and they will
experience enlightenment at their level, since nothing more
is possible. Some who finish their practice in the times ahead
will experience enlightenment at a lesser level within this
world; some may experience it at a higher level; and some
will experience it with full divine standing. And it is only
enlightenment with full divine standing that counts as the
pinnacle, and only such figures will be able to see, and even
reveal themselves at, all planes. Even with enlightenment and
having their powers freed at the very lowest of levels within
this world, a person will be able to see certain dimensions and
higher beings, and even communicate with them. But if and
when that happens to you, you mustn’t become happy with
yourself, for you certainly would not have gained full divine
standing. What happens next, then? They can only hope to
maintain their current level of attainment and, some other
day, practice to higher stages. But that would be a future
matter. So there would be no point in keeping someone like
that from experiencing his powers when he has reached his
highest point. Any efforts at further progress would be in
vain, and so his powers will be freed on account of his having
reached the end of his spiritual journey. This will be the case
for many people. So whatever happens, you should keep your
composure as a practitioner and base what you do on Dafa,
to really get things right. Keep in mind that if you gain any
particular power, or if all of your powers are freed, it came
to you from practicing Dafa. If you put your own powers
above Dafa, or think that the insights you’ve gained with
enlightenment are right, and that you are greater than Dafa,

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then I would say your fall has begun, you are in danger, and
things will only get worse. You are really in trouble in that
case, and all of your spiritual efforts may end up for naught.
Not handling these things well could lead to your downfall
and ruin your practice.
I should mention that this book combines my teachings
from several classes, and every sentence comes from me. Our
students and learners carefully transcribed for me every word
of the audio recordings, and I personally edited the text mul-
tiple times. Everything in the book counts as my teaching,
and this alone is the Way that I have set forth.

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 the
seventh talk

Taking Life
the subject of taking life touches a nerve with many
people, who worry about what implications it has for them.
For practitioners the rule is strict: there is to be no taking of
life. Any true spiritual practice or tradition—be it Buddhist,
Daoist, Mystical, or whatever it may be—will look upon this
matter in absolute terms and forbid killing. I can vouch for
this. The consequences that follow from taking life are so
great as to warrant a more in-depth discussion. When the
term “killing” was used in early Buddhism it mainly referred
to taking human life, which is the most serious form of it.
Later on the killing of large creatures such as livestock and
other larger animals also came to be regarded as serious.
Let’s consider why religious communities have always held
the taking of life to be so serious. There is a Buddhist belief
that a life ended prematurely becomes a lost soul or “wild

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ghost,” and so services have traditionally been performed to
save these lives from purgatory. As the belief goes, were they
not rescued from purgatory, they would have to go without
food or drink and be trapped in a terrible predicament.
We hold that when a person wrongs someone he gives the
other party a substantial amount of virtue as compensation.
This applies to regular transgressions. But suddenly ending
a life, be it that of an animal or another creature, is a sizeable
sin and generates a lot of karma. Prohibitions against taking
life used to mainly apply to taking human life, since the karma
that’s made is sizeable. But taking a regular creature’s life
results in significant karma and isn’t trivial. It’s significant,
because a certain amount of adversity is allotted to each stage
of your spiritual journey and they are your own ordeals, made
by your own karma, and they are placed there to facilitate
your progress. In each case you can overcome the ordeal so
long as you work on your character. Then you can just imag-
ine how much harder it would be to pass these, with all of
the karma that comes from killing added on. Your character
wouldn’t suffice to get through them. And it might spell the
end of spiritual practice for you altogether.
We have found that when a person incarnates, within
a certain expanse of the cosmos a great many of him incar-
nate simultaneously; they look just like him, assume the
same name, and engage in more or less the same things. So
it’s fitting to consider them part of the larger him. When any
life (including those of larger animals) dies prematurely, the
hims in other dimensions have yet to complete the lives they
were ordained to lead, and may have many years of living still
ahead. The life that dies early then faces the predicament of
belonging nowhere, and must drift about in the expanse of

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the universe. So this is what people in the past thought of as
lost souls or wild ghosts who have nothing to eat or drink,
and who suffer terribly. And they may have been right about
that. What we can say for sure is that those lives are stuck in
a most frightening predicament. They must wait on and on
until their counterparts in each dimension have all finished
their courses of life, and only then may they go together to
their next destination. The longer the wait, the greater the
suffering. And with greater suffering, more karma will go
onto the body of the killer, since he caused this pain. You can
just imagine how much karma the killer would accrue. This
is what we have observed with higher vision.
We have also seen that when a person incarnates in this
world, the design of his entire life is present in another, spe-
cific dimension, and everything that is supposed to take place
in his life is already laid out there. And naturally it was higher
beings who planned it all out. It is owing to them that when
someone is born into this world he belongs to a certain family,
attends a certain school, and once he grows up he works for
a certain entity, and in this manner becomes linked with
society in multifaceted ways. And from this we can glean
that this world, on a larger scale, is in fact well mapped out.
When a life comes to a premature end, however, and no longer
follows the designs that were originally in place, it means
that a change has occurred. So whoever it was that fouled
things up will not be forgiven by the higher being who made
the designs. As persons of faith you all wish to reach higher
realms, but how could your spiritual efforts take you there
if beings above won’t forgive you? In some cases the teacher
of the person who took life will be in trouble as well, since
his level won’t have surpassed that of the higher being [who

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planned the life of the prematurely deceased]. And so he will
be sent down along with the killer. So this is terribly serious,
as you can see. Spiritual practice is very challenging for some-
one who has taken life.
It’s possible that some of you who are learning Falun Dafa
have fought in times of war. Those wars were states of affairs
brought about by larger, cosmic events, and you were but one
tiny part of those affairs. For cosmic events to unfold there
have to be people carrying things out and bringing about
certain states of affairs. Since those affairs had to do with
larger changes, you aren’t entirely to blame for what you may
have done. The karma we are concerned with is the kind that
stems from willfully doing wrong for selfish reasons, for your
own gain, or to protect your own things. You won’t be held
accountable for things done owing to changes in the greater
dimension or to changes in the larger designs of society.
Taking life generates a great amount of karma. Some people
might be concerned about how they are going to put food on
the table if that’s the case, since now they wouldn’t be allowed
to take animals’ lives. But I’m not here to address minutiae like
this. I am here to teach the Way to practitioners, and I won’t be
giving instructions for others on how to go about their lives.
You can use our teachings to gauge things and go about them
however you understand to be right. Non-practitioners are
free to do as they please, since that’s their own business; not
everyone can do spiritual practice. But practitioners should
hold themselves to high standards. So the terms I’m setting
forth here are meant only for people who practice.
Animals and plants count as lives, just as humans do; every-
thing is alive in other dimensions. When your inner eye has
reached the level of the dharma eye, you may find that stones,

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walls, or any object might speak to you and greet you. Some
people might find it disconcerting to think that the grains
and vegetables they consume are alive, and that now they
might have to just passively let any flies or mosquitoes that
get into their homes bite them and contaminate their food.
While I am saying that we can’t harm living things without
reason or on a whim, I’m not asking you to be mister nice guy
and fretfully sweat over every little thing, to the point that
you jump around as you walk just to avoid stepping on ants.
That strikes me as a tiring way to live, and it would just be
a new attachment. And besides, you might still crush many
microorganisms while hopping around trying to avoid ants;
there are many microscopic life forms, such as fungi and
bacteria, that you might unintentionally kill. Living becomes
impossible if you go to such extremes. So that’s not the kind
of person we want to be. A spiritual life would be impossible,
in that case. You should focus on the big things and practice
with confidence and poise.
As human beings we are entitled to sustain our lives, and
so our material surroundings should suit our life needs.
While we mustn’t harm any living things intentionally, we
shouldn’t become overly petty about things either. For exam-
ple, we shouldn’t stop consuming vegetables and grains just
because they are alive. With that approach to life, spiritual
practice wouldn’t be possible. So we should be a bit more
broad-minded. For example, you shouldn’t be too concerned
if you unwittingly step on ants or insects as you walk. Per-
haps it was time for them to perish since you didn’t do that
intentionally. A population balance always has to be main-
tained in the animal kingdom and those of microorganisms,
since a tipped balance would lead to a proliferation of any one

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species. So with that in mind we can go about our practice
with confidence and poise. You can simply shoo away any flies
or mosquitoes that happen to get into your home, or install
screens to keep them out. But if and when you can’t shoo
them out and have to swat them, so be it; you shouldn’t just
stand by and let them bite and possibly harm people in your
own home. You have strong immunity, thanks to your prac-
tice, and needn’t worry about infection. But you might have
family that are ordinary folk who don’t practice, and are at
risk of infectious disease. So you shouldn’t just passively look
on as an insect crawls on your child’s face.
I will share with you a story from the Buddha’s early years.
One day he wanted to bathe while in the forest, and told his
disciple to clean the basin that he used. His disciple went to
do so, only to find that it was crawling with insects; were he
to clean it they would be killed. The disciple returned and
informed the Buddha that the basin was full of insects. The
Buddha didn’t bat an eye and said just one sentence, “Go
and clean out the basin.” But when the disciple reached the
basin once again, he didn’t know where to start, as doing
anything would result in the death of insects. He pondered
it for a moment and then returned to the Buddha. He told
him, “Honorable teacher, the basin is crawling with insects.
If I were to wipe it down they would be killed.” The Buddha
turned his gaze upon him and said, “What I asked you to clean
was the basin.” The disciple finally caught on and promptly
wiped the basin clean. There’s a point to this story. And that
is, we can’t cease to bathe on account of insects, start look-
ing for new homes on account of mosquitoes, or close up
our throats and cease to eat or drink just because everything
consumed is alive. That’s not our approach. We should keep

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things in perspective and go about our practice in a confident
and dignified manner. All is well as long as we don’t harm
living things on purpose. As human beings you are entitled
to have your living space and to meet your daily needs, and
it’s fine to ensure these. You have to maintain your life just
like anyone else, and should be able to lead a normal life.
Some false masters have claimed that killing is permissi-
ble on the first and fifteenth days of each lunar month. And
some have even said that killing two-legged animals is okay,
as if those creatures weren’t living beings. It’s absurd to think
that taking lives on those days is not killing. They are trying
to downplay what they’re doing. Some supposed masters are
false, in fact, and from their words and deeds you can read-
ily tell what they are up to and what their agenda is. Most
often the figures who condone killing are plagued by entity
attachment. This is apparent in how false masters who are
possessed by fox spirits go about eating chicken: they wolf it
down and are reluctant to give up the bones.
Taking life not only generates an enormous amount of
karma, but also raises the question of compassion. Since we
do spiritual practice we should have compassion in our hearts.
As your compassion develops you will come to see that life is
painful for all living things. This will come to pass.

Eating Meat
Eating meat is another subject that can be sensitive. But eating
meat is not the same as taking life. We don’t ask you to refrain
from eating meat, even after you have been learning our prac-
tice for some length of time. By contrast, many who teach

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energy practices will tell you that meat is off limits right from
day one, which catches people off guard. And that’s asking
a lot, as there might be a savory stewed chicken or braised fish
dish awaiting them at home for dinner, which now they’d have
to forgo. Abstention from meat is also required in some reli-
gious orders. Buddhist practices generally take this approach,
as do certain Daoist ones. We don’t ask that of you, though we
do have our own approach. To understand the approach we
take, you have to bear in mind that ours is a practice where
the Way “works upon you,” as we put it. In this kind of prac-
tice certain bodily states will be brought about by the higher
energy you have, or by the Way. Different states will come
about as you reach different stages of attainment in your prac-
tice. And so one day, or even today, right after I finish teach-
ing this class, some of you might find that you can’t eat meat.
It will smell unpleasant to you, and eating it would make you
nauseous. This, then, is a kind of abstention that’s not imposed
upon you, nor one that you force upon yourself. It comes
from within you. It is a distaste for meat that’s triggered by
the higher energy that you have, and it occurs because you
have reached that stage. And it’s real enough that you would
actually vomit if you were to consume meat.
Those who have been doing this practice for some time
know firsthand that the bodily states I’m describing do come
about with Falun Dafa practice, with different states unfolding
at different stages. Some learners have a rather strong longing
for meat and are quite attached to it; they can typically eat
quite a lot of it. They’re not at all put off by meat that smells
or tastes strong to others, and can still eat it. So here’s what is
done to break the attachment. The person’s stomach will be
made to ache after he consumes meat, but it won’t hurt if he

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forgoes it. It’s a condition that indicates it is time to give up
meat. But it won’t be this way for the rest of his life, in case
you are wondering. Then what’s going on? His not being able
to eat meat genuinely arises from within. Consider the pur-
pose. The rules against meat in monastic orders are similar to
the induced-state in our practice, where you aren’t physically
able to eat it, in that both seek to remove any craving for or
attachment to meat.
Some people can hardly stand a meal without meat, owing
to their strong human cravings for it. One morning I was
passing by the rear entrance of Victory Park in the city of
Changchun when three people came out of the park, talking
loudly. One of them said, “What kind of practice is that? It
doesn’t let you eat meat. I’d rather lose ten years of my life than
go without meat.” What a strong desire that was. Any desire
that strong should surely be let go. Spiritual practice is meant
to rid you of every human desire and attachment. Then, to
spell it out, if you haven’t ended your craving for meat, isn’t it
an attachment that remains? Could you achieve spiritual per-
fection in that case? My point is that any attachment has to
go. But that’s not to say that meat is off limits from that day
on. The point isn’t simply to keep you from eating meat. It’s to
prevent attachment. If you can break the attachment during
the time when meat doesn’t work for you, it may well become
edible again later on. At that time it won’t smell bad to you or
be unpleasant to consume. And in that case it’s fine to eat it.
When meat becomes edible again it means that your
attachment to it and desire for it are gone. And a significant
change will have happened. You will experience a new state
whereby meat doesn’t taste that good when you eat it; you
will be able to eat it along with your family when it’s served,

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and won’t miss it otherwise. It won’t taste like anything spe-
cial when you do eat it. But that said, it’s tricky practicing
in the secular world. You might reacquire a taste for meat
if your family has it regularly, and the whole process will
repeat itself. And this cycle could play out multiple times
over the course of your spiritual journey. Suddenly, out of
the blue, you might not be able to eat it again one day. If that
happens, then simply don’t eat it. You really won’t be able to,
and doing so might result in your having to throw up. Wait
until you can eat it before doing so. Just take things as they
come. Ultimately it’s not about eating meat or not: the key is
that the attachment be removed.
People make fast progress in Falun Dafa. You will advance
through the stages of practice swiftly as long as you work on
your character. Some people aren’t very attached to meat to
begin with, and it doesn’t matter much to them. For them
the state I’ve described lasts just a week or so, since it takes
little time to remove what attachment there is. Some people
need upwards of a few months or even the better part of
a year; seldom does it exceed a year. The process takes some
time, since meat is now a major part of the human diet. But
it still shouldn’t be eaten by those who practice in monastic
settings that prohibit it.
Let’s discuss how meat has been viewed in Buddhism. The
earliest form of Buddhism had no prohibition against meat.
The Buddha and his disciples lived a very basic life in the
forest, and didn’t avoid meat. Civilization was in its infancy
back when he gave his teachings twenty-five hundred years
ago, and many regions hadn’t developed agriculture. Even
those that did, had limited amounts of arable land, and many
areas were heavily forested. So grains were in limited supply

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 and scarce. People naturally depended on hunting, with civ-
ilization where it was at, and meat was a staple food in many
places. The reason that the Buddha didn’t allow his disciples
to handle money or goods, and led them in begging for food,
was to try to have them break their attachments as much as
possible. So they would just eat whatever people gave them
and had no business being picky, since they were leading
a holy life. And the food that was given to them may have
included meat.
Early Buddhism did indeed designate certain foods as
taboo. Nowadays Buddhists consider meat to be what’s taboo,
whereas initially, in early Buddhism, it was foods like onions,
ginger, and garlic that were. Few Buddhist monks today can
say exactly why those foods were taboo, since most monks
haven’t been initiated into true spiritual practice and there
is much that they don’t know. The Buddha taught the three
disciplines of precept, concentration, and wisdom. “Precept”
was about severing all desires through moral discipline, while
“concentration” was about practicing meditation and achiev-
ing complete stillness. Anything that prevented someone
from experiencing that or that compromised it, was regarded
as a serious hindrance. Consuming onions, ginger, or garlic
results in the body giving off a strong odor. In those days,
monks would meditate in circles of seven or eight people in
forests or caves. Whoever ate those foods would have given
off a pungent odor, which would have compromised peo-
ple’s ability to meditate and become centered. So it really
affected practice. And this was how certain foods came to be
designated as taboo and their consumption barred. It should
also be said that their strong odor is highly bothersome to
the many supernatural beings born of a practitioner’s body.

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Onions, ginger, and garlic can also lead to further cravings for
these foods, and regular consumption can result in addiction
to them. For these reasons they have been regarded as taboo.
Over the centuries, many monks who progressed to higher
stages of practice and experienced full or partial enlighten-
ment came to realize that prohibitions are not that vital. If
a person can rid himself of a certain attachment, that material
thing that he was attached to will no longer affect him, for
it is the attachment that really affects you. And that is why
accomplished monks throughout the ages haven’t considered
the question of meat to be that critical. They saw that letting
go of the attachment is what’s key; anything can be eaten to
stave off hunger if there is no attachment at work. But at this
point in time, many monks have grown accustomed to living
meat-free; many religious orders have long made a practice
of this. And it’s not merely a single prohibition anymore, but
rather, part of a larger monastic code. So, many practicing
monks are used to meat being strictly taboo. But then con-
sider the case of the “mad monk” Ji-gong. He appears in many
fictional works since he flew in the face of convention and ate
meat. His story has been sensationalized. The reality is that
food was naturally just a pressing issue for him after he was
expelled from Ling-yin Temple. He was faced with starvation,
and so he ate whatever was available to him. And truth be
told, it didn’t really matter what he ate as long as it was just to
stay full and not done out of attachment to some particular
food. He progressed to the point where he was aware of this
principle. And as it turns out, he hardly ever ate meat, maybe
just once or twice. But writers got excited once word got out
that a Buddhist monk was eating meat. The more sensational
something is, after all, the more people want to read it; art

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and entertainment are expected to do more than just depict
life, as we know. And so they have made great fanfare out of
what Ji-gong did. But in reality, it’s fine to eat anything as long
as you aren’t attached to it and it’s just done to satisfy hunger.
In Southeast Asia and southern China, and this includes
the two provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong, some lay Bud-
dhists prefer to say they are “vegetarian,” rather than to openly
say they are Buddhist—as if it were old-fashioned to say that.
So they conflate going vegetarian with practicing Buddhism,
as if it were that simple. But merely following a vegetarian
lifestyle could hardly bring someone to enlightenment. As
we’ve established, meat is just one human attachment, one
desire, and abstaining from it means only that one attach-
ment has been dealt with. There are still the attachments of
jealousy, combativeness, excitability, and showing off—among
many others—all of which must go if you want to achieve
spiritual perfection. So people are mistaken to think that
simply dealing with the attachment to meat makes enlight-
enment possible.
Meat isn’t necessarily the only food of concern. An attach-
ment to any food is problematic; this discussion applies to
other foods as well. When someone expresses an affinity for
a certain food, that counts as a desire. A practitioner will have
no such attachment when he or she progresses to a certain
level. Our teachings are quite advanced of course, and they
encompass different stages of practice; it’s not feasible or
expected that you become fully detached overnight. When
you have indeed progressed to the point where a food attach-
ment should go, you won’t be able to eat that food, however
much you may like it. If you were to eat it, it wouldn’t taste
right or how you would expect it to taste. Back when I was

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working at a company, the cafeteria always had trouble break-
ing even and eventually folded. Everyone had to bring his
or her own lunch after that. It was a challenge to prepare
one’s own lunch while rushing to get off to work in the morn-
ing, so I would sometimes pick up a couple of steamed buns
along with a block of soft tofu in soy sauce for lunch. Such
light fare should have been just fine, in theory. But eating it
too regularly still proved to be problematic, as any liking that
I was deemed to have developed needed to go. So at just the
sight of tofu my stomach would churn and I couldn’t eat it.
This was meant to ensure that I wasn’t attached. Of course,
you won’t experience episodes like mine unless you have
progressed to that point. They won’t happen when you have
just begun.
Buddhist practices don’t permit the consumption of alco-
hol. Could you imagine a Buddha with a bottle of alcohol in
his hand? When I talked about not being able to eat meat,
I explained that it would be fine for non-monastics to eat it
again later once the attachment was gone. Alcohol, however,
is not something you can consume again after giving it up.
Every practitioner’s body has higher energy, of course, which
takes many forms. Some powers come up to the surface of
your body and are very pure. If you consume alcohol they
will depart your body in a flash. They will leave your body
for a while, as they loathe the smell. And how deplorable it
is when people become addicted to alcohol, since it impairs
their reason. The Daoist practices that feature drinking only
do that because they don’t cultivate the true soul, and want
to numb it.
There are people who really take to the bottle, and have
a great affinity for alcohol. And there are some who drink to

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the point of alcoholism and just have to have it; meals without
it aren’t even appealing to them. A practitioner shouldn’t be
like that. Alcohol is definitely addictive, and the longing for it
is a desire, after all. It stimulates the nerve circuits associated
with addiction, and the more one consumes it the worse the
addiction. A practitioner will want to be free of an attach-
ment like that, as you can imagine. So it has to go. Some
people might think this isn’t feasible since at work they are
responsible for entertaining clients or are often out discuss-
ing business with people, and think that it can be hard to get
business going smoothly without having a few drinks together.
But that’s not necessarily true. Generally when people are
meeting to talk business with one another, nobody is going
to force alcohol on you, and you can drink however much
you’d like of whatever beverage you choose, be it a soft drink,
bottled water, or a beer. That’s especially so when doing busi-
ness or socializing with non-Chinese. And there is even less
of an issue in other contexts and when in cultured company.
That’s generally the case, at least.
Smoking is another attachment. Some people believe that
smoking can give them a lift, but I would say they are fooling
themselves. Sometimes people take a cigarette break while
they are at work or writing something and feel tired. After
smoking they feel energized. But it wasn’t smoking that did
it. Rather, that feeling of being energized came from having
relaxed for a bit. The mind can create a false impression
and give you the wrong idea; over time, it really can form
into a notion or false impression that leads one to believe
that smoking is a pick-me-up, when it’s really not. Smoking
doesn’t do the body one bit of good. Autopsies have found that
the trachea and lungs of long-term smokers are black, in fact.

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 Then wouldn’t you rather purify your body as someone
engaged in spiritual practice? We want to purify our bodies
on an ongoing basis and continually elevate spiritually. Yet
smoking pollutes your body and does the exact opposite of
what we want to do; and there are strong cravings involved.
If you are someone who knows it’s bad for you and have tried
to quit but failed, you can take heart in knowing that it’s hard
to quit without the right thoughts guiding you. Now that you
are doing spiritual practice, though, you can try, starting
today, to regard it as an attachment to break, and see if you
can manage to quit. I would urge you to quit smoking today
if you are sincere about practicing, and I can guarantee that
it’s possible. The thought of smoking doesn’t occur to anyone
during my classes, and I can assure you that you can quit
if you want to. As long as you have that intention, even if
you do smoke again, the cigarette will taste awful. Reading
this chapter of the book will be just as effective as hearing
me teach this in person. Of course, we won’t stop you from
smoking if you don’t want to do spiritual practice. But if
you do, then you should quit. To share an analogy I’ve used
before: have you ever seen a religious statue with a cigarette
in its mouth? That would be absurd. So you should really
quit, considering what we aspire to. I would say that you had
better quit if you want to make spiritual progress. Smoking
harms the body and is a craving. It’s completely contrary to
what we do.

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Jealousy
In my teachings I often bring up the topic of jealousy. The
reason is, jealousy plays out fiercely in China and it’s so per-
vasive that it has become second nature for people, and they
don’t sense it in themselves. This problem of intense jealousy
has roots, of course. At one time Confucianism shaped the
people of China profoundly and fostered a more introverted
kind of personality. Chinese people don’t reveal their emo-
tions, and make a point of self-control and patience. This has
become habitual for them, and so as a whole, Chinese today
have a very introverted disposition. This has its good side, of
course, such as being unassuming. But it has its downside
too, and can lead to unfavorable traits. The negative traits are
especially pronounced now in this latter day, and they exac-
erbate the problem of jealousy. People nowadays get terribly
envious when someone shares his or her good news. When
a person gets accolades at work, or something good happens
to him, he won’t say a word about it when he returns to his
desk lest others find out and get upset over it. People in the
West sometimes remark about the jealousy Asian people have.
Confucianism’s influence on the Asian region runs deep, and
the countries there have all been shaped by it more or less.
But only in China does jealousy affect people so strongly.
This is partially due to the doctrine of total equality that
was advanced in China not long ago. As the logic went, we’re
all in it together and so we are all equally entitled, we should
all get the same wage increases, and so on. This kind of logic
has a certain appeal to it, of course, with everyone seeming
equal. But it’s just not valid. The kinds of jobs that people
do are different, and how well they do them is different too;

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 not everyone does his job responsibly. So as the universe
would have it, people should be compensated accordingly.
And that’s even just common sense, since people normally
believe that whoever does more should get more for it, and
whoever does less should get less. But the doctrine of total
equality flies in the face of all this, and claims that everybody
is born the same and that any differences among people are
just the product of life circumstances. I would say that’s going
too far, and anything so extreme is bound to be wrong. And
it can’t account for the fact that some people are born male
and others female. Or that people have different looks, and
that some are different from birth owing to congenital ill-
nesses or deformities. We can see from higher realms that
each person’s whole life is laid out in other dimensions, so
naturally people’s lives in this world aren’t the same. While
people might want equality, it’s not possible if that is not what
life has in store for them. People’s lives are different.
People in the West are by nature more extroverted, and you
can readily tell how they’re feeling. While this has its good
points, it also has its downsides, such as a lack of self-restraint.
The different dispositions that Westerners and Asians have
reflect different ways of thinking, and have different conse-
quences. People in China get upset when someone is given
recognition at work or receives special treatment. Anyone
who gets a slightly larger paycheck knows to quietly tuck it
into his pocket and not say a word about it. Even exemplary
employees have a hard time these days, as people unfairly
expect them to come in early and stay after hours; or they
might get jibes from co-workers, who remark about how
“great” these people are, and try to offload work on them.
It’s hard to be a good person these days.

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 It’s a different story outside of China. Let’s say there is
someone whose supervisor sees what fine work he has done
and gives him more money. When he receives it he will be
tickled pink, and might even look at the paycheck in front of
others and remark out loud about how much he got. He can
happily state the amount to everybody, worry free. In China,
by contrast, if someone receives a larger paycheck, the super-
visor himself might tell the person to quietly tuck it away
before anyone sees it. In the West, if a kid gets a hundred
at school he might joyfully run all the way home, shouting,
“I got a hundred today, I got a hundred!” A neighbor might
open his door and yell out, “Hey Tom, great job! That’s my
boy!” Or another might open her window and shout, “Hey
Jack, well done!” But were the kid to do that in China, he’d be
in for trouble. As he ran home from school, shouting, “I got
a hundred today, I got a hundred!” people would be chastising
him from inside their homes, faster than they could open the
doors. “What’s the big deal, it’s just a hundred!” they’d quip.
“So what? Who hasn’t had a hundred before?” The different
frames of mind in the two cultures lead to different responses.
In China, it can lead to jealousy and resentment. People feel
uneasy about others’ good fortune instead of being happy for
them. There are problems like this.
The doctrine of total equality that was pushed in China
a while back really got people confused. I’ll give an illustra-
tion. Suppose there is someone who thinks that nobody at
his workplace is as good as he is; he excels at whatever he
does and really thinks he’s outstanding. He envisions him-
self doing just fine as a manager at the company, or even in
a more senior position; even becoming head of state seems
feasible to him. And his supervisor might concur that he’s very

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able and does everything well. His co-workers might say the
same, praising him for his talents and skills. But then there is
someone on his team or in the office who botches everything
up and never comes through. Yet one day this incompetent
person is in fact promoted to a managerial position, instead
of him—and even becomes his supervisor. It proves terribly
trying for him. And so he goes around complaining to every-
one about it, upset and consumed by envy.
The principle at work here is one that the average person
isn’t aware of: that you will not get what you want if it’s not
part of your life’s design, however deserving you may seem;
while someone else who is incompetent might get it, if it is
part of his life’s design. People might have their own takes
on this, but their views aren’t spiritually informed. As higher
beings see it, things in this world unfold according to higher
designs that are in place. So what a person gets to do in life
certainly isn’t going to be decided by how talented he is.
The Buddhist doctrine of karmic rewards and retribution
holds that the design of your life is based on your karma. So
even someone immensely talented might end up with noth-
ing in life if he doesn’t have much virtue. Yet a person who
seems incompetent may have a lot of virtue, and will thus
enjoy a position of influence or have great wealth. People
can’t ordinarily see all of this, and so they always think that
they should get whatever position or role they’re fit for. As
a result they spend their lives competing with others and end
up hurt, believing that life is painful and tiring; they never
know peace or contentment. These sorts of people are so
anxious they miss meals and lose sleep over it, and feel dis-
traught. And by the time they reach old age they will have
ruined their health and will suffer all sorts of ailments.

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 As people engaged in spiritual practice we have all the
more reason not to be like that. We believe in letting things
happen naturally. We know that we won’t be deprived of what
is rightfully ours, and shouldn’t labor to get what is not. But
not everything is completely set in stone, of course. And
that is what makes wrongdoing possible—the very fact that
some things may be subject to change. You, however, follow
Dafa, and so you needn’t worry about people taking what is
rightfully yours, for my spiritual bodies will be looking after
you in the normal course of events. So we believe in letting
things happen naturally. There might be instances where
something seems to be yours, and people might say so too,
and you believe it is yours, when in fact it’s not and in the end
it goes to someone else. From this it will be seen whether you
can let it go. If you cannot, it means that you have an attach-
ment. We use this approach to rid you of your worldly wants,
for that is what’s most important. Everyday people lack this
perspective and so they contend over things.
While jealousy can play out fiercely among regular folk,
it has always been quite prominent in the spiritual arena as
well. Different groups often show little respect to one another,
and seize upon one another’s faults. But often these combat-
ive people and their practices are only interested in health
and are a mess, since they came about due to entity attach-
ment; few of them see character as important. In some cases,
people who haven’t experienced any special abilities, even
after decades of practice, get worked up if they see a newcomer
get them. And so they’ll be dismissive about it. Or they might
even be irate about it, and claim that it’s the devil’s work or
that this person has gone mad. You also see people being dis-
missive about another person’s teachings, and they convince

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themselves that the person is nothing special and not worth
listening to. It’s true that the person may not speak in a way
that’s impressive, but that is because he is speaking strictly
about what his own practice entails. These naysayers, on the
other hand, might be people who study everything and have
long lists of credentials to show for it. They attend whatever
teachings are being given, and know a lot—perhaps more
than the figure at the podium. But what good does it do them?
All that knowledge of energy practices that they have is lim-
ited to merely the most basic, physical level. And they only
make things worse for themselves by taking in more teachings
and complicating their energy. This makes spiritual progress
less likely for them. They don’t understand that you need to
commit to one practice if you want to avoid problems. And
even among people who are sincere about spiritual practice,
you sometimes see people being disrespectful of one another.
It’s easy for jealousy to creep in if you are still competitive.
There’s an episode in the novel The Appointing of the Gods
that illustrates this. In one scene, the figure known as Honor-
able Divine of the Origin is choosing someone from among
his disciples for the honor of appointing new deities, and
selects one, named Jiang Ziya. The decision proves vexing
to another disciple, however, named Shen Gongbao. Shen
can’t believe it, since he views Jiang as old and inept, while
he himself is so powerful that he can sever his own head and
put it back on. Jealousy consumes him so badly that he con-
stantly makes trouble for Jiang.
Miraculous powers were part of early Buddhism, back in
the Buddha’s time. Yet nowadays almost nobody in Buddhism
openly talks about them for fear of seeming crazy. People
are dismissive of them. This happens because today’s monks

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 have little insight into these powers. Among the Buddha’s ten
main disciples, one monk, named Maudgalyāyana, was
known for having greater powers than all the others. And
among his female disciples the same was said to be true for
a woman named Uppalavannā. Similar figures emerged after
Buddhism came to China, with there being generations of
“eminent monks,” as they’ve been called. Bodhidharma him-
self was said to have miraculously crossed the Yangtze River
by floating on a single reed. Yet the idea of powers like these
has been cast aside with the march of history. The primary
reason is that the figures in positions of religious authority,
such as the priors, abbots, etc., are not necessarily the ones
with great innate foundations. The ranks they hold are merely
job titles in this world. They are still developing spiritually,
just like others, only for them practicing is a vocation. You
practice out in the world, by contrast, and in your spare
time. Yet whether one’s practice comes to fruition depends
on how much heart is put into it; this holds true for every-
one, and there is no way around it. There is nothing innately
inferior about a novice monk who tends the hearth or cooks
the meals at a monastery, and his hardships make it all the
more likely he will achieve spiritual enlightenment. Senior
monks, on the other hand, will find it all the harder to achieve
since they enjoy comfort and ease, and do fewer things that
would rework their karma. A novice monk leads a hard and
tiring life, which allows him to pay off karma and enlighten
more swiftly. Awakening might come to such a monk unex-
pectedly one day, and with it, even if not full enlightenment,
will come great powers. His brothers at the monastery will
seek his counsel and treat him with great respect. But this
might prove too much for the abbot, who would worry that

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someone like this undermines his authority. And so he will
be skeptical about the person’s enlightenment and write it off
as self-delusion, and perhaps even try to get him removed.
And he might even manage to. With time, it’s now come to
be that virtually no one in Chinese Buddhism openly dis-
cusses supernormal powers. Just consider what became of
the remarkable monk Ji-gong. His powers allowed him to
miraculously transport logs from Mt. E’mei to the well at
Ling-yin monastery, and then get them out of the well, one
by one. And yet in the end he was expelled from the monas-
tery [as a result of jealousy toward him].
Jealousy is a serious problem since it directly bears on
whether a person can achieve spiritual perfection. If you
can’t rid yourself of jealousy it will undermine all of the work
you have done on your character. There is a rule: anyone who
doesn’t free himself of jealousy while practicing cannot attain
true divine standing. No exceptions. You may have heard at
some point that Buddha Amitābha allows people to be reborn
into his paradise with karma. But that will not happen in the
case of jealousy. Those who fall short in some minor regard
or other may be able to carry on with spiritual practice after
being reborn there with karma, but not those who harbor
jealousy. Now that I’ve explained this to you, who are prac-
titioners, you really need to stop this folly. You must be free
of jealousy if you want to ever achieve real spiritual progress.
And it is for this reason that I’ve singled it out.

Healing
By bringing up this topic I don’t mean to suggest that I will

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teach you how to heal people. No true practitioner of Falun
Dafa would heal people. Were you to do that, all that has
been given to your body by Falun Dafa would promptly be
taken back by my spiritual bodies. The reason we take this
so seriously is that it violates Dafa and harms your body as
well. Some people just yearn to do more healings once they
have done some, and leap at the opportunity to show off. It is
clearly an attachment in that case and would severely hinder
one’s spiritual development.
Many false masters have preyed upon people’s tendency to
want to do healings after learning energy practices, and they
teach them how. They make outlandish claims such as that
you can heal someone by emitting your energy. But it’s not
even logical to think that one person could heal another just
by emitting energy, when the other party has energy in his or
her body as well. And who knows, their energy could even
end up healing you. One person’s ordinary energy can’t exert
influence over another’s. A person at more advanced stages of
practice develops higher energy, and what he or she emits at
that point is high-energy matter. It is something that can treat
and suppress disease, and have a controlling influence. But it
can’t uproot someone’s illness at the source. Certain powers
are needed in order to truly and thoroughly cure an illness.
There is a specific power for curing each illness that exists.
I can share that there are over a thousand such powers—as
many as there are illnesses. And without these powers, heal-
ing simply cannot be done, no matter how much of a show
some people might make of it.
Certain people have sown much confusion about heal-
ing among the spiritually inclined in recent years. Yet earlier
on, when the true pioneering teachers of energy practices

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like chi-gong and tai-chi were promoting health and wellness,
none of them gave instruction on how to do healings. They
would either heal you themselves or teach you how to practice
so that you could improve your health by exercising. Later on,
false masters came about and really confused things. Who-
ever wishes to do healings is bound to bring entity attachment
upon himself. So while there were authentic masters who
did healings, they did so only in keeping with larger cosmic
designs. But they were not using ordinary human means,
and so they couldn’t keep at it indefinitely. It was the result
of cosmic shifts that were happening and a product of the
times. So it was wrong for people later on to begin teaching
healing. No regular person could possibly gain the power to
heal after taking a class for just a few days. I can tell you that
whoever claims he can cure all sorts of illnesses is under the
influence of entity attachment, only he’s not aware that some-
thing has latched onto his back. But something has. And so
he mistakenly thinks that he is powerful and that it’s a good
thing that he can heal.
A true teacher must go through many years of grueling
spiritual discipline before he or she can accomplish something
like healing. Yet some people go about doing healings with-
out ever pausing to consider whether they have the powers
necessary to rid people of their karma, or how it’s possible
to do healing without having received the kind of authentic
instruction normally required. And yet somehow they think
that they can heal after just a few days of classes, using just
their ordinary hands. False masters exploit these kinds of
attachments and flawed thinking. That yearning to heal is
an attachment, isn’t it? And so they’re happy to offer classes
on healing, with fancy protocols and sophisticated names for

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 what they do, ranging from the “energy needle” to the “illu-
mination method,” to “expulsion” and “supplementation,” to
“pressing vital points” and the “single grabbing method.” In
each case their motive is to make money off you.
Let’s talk about what’s being called the “single grabbing
method,” as an example. In our observation, the deeper reason
people fall ill or experience misfortune is karma—a field of
black matter. It is negative, or yin, by nature and something
bad. Evil entities are yin natured as well, and dark, and they
can enter a person’s body when conditions suit them. And
they are the root cause of the ailments that people suffer, the
main source of illness. But there are also two other ways that
illness comes about. One involves extremely small, negative
entities that are high in density and resemble clumps of karma.
The other, which is less common but does exist, is where it is
piped in from one’s ancestors.
Let’s look at some of the more common problems, such as
tumors, inflammation, and bone spurs. In another dimension,
deeper than this one, there is a negative entity at the site of
the ailment. Yet it can’t be perceived with typical extrasensory
powers or by most teachers; they can only see dark energy
in one’s body. And while they are right about illness residing
wherever they see dark energy, that energy is not the root
cause of the ailment. Rather, it is the negative entity in another,
deeper dimension; the dark energy is merely the field that it
exudes. People sometimes claim that they can expel and purge
bad energy, but even if they can, the dark field will quickly
regenerate afterwards. In some cases the entity involved is
powerful, and no sooner does someone purge its field than
it pulls it back. It has the capacity to draw the energy back.
So treatments that are only superficial don’t work.

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 Sickness, as seen with extrasensory powers, resides where
there is dark energy present. As viewed by Chinese medicine,
the energy channels, or “meridians,” of the body are blocked
at that place, and energy and blood are failing to pass through;
i.e., the channels have been clogged up. As viewed by West-
ern medicine, the place presents an ulcer, tumor, bone spur,
inflammation, etc., and those are the forms that it takes in
this dimension. If one can manage to knock out the nega-
tive entity that’s behind the condition, the body here in this
dimension will be problem-free. The ailment will instantly
vanish once the entity has been taken out and the field is
cleared, regardless of what the issue may have been—includ-
ing for a herniated disc or bone spur. An X-ray will confirm
that it’s resolved. The root cause is the entity and what it does.
Some claim that you can do healings after just a few days
of learning, and offer to instruct you in things like the “single
grabbing method.” I’m not exactly convinced. A human being
is very weak compared to a formidable negative entity. An
entity like that can control your brain, easily play tricks on
you, and even end your life with little effort. It’s far-fetched
to think that you could grab one of those. Your human hands
can’t so much as touch them. You might flail your hands
all around, trying to grab one, only to have it ignore you or
even laugh at you. Your random grabbing would be comical
to it. And even if you were to actually reach it, your hands
might be instantly hurt, and seriously so. I have seen people
whose hands were lame, though doctors couldn’t find any-
thing wrong with them. Yet their hands just dangled there,
lifeless. I have met people like this. What happened was that
their bodies in other dimensions were injured, resulting in
genuine paralysis here. An injury to those bodies does indeed

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result in paralysis, as you might imagine. I’ve been asked
by people who had a sterilization procedure done or had
something surgically removed whether they can still do this
practice. I always assure them that that’s of no consequence,
since your bodies in other dimensions didn’t undergo the
procedure, and those bodies are what’s involved when we
practice. So, back to what I was saying, that negative entity
won’t care if you can’t reach it; but if you can, it might well
injure your hands.
I twice brought practitioners with me to participate in
the Asian Health Expo in Beijing to lend support to these
national-level activities that had to do with energy practice.
Our group really stood out both times. At the first expo we
attended, our Falun Dafa was honored as the “Star chi-gong
School.” At the second there were more people approach-
ing us than we could handle. Our booth was crowded with
people, in contrast to others. Three lines were formed. The
first had registered at the outset for morning treatments. The
second was waiting to register for afternoon slots. And the
last was waiting for my autograph. You might wonder why
we were giving treatments, since that’s not something we do.
We joined in the expo and did that in order to support what
was a large, national event related to energy practices, and
to do our part for the cause.
I allotted a portion of my gong energy to each of my stu-
dents who came with me to the expo; they each received
a mass of energy composed of over a hundred powers. And
though I sealed their hands, some were still bitten, with
blisters and bleeding, and this happened regularly. That’s how
fierce those entities were. Then would you really want to
catch them with your human hands? Even if you tried, you

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wouldn’t be able to grab them without having the powers
needed. The reason is, they know from another dimension
what you are thinking and will flee even before you make your
first move, only to return right after you’ve finished treating
the person. And so the ailment returns. You need a specific
power to deal with that kind of thing, such that you can pin
it down right then and there when you extend your hand.
And then you need another power, one tremendously strong,
known as the “great way of soul extraction,” to pull the enti-
ty’s soul out of the body and immobilize it. This power is
meant for use with specific targets, and that’s what we used
at the expo. You might be familiar with the story of how the
Monkey King, who was full-sized, was shrunk down by the
Buddha when he aimed his bowl at him. This power is capa-
ble of doing that. Any entity, big or small, will be shrunk the
moment it’s grasped in the hand.
Another thing is, it’s not an option to extend your hand
into the physical body of someone ailing and take something
out. To see something like that would be far too jarring for
people, and so it’s forbidden, even if possible. What is done
when using the single grabbing method is to extend the hand
of another dimension into the ailing person. Suppose the
affected person has heart disease. When one reaches toward
the heart to seize the problematic entity, it is the hand in
another dimension that enters. And instantly, at an extraor-
dinary speed, it will seize that negative entity there. When the
hand in the outer dimension grabs, the two hands [of differing
dimensions] come together, and the entity is seized. Those
things are fierce, though, and sometimes they will flail about
once grabbed and burrow into the hand, biting or screaming.
And small as it is while trapped in the hand, it will return to

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its original size if released. It’s not something that just anyone
can tackle; none of this is possible without the necessary
power for it. Doing this kind of healing is nowhere near as
simple as people might imagine.
Of course, this form of treatment might still be allowed in
the future, as in the past. But restrictions would apply. The
person using it would have to be someone on the spiritual
path and be using it out of compassion. And it could only be
used on a few good people. But whoever used it wouldn’t be
able to fully dissolve the karma that’s involved, as his spiri-
tual powers would fall short. So the person’s hardship would
still be present; it would just be that the physical ailment
was done away with. Your typical, lesser energy healer is not
exactly someone who has achieved divinity, and all he can do
is to postpone people’s ailments or change them into other
forms of adversity. And he might not even realize he has done
so, since it would most likely be done by his subconscious.
Many acclaimed spiritual figures or teachers don’t have higher
energy, since it went to the bodies of their secondary souls.
The only reason they can do healings throughout their lives is
that they go for years, or even decades, without ever making
much spiritual progress themselves. They are allowed to do
healings because their practice remains at the same, limited
stage. Those who practice Falun Dafa, however, are strictly
forbidden from healing others. You can read this book to
someone who is sick if you wish, and he might be healed if
he’s receptive to it. But the results will vary according to how
much karma the person has.

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Modern Medicine
and Energy Healing
Let’s look at two modes of treatment side by side: those of
modern medicine and energy healing. Most doctors of West-
ern medicine don’t consider energy healing to be valid. They
reason that we should be seeing hospitals getting replaced
by centers for energy healing if it really is all that people
make it out to be—with people miraculously using just
their bare hands to heal, and not resorting to injections,
drugs, or inpatient services. But that argument is based on
a misunderstanding of energy healing, and it doesn’t hold up.
The fact is that energy healing isn’t going to resemble normal
modes of treatment, since it’s not an ordinary means. It is
a higher means. And as you can imagine, higher things are
not allowed to intrude upon the secular world in any sizeable
way. It’s akin to why divine beings don’t wipe out the diseases
of mankind when it would take them but a wave of the hand,
and it’s fully doable. You would think that at least one of them
would do so, simply out of mercy, given all the higher beings
there are. But they don’t. And that’s because the human con-
dition is what it is, and birth, aging, sickness, and death are
simply a fact of life. There are karmic reasons behind each
of these; the debts that people have incurred have to be paid.
Were you to heal someone it would amount to violating
that law. You would be allowing the person to get out of
paying for his wrongdoings, which is a problem. Spiritual
adherents might be allowed to do basic healings if they are
moved to do so by compassion and their powers can’t fully
resolve the issue. But it has to be on grounds of compassion.

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And even those who do have the power to actually resolve
people’s problems wouldn’t be permitted to do so on a large
scale. That would be a major breach of the human condition,
which is not allowed. So we can see why energy healing will
never manage to supplant the regular methods used in hos-
pitals; it is a higher means.
Some people in China may have imagined something like
a hospital dedicated to energy healing being set up, staffed
by accomplished healers. But it would never work out, even
if it were logistically possible. That’s because higher beings
will always ensure that the human condition isn’t undone. So
even if a hospital for energy healing were to be established,
or even if energy healing clinics, centers, and resorts were set
up, the effectiveness of the healers’ treatments would drop
significantly. The reason is that they would be acting in the
secular world, and so their effectiveness wouldn’t be greater
than that of regular treatments; it would have to be in keeping
with the human condition. The effectiveness would need to
be on par with that of the treatments used in hospitals. This
is why the medical use of energy healing typically doesn’t go
very well and multiple rounds of treatment are needed.
But even if hospitals for energy healing aren’t feasible,
there’s no denying that energy practices can lead to healing.
Energy practices like chi-gong have been popular in China
for years, and a large number of people really have managed
to gain wellness through them. People’s ailments have dis-
appeared, even if they were just postponed by a healer or
by whatever means. There’s no denying that energy healing
can work. Most people who seek out healers have compli-
cated and difficult conditions that conventional medicine
couldn’t remedy. So they seek out an accomplished healer to

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try their luck and, much to their surprise, the problem gets
resolved. Generally people wouldn’t seek out an energy healer
if conventional means could deal with it. Healers used to be
seen mainly as a fallback. But the point still holds that energy
healing can be effective. The difference is that it can’t be used
in the same manner as conventional approaches. It is prohib-
ited from having a broader impact on society. It can only be
utilized on a small scale and without much influence, with
people quietly going about it. So while it does work, you can
be sure that it isn’t healing on a deeper level. The best way
to address your ailment is to put in the time to do an energy
practice yourself.
There are some energy healers who claim that conventional
medicine doesn’t do much and has limited effectiveness. It’s a
complicated issue they raise. There are naturally many reasons
for why that might be the case, if you ask me. As I see it, the
principal one is humanity’s moral decline. This is what has led
to the emergence of all sorts of unusual diseases that medical
means can’t treat and that drugs are ineffective against, as well
as the proliferation of counterfeit drugs—which doesn’t help
things at all. These problems reflect the terrible state of the
world today, which man has brought about. Everyone has had
a part in it, so you shouldn’t try to pin the blame on anyone.
And this is why whoever gives spiritual practice a go will
meet with ordeals.
In some cases doctors can’t identify what’s wrong with
someone, though the person really is sick. In other cases they
might figure out what’s wrong, but don’t know what to call it,
since the ailment is altogether novel. The medical profession
categorizes these as “modern diseases.” This doesn’t mean
that conventional medicine isn’t capable of curing disease, of

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course. It can. People would lose confidence in it otherwise
and avoid it. So it can heal people. It’s merely that its methods
of treatment are at the human level, while people’s diseases
reach beyond—with some being downright serious. And this
is why doctors emphasize early detection; once an ailment
progresses too far it can’t be dealt with. At high doses, pharma-
ceuticals can be toxic. The level of today’s medical treatments
is the same as that of modern technology, with both being on
the human plane. And so their effectiveness is limited. Some-
thing that should be clarified is that the usual means of energy
healing and medical treatments only serve to postpone some-
one’s underlying ordeal, which is the source of his suffering.
It gets delayed until a later time in the person’s life or even
further off, without the karma being addressed in any way.
Let’s revisit the topic of Chinese medicine. Chinese med-
icine is similar to energy healing. In ancient China many
physicians had extrasensory powers, be it Sun Simiao, Hua
Tuo, Li Shizhen, or Bian Que. The annals of medicine tes-
tify to the powers of these accomplished medical scientists.
Yet today those powers of theirs, which were the best of the
practice, often meet with cynicism. It turns out that Chinese
medicine has preserved only the herbal formulas and clinical
experiences of the past. Yet back in ancient China it was quite
advanced—even more so than the medical science of our
day. Some people may tout how advanced medicine is now,
with its CT scans that can see inside the body, ultrasounds,
imaging, and X-rays. And today’s facilities are indeed cutting
edge. But in my opinion they have yet to match the medical
science of ancient China.
Consider that the physician Hua Tuo was able to perceive
that there was a tumor on the brain of a minister named Tsao

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Tsao, and sought to open up his skull to remove it. Tsao mis-
took it for a plot to kill him, and had Hua imprisoned, where
he eventually passed away. Tsao later did have symptoms of
a tumor, and sought out Hua, but it was too late; Hua had
passed away. And in the end the condition claimed Tsao’s life.
So what Hua saw was real. He had an extrasensory power
that people are capable of, one that the great physicians of
yesteryear had at their disposal. With their powers of seeing
they could perceive all four sides of the human body from
just one side, looking from the front and seeing the back,
left, and right. And they could even see the body layer by
layer, slice by slice, and see beyond this dimension to the
root cause of an illness. Modern medicine is far from being
able to match that; it could take another millennium. CT
scans, ultrasounds, and X-rays can see inside the body, but
the equipment involved is large and terribly unwieldy. And
without electricity it simply doesn’t work. The inner eye, by
contrast, goes with you everywhere and doesn’t rely on elec-
tricity. There’s no comparison.
Some people extol the virtues of modern pharmaceuticals,
but these may be no better in fact. The herbal medicine of
ancient China was very effective. While many formulas have
been lost over the centuries, a good number haven’t been and
are still in use. I remember how when I was in the northeast-
ern city of Qiqihar to give a class, I spotted a street vendor who
was offering to pull bad teeth. I could tell at first glance that
he was from the South, as he didn’t dress like a northeasterner.
He wouldn’t turn anybody away and would pull teeth for
whoever approached him. He had there a whole pile of teeth
that he had pulled. His goal wasn’t to pull teeth but to sell his
herbal tincture, which emitted a thick yellow vapor. When

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he wanted to pull a tooth, he would uncap the bottle and
place it against the person’s cheek at the spot where the bad
tooth was, and have him or her suck in several mouthfuls of
the tincture’s yellow vapor. Little of the tincture was used up
in the process. Then he would cap the bottle and set it aside.
Next he would take out a matchstick from his pocket, and
while singing the praises of his medicine, flick the matchstick
against the tooth and pop it out. It didn’t cause any pain and
there would be just a few flecks of blood, with no bleeding.
Just imagine it: he was extracting teeth with something as
fragile as a matchstick.
I would say that Western medicine’s precision instruments
are no match for some of the folk remedies handed down in
China. Just compare the results each gets. On the one side we
have a man who could pull teeth with just a matchstick. While
with Western medicine, by contrast, you first need injections
of anesthetics, which tend to hurt an awful lot. You then have
to wait for the anesthetics to set in, and then it’s time for the
forceps. The dentist has to do a lot of pulling, and if things
go wrong, the tooth’s root will remain lodged in the gums.
Then he will have to take out the hammer and chisel to chip
it out, and the process is enough to strike fear into your heart.
Then he brings out the precision instruments for drilling, and
it hurts so much that your body might jerk in response. You
bleed a great deal and have to spit out mouthfuls of blood.
So, which approach would you say is better? And which is
more advanced? Things shouldn’t be judged by their appear-
ances—like the tools in these two scenarios. What should be
looked at is the results. The medicine of ancient China was
very advanced, and Western medicine isn’t likely to catch up
with it anytime soon.

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 The science of ancient China was different from modern
science, which comes from the West. It took a different course
and brought about a very different mode of life. It’s not appro-
priate to judge ancient China’s science and technology with
today’s ways of looking at things, for the science of ancient
China went a different route, honing in on how the body, life,
and universe work together. Meditation and good posture
were part of one’s education, and when writing, people were
mindful of their breathing and directed energy to different
areas of the body. And in each of the trades and professions
people sought to empty the mind and breathe properly. This
was simply the way of things throughout society.
People have questioned whether we would have cars and
trains as we do today if we had gone with the science of
ancient China; they believe modernization wouldn’t have
been possible. I would respond that it’s not appropriate to
judge a different way of life based on one’s own, present cir-
cumstances; an accurate assessment is only possible with
a drastic shift in thinking and concepts. Perhaps in a world
without televisions you would have unimagined powers, such
as being able to see whatever you wish through your own
forehead. Or in a world without trains and cars, you might
have the ability to levitate as you sit, without the help of a lift.
Taking a different scientific course would result in the world
being a different place, one perhaps quite different from the
world around us. The UFOs of extraterrestrial beings travel at
unbelievable speeds and have the ability to enlarge or shrink.
The course they have taken is even more radically divergent,
as it involves an altogether different approach to science.

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 the
eighth talk

Inedia*
i have been asked about the topic of inedia (bi-gu), or
“living without food and drink.” There is such a thing, and
it’s not unique to those leading the religious life or devotees
of chi-gong. A good number of people throughout the world
have experienced it, with some going years or even decades
without food or drink, and have been just fine. Much has
been said about the phenomenon, from it being an indica-
tor of spiritual progress or purification to it being a part of
advanced practice.
But it’s none of the above. Inedia is simply a special method
of practice that’s adopted under certain circumstances. This
takes some explaining. Many who renounced the world
in ancient China did spiritual practice in secrecy or isola-
tion; this was in the days before religious institutions had
come about. They might have gone deep into the woods or
have found a cave in which to practice, and would separate

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themselves from the world. And so having a source of food
naturally posed a problem. Without inedia they wouldn’t have
been able to carry out their practice, and would have faced
death from starvation or dehydration. I still recall seeing caves
used for these purposes when I was traveling eastward down
the Yangtze River, heading from Chongqing to Wuhan to give
a teaching; the caves were situated midway up the cliffs in
the Three Gorges area. Many of China’s most famed moun-
tains have similar caves. People would lower themselves into
caves like these with a rope and then sever it, committing
themselves to practicing inside. Death awaited them if they
didn’t succeed at it. So it was only in the exceptional circum-
stance of having no food or water that the special approach
of inedia was used.
There are many practices that have been passed down from
those times and that contain an element of inedia, but there
are many that don’t. The latter is the case for most practices
that are now taught publicly. We believe that you should
commit to one practice and not just do whatever suits your
fancy. If you’re someone who thinks highly of inedia and are
hoping to experience it, then you would do well to exam-
ine your motives. There could be a range of motives at work,
from admiring it to being tempted by curiosity, to wanting it
because it would give you a sense of achievement as well as
a way to show off. Even if it were to be used in your practice,
you would still have to consume your own energy to sustain
yourself, which wouldn’t be worth it. And of course it’s not
even necessary now in this era of organized religion; now
there are people who will furnish you with food and drink if
you are on a spiritual retreat or practicing in a monastery or
convent. And nourishment is even less of a concern for those

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of us who practice in the regular world. There is simply no
need for inedia then. And besides, people shouldn’t freely add
it into their practice if it’s not part of it. But if you really want
to experience it, then you might as well go ahead and look for
a practice that includes it. To my knowledge, a person typi-
cally experiences inedia when he is being authentically guided
by a teacher to a higher stage of practice and it is part of that
practice’s heritage. But it would not be something shared with
the public. Inedia usually happens when a disciple is some-
where secluded and being guided in secrecy.
With spiritual figures now teaching inedia to members
of the general public, you might wonder whether anyone
has succeeded at it. No one has in the end—none. But many
have ended up in the hospital and at risk, from what I’ve
seen. Hearing this might be confusing, as I just explained that
inedia is for real. But you have to bear in mind that the human
condition mustn’t be undermined or tampered with. Imagine
if all of the health enthusiasts nationwide, or even just all the
residents in a major city like Changchun, no longer needed
to eat or drink thanks to inedia. It would definitely make life
easier! Nobody would need to go through the hassle of pre-
paring meals anymore, and no one would have to labor in
the fields; people would be able to just go about their busi-
ness with no need for eating. But that would be wrong, as it
would be changing the face of the world. It would never be
allowed to happen. Nothing that upsets the world so dra-
matically is allowed.
Many people are put at risk when certain individuals teach
inedia. Problems come up when they are set on experiencing
it but still attached to food and many other things. Once they
start inedia it’s going to be tough when they see tasty food

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that stirs up their appetite, but which they can’t eat. They will
get anxious and want to eat. And they will feel starved if they
don’t. Yet if they do try to eat, they will throw up, and find
that nothing stays down. So it’s both frightening and unset-
tling. Many people have ended up hospitalized this way and
really been at risk. I have had people come to me hoping that
I would clean up these messes for them, but I am hesitant
to get involved. Nobody would want to clean up the messes
that certain teachers have recklessly made.
Another thing people should know is that the problems
they run into with inedia are in fact of their own making.
We do believe there is such a thing as inedia, but it’s by no
means some kind of higher spiritual state that comes about
at advanced stages of practice, or a marker of progress. It is
merely a special method of practice that’s adopted under spe-
cial circumstances, and it’s not something to be popularized.
Yet many seek to experience it, and it’s even believed that there
are different types of it, with it being classified into things
like “full-on” versus “partial” inedia. And so you have people
who will tell you that they consume fluids or fruit as part of it.
But that doesn’t amount to true inedia, and over time those
approaches surely won’t prove sustainable. Instances of true
inedia have occurred when people who were deeply commit-
ted in their faith or practice settled into an isolated spot, like
a mountain cave, and went without food and drink altogether.

Stealing Energy
Many people find the hearsay that surrounds energy practices
so unsettling that they want nothing to do with them; they

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are scared away by the possibility of someone stealing their
energy or of even losing their sanity. We might expect that
more people would be practicing if it weren’t for all of the
hearsay. Part of what has made things so confusing and murky
is that there are teachers of energy practices who have poor
character and who teach things like stealing people’s energy.
But this shouldn’t be as frightening as it may sound. As we see
it, the kind of energy they take, called chi, doesn’t amount to
much, even if people call it fancy names like “primal energy.”
Anyone who still has chi in his or her body is merely at the
stage of practicing for health, and has yet to make real spir-
itual progress. The presence of chi indicates that the person
has not reached a high degree of bodily purity, and he or she
is sure to have sick energy. Those who steal chi from people
are at the low level of chi in their practice, and anyone who
really knows what they’re doing would never want to take
impure energy from another person. The chi of people who
don’t practice is cloudy and impure, as it turns out, and the
only way for them to make their energy brighter and clearer
and remedy things is by doing an energy practice like chi-gong.
Once the energy becomes clearer, it will be evident that there
are large, dense masses of dark energy in their bodies wher-
ever they have a disease or ailment. Practicing on a regular
basis will gradually turn one’s chi to a subtle shade of yellow
as the body becomes genuinely healthy and strong. And
with further practice, there will no longer be chi in the body
and one will become truly free of disease, and experience
what’s referred to as a “milk-white” body.
What this suggests is that you won’t be free from dis-
ease if you still have chi. Chi serves no purpose for us since
we do true spiritual practice and need to purify our bodies.

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It would make no sense to try and take impure chi from people.
Whoever wants chi is at the level of chi, and wouldn’t have the
capacity to tell good energy from bad. Nor would they have
the power to remove the true primal energy that is present in
your body’s energy center, as only someone with exceptional
powers could remove that. So if someone wants to steal any
impure chi that’s in your body, you might as well let them.
There’s nothing great about it. I used to find, back when I was
practicing, that chi really wasn’t anything special, as I could
fill my abdomen with it at just the thought of it.
Daoist practice often incorporates things like holding spe-
cial stances, while Buddhist ones often use the hands to chan-
nel chi into the head. There’s enough chi in the universe for
someone to spend all day channeling it in, and that’s possible
to do once the acupoints known as the Palace of Toil and
Hundred Convergences have been opened. A person can
use his hands to channel chi if he focuses his mind on the
body’s energy center, and in no time he will be filled with it.
But that still doesn’t accomplish anything, no matter how
much is stored up. Nor do I see anything impressive about
accounts of people who harness so much chi that they can
feel their fingertips or bodies swelling with it—even if others
might be wowed when they sense chi emanating from them,
since it’s thought to be a sign of achievement. But these people
don’t have any higher energy. Their practice is still on the
order of ordinary energy, and no amount of that is a substitute
for the higher kind known as gong. The goal of practicing
with chi is to purify the body by replacing the chi inside of
it with better chi from outside of it. So simply storing it up
doesn’t achieve much. At the chi level of practice a person
has yet to undergo fundamental changes, so no higher energy

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is involved. A person can steal as much chi as he’d like and
still amount to nothing more than a big bag of energy. So
it’s meaningless. The chi isn’t being changed into high-energy
matter, after all. This means that you can set your fears aside
and not worry about energy being stolen from you.
Bear in mind that as long as your body has chi in it there
will be sickness present. So if someone steals chi from you, he
will be taking sick energy from you in the process. He has no
way to tell the two apart, since whoever wants chi is operating
at the level of ordinary energy and isn’t all that powerful; he
surely wouldn’t be interested in chi if he had higher energy.
A simple experiment would bear this out, if there’s any doubt.
What you would do, would be to simply allow whoever really
wants to steal your chi to do so. You could have him stand
behind you and steal your chi, while you visualize your body
being filled with chi from the universe. This would turn out
to be great for you, as the other person would only accelerate
your body’s purification and save you the trouble of having to
move your arms up and down to flush the chi through your
body. And since it would be bad intentions that drove him to
take your chi, and he would be stealing from you—even if he
was stealing something bad—it would cost him virtue, which
would go to you. Nobody would think of doing that if they
knew what was going on: that they were giving you virtue
in another dimension while taking your chi, and forming an
exchange loop between the two of you, as it were.
The faces of those who steal chi tend to look unwell. This
is only to be expected, given the poor physical health of
their targets, who are typically out in public doing practices
like chi-gong or tai-chi to try to get healthy. Those who steal
chi don’t understand that sick energy needs to be expelled

325
from the body for the body to become healthy. What they are
doing is filling their bodies with all manner of unhealthy chi
that they’ve stolen, and it turns even the insides of their bodies
terribly dark. And if they squander their virtue enough, they
will also look dark on the outside. Their karmic field expands
while their virtue shrinks, turning their bodies dark, inside
and out. People wouldn’t steal chi if they realized what they
were doing to their bodies or that they were foolishly giving
away their virtue.
Some of the claims that are made about chi come across
as a bit incredible. For example, it’s been claimed that chi can
travel through walls and be projected from here all the way to
America. But even if certain individuals, who are sensitive, can
tell that energy did travel to them from afar, it doesn’t mean
much. The energy would have traveled in another dimension,
not this one, and there may have been no barriers along the
way for it to go through. And by the same token, this explains
why sometimes people don’t sense anything when chi is sent
to them across an open expanse: it’s because a barrier was
present in another dimension, in that case. So this suggests
that the penetrative power of regular energy isn’t as great as
people sometimes claim.
Higher energy, or gong, is what’s really powerful. Those
who can project higher energy no longer have chi; what they
emit is a type of high-energy matter. When seen through
the inner eye it appears as light. It gives a sensation of heat
when projected onto the body and can keep a regular per-
son’s illnesses at bay. It can’t fully heal people, however, in the
absence of higher powers, as every ailment requires a specific
power to heal it; higher energy by itself can only suppress
illness. But each particle of it assumes the image of its host

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on a deeper, micro level. It is alive, has its own intelligence,
and can tell one person from another since it is a form of
higher energy. So if someone wanted to steal it from you, that
would never work out; the energy belongs to you and so it
wouldn’t cooperate. And besides, a true student of spiritual
practice who has higher energy will have a teacher looking
after him, and no teacher would ever let anyone take energy
like that.

Amassing Chi
Stealing chi and amassing chi aren’t topics I would normally go
into when teaching an advanced practice. I’m discussing them
because I want to help restore the reputation of energy prac-
tices and do something good by calling out these unhealthy
things, which nobody has done. My hope is that by exposing
them, people will stop doing these awful things and those
who are uninformed won’t be scared away by it all.
Chi is abundant in the universe, be it the “positive (yang)
chi” of the heavens, as it’s called, or the “negative (yin) chi”
of the earth. People are every bit a part of this universe and
are welcome to take in its chi as they please. Yet some people
don’t do that, and instead are always teaching people to
take chi from plants, and sharing their supposed findings,
like how the poplar tree’s chi is white and the pine tree’s is
yellow, or how and when to take it from them. Someone once
even boasted that the tree in front of his house died after he
drew chi from it. But how is that something to brag about?
Wasn’t that something bad that he did? As we’ve established,
in true practice you want positive things, and to become

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 one with the universe’s qualities. Then it follows logically
that you should try to be kind and compassionate (shan).
You have to make a practice of this if you want to become
one with the universe’s qualities of zhen, shan, ren. And this
is why people who often do wrongful things never develop
higher energy or get their health back. So what that person
did is the exact opposite of what a practitioner should do. It
amounts to taking life and doing wrong, after all. It might
seem that I’m stretching credibility to say that felling trees or
taking a creature’s life counts as killing, but that is the truth.
Just consider the Buddhist teachings on reincarnation, which
hold that a plant could well be the reincarnation of a human
being. While we won’t go into such things here, we can say
that trees are alive and even endowed with advanced cogni-
tive abilities.
A telling case is the work of an American polygraph
researcher who instructs people in the use of lie detectors.
One day he was struck by an impulse to connect the two
electrodes of a polygraph to a dracaena plant. He did so and
proceeded to water the plant. Afterwards he witnessed the lie
detector’s needle rapidly drawing a curve—exactly the type
of curve seen when the human brain is momentarily excited
or happy. He was amazed, thinking, “Could it be that plants
have feelings?” He practically wanted to shout in the streets,
“Plants have feelings!” The episode inspired him to do a lot
of research in this area and many experiments.
On one occasion he placed two plants next to each other
and had a student of his stomp on one of them and destroy
it, right in front of the other one. He then removed the sur-
viving plant to another room and connected a lie detector
to it. Next he had five students enter the room in succession.

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There was no reaction from the plant as the first four students
entered the room. But when the fifth student—the one who
had crushed the plant—entered, before he even got close to
the surviving plant, the needle of the lie detector immedi-
ately and rapidly drew a line that in humans is specifically
associated with fright. It was a great surprise to the researcher
and raised profound questions, since it had always been held
that only advanced life forms like human beings are capable
of identifying things and making distinctions, due to their
sensory organs, and are capable of analysis on account of
their brains. People at one time were even accused of pseudo-
science for claiming that plants have senses, thoughts and
feelings, or can identify people. And yet here was a plant
recognizing people and telling them apart, which would sug-
gest that plants do have senses. And there have been other
discoveries, still more incredible, that imply that plants even
surpass modern man in some ways.
One day this same researcher connected a lie detector
to a plant and wondered to himself, “What kind of experi-
ment should I do? I know, I’ll burn its leaves and see what its
reaction is.” With just that thought, before doing any actual
burning, the needle of the lie detector started to rapidly draw
a curve—the kind of curve seen in human beings when they
are in distress and crying for help. This type of supersensory
ability, known as “telepathy,” is a latent human function and
innate ability, only it has been lost with humanity’s decline.
It’s now something that can only be had when a person recov-
ers his or her original purity through spiritual practice. And
yet here was a plant with these powers. While it might sound
far-fetched, findings like this have been borne out by real and
actual scientific experiments. The person I was describing

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carried out a range of experiments, including some that
involved telekinesis. When his findings were published they
caused quite a stir internationally.
Botanists around the world as well as in our country have
since taken up research in this area, and such ideas are no
longer dismissed as pseudoscience. As I’ve indicated, the
things that man has discovered, observed, and invented are
grounds enough to warrant rewriting the established scientific
literature. But old beliefs die hard, and so there is reluctance
about acknowledging such things, and nobody has attempted
to systematically piece them all together.
I once saw a grove of dead pine trees in a park in north-
eastern China. A group of people had been practicing some
kind of chi-gong there, where they would roll about on the
ground and then use their hands and feet to take in chi, and
in a short span of time the grove of pines had withered and
died. It could hardly be said that they were doing something
good. A real practitioner would consider that to be killing.
If you are a practitioner, you have to change your bad traits
and become a good person who strives to live by the qualities
of the universe. Even in the eyes of a non-practitioner what
those people were doing in the park wouldn’t be considered
good. It was damaging to public property, undermining the
city’s greening efforts, and ecologically harmful. It wasn’t good
by any measure. They could have just helped themselves to
the universe’s abundant supply of chi instead. When some
people reach a certain stage in their practice, they may have
the power to take in the chi of a large swath of shrubs and trees
with just a swipe of the hand. But all they are getting is chi,
and no amount of it will do them much good. Some people
go to parks for the sole purpose of amassing chi, and figure

330
that they don’t need to do any systematic energy exercises,
since they can get chi by waving their arms about as they stroll
around. They are content to just get chi since they mistake
it for something it’s not, i.e., higher energy. You might sense
cold emanating from the body of someone who does that, if
you go near him or her, since the chi of plants that they’ve
stored up is negatively charged (yin) by nature. Those who
do energy practices normally seek to balance negative (yin)
and positive (yang) energies in the body, whereas the people
I’ve been describing feel good about what they are doing even
when it leads to their smelling like pine oil.

The One Who Practices Achieves

There is an extremely important feature of spiritual practice
that I want to reveal: that the one who actually does the prac-
tice is the one who gains the achievement. And this is another
regard in which Falun Dafa is unique, among several. One, as
I’ve mentioned, is that our practice has managed to reduce
the time that you need to do exercises for, and alleviated any
possible time shortage; this is done by having energy mech-
anisms work upon you. Another is that our physical bodies
undergo dramatic changes, since ours is an authentic prac-
tice of mind and body. Then there is Falun Dafa’s greatest fea-
ture, which only now, for the first time ever, am I disclosing.
I hadn’t revealed it before because it involves something major
and that goes far back in history, and has significant bearing
on those engaged in the religious life or spiritual discipline.
Nobody has ever disclosed it, nor were they allowed to. Yet
I have no alternative but to tell you.

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 Some of my students feel that with almost every sentence
I am revealing the great mysteries of life for them. However,
it’s not that I am freely divulging things. What we are doing
is saving people from this world by guiding them to greater
spiritual heights, and that entails taking responsibility for
them, which I can do. Haphazardly disclosing life’s mysteries
would, of course, amount to freely divulging them. What
I want to make clear today is this: the spiritual achievement
goes to the one who practices. Yet in my observation, all
methods of practice now known to us, whatever tradition or
lineage they may be, have historically been working on the
secondary soul (the subconscious mind), and the fruits of
spiritual labor have always gone to it alone. By contrast, what
we call the “true” soul refers to your conscious mind—the
mind through which you are aware of what you are thinking
or doing. And it is this mind that truly represents you. But
what a secondary soul does is always unknown to you. And
although it was born at the same time as you, has the same
name, presides over the same body, and looks like you, it is
not you in a strict sense.
It is a law of the universe that whoever bears the costs of
effort should reap the rewards, and this holds true in spir-
itual practice. For centuries it has been taught that during
meditation or spiritual contemplation one should set aside
all awareness of one’s surroundings, blunting all thought,
and becoming altogether lost in a state of trance or rapture.
Three hours pass for some people in what seems like no time
as they meditate or engage in contemplation, and they might
be admired for their focus. But nobody, themselves included,
has ever realized that they were not the ones in fact practicing.
A telling example is that of Daoist disciplines, where it has

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 been taught that the “knowing soul” is to die and the “orig-
inal soul” be born. But what they refer to as the “knowing
soul” is what we call the “true soul,” and what they mean by
“original soul” we call the “secondary soul.” Were your know-
ing soul really to die you would in fact perish, for your true
soul would be dead. Someone from another practice once
told me that when he practices he lets his mind go, to the
extent that even the family members at hand aren’t familiar to
him. Another person told me that he doesn’t have to practice
hard like others do, at dawn or late into the night, since all
he has to do is recline on the couch when he gets home and
go out of his body to practice, and he can just watch himself
practicing as he lies there. I felt sorry for him to some extent.
But why would others save the secondary soul? The Daoist
saint Lü Dongbin once stated, “I’d rather save an animal’s soul
than a human being’s.” And it really is hard to get people to
spiritually awaken, for the average person is under the spell
of ignorance here and finds it hard not to be selfish. Believe
it or not, some people will lapse into worldly ways as soon
as this class is over and they are back out in the world, and
they might not put up with it if someone provokes them
or pushes their buttons. And with time they will no longer
regard themselves as practitioners. Many spiritual figures in
the past realized that man is hard to save, for his true soul is
terribly lost. Some people do have good discernment, though,
and will recognize the wisdom in what someone may say.
And yet others, no matter how you explain spiritual things
to them, still disbelieve and think you are making things
up. People like that lapse into their old ways once they are
back in an ordinary setting after these classes, despite our
best efforts to get them to work on their character. Worldly

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things seem very much real, tangible, and attainable to them,
and they can’t pass them up. So they have a hard time fol-
lowing my teachings, even if they find them agreeable. The
true soul is really so hard to save as compared to the second-
ary soul, which can perceive other dimensions. This has led
people to conclude that there is little point in trying to save
a person’s true soul when, after all, the secondary soul shares
in the person’s identity and so the outcome would appear to
be the same. It wouldn’t seem to matter which one the spir-
itual achievement goes to, as long as one of the souls gets it,
since that would mean you are getting it.
Let me describe more specifically how past approaches
to practice work. Someone with clairvoyant powers might
see something like the following. When he meditates and
enters into a state of rapture or trance, he may see an iden-
tical version of himself leave his body at that moment. If he
tries to make out which of the two is really him, he will sense
that it’s the one who remains seated in place. After exiting
the body, the other version of him is guided to practice in
a dimension conjured up by his master. That dimension may
take the form of a bygone society, contemporary society, or
the society of a parallel world. There, in what amounts to an
hour or two a day here, he is guided in practice and endures
a great deal of hardship. The person here then comes out of
trance when the other version of him finishes and comes
back. This is as much as those with visionary powers have
been allowed to know.
It is even sadder for those who can’t perceive what is hap-
pening. When they regain awareness after perhaps two hours
lost in trance or rapture, they will know nothing of what hap-
pened. There are also some who sleep for two or three hours

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as a means of practice, turning everything over to another.
These are approaches that involve incremental practice, with
meditation or contemplation being done for a certain length
of time each day. There are also approaches where everything
is completed in one stretch. For instance, there is the case of
Bodhidharma, who meditated facing a wall for nine years, as
you may know. And there have been many monks who sat for
decades on end, with the longest span recorded being over
ninety years; others have sat even longer. They would remain
there, seated and still, even as dust formed into a thick layer
on their eyelids or grass grew upon their bodies. Certain
Daoist practices utilize these methods, as well. Some Mys-
tical Way practices are notable for practicing via sleep, with
meditation sessions that last for decades without the person
waking even once. But who is it that practiced in these cases,
then? The person’s secondary soul. Those with the power to
see things observe that [during the person’s long-term med-
itation] a master is guiding his secondary soul to practice.
The master instructs it to practice in earnest and to wait for
his return, and then departs and remains away until it works
off the large karmic debts that it may have incurred and that
the master can’t fully absolve it of.
This sort of master has to go about things in the follow-
ing way, even though he is well aware of what will happen
upon his departure. He leaves, and then fiends come along
and try to scare the secondary soul, or morph into attractive
women who try to seduce it, among other things. But they
find that it really doesn’t respond to their advances since
spiritual practice comes rather easily to a secondary soul, as
it can see through such ruses. The fiends then grow enraged
and vengefully seek to kill it. And they may do just that—end

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its life. But once it dies, its karmic debts are paid off. So the
soul is released and emerges like a wisp of smoke, and wafts
about. It then reincarnates, perhaps into a poverty-stricken
household, where it has a hard life. Then, when it comes of
age and is old enough to understand things, its master comes
again, though he likely isn’t recognizable at first. The master
then uses his powers to unblock the part of the secondary
soul’s memory that has been sealed off. This allows the soul
to recall the past and recognize the master. The master then
lets it know that the time is ripe for practice. And so finally,
after many years, the master teaches the secondary soul.
Afterwards, the master might inform the secondary soul
that it still has many attachments to remove and that it should
set off on a period of roaming. There is a lot of hardship
involved in roaming about, since it means that one must
wander about the world and beg for food, and one might
experience ridicule, verbal abuse, or mistreatment from all
sorts of people. Anything can happen. But the secondary soul
will conduct itself as a practitioner at all times, and handle its
interactions with others well, being mindful of and perfecting
its character, and never falling for the many worldly temp-
tations it encounters. Only after many years of wandering
about does it then return home. Its master may say that it has
gained enlightenment and been spiritually perfected, and that
now is a good time to go back [to the physical body it began
from] and prepare for its final departure, since its practice has
been completed; he will tell it to settle any remaining affairs
it may have back in the human world. And so the secondary
soul returns after years of being away. Once it does, the true
soul of the person in this world comes out of its hypnotic
state or rouses from its slumber.

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 Yet the person seated there is not the one who engaged in
practice, but rather, it is his secondary soul that did; and so
the achievement, the higher energy, goes to the secondary
soul. The true soul did go through a lot, however. He spent
what would have been his prime of life just sitting there,
after all, and much of his life in this world had passed him
by. And so the person is compensated accordingly. After he
comes out of his hypnotic state he will detect that he now
has higher energy and paranormal powers, and he will find
that he can do healings or whatever else he may attempt. But
it’s because his secondary soul is granting his wishes—in def-
erence to his true soul, which is in charge of the body and
has the say. The reason it grants his wishes is because this
person sat there for so many years that his life has passed by.
But when this person eventually dies, each goes their own
way; the secondary soul leaves him. What Buddhist teach-
ings would say is that someone in this scenario is still subject
to reincarnation. Yet in cases like this one, the person’s body
did give rise to a higher being, which is a most meritorious
act. And so the person might enjoy great wealth or a position
of power and influence in his next life. And this is the only
way it can be handled. So the person’s spiritual efforts are
ultimately in vain.
We had to go through a great deal to get consent to dis-
close this. I have revealed a secret that stood for ages, what
was regarded as the secret of secrets and never to be divulged
under any circumstances; I have laid bare the basis of count-
less spiritual practices throughout the ages. Now you know
why I said that the matter reaches far back into the past. You
would be hard pressed to name one school or discipline that
hasn’t taken that approach. And yet it’s tragic, isn’t it?—after

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all of that effort practicing, the person has no higher energy,
or real achievement, to show for it. And yet there is no one
to blame. The human condition is one of ignorance and there
is much that people fail to discern, even if hints are given.
Higher teachings will seem like a stretch to people, yet more
basic and accessible ones won’t take them very far. There are
even those who still hope for me to treat their ailments, in
spite of all I have said. I am really at a loss for what to say to
them. We are teaching spiritual practice and can only watch
over those who seek to transcend this human world.
With our practice the achievement belongs to your true
soul, and it is this soul that will gain higher energy for it. But
this isn’t something that comes about simply by deciding so.
Certain conditions have to be met. Remember that our prac-
tice doesn’t try to avoid the secular world, nor should you
try to avoid or escape from its challenges. Rather, you are to
practice while part of this world and stay alert to all of its
pitfalls around you; to knowingly get shortchanged and be
indifferent to it; to not fight with people when they try to take
what’s yours; to keep your composure when people do things
that are trying; and to, in this adverse setting, strengthen your
will, perfect your character, and rise above all of the bad and
worldly tendencies of thought that you are exposed to.
Then it is surely you, the true soul, that is consciously
enduring unpleasant things, making sacrifices, and letting
go of worldly things. So the spiritual achievement should go
to you, as whoever pays the costs should reap the rewards.
And that is why our practice doesn’t involve secluding one-
self from this complicated, secular world. We want to practice
amidst it and all of its problems, for we want to be the ones
who gain spiritually. Even when one day there are monastics

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counted among us, they will still need to go out and roam
about the secular world.
I have been asked why other energy practices that are done
in the world don’t also result in the true soul gaining spiri-
tual achievement. The reason is, those practices are just about
health or wellness. Authentic energy practices that lead to
higher realms have traditionally been taught to only a single
disciple, and not the general public. They will have taken their
students elsewhere to practice, and will teach them in seclu-
sion. In all these years nobody has taught something like this
to the broader public. We do so because this is exactly the
way of our practice and how we develop higher energy, our
spiritual achievement. We take the additional step of plant-
ing numerous things onto your true soul so that it will be
you who is really gaining the spiritual fruits. I would venture
to say I’ve done something unprecedented by making this
practice as accessible as we have. And I am not exaggerating,
as you might have realized. While some of my words might,
understandably, sound grandiose, the truth is that I generally
reveal just a fraction of what I know. What I’ve disclosed is
just a small part of all that could be said. I can’t reveal to you
any higher or profounder facets of Dafa at this time, as they
would be far too advanced.
By taking this approach to practice, our discipline enables
the real you to have the spiritual achievement. This is truly
a first. You wouldn’t find anything like it in all of history. So
while this has the advantage of the fruits of spiritual labor
going to you, it also comes with its challenges. It is terribly
hard to rise above a complicated, worldly setting like this
that tests your character with interpersonal things. The chal-
lenging part is that you have to remain unmoved when you

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 knowingly get taken advantage of by people, when things
that mean a lot to you are on the line, when people around
you are contending over things, or when those you love suffer.
You have to learn to see these things in the proper light. Being
a practitioner is by no means easy. Someone once said to me,
“Mr. Li, doesn’t it suffice to just be a good person in the usual
sense? It’s hard to imagine going much further than that
with the practice.” I was really saddened to hear that, and
didn’t reply. Character varies widely from person to person,
and each will go as far as his ability to believe takes him. But
what faith you do have will be rewarded.
The Daoist sage Lao-tzu once wrote that, “The Way may be
spoken of, but it is not a common way.” The Way wouldn’t be
precious if it were something so readily available it could be
found in the streets, and anyone could take it up and succeed
at it. In our discipline you are the one who gains spiritually
by working through challenges, and it follows that we should
fit in with ordinary people as best we can. So you needn’t be
poor or impoverished. Your task, rather, is to develop your
character while being part of the material world. In this sense
the practice is convenient—the most accommodating of any,
in fact—in the sense that you can fully do the practice among
regular people and needn’t become a monastic. But this is also
what’s most difficult about it, in that our practice is done in
the terribly complicated secular world. Yet at the same time
this is our practice’s greatest virtue, for this approach enables
the true you to gain the achievement. And that is the most
crucial aspect of our practice, as I disclosed today. When your
true soul gains this spiritual achievement, this higher energy,
so too will your secondary soul, naturally enough. It only fol-
lows that it, too, will get higher energy when all of the other

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aspects of your body, as well as its intelligent beings and cells,
are developing it. However, at no point will the secondary
soul’s energy be as high as yours, for you are the principal
being while it is but a guardian being.
Having said this much, there is something I should share.
There are a number of people engaged in spiritual practice
who have always longed to progress to higher stages. They
have traveled far and wide and spent a great deal, hoping that
a renowned teacher might show them the way, but to no avail;
a person’s reputation is no guarantee of true insight, after all.
So their journeys were for naught, despite all the effort and
costs entailed. Here we have a wonderful practice to offer,
and we have made it available to all, virtually handing it to
you, right at your door. The only question now is whether
you can make good on it. Those who can will have spiritual
progress in store for them, while those who cannot would do
well to set aside the thought of doing spiritual practice; only
deceptive entities would teach you hereafter, and so I would
discourage you from trying. If I can’t save you, no one can.
The truth is that it’s now exceedingly hard to find an authen-
tic teacher of a true practice who will instruct you, for no
one is doing that anymore. Even higher realms are now in
the latter days, or “end time,” and the beings there can hardly
concern themselves with regular people. Ours is not only the
most accessible practice, but is also attuned precisely to the
qualities that underlie all of existence. It allows you to make
the fastest and most efficient progress, since the practice is
all about your heart and mind.

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The Cosmic Orbit
I would like to explain what in Daoist practice is known as “the
cosmic orbit,” both its “greater” and “lesser” forms. Normally
the term is used by people to refer to the linking up of two
of the body’s energy channels—the front side’s Conception
Vessel and the back side’s Governing Vessel. This kind of
cosmic orbit is quite shallow, however, and doesn’t amount to
much; it only serves to bring health benefits. It is what’s called
a “lesser” cosmic orbit. There is another form of cosmic orbit
that’s considered neither lesser nor greater, which occurs
when one practices meditation. It begins from inside the body
by going through the Niwan Palace and then proceeds down-
wards, traveling internally to the energy center, where it passes
through and then proceeds upwards again. It is an interior cir-
cuit and a true cosmic orbit that forms through focused med-
itation. Once formed, this circuit becomes a powerful energy
current that drives into motion all of the body’s energy chan-
nels. Daoist practices utilize cosmic orbits, while Buddhist
ones normally don’t. You might be curious what approach
Buddhist ones use, then. The Buddha didn’t mention a higher
energy like gong during his teachings, but Buddhist practices
do have their ways of transforming the body through spir-
itual practice. In these practices there is an energy conduit
that runs from the fully opened Hundred Convergences acu-
point, at the crown of the head, downwards in a spiral-like
pattern and that ultimately activates all of the body’s channels.
Esoteric Buddhism achieves this through what is called
a “central conduit.” Some may question how it’s possible for
them to have this conduit, since it is not something nor-
mally found in a person’s body. So let’s take a look at how

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they develop one. The body’s energy channels number over
ten thousand when all are taken into account, and they criss-
cross just like blood vessels and even exceed their number.
While blood vessels don’t run between internal organs, energy
channels do. A web of channels stretches throughout the body
from the crown of the head on down, crisscrossing horizon-
tally and vertically. When the channels first begin to merge [in
these Buddhist practices], they won’t have formed a straight
conduit yet, and so it might take work to push energy through
them. With time they gradually widen and merge to form
a straight vertical conduit. This conduit then serves as an axis
upon which the chakras of the body rotate, with the multiple
horizontal chakras that run through one’s body being driven
by the mind. And the purpose of this is to fully open up all
of the body’s channels.
Falun Dafa doesn’t opt for the approach of using one con-
duit to drive open all of the body’s channels. Our practice
dictates that right from the outset all the channels be con-
nected and circulate simultaneously. We begin our practice
from an advanced stage and bypass more rudimentary ones.
With others’ approach, where one conduit is used to drive
open all of the body’s channels, even an entire lifetime might
not be enough to fully open them up; it could take decades of
difficult practice. A number of practices thus hold that one
lifetime isn’t enough to finish the spiritual journey. And this
is why many of the more advanced and demanding of prac-
tices try to extend one’s life, and many followers experience
this; the person’s life is extended so that he may continue his
practice for a great length of time.
“Lesser” cosmic orbits are basically for health, while “greater”
ones are for true spiritual practice. The greater cosmic orbit

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discussed in Daoist practice doesn’t resemble ours, which
comes on with vigor and connects all of the body’s channels
so that they circulate together. Theirs involves the cycling of
energy through several channels, such as the three yin and
three yang ones, which loop around the body by running
along the hands and down to the soles of the feet, and then
pass from the legs up to the hair atop the head. For them, that
counts as cycling energy through the greater cosmic orbit.
Some chi-gong masters don’t offer instruction in the greater
cosmic orbit, since higher practice ensues once it has been
formed; they limit their instruction to the realm of health.
Then there are some who do try to teach it, but don’t bestow
followers with any of what’s needed for it. These students
have no chance of success since they aren’t given what they
need; they might try to use their own powers of mind to
form it, but it’s not possible. That’s no more likely to make it
happen than, say, going to the gym would. Remember that
you only need to do your part practicing, and your teacher
will handle the rest. The greater cosmic orbit can only start
to form after all of the necessary internal mechanisms for it
have been planted in you.
Daoists have always regarded the human body as a micro-
cosm, and hold that this inner universe is as large as the
outer one and faithfully reflects it. The idea might seem a bit
of a stretch and hard to fathom; there doesn’t seem to be
grounds for likening the human body to the universe, given
the latter’s size. But there is a logic to it that can be explained.
Contemporary physics is engaged in research on the com-
position of matter, and it has progressed from molecules to
atoms, electrons, protons, and quarks, reaching all the way to
neutrinos. At these levels microscopy doesn’t have the power

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to see what exists or know what sizes of particles lie yet fur-
ther below; researchers don’t know what exists at even more
micro of planes. Physics today is still nowhere near reaching
the tiniest particles of the universe. Nevertheless, the invisible,
miniature realms of those particles might be perceptible to
someone who has gone beyond normal physical form, for he
would see, with magnified vision, subatomic worlds that are
still greater, in keeping with his level of spiritual attainment.
The Buddha described the vastness of the universe after
having witnessed it at his level of attainment. His teaching
implied that there are other beings in the Milky Way galaxy
with physical bodies similar to ours, and that even in just
a single grain of sand a great many worlds can be found. This
is consistent with modern physics, as the orbiting of electrons
around a nucleus is really no different from that of the Earth
around the Sun. And so the Buddha taught that in smaller,
invisible realms a great many worlds can be seen even in
just a grain of sand; meaning, a grain of sand is similar to
a universe where lives and a multitude of things exist. Then
assuming that’s valid, within the worlds inside a single grain
of sand, there would again be sand, presumably. And within
that sand we would expect to find yet more worlds. And then
in those worlds inside the sand we would expect to again find
still more sand. It could go on endlessly. And so even the
Buddha, with his level of spiritual awakening, concluded that
the universe was both “infinitely large and infinitely small.”
This suggests that it is so large he couldn’t see its perimeter,
and so small that he couldn’t determine what the tiniest ele-
mental substance is at the origin of matter.
There are masters who have said that a city can be seen
in a single pore of the skin, complete with moving cars and

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trains. While that might sound far-fetched at first, it proves
reasonable if it’s considered in a scientific spirit and with
a genuine intent to understand. While I was talking about the
opening of the inner eye, I mentioned that many who have
experienced it have had visions where they are moving along
a seemingly endless tunnel in their forehead region. And each
day as they exercise or meditate they see themselves moving
forward, with mountains and rivers to the sides; and they
pass through cities and see a number of people. They are apt
to think it’s a figment of their imaginations. I can dispel any
doubts and tell you that those things were not imagined; what
they saw was very clear. Things like those shouldn’t be writ-
ten off as imaginary, if the world within the body is as vast
as masters have seen with their inner eyes. Remember that
Daoist thought has long maintained that the human body is
a universe unto itself. It’s only to be expected, then, that the
distance from your forehead to the pineal gland, [where the
inner eye is located,] is going to be enormous in that inner
universe—making it feel like a really long way.
If the greater cosmic orbit becomes fully formed in the
course of someone’s practice, it will bring about an extra-
sensory power. But before going into that, we should note
that the greater cosmic orbit is variously referred to as the
Meridian Orbit, the Revolution of Heaven and Earth, and the
Revolution of the River Channel. The orbit will give rise to
an energy current when it begins flowing, even at a low level
of attainment. With time, its density will increase and it will
become something of a higher order, becoming a very dense
belt of energy that revolves. If someone’s inner eye has opened
at a lower plane he might see that the belt, while revolving,
has the ability to transport the various energies of the body

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from one location to another. The energy of the heart might
be moved to the intestines, for example, or the energy of the
liver might be moved to the stomach. Those who can per-
ceive the microcosm might observe that what’s moved is quite
sizeable. If the energy belt is brought outside of the body it is
what people call the power of telekinesis. Those with stron-
ger powers can exercise greater telekinesis and move large
objects, while those with weaker powers can exercise lesser
telekinesis and move smaller objects. These are the forms
that telekinesis takes and how they come about.
A person enters right into true spiritual practice with the
forming of the greater cosmic orbit; with it will come differ-
ent miraculous experiences and expressions of one’s energy.
One such experience that comes about might be famil-
iar if you’ve read traditional religious works like Lives of
Divine Transcendents and Principles of Mind-Body Practice,
or the Daoist Canon and various alchemical manuals. These
works tell of individuals who experienced levitation, and
speak of people “soaring in broad daylight”—or in other
words, floating up into the air in plain sight. And I can vouch
that people are capable of it once the greater cosmic orbit has
been formed. It’s a simple fact. Many people have formed
these orbits, as you might suspect, with all the centuries of
history that spiritual practice has. I don’t think it’s a stretch
to say tens of thousands have, since it’s really just one of the
first developments in a person’s practice.
Then why haven’t all those adherents been seen floating
about? It’s because the human condition is not to be upset;
the secular world mustn’t be violated or altered without due
reason. It would be a problem if all of those people were
seen flying about. The human world wouldn’t be what it is.

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So this is one primary reason. Another is that the people of
this world are not here to be human but to become pure again
and return to their true heavenly abodes, which entails faith.
Everyone would want to practice if they actually saw with their
own eyes people levitating, and there would be no question
of faith left. So you aren’t allowed to be seen levitating or just
freely show people if you have the power. People still need to
practice by exercising faith. And this is why once your greater
cosmic orbit has formed, you won’t be able to levitate if even
so much as the tip of your finger or toe is locked.
When the greater cosmic orbit is on the verge of being
formed, some people find that their bodies lean forward as
they meditate. This is due to the energy of the back of the
body flowing well, and so it feels quite light while the front
feels heavy. In other cases people may tend to lean back-
wards instead, as the back feels heavy and the front light.
You might spring upward if energy is flowing well through-
out your body, and feel as if you were being lifted upward
off the ground. But only in exceptional cases is this allowed
to happen. Those who experience such powers tend to be
at two ends of the spectrum: the very young and old, and
especially older women. Both of these groups tend to have
few attachments and are more likely to experience powers
like levitation and be able to retain them. Men, on the other
hand, and especially young men, would have a hard time not
showing off and might even try to gain from their powers.
That is forbidden, however, and so their powers are typi-
cally sealed up after being developed. If even so much as
one part of the body is sealed up they won’t be able to levi-
tate. But it’s not that people are never allowed to experience
levitation. You might be allowed to have a taste of it, with

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some of you being allowed to continue to experience it.
Instances of levitation have occurred wherever we have
offered classes. When I held a class in Shandong province
there were learners from the cities of Jinan and Beijing there
as well, one of whom asked me, “Teacher, do you know
what’s happening to me? I often start floating as I walk, and
it’s the same when I lie down at home to sleep—even when
I have a blanket over me. I’m always floating up, like a balloon.”
There was a similar case involving an older woman in Guizhou
province who attended my class in the city of Guiyang. At
home there were two beds in her room, one next to each wall.
One time she was meditating on one of the beds and had the
sense that she was levitating. She opened her eyes and real-
ized that she had floated over to the other bed. She had the
thought, “I should go back,” and with that, she floated back
to the initial bed.
Another example involves a student in the city of Qingdao
who meditated on a sofa in a room at his workplace; it was
during his lunch break and nobody was around. He began to
levitate while meditating, and really floated up—over a yard
high. He floated up and dropped down with a loud thud,
multiple times. A blanket that was folded next to him was
even bounced off, onto the floor. He was both a bit excited
and frightened. It carried on like this, up and down, for the
duration of the lunch hour. Eventually the work bell rang and
he thought to himself, “I shouldn’t let people see this. They
wouldn’t know what to make of it. I’d better stop this right
away.” And just like that, it stopped. So you can see how older
people exercise better self-control. Were it someone younger,
they probably would have hoped that everyone would see
them levitating when the bell rang and know how well they

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were doing at their practice, since they could fly. The temp-
tation to show off isn’t easily overcome. If you do show your
powers off they will be lost, for that’s not what they are meant
for. Experiences like these have been recounted by learners
everywhere.
We want all of the body’s energy channels to be opened
up right from the outset. Eighty to ninety percent of you will
find that your bodies have now become light and illness-free.
But in this class we do more than just boost your body to the
point of being completely purified; we also plant many things
in your body so that you can develop higher energy during
the course of the classes. What I am doing amounts to lift-
ing you up and putting you far ahead. Your very character is
changing as I give my teachings during these sessions. Many
of you will feel like a new person after the classes are over.
I guarantee that your view of the world will have expanded
and you will know what it takes to be a good person; you will
no longer be confused about life. I’m confident of this. What
this means is that your character will be keeping pace [with
the physical changes that occur].
Returning to the topic of the greater cosmic orbit, though
you may not be allowed to levitate, you will find that your
whole body feels light and as though you are walking on air.
If walking even a short distance tired you out before, now you
will be able to comfortably go however far you’d like. When
riding a bike it will seem as if you are getting a push, and no
amount of stair climbing will tire you. I can assure you of it.
Those who can’t attend a class but learn the practice by reading
this book will experience whatever benefits they are meant to,
just the same. I’m the type of person who if he speaks must
tell the truth. It would be teaching evil on my part if I were to

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speak falsely, say baseless things, or speak loosely and with-
out a purpose when I am supposed to be teaching the Way.
What I am doing is not easy; the whole universe is watching.
There would be consequences if I misled you.
Spiritual adherents normally never come to experience
more than the familiar greater cosmic orbit that I’ve been
describing. But that orbit isn’t sufficient if you want your body
to be replaced by and converted into high-energy matter as
efficiently as possible. For this, there needs to be another type
of cosmic-orbit circulation that sets all of your body’s energy
channels into motion. And it is called the Prime Vertical Orbit.
Very few people know of it. The name might surface occasion-
ally in books, but nowhere is it disclosed or explained. People
have skirted around the subject by keeping any discussion of
it at the level of theory, since it’s been a closely guarded secret.
But here I am going to spell it out for you. The orbit might
begin from either the Hundred Convergences acupoint at the
top of the head or the Meeting of Yin point at the perineum.
So, supposing energy comes forth at the former point, it will
travel along the borderline between the yin (front) and yang
(back) sides of the body, and move down from the ear and
past the shoulder, going downwards. It weaves its way over
each of the fingers and then travels along the side of the body,
passing underneath the foot and then up the inner side of the
leg. It then goes down the inner side of the other leg, passes
under the other foot, and travels up the other side of the body.
It weaves its way around each of the fingers again and com-
pletes a circuit by arriving at the top of the head. This is what
constitutes a Prime Vertical Orbit. So there you have it in just
a few sentences; it needn’t take a full-length book, as is some-
times done. I don’t consider it a great secret even if knowledge

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of it has been carefully guarded and only been revealed when
a lineage is being genuinely passed down to a disciple. Though
I have explained what it is, you shouldn’t use your mind to
try to bring it about or exert any control over it while prac-
ticing. That’s not how we go about things in Falun Dafa. You
don’t need to will anything to happen when you are follow-
ing an authentic spiritual discipline that leads to higher levels
of attainment; all that you need will be given to you, ready
to use. So in our case, the orbit will be automatically gener-
ated by the mechanisms inside you, which are working con-
stantly to transform you. This orbit will naturally circulate
on its own when the time is ripe. You might notice one day
while practicing that your head is swaying to one side, which
would mean that the Prime Vertical Orbit is moving in that
direction; or if your head sways to the other side it means
that the Orbit is moving in the other direction. It moves in
both directions.
Once a greater or lesser cosmic orbit has been formed in
a person, his head may nod during meditation, and it indi-
cates that energy is coursing through. The fourth exercise
that we do, called Falun Cosmic Orbit, cycles energy through
the body in the same fashion as these orbits; and in fact, it
will continue to cycle by itself even after you have finished
doing the exercise. What the exercise does is to strengthen
the mechanisms inside you, and this is what allows the orbit
to continually cycle. In our practice the Way works through
you. And so you will normally find that your cosmic orbit is
circulating nonstop. The layer of energy mechanisms that has
been placed outside of your body is equivalent to a layer of
major, external energy channels, and it will guide your body
to do the work automatically—even when you aren’t doing the

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exercise. The external channels may also reverse their direc-
tion, cycling energy in one direction or the other, working at
every moment to promote the flow of energy in your channels.
At this point you might be wondering what the larger goal
of forming cosmic orbits is. Forming them in and of itself
isn’t the purpose; just having a connected orbit isn’t that spe-
cial. The purpose of it, as one progresses further in spiritual
practice, is to fully open up all of the body’s energy channels
via one circuit, and the cosmic orbit does help you to achieve
this. Yet [opening the channels] is something we’ve already
begun doing for you. And as you continue on, if you track the
circulation of your greater cosmic orbit, you will sense your
channels broadening inside and widening, perhaps becoming
as wide as a finger. This happens because a stronger energy
current results in wider and brighter channels. But this still
doesn’t amount to much. You need to go further with your
practice, to the point that all of your body’s energy chan-
nels are widening and the energy is becoming stronger and
brighter, until finally all of the myriad channels are merged
into one whole. At that point the body will no longer have
energy channels or acupuncture points, for it will be con-
nected as one piece. And that is the ultimate goal of fully
opening your channels: to transform your entire body into
high-energy matter.
If you have reached this stage in your practice, it means
that your body has basically been remade with high-energy
matter. It means that you have reached the highest phase
of practice that can occur in the human realm, and your
mortal body has reached the pinnacle of its development.
Your body will experience a new state, which I’ll describe
in a moment. At this point you will now have a substantial

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amount of higher energy, or gong. And by now you will have
developed all supernormal powers (innate abilities) possible
of the human body, while working on your body during the
stage of human-realm practice. But since we do our prac-
tice in the world, most of your powers will have been sealed
up and won’t be available to you. Your energy column will
have grown to a sizeable height, and the different forms that
your energy has assumed will have been strengthened greatly
by your powerful energy. But any powers you have at this
stage will only function in this immediate dimension; they
will have no impact in other dimensions since they were
born of a mortal body. Yet they will still be quite substantial.
These powers will be part of your bodies in other dimensions
and will have metamorphosed in dramatic ways; they will
be diverse and abundant, and they might even be startling
to behold. Eyes will cover some people’s bodies, filling each
and every pore of the skin as well as the dimensions associ-
ated with their bodies. Some individuals could have images
of divine beings like Bodhisattvas or Buddhas all over their
bodies, since this is a Buddhist practice. The higher energy
you have might assume any of many appearances and give
rise to many supernatural beings.
At this point you will experience atop your head what
is referred to as “three flowers gathered at the crown.” It’s
dramatic and striking to behold, and can be seen even by
those whose inner eyes aren’t at a very high plane. Three
flowers will appear on top of your head, one of which is
a lotus flower—though not the lotus of the human realm.
The other two flowers similarly belong to other worlds, and
each is simply wondrous. They rotate in succession atop the
head, turning clockwise and counterclockwise; the flowers

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turn independently. Each flower will have a tall pole accom-
panying it, equal in diameter to the flower and reaching to
the heights of the heavens. The poles are not energy columns,
however. Rather, they just happen to assume that shape and
exude an otherworldly feel. You will really be startled if you
see them. When your practice reaches this stage your body
will be pure and fair, with skin that’s supple and youthful. You
will have reached the highest phase of practice in the human
realm, but it doesn’t mark the end of your journey. You need
to continue practicing and progress still further.
What comes next is a transitional phase between that of
the human realm and that which is beyond, where you will
have what is referred to as a “crystal-clear body.” At this point
your body will still be a mortal one, even if transformed, but
it will have reached the highest form possible while practic-
ing in this realm. It is referred to as crystal clear for having
achieved the greatest degree of purity and being made entirely
of high-energy matter. Your whole body will be transparent if
seen with higher vision, and look similar to glass, as if nothing
were there. This means that your body is now a holy one, for
it consists of high-energy matter, unlike the body you began
with. All of the powers and magical things developed by your
body will now be promptly discarded. They will be unloaded
into a deeper dimension, since they serve no further purpose
and couldn’t be drawn upon again. Their only use might be
that some day, once your practice has come to fruition and
you have gained enlightenment, you will wish to look them
over as you reflect back upon your spiritual journey. Just two
things will remain then: your column of energy and your
angelic body, which will be great in size. But both of these
will exist in a deeper dimension and be imperceptible even to

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most people who have higher sight, since their sight is usu-
ally limited; your body will just appear transparent to them.
With further practice you will progress beyond this interim
phase where you have a crystal-clear body, and begin the stage
of practice that lies beyond the human realm. In this new
phase you will be developing your body further, a body which
will already be divine. This will be a body that’s composed
only of higher energy, and your character will be one that
is unwavering. In this phase of practice you will be forging
new powers that are befitting the title of “divine.” They will be
infinitely powerful and able to command any dimension. As
you carry on persistently with your spiritual efforts, you will
come to know what it takes to practice at still higher stages
and what to expect.

Getting Carried Away

I would like to discuss the problems that stem from being
overly enthused. There are many people, both spiritual and
not, who have long been seeking the truth and pondering
the meaning of life. With Falun Dafa they find answers to
their many lifelong questions, and it’s only natural that they
would be excited by all the new insights they gain. I know
that those who are sincere about practicing will realize the
significance of the teachings and cherish them. Yet a problem
is apt to follow. Namely, people are so happy that they go
overboard, and come across as abnormal when they inter-
act with people, or seem odd compared to others. But that
shouldn’t happen, as I see it.
Most of you practice in the secular world, and so you

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should be mindful of this fact and not distance yourselves
from the world. You should have relationships with others like
people normally do. The only thing different about you is that
you come across as someone of excellent character and who
is positive, who strives to be a better person and grow spiri-
tually, and who always tries to do the right thing. Yet some of
you come across as abnormal, or apathetic about the world,
and people can’t relate to what you say. This could lead people
to wrongly conclude that doing Falun Dafa made you that
way, as if you’ve gone off the deep end. They wouldn’t realize
that you were simply too excited and not being rational, and
had a lapse in judgment. I think you would have to agree,
that’s not the right way to be and it is extreme—which means
attachment is involved. You should get over it and instead go
about your life and practice in a normal way around people.
People won’t think well of you and will distance themselves
from you if they think you are obsessed with Falun Dafa. And
then you would no longer be presented with opportunities
to perfect your character. It’s really a problem if people think
you’re not normal. So keep what I said in mind and be sure
to exercise good judgment.
Our practice isn’t like others where the adherent is oblivi-
ous to the passage of time, lost in a state of rapture or trance,
and completely absorbed as he or she practices. With our
practice you have to stay mentally present. I often hear from
people that they start swaying involuntarily after they close
their eyes to do the exercises. But that shouldn’t happen, as
I see it. The problem is that you have grown used to letting
your conscious mind drift off while your eyes are closed, and
it’s become a habit. And yet you don’t sway while listening to
me speak. You surely wouldn’t do that while exercising if you

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tried to maintain the state of mind that you have when your
eyes are open, and just closed them lightly. The problem is
that you think that that’s how practicing is done, and the idea
has become ingrained; so you disappear shortly after closing
your eyes and lose yourself. We teach that your conscious
mind has to stay alert and aware. These exercises are meant
to work upon the true you, and you should make progress
through them while staying mentally present. Our practice
includes a meditation. With ours, you have to stay aware that
you are practicing, however focused you may be, and not let
yourself slip into a hypnotic state where you’re aware of noth-
ing. Instead, you should expect to experience a very pleasant
sensation as you sit there, much like sitting inside an eggshell
would be, where you’re aware that you are practicing but feel
as if you can’t move a muscle. This is necessary in our prac-
tice. Another experience that you might have is as follows.
As you sit in meditation it will seem as if your legs have dis-
appeared and you don’t know where they are; and your body
will have disappeared as well, including your arms and hands,
and only your head will seem to remain. And as you go on,
even your head will seem to disappear, leaving only your
mind—with just a little awareness left that you are practic-
ing there. It will suffice to achieve this state, as this provides
the optimal conditions for your body to be transformed. And
that is why you need to enter into such stillness. But don’t let
yourself doze off or muddle through it, lest the fruits of your
efforts be gained by another.
It is essential that all of us avoid seeming abnormal to
non-practitioners. You will be giving Falun Dafa a bad name
if you come across the wrong way and lead people to think
that Falun Dafa makes people odd. I really want you to keep

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this in mind. You should be careful not to get carried away in
any sense or at any point as you practice. A mind that’s prone
to such extremes is susceptible to evil.

Guarding Your Speech

Various religious traditions have made a practice of silence,
and it is something done by a specific segment of the reli-
gious community; namely, the brothers and sisters who have
renounced the world and who live in monastic settings. For
them, the practice entails refraining from speech altogether.
They dedicate themselves to the spiritual life and are set on
becoming as detached as possible, and believe that even one
single bad thought might generate karma or amount to a sin.
And while you may have heard of karma being referred to
as “good” as well as “bad,” either way, it’s not something you
would want to have as someone who aspires to become “empty”
to this world, and have, in a sense “nothing”—as the Bud-
dhist and Daoist traditions have put it. Adherents in certain
monastic traditions have even tried to refrain from all actions.
They have taken this approach since they couldn’t perceive
the reasons behind things or know whether something was
good or bad to do; there would always lurk the question of
what factors were involved. Most adherents would not have
been that advanced or able to perceive such things. So if they
took action, they would have to worry that what seemed like
a good thing to do might turn out to be bad. Their solution
was to practice non-intervention as much as possible, in the
hope that by refraining from all unnecessary activities or
actions they would avoid making karma. They knew that

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any karma they made would have to be painfully worked off.
The day of a believer’s spiritual perfection or enlightenment
is something preordained, and any karma added along the
way will only make the whole journey that much more diffi-
cult. So this explains the aversion to action.
In the Buddhist tradition the practice of self-imposed
silence is based on the idea that whatever words someone
utters are dictated by his thoughts, and behind those thoughts
there is bound to be intention. And it’s very possible that it is
an attachment at work when a person’s consciousness leads
him to form a thought, make a comment, do something, or
use his senses or limbs out in the secular world. To shed
light on this, consider the issues that people sometimes have
with one another, where they speak well of one person while
speaking ill of another, or comment on someone’s having
practiced well in contrast to someone else. Comments like
those reflect issues between people. Or take something com-
monplace, such as your expressing that you want to do some-
thing or see something done in a certain way. What you say
might result in someone being unwittingly hurt or under-
mined. And so your words or actions might unknowingly
be making karma for you, given how complex things can be
between people. This is why some monastics have been so
strict about refraining from speaking altogether. So guard-
ing one’s speech, or practicing silence, has always held an
important place in religious traditions, and so far I’ve been
describing the approaches others have taken.
The vast majority of people who do Falun Dafa, however,
carry out their practice in the secular world (the exception
being those who previously took monastic vows or were
ordained), and so we inevitably lead normal lives in the world

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and are part of society. We have jobs and should be doing
them well. Some lines of work entail verbal communica-
tion, which might seem at odds with the goal of practicing
silence. But there is no conflict, as the guarding of speech
that we practice is quite different from the past approach
of silence. Our discipline is different from those of the past,
and so too is what it asks of you. When we speak, we should
simply speak in a manner befitting a practitioner, and not say
anything bad or divisive. As practitioners we should gauge
what we intend to say with the teachings and see whether
it’s appropriate. And if it is, then it’s fine to speak. And besides,
if we always kept silent we would have a hard time introduc-
ing the practice to people and sharing it with others. What
we do is to simply exercise restraint in situations where you
might be speaking out of attachment, such as talking about
worldly things above and beyond what’s required at your
job; chitchatting with other practitioners about meaningless
things; saying things that are self-aggrandizing; sharing the
latest gossip that you heard; or discussing worldly things that
you’re fond of and find stimulating. It’s in these regards that
I believe we should guard our speech, and this is our ver-
sion of practicing silence. Monks used to believe that even
just one inappropriate thought could result in karma, or sin,
and they used to take things like this very seriously. And this
is why there were teachings about limiting physical, verbal,
and mental activity. Physical action was limited in order to
avoid doing anything wrong. Silence was practiced in order
to limit all verbal activity. And mental activity was restricted
so as to keep the mind clear of thoughts. These strictures
have been quite central for some monastic communities. In
our practice, however, it’s sufficient to have a good sense for

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what’s appropriate to say, and to live up to the expectations
for your character.

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 the
ninth talk

Energy Practices Versus

Regular Exercises
many people readily mistake energy practices, or exer-
cises, for being essentially a form of physical exercise. And
it’s only natural to think that way, since the two are compa-
rable on a superficial level, as both promote physical health.
But it turns out the two differ greatly if you get into the spe-
cifics of the techniques and approaches they employ. Physical
exercise aims to foster health, and so those who do it need to
engage in physical exertion and go through training routines
that condition the body. The opposite holds true with energy
practices. One needs to be still when doing them, and any
movement that does take place is to be gentle, slow, and fluid;
sometimes one is even completely motionless. So this differs
much from physical exercise. And speaking at a higher level,

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energy practices go beyond mere health benefits to include
higher and more profound facets. They involve more than the
little bit about them that’s familiar to people. They are higher
things, and vary in form depending on how advanced they
are. These practices are far from ordinary.
Physical exercise is by its very nature quite different from
energy practices. Athletes, and especially competitive ath-
letes today, need to constantly try to push their workouts
to the next level; they have to consistently keep their bodies
in top condition to meet the physical demands of competi-
tion in this day and age, and stay competitive. To this end,
they have to increase the intensity of exercise and ensure
that there is maximal blood flow. Doing so boosts the ath-
lete’s metabolic capacity and means that he is getting in better
shape. Athletes seek to increase their metabolic capacity since
their bodies need to always be in top competitive form. The
human body is made up of countless cells, all of which are
subject to a process which, in rough terms, goes as follows.
A cell that has been newly produced through cellular division
is full of vitality and ready to develop. After reaching its peak
of development it will have nowhere to go but down, and it
will do so until the very bottom is reached, at which point
it will be replaced by a new cell. We can illustrate this with
an analogy, using the twelve hours of the clock. A cell that is
generated at six o’clock in the morning via cellular division
would develop steadily up through eight, nine, or ten o’clock,
with things progressing well all along. But by twelve o’clock
the cell would have no further capacity to develop, and could
only decline. So while the cell would still have half of its life
remaining, it would be ill-suited for the competitive form
that an athlete needs to be in.

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 So athletes respond by raising their level of physical exer-
tion and increasing their blood flow, with the result that new
cells are generated to replace the older ones earlier than is
normal. This means, then, that the cells that are replaced
don’t complete their entire life cycle and are replaced midway
through. This ensures that an athlete’s body is always strong
and his or her level of fitness is improving. But the fact remains
that a person’s cells cannot divide indefinitely; there is a limit
to how many times a cell can divide. Suppose, for example,
that a single cell can undergo a total of one hundred divisions
(though the actual number far exceeds a million) and that
under normal conditions a person would be able to live one
hundred years. Then the cells of athletes, on the other hand,
would only be able to complete half of their life cycle, and
so these individuals would live only to be fifty. Even so, this
hasn’t had significant consequences for professional athletes
so far, since the level of competition today forces many into
retirement by thirty. And then they go back to a more normal
routine, basically no worse for wear. The bottom line is that
while physical training can make you fit, it comes at the cost
of a shorter life, in principle. And this is why a competitive
athlete who is in his teens may well look like someone in his
twenties, or one in his twenties may look like he’s in his thir-
ties. Athletes often give the impression of having aged pre-
maturely. There is a consequence for every action, and we
should be aware that things have both pros and cons. What
I’ve described are the consequences of regular exercise.
Energy practices, on the other hand, are just the opposite.
They don’t involve vigorous movement, and what movement
there is tends to be relaxed, fluid, and slow, sometimes to
the point of being motionless. And it’s known that the body

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can become so still during meditation that every aspect of
one’s physiology slows down, such as heart rate and blood
circulation. Many yogis in India can sit submerged in water
or be buried underground for days at a time; they make their
bodies completely still, controlling even their heart rates. So,
if we suppose that a person’s cells normally divide once a day,
then a spiritual practitioner might be able to slow his cell
division to just once every two days, or once per week, half
month, or even longer. This would mean that he is extend-
ing his life. And this is possible even with practices that just
cultivate the mind, but not the body; even they can achieve
gains in longevity. This might seem to beg the question of
how someone who doesn’t transform his body could extend
his life, when one’s lifespan is normally something that’s set
in stone. The explanation is, it becomes possible when one
achieves a level of spiritual attainment surpassing the three
realms. But the person will look quite old.
Then there are practices that truly change the body. They
do so by constantly storing up high-energy matter in the
cells of the body. And as the density of the stored energy
steadily increases, it gradually comes to inhibit, and ulti-
mately replace, one’s normal human cells. This will lead to
a qualitative change, such that you become youthful, and stay
that way. Of course, spiritual development is a long process
that involves significant sacrifices. Both the body and mind
must be tempered, which is very trying. For example, are
you grounded to the point where no one ever “gets to you”?
Do worldly things hold no sway over you? It’s hard to reach
that point; it isn’t something you can just will. Your mind and
your virtue have to reach a certain point first.
People have long confused energy practices with regular

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physical exercises, when in fact the two diverge widely and
are different at their core. Energy practices are only similar to
regular exercises when they are practiced at their most basic
level, for health and fitness, where the focus is on basic chi
energy. But energy practices are altogether different at their
more advanced stages. The bodily purification that happens
in them has a greater purpose behind it, and higher princi-
ples have to be followed. Physical exercise, by contrast, is just
an ordinary endeavor.

Thoughts and the Mind

When people discuss “thoughts” they are talking about mental
processes. Here I would like to offer a spiritually informed
perspective on thoughts and the mental processes that go with
them, and look at the different forms that those processes (or
thoughts) take, as well as how they come about. Many ques-
tions about the brain are still unanswered by the medical sci-
ences, for the brain is not as easily understood as the outer,
more superficial layers of the body. Thoughts exist at deeper
planes of reality and vary in form across dimensions. But they
are not as some teachers of energy practices have imagined
them. These persons haven’t been able to offer a good expla-
nation of how thoughts work since they don’t fully under-
stand it. They believe that by generating a thought with their
brains they can accomplish certain things, and believe that
what then unfolds is done by their minds, or thoughts. But
that isn’t in fact the case.
Let’s start by looking at where thoughts come from. In
ancient China there was an expression, “thinking with the

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heart.” It’s a curious phrase, but there were reasons behind
it. The science of ancient China was very advanced, since the
connections among the human body, living things, and the
cosmos were the focus of its inquiry. There were people back
then who could actually sense that their hearts were thinking,
while others might have sensed that it was their brains doing
so. What accounts for this? They were onto something, in
fact. The soul of a regular person tends to be quite small, yet
ideas originate from it and not from the brain. And the soul
doesn’t always remain inside the head, at the Niwan Palace—
or “pineal gland,” in medical terminology. When the soul is
at the Niwan Palace, a person might sense that his brain is
thinking or sending out signals; and when it is at the heart,
he might in fact sense that his heart is what’s doing so.
The human body is a micro universe, as I’ve said, and in
the bodies of practitioners there are abundant supernatural
beings, any of which might change locations. If it is your soul
that changes locations, by going, for instance, to your stom-
ach area, then you might sense that you are actually thinking
with your stomach; or if it goes to your calf muscle or heel,
then you might sense that you are thinking with your calf
or heel. This is fully possible, as far-fetched as it may sound.
And this is something you might be able to sense even before
your practice has progressed very far. The presence of the
soul together with your temperament, nature, and personal
traits are what make you a full-fledged, unique individual,
rather than just flesh. Then what does the brain do? I regard
the brain of this physical dimension as simply a processing
plant. The thoughts that you have actually come from your
soul, though not in the form of language. What happens is
that your soul conveys to the brain a type of cosmic signal,

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which carries with it a certain idea. This signal, once received,
acts as a prompt that the brain translates into some form of
expression, such as the language you speak, a gesture made
with your hands, the look in your eyes, or your overall body
language. And that is the role of the brain. The prompting
or thought actually comes from your soul. People usually
think that the ideas they have are simply the result of the
brain working on its own. But the truth is that the soul is very
much involved, and when located at the heart, it might give
the sense that you are thinking with your heart.
Those engaged in human biological research believe that
the brain issues something akin to electrical waves. With-
out going into what those actually are, I will note that they
believe there is a physical component to thought, which sug-
gests that what I just talked about isn’t far-fetched. Then we
might ask what the purpose of the brain is. Various masters
have claimed that they can use their minds to do superhuman
things like moving physical objects, opening the inner eye,
or doing healings. They say that because they aren’t aware of
the powers they have. They only know that things happen for
them at the thought of it. What’s actually happening is that
their powers are acting at the command of their thoughts,
which are in the brain; the mind alone isn’t making anything
happen. So some of the things practitioners accomplish are
due, in fact, to the powers they possess.
Supernormal powers are innate abilities of the body, only
they have declined as the world has developed and peo-
ple’s minds have become more complicated, with the “here
and now” becoming increasingly valued and people relying
more and more on the latest technology. To recover your
innate powers you must strive for authenticity as you practice,

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 become pure as you once were, and restore your original
nature—or what the Daoist tradition refers to as “returning
to one’s original, true self.” So what are now thought of as
psychic or supernormal powers are in fact the innate abilities
of man. The world is not experiencing “progress” quite as it
seems, but is in fact regressing. It is drifting away from the
qualities of the universe. I have mentioned the well-known
image of Master Zhang Guo riding a donkey seated back-
wards, which might be hard to make sense of. But Zhang did
that only after realizing that going forward was in fact going
backward, and that man was growing further away from the
qualities of the universe. Many people have become morally
corrupt amidst larger changes in the universe, with people in
China, as it grows increasingly commercialized, being a prime
example; they are drifting further and further from the uni-
verse’s qualities of zhen, shan, ren. Yet those who have become
caught up in these secular trends can’t sense how badly values
are changing. Some even think things are great. Only those
whose minds have elevated through spiritual refinement can
recognize the woeful state of people’s values today.
Teachers of energy practices have claimed that they can
“free” or “unblock” your psychic powers, which is misleading.
That’s because psychic powers won’t work without first being
powered up by one’s own energy. Nothing can be done for
a person if that hasn’t happened. They have to first be devel-
oped by a person’s own energy and brought to maturity. And
even in cases where it does seem that a teacher has activated
someone’s powers, that’s not what happened. It was merely
that he connected the person’s mind with whatever powers
he or she had already developed, so that now they respond
to his or her mental commands, and work. So those teachers

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 have no grounds for claiming that they freed anyone’s powers.
It’s just that a link-up was made, and nothing more.
The thoughts of those who do spiritual practice can summon
powers to do things, while a regular person’s thoughts direct
the limbs or sensory organs to do things. These activities
resemble how the operations department or president’s office
of a business issues directives that are then carried out by var-
ious divisions of the company. Or it’s like how in the military
a commanding office might issue an order via its command
post, and then troops will be mobilized to execute the mis-
sion. This is a topic I’ve discussed on many occasions with the
heads of local chi-gong organizations while on the road giving
classes. They have been surprised by my remarks, as they had
always been trying to tap into the “potential energy” and
“consciousness” of the mind; they didn’t realize that there is
nothing there to tap. Their efforts had been based on a wrong
assumption all along. Research into the higher functions of
the human body would benefit from a change in thinking
and approach, as the usual means of deduction and analy-
sis aren’t well suited to dealing with things of a higher order.
There are several forms that thoughts might take, as indi-
cated by all of the different terms people use, such as the
unconscious, the subconscious, inspiration, and dreams.
Let’s take up the topic of dreams. Spiritual teachers are reluc-
tant to try to explain how they work. These are exceptionally
complex phenomena, for at the time of your birth other par-
allel versions of you were born simultaneously in multiple
dimensions of the universe, and together they form a complete
body with you, linked via the mind; you also have inside your
body a true soul, a secondary soul, and a wide array of super-
natural beings, each with its own appearance; and every cell,

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along with your internal organs, reflects your appearance
and energies in other dimensions. There has always been
a question as to what accounts for the apparent randomness
of dreams. The medical sciences attribute it to alterations in
brain waves, which is the measurable form that it assumes
here. But those waves are actually responses to signals from
other dimensions. Whatever the case, you needn’t concern
yourself with what happens in dreams where everything is
hazy and confused, since those dreams aren’t significant.
There is, however, one class of dreams that is significant and
that shouldn’t be thought of as “just dreams.” These are the
dreams where your own mind—i.e., your true soul—saw that
you were approached by a family member, or something vivid
took place, or you witnessed or experienced something first-
hand. In those instances your true soul really did experience
something in another dimension, since your mind was lucid
and things were lifelike. What you experienced did indeed
happen, only it happened in another physical dimension and
space-time. And so such things shouldn’t be written off as
just dreams, even if your body here in this world was asleep
and doing what would be considered dreaming. But only in
these cases are dreams significant.
It’s worth noting that terms such as inspiration, the sub-
conscious, and the unconscious were arrived at not by sci-
entists but by other intellectual figures, and they were basing
their ideas on merely common mental phenomena that were
familiar to them. So they aren’t very scientific. Consider
what’s meant by the unconscious. The term can’t be read-
ily explained and the concept is ill-defined, due to the fact
that the energies and information from other dimensions
that affect people are so complicated, and so they are often

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 mistaken for memory traces. The subconscious, on the other
hand, is something more easily explained. As the term is
defined, it generally refers to a person’s doing something
while not cognizant of it, or doing it “subconsciously”—i.e.,
not intentionally. We sometimes use the term “subconscious
mind” as well. It’s easy for the subconscious mind (i.e., the
secondary soul) to dictate a person’s thoughts when he relaxes
his conscious mind or isn’t controlling his brain, like when
he’s dreaming or seems to zone out. And it is at these times,
when he isn’t fully present mentally, that the subconscious
mind might act through him. Usually things won’t go wrong,
as the subconscious mind isn’t under the spell of this world
and can see things as they really are; it resides in another
dimension, after all. When the person wakes up or snaps
out of it, he might think, “Wow, I really botched that up,” or
“I wouldn’t have done that if I were paying attention.” But
if he revisits the matter a few days or weeks later, he might
be pleasantly surprised by how well he handled it or did it.
And this is common. It was done excellently because the
subconscious mind wasn’t thinking about the immediate,
short-term impact; it knew that things would turn out for
the best in the long run. In other cases, where there is no
question of long-term impact and only the present matters,
what the subconscious has the person do will likely be done
in a manner that’s excellent right at the time.
Then there is another form of [“subconscious”] mental
activity, one that’s usually found in people with excellent innate
foundations. It is when a person does things at the command
of higher beings. But this is of course a different scenario alto-
gether, and we won’t go into it here. I want to focus on the
forms of consciousness that come from our own selves.

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 “Inspiration” is another term or concept that was arrived at
by intellectual figures. Generally, inspiration is said to have
occurred when knowledge that someone has accumulated
comes forth unexpectedly and spontaneously, like a spark. But
this doesn’t make much sense in light of materialist theory,
since it would say that an individual’s brain should become
increasingly sharp as he gains knowledge and puts his brain
to use throughout life, and the knowledge he has accumulated
should be at his disposal at all times; there shouldn’t be any
need for what people are calling inspiration. Typical exam-
ples of inspiration might involve someone pondering some-
thing until he is at his wits’ end; experiencing writer’s block,
or running out of ideas while composing a song; or getting
stuck while engaged in scientific research. The person might
be flushed with exhaustion from having wracked his brain,
with cigarette butts littered all around, and yet he will still
be stuck. Then finally, he might decide in a moment of frus-
tration to take a break, and it is usually at times like this that
inspiration springs up. While taking a break he relaxes and
sets the matter aside, only to find that afterwards, without any
effort, a solution comes to him from somewhere in the mind.
[What blocked his effort previously was that] his conscious
mind had been in charge, and the more that is the case, the
less likely it is for other entities to come into play. And so it
is under circumstances like I just described that most inspi-
ration comes about.
Let’s look at why inspiration comes then. When a person’s
brain is governed by his rational, conscious mind, there is
little chance for the subconscious mind to get involved. The
harder that someone thinks, the tighter the control that the
conscious mind exerts. The subconscious mind is part of his

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body and was born along with him from the womb, and gov-
erns a portion of the body. If the person is thinking so hard
about something that his head hurts, he’s out of ideas, and
it’s trying for him, his subconscious mind will likewise find it
hard to bear and might have a headache too. But if and when
his conscious mind relaxes and loosens its grip, the subcon-
scious can relay whatever insights it has on the matter to his
brain. It can see things as they truly are, since it resides in
another dimension, and so its help will allow the person to
make a breakthrough and complete what he was working on.
Some people might take this to mean that they should
be making use of their subconscious, as in the note that
someone just passed up to me asking how to connect with
it. But that’s not something you can do when you have only
just begun your practice and have limited powers. At this
point you’d best not try to connect with it, since it is likely
an attachment that’s motivating you. Or it might be that you
are thinking the subconscious could be utilized to benefit
humanity and the world. But that too is out of the question,
since what your subconscious knows is still limited—lim-
ited to the dimension it exists in. Its knowledge doesn’t reach
beyond its own dimension. And yet the universe is extraordi-
narily complex in structure, with highly intricate dimensions
and numerous planes of existence, among which are vertical
planes containing still many more dimensions. The develop-
ments in this world are under the control of higher beings
that dwell in realms above, and what happens here on earth
follows predetermined patterns that have been put in place.
The events of this human world unfold according to his-
torical patterns. So while you might wish to foster progress
in some form or other, or realize a certain goal, your wishes

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might not tally with those of the beings above [who decide
such things]. For example, it’s quite likely that the ideas of
modern planes, trains, and bicycles were similarly arrived
at back in the ancient world, only they couldn’t come about
because it was not yet the right moment in history. By contrast,
people conventionally think that the reason those inventions
never came about was due to the limitations of science in the
past. But the truth is, the pace of scientific development is
itself subject to history’s designs. All of which is to say, things
won’t necessarily go as you hope for. There are of course cases
where an individual’s subconscious does play an active role in
his or her life. For example, there is a writer who says that he
can write ten thousand words a day, without fatigue; the words
just come to him and his work is well received. As you might
guess, this is the result of his conscious and subconscious
minds working together, with the latter shouldering half the
task. But this is rare. In most cases a person’s subconscious
won’t get involved in any way. Any attempts on your part to
have it do so won’t go well, and might turn out the opposite
of what you intended.

A Pure and Serene Mind

Many people have a hard time calming their minds when
they do meditative exercises, and seek out teachers in hopes
of figuring out why their minds are so active. Their minds
are really like stormy seas, with all sorts of things churning
up. And that makes it impossible for them to become still
and centered. And when they don’t know the cause of it, they
might think that they just need to find the right technique for

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it, and look for a teacher who will share his or her secrets and
hopefully bring them the calm they seek. So they are pinning
their hopes on others, as I see it. Yet true progress comes by
looking at yourself and focusing on your mind. It is the only
way to make true progress and experience serenity in med-
itation. And that is an achievement. Your ability to center
yourself and still your mind reflects your spiritual progress.
Only those with excellent innate foundations can just
quiet their minds at will; for the average person it’s simply
not possible. The real reason why you can’t quiet your mind is
not due to your technique, or because you haven’t found the
secret to success; but rather, that your mind, or what’s inside
of your heart, is not pure. It’s going to be hard to still your
mind if you don’t get along with others in daily life and you
do selfish things for emotional reasons, or out of worldly
wants and attachments, and you can’t get over those things
or take them lightly. And yet some people try to just battle
through all of the errant thoughts that keep arising as they
practice, and try to just will them away, rather than believe
that it’s about purity. But that is what it comes down to.
One objection might be that certain teachers do teach
methods that allegedly quiet the mind, such as “guarding the
one,” visualizing, focusing or gazing upon the body’s energy
center, or reciting a Buddha’s name. But those are more than
just methods; they also involve mastery. And such mastery
comes from refining the mind and progressing to higher
stages of practice; achieving stillness isn’t as simple as using
some technique or other. Naysayers are welcome to give those
methods a try and see how far they can get while still sad-
dled with numerous desires and intense attachments that
they haven’t let go of. I’m skeptical when I hear people claim

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that they can still the mind just by reciting a Buddha’s name.
If people think, for example, that Pure Land Buddhism is as
simple as reciting Buddha Amitabha’s name, I doubt they’ve
tried it. I would say that stillness is a matter of mastery, and
not as easily found as people claim. It doesn’t come easily in
any spiritual discipline.
While it’s well known that the Buddha taught the practice
of meditation, less known is what preceded it in his teaching:
the following of precepts, which are meant to bring an end
to one’s desires and obsessions. And only then, by emptying
oneself of everything, would focused meditation become pos-
sible. So there’s a logic to it. Meditation is a matter of mastery.
His followers weren’t expected to have fulfilled the precepts
on day one, however. Rather, they would gradually come to
renounce all that is bad, and as they did so, their powers of
meditation would rise. Chanting a Buddha’s name similarly
requires undivided attention and a blank mind. As a person
repeatedly chants a Buddha’s name, all other regions of his
brain are numbed; he becomes oblivious to everything else,
with that one thought supplanting all others; and each letter
of the Buddha’s name appears before his mind’s eye. That of
course takes mastery. It’s not something achievable right at
the outset, and neither is quiet of mind. Anyone who doubts
this is welcome to try otherwise. But they will find that their
minds run amok even as their mouths are actively reciting.
They might be thinking about how poorly their supervi-
sor treats them at work, or how they got slighted with their
most recent bonus. And they might get worked up as more
thoughts like those go through their minds, even as they are
chanting the Buddha’s name. Then that hardly achieves the
intent of the practice. This means that even the act of chanting

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a Buddha’s name involves mastery, and it won’t go smoothly
if the mind is impure. Another example would be those who
gaze with their open inner eye at the body’s energy center, in
the lower abdomen, where things will be bright if the energy
cluster is pure, and dark if not. But here again, stilling your
mind isn’t as simple as gazing at your navel. It’s not a matter
of technique. The crucial thing is whether your mind, or
thoughts, are pure. Suppose someone uses that method and
peers inside at his energy center, and sees a glistening cluster
of energy, much to his liking. Yet shortly after, perhaps his
thoughts turn to a new home and he starts thinking about
which room will go to his son, which to his daughter, which
to his wife and him, or how they might share the room in
the middle as a living room. It’s exhilarating to him, and he
might even start thinking about how to turn this dream into
a reality. But calm of mind is hardly possible if your mind is
preoccupied like that. Contrast that with the following view:
coming to this world is like staying over at a hotel, which we
quickly leave after a short stint. Yet some people are so caught
up in this place that they have no interest in leaving. They
have forgotten their true homes.
True spiritual practice means cultivating your mind, work-
ing on yourself, and reflecting on your role in things rather
than blaming your circumstances. There is a school of prac-
tice that has taught that “Buddha is in the mind,” and there
is truth to that. But some people have misinterpreted this as
meaning that you are in fact Buddha, since Buddha is in your
mind. But they are mistaken; it couldn’t possibly mean that.
What it means to say is that the key to successful practice is the
mind. It’s a stretch to think that it means there is a Buddha in
you. Divinity comes through spiritual refinement.

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 The reason you can’t become mentally still or centered is
that your mind is not empty or your practice not advanced
enough. Concentration progresses from shallow to deep, and
is closely linked to spiritual progress. When you manage to
break an attachment, you advance in your practice and your
stillness deepens. So I would say that relying on some method
or other equates to looking outward. And that is precisely
what leads people astray on the spiritual journey and brings
trouble. Buddhism goes so far as to say that you are “laps-
ing into evil ways” when you look for outside help or blame
your circumstances. True practice is about working on the
mind, and only with an elevation of thought will you be able
to achieve a state of pure serenity and detachment. Only by
refining your character will you become attuned to the quali-
ties of the universe; rid yourself of all bad things such as wants
and attachments; expel the bad substances from your body;
and move upward. With these changes you will no longer be
held back by the qualities of the universe, and your virtue,
which physically exists, will be converted into higher energy.
It should now be clear how closely these all go together.
So, what I just described is the internal reason why people
can’t achieve quiet or stillness during practice: they can’t will
themselves to do what a practitioner should be able to do.
There are also external factors nowadays that stand to severely
affect practitioners and compromise their progress. China has
loosened policy restrictions in recent decades in an attempt
to invigorate the economy, and has implemented reform
programs meant to “open up” the country. Many new tech-
nologies have been imported and the standard of living has
gone up. Ask just about anyone and they will tell you that
it’s a good thing. But there are pros and cons to everything,

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and we should look at both sides of the matter. Bad things
of every sort have entered China in conjunction with the
reforms and opening up. Books and magazines now have
sexual content added in to boost sales, lest publishers have
a hard time selling them. And viewership for movies and
television programs seems to suffer if there aren’t any bed-
room scenes, and so they’re included out of a concern for
box office sales or ratings. Much of what passes as “art” today
leaves people scratching their heads as to how it could qualify
as that. There was certainly nothing of the sort in traditional
Chinese art, which dates back to antiquity. And I should add
that the cultural traditions of China are not things that some-
one invented or put together. As I suggested in the discus-
sion of cultures that predate history, everything traces back
to a greater source. But now people’s values have changed
and been corrupted; even what counts as good and bad have
changed. Yet while humankind has undergone these changes,
the qualities and standard of the universe that are the sole
measure of a person—zhen, shan, ren—have not changed,
and never will. A practitioner has to go by these, rather than
what’s commonly held, if he is to rise above the ordinary.
And along with what I just described, there are other exter-
nal things that might prey upon you, such as homosexuality,
sexual temptation, recreational drugs, and other unseemly
things.
One can only imagine what would become of this world,
having reached the point that it has, if it were to continue in
this direction. But it won’t be allowed to. If man doesn’t set
it right, the divine will. The catastrophes that have befallen
humanity have always come in times like these. I have
refrained from speaking about catastrophes in my classes.

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But religions have taught about them, and they have become
something of a hot topic. I would just raise the question of
how perilous it may be for morals to have changed as dras-
tically as they have and for people to now live with so much
hostility toward one another. This means that our spiritual
progress is seriously challenged by our surroundings; even
out in public you are now confronted with indecent images.
The Daoist sage Lao-tzu wrote that, “When the supe-
rior man hears the Way, he will practice it with diligence.”
A superior person will realize how hard a true teaching is to
come by, and know to seize the opportunity and start prac-
ticing. A complicated setting like today’s world turns out to
be a good thing, as I see it, for this is what it takes to produce
someone really outstanding. You have to be truly solid in your
practice to rise above others in a setting like this.
For someone who is really determined about practice,
a complicated setting is, I believe, a good thing. You would
have no way to make spiritual progress if there was no
strife around you or chances to work on your character. It
wouldn’t be possible if everyone got along just fine. Lao-tzu
also wrote about “the average man who hears the Way.” That
would be just an average adherent, who is fine with practicing
or not, and who will have a hard time making it in the end.
There are people right here today who find what I’m teaching
agreeable, and yet once they are back out in the world, they
may get overwhelmed by the lure of worldly things. As real
as those things may seem, even millionaires and members
of the ultra-wealthy have realized at the end of their lives
that they in fact have nothing—that material riches can’t be
taken with you past this lifetime, and ultimately, are empty.
By contrast, what makes higher energy so precious is that it

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does go with you at the time of death. It’s carried on by your
soul to the start of your next life. We believe in the immortal-
ity of the soul, and don’t consider this idea to be misguided
or theoretical. The cells of your physical body in this dimen-
sion may be shed at death, but in other dimensions, which
are made of smaller particulate components, your body has
not in fact perished. It has merely molted its shell, so to speak.
All of what I have been discussing comes down to charac-
ter. The Buddha as well as Bodhidharma both noted that the
land of China, which lay in the East, would give rise to the
most virtuous of people. This has been a source of pride for
generations of Chinese citizens and monks. But it stems from
a misunderstanding: they have taken it to mean that the Chi-
nese are spiritually gifted. Many have even been happy and
smug about it, thinking they are really special and that China
is home to the spiritually adept. Yet most are confused about
what was meant, and haven’t given thought to why it would
be in China that you see such figures. As is often the case,
few can grasp what the utterances of the spiritually accom-
plished, [like the Buddha or Bodhidharma,] mean, for their
realms of thought and states of awareness aren’t familiar to
people. I don’t think you need me to spell it out to get the
idea: great spiritual achievement is only possible in the most
complicated of settings and when surrounded by the most
complicated of people.

One’s Innate Foundation

A person’s innate foundation is determined by how much
of the material known as virtue his or her body carries in

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another dimension. Someone has a poor foundation if he
has less virtue and more of the black matter, as it means
karma is more present within him. Whereas someone will
have a good foundation if he has more virtue, and thus lots
of the white matter; karma has less of a presence. So people
carry two types of matter, one black and the other white, and
the two can be converted into one another. Remember that
you can gain the white matter by going through hardships,
or pain and suffering, and by doing good things; while the
black matter comes from doing wrongful or bad things, and
it is known as karma. So either of these might result from
your actions. They can also come to you from past lives. This
is possible because both of them build up over your lifetimes
and reach far back, traveling from one life to the next with
your soul. So we believe that both karma and virtue can be
accumulated over time as well as passed down through the
generations in a family. I sometimes recall how people in
ancient China, or even older folks today, used to talk about
previous generations in a family having stored up virtue, and
would remind people to store it up and not lose it. What they
said was remarkably insightful; there was a lot to it.
The quality of an individual’s innate foundation can deter-
mine his ability to believe. Someone with a good founda-
tion will tend to have more faith, thanks to all of the white
matter he has. That matter is in harmony with the universe
and the qualities of zhen, shan, ren, without any separation.
And so these qualities can manifest in his body without
impediment and communicate with it directly. Someone
with a poor foundation, however, will tend to have less faith.
That’s because the opposite holds true for the black matter. It
comes from having done wrongful things and runs counter

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to the universe’s qualities, and so it separates a person from
them. The black matter will encase a person’s body with a field
of its own if there is enough of it, and it will grow in density
and thickness as it expands, and undermine a person’s faith.
That happens because he is being cut off from the cosmic qual-
ities of zhen, shan, ren by the black matter he brought upon
himself. People like this tend to have a harder time believ-
ing in spiritual practice, their faith suffers for it, and karma
poses a greater obstacle for them. And the more painful it
is, the less they believe. So spiritual progress is very difficult
in this scenario.
Spiritual practice is easier for those with more of the white
matter, for their virtue will be converted straight into higher
energy as long as they embody the qualities of the universe
and perfect their character. By contrast, those with more of
the black matter have to go through an extra procedure. It can
be likened to production at a factory. While others come to
the practice with ready-made material, these individuals bring
crude material, which needs an additional round of process-
ing. And so they have to first suffer to lessen their karma and
change it into white matter. And only then, once it has been
remade into material virtue, is it possible for them to develop
higher energy with the practice. But often these people tend to
have less faith. And their faith only weakens when they have
to suffer more, and they find it unbearable. So it’s harder for
those with more of the black matter to practice. And this is
why the teachers of Daoist practices or practices with direct
spiritual lineages used to search for disciples, rather than vice
versa; they would select disciples based on how much karma
and virtue their bodies had.
While a person’s innate foundation does generally

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determine his or her degree of faith, this isn’t always the
case. Some people have poor foundations and yet their home
environment is spiritually rich, with many family mem-
bers being religious or doing energy practices and believ-
ing in spiritual things. This can foster belief in a person who
otherwise wouldn’t have much, and strengthen his or her
faith. So this means that there are other factors besides just
one’s foundation. And conversely, there are also cases where
people with good foundations have had their ability to believe
severely undermined by, most typically, the lackluster educa-
tion they received in this materialistic world; it might make
them narrow-minded and doubtful about anything beyond
what they formally learn. And this has been even more pro-
nounced in China in recent times, where schooling has taught
people to think in black-and-white terms.
Here’s a telling case. I was once teaching about the inner
eye on the second day of a class. There was someone there
who had an excellent foundation, and I opened his inner eye
to a very high realm. He saw many things not visible to others.
He was greatly surprised by it and told people about seeing
falun floating down, like snowflakes, onto those who were
present at my teaching; he talked about what my true body
looked like and how my aura appeared; what the falun looked
like; and how many spiritual bodies were present. He also saw
that I was giving the teaching across multiple planes, and that
falun were mending the bodies of those attending the class.
And he even saw that as I was instructing here, my energy
bodies were simultaneously teaching at many other planes,
and that there were angelic fairies overhead scattering flow-
ers, and more. The fact that he could see so much suggests
that he had an excellent foundation. Yet after he described all

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of this, he concluded by saying that he didn’t believe in such
things. However, some of these things have been verified by
recent science, and many more could be explained by what
science now has to offer. And we have explained some of them
here. The insights of energy practice actually surpass those
of modern science. So you should now have a sense for how
a good foundation doesn’t always translate into strong faith.

Enlightenment
What does it mean to be “enlightened”? The term has religious
origins. The Buddhist sense of it has to do with a person’s grasp
of the Buddha’s teachings, and it is used both in the sense
of one’s spiritual insight into these, as well as in the sense of
one’s final awakening; and so it has to do with wisdom. But
nowadays in China the same term is being used in secular
settings for people who are clever and know how to win their
supervisor’s favor. Such people are said to be really “enlight-
ened,” since that’s what many people think it means. But
things often aren’t as people take them to be, and you will
discover this for yourself if you can manage to look at things
from a slightly higher vantage point. When we use the term
“enlightened,” it’s not at all in a worldly sense. We would con-
sider somebody who is overly clever to be quite unenlight-
ened. This sort of person may do his job only superficially
and just be concerned with garnering praise from his supe-
riors, and so he might end up getting himself indebted to
others—who have to pick up the slack and do the real work
that he neglected. His cleverness can mean that he finds ways
to take credit for things and make out better, but at other

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people’s expense; he never gets the short end of the stick,
but this means that others do. And so someone like this can
get more and more caught up in worldly things, and in turn,
become more small-minded, believing that material things
shouldn’t be passed up. This might lead the person to think
of himself as someone who’s “practical” and who gets his way.
And somehow people admire that. But I would say
there’s nothing admirable about it. Living like that is more
tiring than you could imagine. Someone like that has poor
eating habits and neglects sleep, and probably worries about
losing out even while dreaming. He is terribly petty about
worldly things. It really must be tiring to live that way. What
we teach, by contrast, is that you can change a tough situation
just by compromising a little. But someone like I was describ-
ing won’t budge, and so his life is awfully tiring. He’s not some-
one to emulate in any way. People of faith regard someone
like this as a lost soul, as he has completely fallen for ordi-
nary, worldly things. He probably won’t heed any well-meant
advice about becoming more virtuous, and will respond to
the idea of spiritual practice with total disbelief. He would
regard it as absurd, and think it’s something only a glutton
for punishment—or what people call an “Ah Q”—would
do, since it entails never retaliating or responding to malice
in kind, and even being grateful for it. This sort of thing
isn’t comprehensible to someone like that, and he will prob-
ably think that you make no sense, that you’re foolish. As you
can imagine, it’s hard for someone like that to see the light.
We wouldn’t use the term “enlightened” for this kind of
person, naturally. We would consider people who are “fool-
ish”—to use his term for it—to be more enlightened than he
is. But of course, there is nothing actually foolish about how

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 we are. Rather, it’s just that we worry little about the worldly
things that people usually can’t go without and take to be
so significant; meanwhile, we are still very astute with other
things. We’re very much conscientious and attentive with the
things we do, be it scientific research or the tasks assigned at
work, and we do them well. It’s the trivial things like worldly
gain or interpersonal stuff that we take lightly. You should
rest assured that no one worthwhile is going to see you as
being foolish for this.
And even someone who might indeed be considered a
“fool,” it turns out, is just the opposite when viewed with
a higher logic. Someone who is mentally disabled isn’t capable
of doing major wrong in a worldly sense, nor is he capable of
scheming against people; and he won’t do things out of ego.
So he won’t squander his virtue. Others might give him their
virtue, however. They might physically abuse him or make
fun of him, both of which would give him virtue—some-
thing extraordinarily precious. As we’ve established, anything
that’s gained in this universe comes at a cost. So when some-
one mocks a disabled person or calls him names, as he opens
his mouth to do so, a segment of virtue goes over to the other
party. He loses that virtue because he mistreated the person for
his own, selfish ends. And similarly, another portion of virtue
will be sent over to the disabled person if someone physically
abuses him. And while being bullied or physically abused,
perhaps the disabled person just grins, almost as if welcom-
ing it and knowing on some level that he’s gaining virtue from
it, and doesn’t want to turn any of it down. So if we look at
this with a higher logic, who’s the smarter of the two? It turns
out it’s the mentally disabled person. He doesn’t lose a bit of
virtue through it all, while the other party is flinging virtue

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over to him, which he doesn’t give back and happily takes
in full. “Foolish” as he may be in this lifetime, he won’t be
in the next, for his soul is no fool. There is something to the
religious belief that the virtuous will be blessed in the next
life, for blessings come on account of virtue.
Virtue, we believe, can be converted into higher energy
without needing any intermediary steps. This means that it
is virtue, in its converted form, that determines your level
of spiritual attainment; for it becomes higher energy. So
virtue, once transformed, decides your level of attainment
and your spiritual power. That means it should be cherished,
doesn’t it? And it goes with you from one life to the next. In
Buddhism it’s held that your celestial rank reflects your level
of attainment; meaning, it bespeaks of your effort. And there
is a religious belief that those born with greater virtue, or
blessings, might enjoy abundant wealth or positions of high
office. By contrast, those lacking in it might have little success
even just begging for food, since they would have no virtue
to exchange, and nothing in life is free, after all. And what
someone with no virtue faces is true death, where both body
and soul are destroyed.
There was once a master of chi-gong whose level of attain-
ment was quite high when he first taught publicly. He later got
caught up in fame and fortune, however, and so his teacher
led away his secondary soul; his practice had been carried
out by the secondary soul, in fact. Prior to this, when his
secondary soul was still present, what he did was dictated by
it. An example would be the time when his workplace was
allotting housing. His supervisor announced that anyone
who needed housing could come and describe their circum-
stances and needs. While everyone proceeded to do so, this

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person didn’t say anything. Then, when it came to decision
time, the person in charge concluded that he was in greater
need than others and would be given the housing. Others
objected and insisted that it should go to them, and went
on about how great their needs were. This person’s response
was simply, “Then one of you can have it.” People might nor-
mally call someone “foolish” for responding like that, but
some who were present knew that he engaged in spiritual
practice, and asked him what on earth he would want, if even
free housing didn’t appeal to him. He responded, “I’ll settle
for whatever people don’t want.” He didn’t say that because
he was foolish, but because he cared little for worldly things
and believed in going with the flow; he had a perfectly good
head on his shoulders. People pressed him for an example, as
they couldn’t imagine something that people “don’t want.” He
replied, “I’ll settle for the stones on the ground that get kicked
around and that nobody wants.” To the average person that
might make no sense; his or her plane of thought, or level,
wouldn’t be adequate to grasp the idea. Of course, this man
wasn’t about to start picking up pebbles. Rather, he was stating
a principle, though the common man wouldn’t realize it: not
to seek after worldly things. And let’s talk about stones. You
might be familiar with how some religious scriptures describe
everything in heaven as being golden—from the trees to the
ground, birds, flowers, to dwellings, with even the bodies of
the higher beings there, by some accounts, being fashioned
of glittering gold. There, stones are a rarity, and so it’s said
that stones are used as currency, in fact. Now, it wasn’t that
the man I was describing planned on bringing stones there
with him. Rather, he was hinting at a higher truth along these
lines, but which wasn’t understandable to the average person.

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A practitioner will surely not be occupied by the wants that
normally consume people, and will place little value in worldly
things. What he will have in his life, however, are higher things
that people ordinarily can’t have—even if they come to know
about them and want them.
So this is one sense of the term “enlightened,” and it has to
do with the realizations people come to during their spiritual
development. Yet in China the term is now being used in sec-
ular ways, the opposite of how we use it. However, enlighten-
ment in the truest sense goes further than I’ve described. It
has to do with whether a person of faith can, when he meets
with adversity, hold fast to the guidance of his teacher—be
it in whatever practice or belief—and remember that his is
a spiritual life, see the situation for what it is, and embrace it
and handle it in the manner set forth by his way of practice.
Some people can just never believe in such things, though,
and think that there’s more to gain by being worldly. What
makes it so hard for them to believe is that they aren’t willing
to open their minds. For example, some people are only here
for healing and get put off when I explain that that’s not what
this kind of practice is for, and then the rest of the time they
won’t be receptive to anything I say.
In some cases people don’t act very enlightened, such as
when they go and make notes in my books. People whose
inner eyes are open have seen that this book is bathed in
brilliant colors, and emanates golden light, with each word
having a spiritual body of mine behind it. And you can be
sure that I am not making this up and trying to mislead you.
Each mark someone writes in there is dark. I think that if you
are clear on what this book is doing—that it is taking you
to greater spiritual heights—you won’t even consider doing

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that. You should be more thoughtful about certain things.
Shouldn’t you treasure a book that can guide your practice?
And yet by contrast, you might be so reverent toward the reli-
gious images you have at home, being careful not to so much
as touch them, and praying to them daily, even when all that
worship doesn’t amount to genuine practice. Yet you would
desecrate these profound teachings of Dafa, which have the
power to truly guide you in spiritual practice.
More properly used, the term “enlightened” should be
referring to how well someone understands the things that
happen in his spiritual development or the guidance that was
imparted by his teacher. Yet this isn’t to be considered being
fully enlightened. For someone to become fully enlightened,
he will have to, from the day he begins his practice, utilize
the years left in his life to strive to constantly progress and
remove attachments, wants, and desires. And as he does so,
he will gain more and more higher energy until eventually
he arrives at the final stage of practice. At that point all of his
material virtue will have been converted into higher energy,
and he will be at the end of the path his teacher designed for
him. All of what had locked his body up until that moment
will be blasted open. His inner eye will reach the highest
point of whatever plane he is at, and he will be able to see
into all dimensions existing at his level; see matter as well
as the supernatural beings that exist in each corresponding
space and time; as well as see the Truth of the universe. He
will have miraculous powers at his disposal, and be able to see
and have access to higher beings in many realms. I think you
would have to agree that at this point he is an “enlightened”
being—someone who has achieved awakening via spiritual
practice. In the terminology of ancient India, he has become
a “Buddha.”

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 The form of enlightenment I just described is one type of
full enlightenment, known as “sudden enlightenment.” In
cases of sudden enlightenment, the person is locked during
his years of practice and doesn’t know how much energy he
has or what it’s like. He will not sense anything physically,
as even his cells are sealed up. Any energy he develops is
locked away and kept from him. It continues like this all the
way until the very last stage of his practice, at which point
his energy is unlocked and his senses are opened. Practicing
in this manner is extremely trying, and only someone with
a great spiritual makeup can succeed at it. The person has to
go from being simply a good person to someone who con-
stantly works on his character, suffers, makes spiritual prog-
ress, and raises the bar for himself—yet never being able to
perceive the higher energy he is gaining from it. His is the
hardest path, practicing for so many years without any sense
of his achievements, and so it takes a great spiritual makeup.
There is another form of enlightenment, which is referred
to as “gradual enlightenment.” Many practitioners can sense
the falun turning in them right from the outset, and I open
the inner eye for everyone, even if some can’t manage to see
initially; eventually they will come to have visions as well,
and with increasing clarity, as they learn to use the eye over
time and their levels of attainment rise. Psychic powers will
also come about for this group as they perfect their character
and whittle away their attachments. And they will be able to
see or sense the changes they undergo along the journey, for
the most part, as well as the transformation of their bodies.
They will progress in this manner until the final stage, where
they will have reached the highest point they were meant
to, and the Truth of the universe at their level will be fully

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revealed to them. With this, their innate bodies will have been
transformed and their powers strengthened to a considerable
extent. So all of these goals were met gradually, in their case,
and thus the designation “gradual enlightenment.” There is
nothing easy about this approach, either. For example, for
those who may still harbor attachments, there is the tempta-
tion to show off and a good chance of doing wrong, given the
powers at their disposal. And if they succumb to that temp-
tation, they will lose the higher energy that they worked so
hard to obtain, and they might even end up in ruins. Or those
who have visions might perceive supernatural beings from
other planes, who might try to goad them into doing certain
things or have them become followers of their practices. But
those beings would have no way to guide a person to true
divine standing, since they haven’t achieved it themselves.
What’s even more challenging about it is that the entities
in higher dimensions are all at least semi-divine, and capable
of expanding to an enormous size and making impressive dis-
plays of their powers. And if you fall for it, you might end up
going along with them. But doing so would spell ruin for your
practice. Even if those beings were full divinities, you would
still have to begin practicing anew, from scratch. The multi-
tude of beings found throughout the [three-realm] heavens
are just transcendent figures, ultimately. They haven’t reached
the highest levels of achievement or met the ultimate goal of
practice; they have yet to break free of the three realms. But
to a regular person they really do come across as towering,
imposing, and almighty, even if they lack true divine standing.
So it remains to be seen whether you can stay poised when
signals or energies from other dimensions come to you, or
visions that tempt you start to appear. And this is why we

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say that practicing with an open inner eye is difficult. The
challenges to your mind are even greater then. The good
news is, it’s likely you won’t begin gradual enlightenment and
gain such powers until you reach the midway mark on your
journey. Though I do open the inner eye for all of you, many
powers aren’t made available at first; they are blasted open
only later, after your character has developed sufficiently, your
mind has become steady, and you have gained self-control.
Gradual enlightenment will only come to you upon a certain
level of attainment, and by then you should be able to exer-
cise self-control in regard to the many powers that you gain.
And then you will carry on practicing, in this manner, until
eventually all of your powers become available to you. Many
of you belong to the group I’m describing—where gradual
enlightenment begins midway. So you needn’t be anxious if
you have yet to experience visions.
You might be familiar with how Zen Buddhism makes
a distinction between sudden and gradual enlightenment. The
sixth Zen patriarch, Hui-neng, believed in sudden enlight-
enment, while Shen Xiu, of Zen’s Northern school, believed
in gradual enlightenment. The two approaches have long
been the subject of debate among Buddhists. But the debate
isn’t that meaningful, as I see it, because what the two figures
were referring to was just an individual’s degree of insight
into the teachings as he practices. Some arrive at insights in
a sudden flash, while others arrive at them more slowly, over
time. But either should be fine, as in both cases the person
does enlighten to something. Naturally, it’s better to do so
instantly, but gradually is okay too; in either case the person
comes to a new understanding. So neither approach is wrong.

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The Spiritually Adept
It takes more than just a good innate foundation to be worthy
of being called “spiritually adept.” Spiritually adept individu-
als are rare, and historically have been few and far between.
As you would imagine, for starters they have to have abun-
dant virtue. They are sure to be individuals who can suffer
beyond the normal threshold, who have superior self-control,
who are able to make whatever sacrifices are needed, who
don’t squander their virtue, and who are spiritually discern-
ing, among other things.
Let’s explore what it means to “suffer beyond the normal
threshold.” There is a Buddhist belief that human beings are
fashioned to suffer—that as long as someone is human he
must inevitably suffer. They believe that the beings in other
dimensions don’t have bodies as humans do, and are free
of ailments as well as the routine miseries of life; so they
aren’t subject to the pains that we are. And as beings of other
dimensions, they can float about effortlessly and are weight-
less, which is just wondrous. Whereas normal human beings,
saddled with the bodies that they have, are burdened by heat
and cold, thirst and hunger, as well as fatigue, on top of which
there is the cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death. In a word,
it’s not pleasant.
I recall a news report about survivors of the devastating
earthquake that once hit Tangshan city. Those who nearly
died but were resuscitated were surveyed and asked about
any near-death experiences they may have had. Surprisingly,
those who did, consistently described something extraordi-
nary: at the time of death they had no sense of fear, and to
the contrary, they had a feeling of liberation and a sense of

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excitement. Some described being suddenly freed from the
bonds of their bodies and enjoying the incredible experience
of floating about freely, and seeing their own bodies below
while doing so. And some described seeing otherworldly
beings in other dimensions, while some told of traveling to
otherworldly places. In all cases they described how at the
moment of death they became free of pain and experienced
a sense of joy over the freedom they suddenly felt. This sug-
gests that the human body is an instrument of suffering, only
we don’t realize it since we were all born into the world the
same way.
So I would say that human beings have it the hardest. The
other day I indicated that space and time are different here,
in the human world, from those in other, larger dimensions.
What is two hours here, for instance, might equal an entire
year elsewhere. This means that whoever manages to practice
here, in this painful setting, is just exceptional; it indicates that
he has the Way in his heart, that he wants to develop spiri-
tually, and is truly special. He hasn’t lost the innate divinity
within, even here in this trying place, and wishes still to make
himself worthy of heaven. And so unconditional help can be
extended to someone like this. When higher beings behold
this kind of person meditating through the night, for exam-
ple, they hold him in high esteem. Remember that a couple
of hours here may equate to a year in another realm, and so
a night of meditation might equal six years elsewhere. This
is an exceptional setting.
Then consider just how hard it may be to suffer beyond
what’s normal. Suppose someone goes to work one day, only
to find his company not doing well financially, and that there
are more employees than jobs. The company has to reform

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and start contracting work out, and so excess employees are
being let go. This person is one of them, and suddenly finds
himself unemployed. We can just imagine how stressful that
would be. He has no source of income to support his family
now, and no other skills to land a job. So he goes home, terri-
bly dejected. Upon returning home, he learns that his elderly
parent has become seriously ill. He goes to great lengths to
borrow enough money to check his parent into the hospi-
tal, and rushes them there, feeling anxious and upset. Later
he goes back home to get a few things for them, only to
have his kid’s teacher show up at the door, informing him
that his child injured someone in a fight, and that he, as the
father, had better quickly come straighten things out with
the other kid’s parents. After taking care of all this he returns
home, sits down, and then a phone call comes from someone
telling him that his wife is having an affair. Now of course,
you shouldn’t expect to go through the same. Most people
wouldn’t be able to take it, and might think there is no reason
to go on, or even try to take their own life in desperation. My
point is that you may have to go through some of the most
trying ordeals imaginable. They could take any of a variety of
forms. The scheming that goes on between people, the things
that test your character, and the cutthroat nature of society are
no less trying than the scenario I described. Some people, for
instance, find the pain of humiliation to be so great that they
take their own lives. This means that to practice in a setting
as complicated as this, we need to be able to weather the most
trying of storms and have outstanding self-control, or ren.
And what does that look like, in practice? For starters,
a practitioner should be able to hold back from retaliating,
and patiently endure. Anyone who succumbs to retaliating

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could hardly be called a practitioner. Those who have bad
tempers might think that this is too hard for them to do. But
I think they simply need to work on their tempers, as prac-
titioners should be able to stay composed. Some people lose
their tempers when disciplining their children and get all
worked up. But it needn’t be like that. You shouldn’t genuinely
get angry. You have to be calm and rational for your child to
be reared well. Do you really think you could develop higher
energy if even little things get to you or cause you to lose your
temper? I recall someone once telling me that he could take
getting publicly humiliated as long as nobody he knew was
there to see it. But that’s not good enough. You might one
day get slapped in the face and disgraced right in front of
those whom you would least want to see it. How you handle
it would be revealing and show how composed you are. To
really make the grade, you would have to not only keep your
composure but also not let it get to you. Remember that a holy
being would never let anything affect him or her emotion-
ally; worldly things simply don’t occupy a holy person’s mind.
They will always be pleasant and upbeat, however badly they
might be treated. If you can genuinely be like that, then you
have already achieved a basic level of divinity, known as arhat.
People might worry that they will come across as cowards
or pushovers if they exercise that much patience. But there
is nothing cowardly about it. The older generation and those
who are more cultured can practice self-restraint and not
stoop to arguing with others. So all the more so should we,
as practitioners. It could hardly be called cowardly. I would
take it to be a sign of great composure and willpower. That
kind of self-restraint is what defines a practitioner. There is
an old Chinese saying that, “The common man will answer

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insult with his sword.” It’s only to be expected that the typical
person fights back. And that’s what makes him ordinary, as
opposed to a practitioner. To do what I’ve described means
that you must have good willpower and self-control.
There was a well-known figure in ancient times named
Han Hsin, who was extremely able; he served as a chief gen-
eral to the future emperor Liu Bang and was instrumental
in creating his empire. We should note what set him apart.
It’s said that from a young age he was different from others,
and there’s a well-known anecdote about his willingly endur-
ing the indignity of crawling, on hands and knees, between
another man’s legs. As the story goes, when he was young
he was active in the martial arts and carried a sword on him,
as was customary. He was walking down the street one day
when a thug blocked his path, standing with his hands on
his hips. The thug challenged him, saying, “What are you
carrying a sword for? Do you have the guts to kill a man?
Let’s see you prove it by cutting off my head.” And with that
said, he bent over and stuck his neck out. But Han couldn’t see
any point in beheading the man. And like today, doing that
would get you reported to the authorities and cost you your
life, so it wasn’t something to do rashly. When the thug saw
that Han wasn’t about to kill him, he declared, “If you want
to get past me but don’t have the guts to kill me, then you’ll
have to get on your hands and knees and crawl.” And that
is just what he did. We can see from Han’s exceptional com-
posure that he was different from others, and therein lay the
key to his success. Thinking that honor is worth fighting for
is a misguided, worldly notion. A life that revolves around
pride, as you can imagine, is going to be tiring and painful,
and not worth it. As people who seek spiritual transcendence,

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 we should be still better than a Han Hsin, who led an ordi-
nary existence, after all. Our goal is to rise above the ordinary
and make strides toward higher realms. While we won’t go
through what Han did, we will face insults and humiliation
as we practice in this world, and they might be every bit as
challenging. The strife that you experience with others may
really grate on your soul, and be every bit the equal to what
Han went through—if not harder.
You also need to be able to forgo the things that people
normally long for and are attached to. This takes time to
accomplish. It’s not something that can be done overnight, any
more so than becoming holy. But you shouldn’t take a relaxed
approach just because we know it takes time. It’s a problem
if you take my words to be license for being lax. To follow
a sacred path requires the ultimate dedication and effort.
You also need to preserve your virtue, maintain your integ-
rity, and refrain from acting impulsively. You can’t simply do
whatever you would like to; you have to uphold your char-
acter. It’s common in Asian culture to believe that you can
“make merit” by doing good deeds. But as practitioners we
strive to preserve the merit, or virtue, we have, rather than
seek to gain more. People often strive to gain virtue or bless-
ings by doing good works, and hope to secure a better next
life. But from our perspective, you needn’t be concerned with
the next life, for you will be freed from reincarnation if you
achieve enlightenment. A second reason we opt to preserve
virtue is that the two kinds of matter carried on our bodies
weren’t built up over just one lifetime, but trace back over
many lives. And besides, you could scour an entire city and
not find even one genuinely good deed to perform—even if
you did this daily.

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 Then there is another facet to this. The seemingly good
things that people do in an attempt to gain virtue could prove
to be bad things; and the apparently bad things that you see
people do could turn out to be good things. That’s because
there are underlying reasons for events, which may not be evi-
dent. There are ordinary laws in place in this world to regulate
human affairs, which is as it should be. A practitioner, however,
is someone who operates on a higher plane. And as a higher
being you should go by a higher logic; you mustn’t always
look at things with an ordinary lens. You are apt to mishandle
things if you intervene, since you may not know the under-
lying reasons for them. So this is why we subscribe to the
doctrine of “non-interference,” and say that you can’t simply
jump in on an impulse. Someone once tried to reason with me
by saying that he got involved in things because he really just
wanted to “see justice served.” My response was that he’d best
join the police force, in that case. But I’m not telling you to
turn a blind eye to life-threatening situations if you see them.
I’m talking about intervening in the fights that people have,
be they verbal or physical, since your stopping them might
mean that the parties involved can’t work out a past debt that
was to be settled. And then in that case they would have to
wait until another time before going through it again. So my
point is, you are likely to mishandle situations and lose virtue
when you can’t see the reasons for things.
You can’t criticize ordinary people for getting involved in
other people’s affairs, since they have their own ways that
they follow. But you should go by a higher logic and refrain
from getting involved unless you come upon something like
a terrible crime. To not do anything in those circumstances
would reflect poorly on your character, since a good person

403
would respond. If you don’t even care when someone is getting
murdered or there’s a fire, then what would you care about?
But I should say that such events serve little purpose for us,
and might not be part of the plan for you, or something for
you to see. What we strive to do is preserve our virtue by not
doing wrong. In many instances it would be wrong for you to
get involved and take action, even if just slightly, and would
cost you virtue. And the stakes are high. A loss of virtue will
mean it is that much harder to advance in your practice and
achieve your ultimate goal. So it takes good judgment to
determine when to intervene in things, and this might result
from a good foundation or good influences.
I believe that the world will be a better place if we can each
work on ourselves and look at our character, or thoughts, to
identify the source of any problems we experience, and then
make a point of doing better next time and try to always be
thoughtful towards others. Morality will improve, people will
become more civil, and the world will be safer for it. Perhaps
a police force wouldn’t even be needed; people would be
policing themselves, so to speak, by becoming self-reflective.
What a world that would be. Yet today, even with a legal
system that’s become quite comprehensive, people still do
wrong in the face of the law. That’s because laws cannot change
the heart, and so people still commit wrongful acts when
nobody is there to stop them. I believe the world would be
a different place if everyone were to work on themselves, like
we do, and nobody would need to think about intervening
and righting wrongs.
This is as far as I can go with my teaching, as anything
higher must be left to you to arrive at as you practice. Nor
can I spell out all of the little things in life that you might

404
like to ask about, as then you would have nothing left to
work through. You have to do your own practice and arrive
at your own understanding of things. There would be noth-
ing left to work through if I spelled everything out. But you
can take heart in knowing that the teachings of Dafa I have
made available can serve as your compass.
I am likely going to stop giving classes soon. In anticipation
of that, I am planning to make my genuine teachings available
to all, so that everyone can have them to guide their practice.
From the start I’ve been motivated by a sense of responsibil-
ity to all of my students as well as to the world more broadly,
and this continues to be the case. The public’s response should
be a good barometer of how we’ve done, so I won’t say more.
I made this practice public so that, for one, more people could
benefit from it, and secondly, so that those who are sincere
about spiritual growth would have teachings to guide them.
Along the way I’ve also spelled out what it takes to be a good
person, and hope that after my instruction at the very least
you can do that, if not become a practitioner—to the better-
ment of the world. You now have the tools in your hands to
be a better person. And I am confident that after the class
you will be.
Not everything has gone smoothly while giving my teach-
ings, as there have been a variety of disruptions. The classes
have gone truly well nevertheless, thanks to the great support
from the sponsoring organizations and the leaders from dif-
ferent segments of society, along with the efforts of our staff.
Everything I have taught has been to help you succeed
in your practice, and I have disclosed things never made
public before. What’s unique about my teachings is that they
incorporate modern science and the science of the body in

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 order to make things more accessible, and yet the teachings
are very spiritually advanced. This is done mainly in hopes
that you will, with time, truly embrace the teachings and
get somewhere in the practice. That is my purpose. We have
come across many people that find the teachings agreeable,
but think they will be hard to put into practice. But I think
it really depends on the person. For the average person who
isn’t interested in spiritual growth, it’s going to seem hard,
or quite a stretch, and not like something he will succeed at.
So it will seem hard for someone like that, who’s not inter-
ested in spiritual development. It’s like what Lao-tzu wrote:
“When the superior man hears the Way, he will practice it
with diligence; when the average man hears the Way, he will
sometimes believe and sometimes doubt; when the inferior
man hears the Way, he will laugh at it. Were it not derided,
it would not be a true spiritual path.” Those who are sincere
about practicing will find it very much doable and not some
impossible task. This has been borne out by the many among
us who have progressed to great spiritual heights through the
practice, some of whom are present today. I hadn’t revealed
this previously for fear that they might become proud or
attached, which would affect the growth of their spiritual
power. The practice isn’t hard so long as you are sincere about
spiritual growth, are willing to go through whatever it takes,
and can come to look upon the material things of this world
with detachment and indifference. The practice only seems
hard to people because they still hold on to worldly things.
So there is nothing inherently hard about the practice or
advancing to higher stages; it’s simply that people are held
back by attachments. The difficulty lies in the allure of worldly
things, which are so tangible and immediate, and hard to

406
forsake. Another likely pitfall is the anger people experience
when there is a falling out, which might get the best of them
if it’s not kept in check. Back in my days of practice, more
than once a teacher told me, “Nothing is truly unbearable or
impossible.” And it really is so. It’s an outlook you only stand
to benefit from. So the next time you are going through a real
trial or tribulation, try to keep this in mind, and see if you
can bear it. Or when faced with what seems impossible, and
even if others say so, try to keep this in mind, and see if it
might just be possible. I believe that if you can do that, you
will always find that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
It might be hard to remember everything taught here, with
all that’s been said. So here are my main hopes, in closing: that
you will really become a practitioner and do spiritual prac-
tice in earnest; that both veterans of the practice and those
new to it will one day be spiritually perfected through Dafa;
and that from today forth you will really make the most of
your time to practice.

407
 Postscript
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 cer-
tain expectations, or rhetorically elegant, it would be accom-
panied 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.

Hongzhi Li
January 5, 1996

408
 endnotes
from the translators

p. i Dafa: A Chinese Buddhist term, this can be translated as

“Great Way,” “Great Law,” or “Great Teaching.” It is used as
shorthand for the practice’s full name, Falun Dafa. The term
also appears historically in the names of certain Chinese
spiritual practices, as described later in this chapter.

p. i zhen, shan, ren: Zhen translates as true and genuine; shan

as compassionate, good, and kind; and ren as tolerant, com-
posed, forbearing, and patient. Zhen is pronounced as in
the “-gion” of “region,” shan with an open “ah” sound, and
ren as spelled.

p. 2 offering instruction: The contents of this book were origi-

nally delivered as a course, with a series of in-person talks
or lectures being given in sequence over the span of sev-
eral days.

p. 6 chi: The term chi (also spelled qi) is often likened to, and
thought to approximate, the well-known Indian term prana
and the ancient Greek term pneuma. It is the same word as
what in Japanese is called ki.

p. 10 dharma: The Chinese term used here, fa, is normally ren-

dered by translators according to context, as it is wide-
ranging in meaning and sense. In the Chinese Buddhist
tradition, fa is itself a translation of the originally Sanskrit

410
 term dharma (or dhamma, in the Pali canon), which ini-
tially referred to the Buddha’s teachings and has thus long
been synonymous with “truth,” “way,” or “law” (in a moral
or spiritual sense). The term is translated variously as “Way,”
“teachings,” and “spiritual truths,” in this book. It might be
noted that this same term, fa, appears in the two-syllable
word Dafa, which is part of the practice’s name.

p. 10 the Buddha, Shakyamuni: In keeping with the conventions

of English, the historical Buddha—“Gautama Buddha” or
“Shakyamuni Buddha”—is referred to as “the Buddha” else-
where in the text. His full title is used in several passages
where multiple Buddhas are discussed, for disambiguation.
The title “Shakyamuni” means “Sage of the Śākya clan.” This
is the same figure who was known as Siddhârtha, prior to
his enlightenment.

p. 16 Lei Feng: A household name in modern China, the figure of

Lei Feng has been celebrated since the 1960s for his selfless
acts of service to his country and fellow citizens.

p. 26 chi-gong: Falun Dafa is considered a type of chi-gong, or

“energy practice.”

p. 44 falun: Literally translated as “wheel of law,” or “dharma

wheel,” this refers to the wheel-like entity depicted in the
color insert at the front of the book. It is a term used in the
Buddhist tradition, dating back thousands of years.

411
 p. 51 inner eye: The Chinese term here, tian-mu, is also com-
monly referred to as the “third eye,” “spiritual eye,” or some-
times, in earlier centuries, “mind’s eye.” The most traditional
term from the Western context (i.e., “inner eye”) is used in
this edition.

p. 85 spiritual bodies: This is a translation of the Chinese term

fa-shen, which is itself historically a translation of the
Sanskrit Buddhist term dharmakaya. It should be noted
that the use and meaning of the term in Falun Dafa is not
necessarily the same as that in other Buddhist traditions
(where its interpretation varies widely). The term is dis-
cussed in greater detail later in the book.

p. 107 general public: The Chinese term used here would typically
refer to practitioners who had not previously taken monas-
tic vows, been ordained, etc. prior to learning Falun Dafa.

p. 181 Mandorla: This is the best-established term for the circular,

often almond-shaped ring that surrounds divine figures in
Asian religious art as well as in Renaissance and Medieval
European art. It is sometimes referred to as an “aureola” as
well. The Chinese term, xuan-guan, which has ancient roots,
translates literally as “mysterious juncture” or “obscure pass.”

p. 183 jie-yin: This mudra is also known by its Sanskrit name, i.e.,
dhyani. It consists of resting the fingers of one hand atop
those of the other, with both palms facing upward, and the
two thumbtips touching so as to form an oval.

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p. 193 four sides … eight directions: For Chinese readers, the “four
sides” would be understood as referring to north, south, east,
and west, while “eight directions” would be arrived at once
northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest are added
to the four sides just named.

p. 213 performing a consecration: It might be helpful to note that

the Chinese term being translated here, kai-guang, consists
of two words that more literally mean “light opening” or
“opening [with] light.” This explains the otherwise curious
behavior that figures in the passage engage in; they are most
likely trying to “open” the statue’s eyes with “light.” Image
consecration ceremonies are common to both South Asian
and East Asian Buddhism.

p. 239 conjure fire: This phrase and passage can be read in Chi-
nese as a play on two senses of the term zou-huo, which
normally means something like “to lose one’s mind” and
is negatively associated with energy practices in China (as
discussed throughout the section); the same term, if read
strictly in a literal sense, means to exude or conjure fire.

p. 319 Inedia: This refers to going without food or drink for pro-
longed periods of time, and is a phenomenon found his-
torically in religious and spiritual traditions throughout
the world. In the 1980s and 90s in China, as the passage
suggests, this had become a fairly well-known phenome-
non associated with chi-gong, and was the subject of much
debate and research.

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