Explaining the Fa for Falun Dafa Assistants in Changchun

September 18, 1994

All of you in the audience are assistants and the mainstay, and you’ve played a vitally important role in developing Falun Dafa—especially in developing Falun Dafa in Changchun. Students at many practice sites have raised a lot of questions, and our assistants or mainstay practitioners haven’t been able to answer some of them or been able to answer them easily. There are two reasons for this. One is that you haven’t understood the Fa thoroughly. We’ve actually taught everything during the seminars already. As long as you understand the Fa well, all of your questions can be answered. This is one reason, and it’s the most important one. Another reason is that some specific questions students have raised aren’t easy to answer. Assistants get a lot of specific questions since they’re in direct contact with the students, and many of them aren’t too easy to answer.

This has always been my take on it: I’ve already taught the Fa widely and generally, and when it comes to your own cultivation, you have to act according to this Fa. If everything were spelled out, there’d be nothing left for you to cultivate yourself with. So I can’t explain it further, or it’d be the same as my lifting you up. What’s left are only some specific questions, yet some students still want to ask them and they can’t be sure. When they can’t ask me, they still go and ask our assistants or veteran disciples who’ve practiced for a longer time. But it’s not easy for the assistants or veteran disciples to answer questions they haven’t encountered themselves.

Why do I ask you to practice together? When you come across questions, you can discuss with each other and exchange views. Those questions can be answered that way. When a person practices by himself and has a question, he might get confused and be puzzled. But at a practice site you can discuss with each other, and a lot of questions can be answered. Actually, to handle a question, just look at your xinxing for the answer, and any question can be answered. But there are still some specific questions that are hard for assistants to handle, for sure. This meeting I’m holding with you is to tackle those questions. This is a special treat for the assistants in Changchun, as other areas don’t have opportunities like this. I have to take care of a lot of things this time while I’m back in town. The students all know this, so they do their best not to disturb me. One ring of the phone might really disrupt what I’m doing, and so a lot of students don’t even call me—I know that. I’m gathering you together to answer some questions for you. The General Center sent me some articles written by students about what they’ve experienced and learned, along with some summaries of issues. But I haven’t had a chance to read them because I’m revising a third book, Zhuan Falun, and I have a lot of other things to handle.

Today I’ll answer your questions mainly to help you do your jobs more easily in the future. So while we’re on this topic, I’d like to address another issue: the assistants present here should really take responsibility. It’s not enough to just be responsible for assisting with the exercise movements. You should thoroughly understand the Fa, you should truly grasp it. You should read the book a lot and listen to the tapes a lot. At the very least you should have a better understanding than the average student. Only this way can you truly be a good assistant. You must have a clear understanding of the Fa. When students have questions you should at least be able to answer them in general terms. Though we wouldn’t say that you play the guiding role, you should be able to give a general explanation. To truly teach a practice towards high levels is to save people—that is true cultivation. From this perspective, [the assistant’s job] is no different from the full-time cultivation in temples or in remote mountains and forests.

This Fa of ours is mainly made available in the society of everyday people; we mostly cultivate among everyday people. So we require that the cultivator’s conduct be basically in line with that of everyday people, since he cultivates among everyday people. Frankly, the person in charge of a practice site is no different from the abbot or senior monk who cultivates in a monastery. I’m just giving you an analogy—nobody’s about to give us titles or promise us anything. This is just the form of our cultivation. So think about it, isn’t it the same thing? Guiding a group of cultivators well accumulates boundless merit and virtue. But if you don’t guide people well, I’d say that you haven’t fulfilled your duty. That’s why I’ve called you together. The persons in charge of the General Center have all asked me this: "Should we hold another seminar?" I feel that teaching the Fa too explicitly doesn’t help your cultivation, and doing so would make it just a set of guidelines for everyday people. We don’t need to discuss the specifics of how to cultivate among everyday people. In a moment I’ll answer your questions that are on these slips of paper. You can ask more questions with the time that’s left. Don’t ask questions that are looking for some kind of knowledge or that involve government policies. I’ll mainly answer the questions that are typically encountered during our cultivation—you can ask these questions.

We only invited assistants and staff to attend this meeting. For future reference, please be sure not to bring along people who haven’t been invited to attend. Certain things are hard to handle if too many people come. You’re all assistants, so I had originally planned to discuss higher-level things and to discuss things in more detail so as to help you with your assistant work later on. But some people are new students who’ve only attended one seminar and some people haven’t even attended any seminar. If they suddenly hear things that high-level and profound, it’s going to be hard for them to accept them, and it’ll have a negative effect on them. On top of that, it’s easy for their minds to develop resistance, and that would ruin them.

Assistants need to be responsible. When new students’ exercise movements aren’t accurate you should correct them. In the case of some veteran students whose movements are pretty good but just a little bit off, you can tell them after the exercises are done, and this way you won’t keep them from entering into tranquility by disturbing them; don’t disturb them during the exercises. You have to assist new students and patiently answer their questions. All of the students at practice sites have this responsibility: you should save all sentient beings. What’s meant by "saving all sentient beings"? To have all sentient beings obtain the Fa is to truly save all sentient beings. How could you not give an answer when others come to you with questions?

Assistants have to practice only one cultivation way, and they should tell and help those students who aren’t able to do only one practice. If they really can’t do only one practice and can’t let go of those things of theirs, ask them to leave and to practice some other qigong so that they don’t interfere with our students. There’s nothing more you can do if they really won’t leave. They’ll get nothing even though they practice this. These people’s enlightenment quality is poor. In the Buddha School we start from mercy (ci-bei), so it won’t work if you want to punish them. We don’t just punish someone at will—he has to seriously damage the righteous Fa.

Some people treat illness for others or tell others to come to our practice site to have their illnesses treated. Both these things damage Dafa. This is a serious problem, it’s something nobody is allowed to do. Whoever does that is not my disciple. If an assistant does that replace him immediately. We must firmly put an end to these two phenomena.

Assistants should try their best to be responsible in their assistant work and even take the initiative to do the demanding work. Some assistants who might be older and whose understanding of the Fa isn’t as good feel that the Fa is good but aren’t able to explain things well. They can find some people to help them with their assistant work—you should do this out of responsibility to the Fa, instead of weighing what you might gain or lose. Your own gains and losses are also closely linked to the Fa. When you do an assistant’s work, don’t mix in all kinds of self-interested thoughts, or else your own cultivation and the group’s cultivation will both be affected. The assistants’ exercise movements should be as accurate as possible, and he should do his best to make sure they’re the same as the ones on the videotape—they should be pretty much the same. It’s hard to avoid a few little differences, since it’s impossible to make the movements perfectly identical and as if they were made out of the same mold. It’s fine as long as they’re basically the same. But if they are off by too much that’s not okay—this is especially so for assistants—because your instructions will lead others off track.

Next I’ll answer your questions.

What is "extinction of body and soul (xing shen ju mie)" like?

"Extinction of body and soul (xing shen ju mie)" is an ancient phrase. We call it "xing shen quan mie." The sound of "ju" isn’t good; "mie" means disintegration. The pronunciation of "ju (all)" and "ju (to combine)" is the same. This latter "ju" means to combine. So let’s use xing shen quan mie from now on. Of course, in the book it’s still written as xing shen ju mie. That book was reading material for the transitional period. When our first book, China Falun Gong, was written, its contents were in some respects similar to low-level qigong. The second book, China Falun Gong (Revised Edition), is much higher than qigong. Now I’m organizing the entire Fa that I’ve taught. When it’s put on paper later on, it will be the Dafa that guides our true cultivation. A lot of terms will be corrected in the new book.

"Xing" refers to a body that has a shape and form, and it doesn’t refer to only the body in this material dimension, the body that’s visible to our flesh eyes. Your bodies exist in every dimension, and all of them have a shape and form, and they have material existence. Your bodies exist all the way to the extremely microscopic levels; in other words, however many dimensions there are, that’s how many bodies a person has. "The complete extinction of body and soul (xing shen quan mie)" means that all of these bodies cease to exist.

"Shen (soul)" refers to a person’s Primordial Spirit (Yuanshen). It’s extremely horrifying at the time of "complete extinction of body and soul"—whether it be the Main Primordial Spirit (Zhu Yuanshen), the Assistant Primordial Spirit (Fu Yuanshen), or various kinds of beings that go through this. Nothing in the entire cosmos is more horrifying. In other words, everything is annihilated and nothing remains. Of course, infinitely microscopic substances still exist—I’ve said that matter exists in a vacuum as well. Our current physics research has only reached the level of neutrinos—the smallest matter [they’ve found] is neutrinos. Yet they’re very, very far from matter’s original matter and from the smallest original matter of beings’ existence. When matter at the extremely microscopic levels is destroyed to the point of its most original state, we call it "the complete extinction of body and soul." Since it has returned to the most original state, it no longer exists—even Great Enlightened Beings at very high levels can’t see it. Meanwhile, it has no thoughts, and is in a most microscopic form that’s completely loose and disordered. In the past only those who violated Dafa at high levels were dealt with this way. It’s the same with the destruction of humankind—since it has already dropped to the lowest level, this is what it faces after doing bad things. That is, it will be completely eliminated from the cosmos; it will have no thoughts and almost no matter, and it’ll be destroyed to the point of its most, most original state.

When someone reaches Beyond-Triple-World-Law cultivation he has entered Arhat Attainment Status cultivation—that is, First-Attainment Arhat. At that time you can already call the person a Buddha, and he’ll actually be doing Buddha-Body cultivation. Arhats are classified as First-Attainment Arhat, Righteous-Attainment Arhat, and Great Arhat, with a huge distance separating each level. A Great Bodhisattva can be considered a Buddha. When a person reaches Enlightenment at the Arhat Status, he or she manifests with a male body and appearance, no matter what his or her sex was. But the sex of your flesh body doesn’t change, since you do cultivation practice among everyday people. If your flesh body was male one moment and female the next, how on earth could that work? In the past, some people cultivated to Consummation at the Arhat Status—reaching Consummation and reaching your realm are two different things. If a person can only reach Consummation at the Arhat Status, he can’t move up further in cultivation since that was predestined at the beginning. When he achieves Unlocking Gong he’ll manifest with a male body and appearance, regardless of his original sex. This is because his body is a cultivated Buddha-Body, and at the Arhat Status everyone manifests with a male body and appearance.

Your true Main Primordial Spirit can be either male or female. Your bodies—whether they are transformed into high-energy matter, are diamond-like, never-degenerating bodies that you’ve cultivated, or are Buddha-Bodies given by Buddhas at the time of Nirvana—they’ll manifest with a male body and appearance at the Arhat Status, and they’ll manifest with a female body and appearance when you reach the realm of Bodhisattva. But the sex of the Primordial Spirit doesn’t change. When someone reaches the realm of a Buddha, he or she still has a body, only this kind of body is made of high-energy matter. Beings at even higher realms also have bodies, and those are bodies in different dimensions (Buddha-Bodies). When the realm of Buddha is reached, the sex returns to that of the Main Primordial Spirit—a male Buddha will be a male Buddha and a female Buddha will be a female Buddha.

What’s the meaning of cultivating benti and Buddha-Body?

The "benti" we’re discussing here is a general term in low-level cultivation, and it refers to your bodies in every dimension, including your flesh body.

Consummation and the level of our Attainment Status are two different things. When you cultivate to Arhat Status you’ll already be doing Buddha-Body cultivation. It used to be that only Tathagatas were called "Buddhas," but now more are called Buddhas. If we’re to categorize them, Tathagatas are also in charge of some Buddhas who haven’t reached the Tathagata level. Those who surpass Bodhisattvas are called "Buddhas"; the Great Bodhisattvas are also called "Buddhas"; Arhats and Bodhisattvas are even called "Buddhas," too, since they’re all of the Buddha School. So let me tell you this: you are doing Buddha-Body cultivation when you’ve cultivated to Arhat Status—that’s what I mean. But even when you cultivate with a Buddha-Body, you might not necessarily reach Consummation. People’s inborn quality is different and they have different capacities to endure. Some people can cultivate to Bodhisattva Status, some people can cultivate to Buddha Status, and some people can cultivate to even higher levels—even to an Attainment Status beyond Tathagata—while some people can only reach Arhat Status. But no matter which of the levels you reach, you will have jumped out of the Three Realms and you’ll be said to have obtained an Attainment Status; in other words, you’ll have already attained a Righteous Attainment Status, but you won’t necessarily have achieved Consummation. Let’s say it’s been arranged for you that you reach Enlightenment and Consummation at Bodhisattva Status; if you’ve reached Arhat Status but haven’t yet reached the ultimate goal of your cultivation, you haven’t achieved Consummation. That’s the relationship. You’ll obtain however much you put in, however much you cultivate. Even though your cultivation hasn’t reached Consummation, you’ve already gained an Attainment Status, but, all the same, your cultivation hasn’t achieved Consummation, so there’s still a question of levels—you haven’t achieved the ultimate goal of your cultivation.

What’s the relationship between "returning to one’s original, true self (fan ben gui zhen)" and attaining Righteous Attainment? What’s the meaning of the "ben" and "zhen"?

"Returning to one’s original, true self (fan ben gui zhen)" is different from the "return to simplicity and original purity (fan pu gui zhen)" that everyday people talk about. The "returning to one’s original, true self" we talk about means returning to your inborn nature—returning to your nature, to your original quality and how you originally were. You’ve dropped into ordinary human society and how you originally were has already been concealed. In the ordinary human society black and white are inverted, and right and wrong are flipped upside down, so you need to return. "Returning to one’s true self (gui zhen)" is a term in the Dao School. Since what we cultivate is really enormous, it goes beyond the scope of the Buddha School alone, so there are also some things that are discussed in the Dao School. In the Dao School someone who succeeds in cultivation is a "True Being." Meaning, he has cultivated into a Buddha. They use the term "True Being"—a real being.

You’ve vowed to keep cultivating forever, but this "forever" isn’t absolute, is it? You mean you aren’t going to reach a Righteous Attainment, or achieve Consummation, and you’ll just keep on cultivating forever? Cultivation needs to have a goal. Cultivating to a high level depends on the vow you made along with the level you’re able to cultivate to; Master arranges it for you accordingly. It’s all scientific. If you’re a piece of steel, it won’t work to arrange things for you as a piece of iron. If you’re able to cultivate to Bodhisattva Attainment Status, arranging for you to reach Arhat Attainment Status won’t do, either. Everything is gauged accurately—when it’s gauged from up there, there aren’t any mistakes.

A cultivation way is a cultivation system presided over by a Great Buddha—the same is true everywhere. But cultivation ways are different, and there’s nothing identical to this Falun we have today. There are some things that rotate, though—the Earth is rotating, and people in Tantrism use their minds to push a kind of wheel to rotate. These types of things are out there. There’s a qigong master in Changchun who practices by rotating a Taiji, too, but it’s not like ours, since his collects inward and doesn’t emit outward—it’s different from ours. Planets are revolving around stars, and electrons revolve around atomic nuclei—they all have a rotating mechanism, but the inner meaning is totally different. There might exist two things that are the same, but that’s extremely rare. I haven’t seen them.

I can tell you that since the Great Enlightened Beings arranged this event today, everything in the evolution process of the cosmos is to prepare the way for this event. During the early period, when the cosmos was formed, the final, great event was already arranged. So, many things are probably part of the arrangement for today’s period of Last Havoc and for the last imparting of the Righteous Fa. I’ve said that the reason the unprecedented qigong craze came about in these years of this century isn’t accidental. Nor is it accidental that various kinds of qigong practices have emerged. It’s not as simple as everyday people think it is.

Falun Paradise is an extremely vast and wondrous paradise presided over by the Tathagata of Falun Paradise. The Falun is only a manifestation of the Fa on the gong side. It also has a manifestation on the Fa side. As for Its manifestation on the Fa side, we haven’t made public higher Fa and forms other than the Fa I’m teaching, nor may they be made public. With respect to the gong side, I’ve even drawn the pattern for you. But It also has a Fa side. This is the form on the gong side. After our students attain Righteous Attainment or an Attainment Status they’ll be able to develop Falun through cultivation—only one Falun. Even when you get to a very high level you can only have one Falun, which is a manifestation of you, yourself, and it will replace the one I’ve given you at the lower abdomen position. That’s your true attainment. But the Falun is also a manifestation of the Fa. It can multiply itself; when you use a little divine power it can multiply. You can also send out some Falun, but you won’t have as many as, nor the same forms of, the independent ones that I’ve cultivated today.

As you know, this thing is so enormous, so precious, and it was created by many generations of people. If you want to also develop during your cultivation something so huge like what I have, it’s impossible—absolutely impossible. You can develop a Falun through cultivation, that’s for sure. This Falun has great power; if It were really brought to this dimension and It made a move, it’d be a huge deal, as It is something that’s really powerful. Even if the Falun that you’ll develop through cultivation in the future rotates once in this dimension, I’d say that a huge tornado would be stirred up. It is something extremely powerful. Why isn’t It allowed to manifest in the ordinary human society? And why isn’t It allowed to come through to this dimension to play a role? It’s precisely because Its power is just too enormous. Even when It plays a role in other dimensions, it’s enough to protect you and play a great role.

No. Falun Paradise is a unitary paradise at a very high level in our universe. The cosmos is enormous. Some of you are new students, so I can’t really talk about certain things since you wouldn’t be able to accept them. There are countless small universes in this vast cosmos of ours. Humankind exists in a small universe, but there are countless galaxies in these small universes. A Buddha at the Tathagata level can’t see the boundaries of a small universe. As for how big the large cosmos is, humankind wasn’t allowed to know this in the past—it’s just so enormous. A person’s body expands outward during his cultivation process—that is, the volume of his body increases. The volume of his body gradually becomes larger, his mind also becomes larger, his thoughts ascend, and his level rises. But no changes are observable on the body at this ordinary human side—it’s the same as an ordinary person’s, except that at the time of Consummation [the bodies] will combine together. At that split second when they combine together, even before you experience the Fa-power among ordinary humans, you’ll be led away. This is because its interference with ordinary people would be too great. This is always the case. I’ve always said: some old Daoists have cultivated in remote mountains for many years, and people think that their abilities are great; but their abilities are actually really small, and that’s why they’re allowed to display their supernormal powers in this world. But now there are few who display [their supernormal powers] to people. They also know that they can’t damage ordinary human society; if they did they’d be finished.

I’ve discussed this many times. Reading the book is the same. As long as you truly cultivate according to Dafa, it’s not a problem even if you live in the most remote place all by yourself. My Law Bodies are in my books. Even at low levels, every word appears as big as a Falun. As soon as a thought of yours emerges they know it completely. So it’s the same. As long as you can truly cultivate, you can obtain It. Whether you read the book and practice yourself, or go to a practice site and practice with veteran students, that’s fine. As long as you truly cultivate you can obtain It. You know, Sakyamuni hasn’t been around for over two thousand years, but a lot of monks succeeded in cultivation before the Dharma-Ending Period and some cultivated to very high levels. It’s not that you can only cultivate if you’re right in front of Teacher, who teaches you in person.

Not necessarily. If they finish cultivation and form one whole body with you, they can exist as your Fa guardians. But you will be in command and they’ll be considered Fa guardians, which are about the same as Assistant Primordial Spirits. If they don’t finish cultivation they’ll remain as independent beings and won’t make it. You cultivated, so you alone gain—whoever cultivates gains.

A lot of our students have already entered the state of gradual enlightenment. Many students have cultivated well and don’t say a word—they just don’t say anything, that’s all. In a seminar in Harbin I said: "There’s over four thousand people here, but as for how many can successfully complete cultivation or how many will attain the Dao in the future, I’m not optimistic. It all depends on how you cultivate yourselves. How could all these four-thousand-plus people easily become Buddhas? How could all four-thousand-plus people enter the state of gradual enlightenment? It’s impossible." Even at different practice sites, how many Falun Dafa practitioners have entered the state of gradual enlightenment? How many of them have truly, actually cultivated? There are different states of gradual enlightenment that a person can enter. It’s not that as soon as you enter gradual enlightenment your supernormal powers come out.

So while we’re on this subject, let me take a minute to address something. Many of us have already entered the state of gradual enlightenment, but they’re always afraid. What are they afraid of? Because there are just too many attachments in human society now... I’ve emphasized this a lot—I’ve told you to ignore the supernormal abilities you develop, and not to have pursuits if your Third Eye is open. But let me tell you, if your Third Eye is really opened and you aren’t attached to pursuing something, it doesn’t matter if you use it to see things. It’s also not a problem to use the supernormal powers you’ve developed if you’re somewhere without anyone around. I’m making this point clear to you: don’t regard it as an attachment. That is your own Fa, and using your own Fa is different from having attachments. Now there are already people who’ve entered the state of gradual enlightenment, but it’s a problem that they’re afraid and always strain themselves to hold it in and not use it. A lot of people’s Third Eyes have opened, but they always think it’s an illusion. That’s no good. When it’s open and you’re able to see things with it, go ahead and look—it doesn’t matter. Being attached and experiencing something are two different things.

Many people have already surpassed Three Flowers Gathering Atop the Head. No one has reached Consummation. They are all cultivating at an Attainment Status—at Attainment Statuses of different levels.

If we start to do the exercises and cultivate our xinxing diligently now, can we reach Beyond-Triple-World-Law cultivation in a year and a half?

There’s no time limit, and whether or not you cultivate is your own issue. How high you cultivate to, how great your ability to forbear is, and how great your ability to endure is, these are also your own issues. If Teacher were to set a time limit for you to cultivate out of here, would your mind be able to reach there? Would your xinxing be able to rise up there? Would your understanding of the Fa reach that high? Would you be able let go of the attachments you have among ordinary people? Would you be able to let go when it comes to your own self-interest and things you fight over with others? All of these are issues of a person’s own cultivation. No one sets rules for you, and there’s no time limit. Some people might be able to cultivate to Arhat Status really quickly, while some people might need a lifetime to do so. It depends on your ability to endure and whether you’re strict with yourself—it’s all up to you.

As I just said, Sakyamuni’s disciples were still able to cultivate upwards after he’d left the world. If Teacher were really to leave the world, my Law Bodies would still be here and I wouldn’t really disappear—it’s not like I’d undergo "complete extinction of body and soul."

Anyone who comes to practice with an attachment of pursuit won’t achieve Righteous Attainment. But you should let people have a transitional process of understanding the Fa. Many people came to the practice for curing their illnesses, and through gradually coming to understand they’ve realized that there are high-level things. Today we’re teaching the Fa at high levels. When people first attend our seminars they have no idea what it’s all about, and then they suddenly hear that we’re teaching a qigong practice towards high levels. Through our teaching the Fa they have come to understand it. You should allow them a process, you definitely should. No matter what intentions they have when they come in, whether it’s to cure an illness, avoid calamities, or whatever, they have to let go of their attachments. Only then can they reach the goal of cultivation. Even if they come for the purpose of curing illness and keeping fit, or the purpose of avoiding calamities, that still won’t do.

Tribulations are something people bring upon themselves. People owe debts for the bad things they’ve done lifetime after lifetime, so they have to pay them. Look at the hardships you’ve endured during the process of your cultivation—those are all obstacles for you that are caused by the karma that you’ve accrued yourself. But it’s also a good thing: we use it to improve your xinxing, so isn’t it a good thing? This is why a person can cultivate into a Buddha or a demon. It’s precisely because there’s karma and because you’re in a maze that you can cultivate.

No. They’re in other dimensions that we can’t see. Besides the bodies our humankind has, there are other human bodies in another dimension within the dimensions of the same level. The people in that dimension are much better than the people here. They don’t have a concept of reputation or self-interest; but they do have emotions (qing), so they also have carnal bodies. Their appearance isn’t that much different from how we humans look, though they’re better looking than us. But their bodies can levitate. They don’t walk, so their legs are almost invisible; they float back and forth in the air. There’s a dimension like this, and it’s a dimension at the same level.

I’ll explain dimensions to you again. Our scientists have now found in their research that electrons revolve around atomic nuclei. Doesn’t their revolving resemble our Earth’s revolving around the sun? Isn’t it the same thing? Right now we don’t have a microscope that would allow us to see what’s on electrons. If you were able to see this, you might be able to find living beings on them. I’ve said that all of these things are consistent with what today’s physics understands; but the scientific means we have today are still extremely limited.

Why is it that many students are extremely sensitive to their surrounding environment, pathogenic qi, and black qi?

These types of students are about to develop gong; they haven’t gone beyond the low level of working qi. This occurs in the highest form of qi practice, when one enters the state of Milk-White Body. But that’s a very short period. Don’t pay attention to it and don’t be afraid, let it be. Being overly afraid is also a type of attachment. Don’t pay attention to it, take everything as meant to be, and let things happen naturally. You won’t ever sense those things again after you go beyond this level. After you develop gong your body will be covered with gong, and those black qi and pathogenic qi won’t be able to enter your body anymore, so you won’t sense them again.

Some students are continually improving their xinxing, but are unable to cross both legs in meditation. Can they forcefully press their legs down with heavy things or tie them up?

I know that in the past when some monks sat in meditation they used stone rollers or millstones to press their legs down. But be it stone rollers or millstones, they did that all out of their own will—they asked other people to do it to them. Daoists don’t do it this way, though. In the Dao School, only one or two disciples is brought up, and only one of them receives the true teaching. They’re really strict with their disciples, and they beat disciples for just about anything. They don’t care whether you can bear it or not, as they have to make you come through. So they usually adopt forceful methods, such as tying up disciples’ legs and tying the hands at the back; you wouldn’t be able to untie it yourself, not even if you were to lie down. So some people have felt so much pain that they fainted. That’s how some people did it in the past; cultivation was really tough back then.

Today we don’t require those types of things, because our cultivation system aims directly at cultivating a person’s mind. That’s why we consider improving xinxing to be crucial and cultivation of the body secondary. You should try your best to endure it and to lengthen the time you have your legs crossed while sitting. But there can’t be a rigid rule. Why not? As you know, in Sakyamuni’s time there were precepts, and that was because there weren’t any books of scriptures—he didn’t leave any words behind. After Sakyamuni passed away, people in later times recalled Sakyamuni’s words and organized them into books of scriptures. When Sakyamuni was in the world he set many rules for cultivation, which served as precepts, and these have remained with us in written form. But today we have the Fa, so we don’t have any precepts. Whether a person cultivates, whether a person is able to cultivate, and whether a person is qualified, all of these are evaluated by the Fa. So in our cultivation we can’t set absolute rules. Think about it, everyone, by the time the period of Last Havoc has arrived, some people are just no good at all; they are not among those who can be saved, but instead among those who’ll be destroyed. Some of these people may have got into the seminars we held; it’s possible they were dragged along. When you ask these people to [force their legs into position], their bones might break. That’s why we don’t make forceful rules, and use voluntary means instead. If you’re able to forbear (ren), try your best to forbear. But let me tell you that everyone who truly wants to cultivate or truly feels the power of the Fa is able to cultivate. Why don’t you put in some effort and give it a try. There won’t be any problems.

The universe does have boundaries, but you shouldn’t probe into these things. The boundaries are just incredibly far. Even at the Tathagata level the "boundary of the universe" refers to the boundary of a small universe. As for this small universe, even to a Tathagata—let alone humankind—it seems boundless and infinite, and impossible to explore. It’s extremely, extremely enormous.

An article in the magazine Window on Literature and Art mentioned that a python led the way for Teacher Li Hongzhi. Is it true?

That was a fiction piece written from the angle of entertainment by Window on Literature and Art. That student attended two lectures and didn’t have a deep understanding. He started writing that after the first lecture. He was very excited and thought that this Fa is great. When he attended the second lecture, he listened with the intention of writing something. As you know, a person can only understand things when he listens calmly. So he didn’t understand it well and wrote the article in the popular fiction form that you read. Some of the things were given an artistic touch. The story about the python has no basis in reality. It said that Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was my master, which is also not true and is an artistic spin. But his purpose was good and he wanted to publicize and advance this Fa—his motivation was good, that’s for sure. He ended up writing something like that because his understanding was limited. It’s a work of popular fiction—he wrote it from the angle of entertaining to begin with. Because fiction can be exaggerated it can have a lot of flexibility. Just don’t treat it as something we study or look to for guidance. As for the "Five Precepts" and the "Ten Evils and Ten Goods" that the article mentioned, those are all things from the original Buddhism. We don’t have any precepts—we’ve told you in the Fa the standard for cultivation.

What’s the difference between "Xuan Fa Zhi Ji (the profound Fa reaches the Extreme)" and "Xuan Fa Zhi Xu (the revolving Fa reaches the Void)"?

The "Xuan Fa Zhi Ji (the profound Fa reaches the Extreme)" we mention is a general phrase. This is an issue of understanding the Fa when it’s first taught. It shouldn’t be this xuan (profound), it should be the xuan (revolving) that’s in xuanzhuan (revolving). Our Fa is a perfectly harmonizing Fa in the first place, so It is revolving, and the form in which Falun manifests is like a wheel. "Xuan Fa Zhi Ji (the revolving Fa reaches the Extreme)" is not wrong; [the Fa] can reach very high realms and reach the extreme—that’s what it means. "Xuan Fa Zhi Xu (the rotating Fa reaches the Void)" is a phrase used during the course of our cultivation, and it’s also a verse in our practice.

You know, the verse can summon Enlightened Beings, the Enlightened Beings cultivating in that system, or the accomplished, Enlightened Beings in that system to come to do Fa-protection and to strengthen you—that’s the effect it can have. The verses in religions also serve this purpose. As for reciting verses to increase gong, that’s just not possible at all. They only play the role I described. "Zhi Xu (reaches the Void)" also refers to reaching very high levels. The realm(s) that humans can’t see is called the "Realm of Void." This is pretty much the meaning. This term often appears in the Daoist religion; it is called "Tai Xu (Great Void)" before Taiji forms, which says that it is very high and very primordial.

Reciting the verse is good for you, and reciting it for as many as a thousand times won’t make Falun deform. Of course, after achieving Unlocking Gong and Enlightenment you will understand that you can’t recite verses when you reach really high levels. The shock waves from your recitation will be just enormous, so your reciting them all the time would make others feel uncomfortable with that buzzing sound.

This "splitting" is how it should be. We talk about "opening the top of the head," so "splitting" is how it should be. For some people it splits in an instant, "snap!" and they don’t feel much. For others it splits gradually and they feel uncomfortable. But things need to be looked at from both sides. Some people don’t let go of their attachments and they aren’t willing to get rid of the bad things they brought to themselves, so the bad things need to be cleaned out. They then make your head ache and don’t let you cultivate the righteous Fa—this situation can occur, as well. What’s critical is whether or not you can cultivate, and whether or not you can evaluate it with the Fa and get rid of those bad things.

This phenomenon is possible, and there are people like this in our seminars; they’re in every seminar. Why would this happen? It’s because the reaction is strong while the body is being cleaned up and illnesses are being eliminated. But usually it won’t be this intense at a practice site, since the illness is eliminated gradually. If the person is good, I think this is normal. If the person isn’t strict with himself, acts recklessly, goes back and forth between different qigong practices, is not stable, and has poor xinxing, then this might be a problem. You can suggest to him that he take a short-term break, and ask him what other qigong he’s practiced or whether he’s done something wrong. He can try to practice Dafa again after he gets over that period. This is because not everyone who comes to practice nowadays is guaranteed to be a true cultivator.

We don’t do shiatsu; treating illnesses isn’t allowed during In-Triple-World-Law cultivation—there’s no such thing. True cultivators have no illnesses, since my Law Bodies have eliminated them. All of the things that need to be taken care of are taken care of. There’s no such thing as shiatsu in this. Could massage possibly get rid of a cultivator’s karma? You carry your gong when you massage other people, so we advise against it. It’s no problem if you’re a doctor, because that’s your job among everyday people.

A person’s Assistant Consciousness (Fu Yishi) accompanies him his whole life. What role does he play?

A person’s Assistant Consciousness mainly prevents him from doing bad things when he’s not aware. When the person’s Main Consciousness (Zhu Yishi) is really strong, the Assistant Consciousness isn’t able to control him.

That’s normal. Sitting with the legs crossed also dissolves karma. "Temper the mind and will," "toil the body"—how do we toil the body? We increase the exercise time and we endure pain in sitting with our legs crossed—it mainly manifests in these two ways. "Toiling the body" itself is a process of eliminating karma and improving. Isn’t sitting with the legs crossed dissolving karma? But it’s not that karma is pushed to the legs all at once—it’s in clusters. When one cluster comes up, you feel a lot of pain; and when it’s dissolved, you feel at ease. With cross-legged sitting it’s usually that one feels pain for a while, then at ease for a while, and then pain again—it’s like this. When you dissolve a chunk of karma, your cross-legged sitting will last a long time that session. But at a time when karma is coming up, you might feel pain the moment you first put your legs up. Yet when you’re able to forbear, the time of your cross-legged sitting will be the same—you can sit with the legs crossed for however long you were able to before—only you will feel discomfort from the pain.

Yes, it can, and so can smoking. Once that thing fumigates them, they won’t stay with your body and you’ll have nothing—others will see no gong on you. As we’ve said, if you want to truly cultivate, can’t you even let go of this little bit of attachment? You can’t regard cultivation as child’s play—it is very serious. We don’t say that humankind will encounter big troubles of some particular kind and that you cultivate to save your life—we don’t say those things, nor do we use it as a motivation to push your cultivation. We say: won’t true cultivation take care of you eternally?

The Sixfold Path of Transmigration is discussed in Buddhism. It’s said that a person in the ordinary human society feels time is long, but that humankind’s time passes by very fast when it’s viewed from a dimension with a longer time. When two persons are talking, they turn around and see that you’re born; after talking a bit more, they turn around and see that you’ve already been buried a hundred years later. Why don’t humans seize the time they have with a human body to cultivate and save the human body? In Buddhism it’s said that once someone enters the Sixfold Path of Transmigration, it’s hard to say what he’ll reincarnate as. If you reincarnate as an animal, it might take hundreds or thousands of years before you obtain a human body again. If you reincarnate as a rock, you won’t get out of it until it weathers away, and you might not get out of it in tens of thousands of years. Animals aren’t allowed to cultivate, but they have the inborn conditions that enable them to cultivate. This is the result of natural circumstances. But they aren’t allowed to develop high-level gong; when they develop high-level gong they become demons because they don’t have human nature. So they have to be killed—when animals cultivate to high levels, they have to be killed, and they’ll be struck by lightening. Why do they possess people’s bodies? They want to obtain a human body, because with a human body they’ll be fully entitled to cultivate. That’s how it was in the past; they were allowed to cultivate when they had a human body. Now they can’t—even with a human body. If you want to cultivate, if you want to obtain the Fa, you have to have your brain cleared and you have to come to obtain It among everyday people. This is now a strict rule. It won’t even count if someone comes to be among everyday people while being fully aware; he has to have his brain cleared and cultivate by enlightening. Who wouldn’t go cultivate if he knew everything? When a Buddha wants to raise his level, and come down among ordinary humans to endure hardship, he also has to have his brain cleared. Who wouldn’t cultivate if he saw and knew everything clearly? The question of improvement wouldn’t exist then. This is to tell you that cultivation is a really serious matter, and that any attachment will affect cultivation.

Older women who’ve reached menopause and who haven’t had menstruation might be slow in cultivation. It’s true that some older women really need to make good use of their time. For some of them it won’t work if they don’t do so. Whenever making good use of their time is mentioned, they practice really hard with the exercises. But they should know that cultivating xinxing is what’s most important. A few of them might be slow in this regard, but those who practice normally should all have it.

All the various reactions a person has during practice are normal. Eliminating karma always involves discomfort—even getting rid of an illness involves discomfort. Some students will develop gong, which will be in their bodies, and there will be more than ten thousand types of supernormal abilities. Every type of gong is a cluster of high-energy matter that has a lot of energy, a high density, and that’s very powerful, and you will be uncomfortable when they move the slightest bit in your body. What’s more, gong of different forms and appearances, supernormal abilities of different forms and appearances, and special abilities of different forms and appearances will manifest in your body, and you’ll be uncomfortable when they move a little. Yet you say that’s an illness—tell me, how could you cultivate like this? If you truly cultivate according to the Fa you will find that everything is normal.

Someone’s body used to be possessed by something. A qigong master told him, "Your body is possessed by a python." So he always felt that he was possessed by a python. I told him, "You don’t have it anymore." But he didn’t believe it and still thought that the python was moving around in his body. Well, since he thought he was still possessed, the state he had when the python was possessing him manifest in his body. It wouldn’t stop until that attachment of his was eliminated—that was precisely to eliminate that attachment of his. If it becomes something he’s attached to it won’t be easy to get rid of it. It took that person a long time to get rid of it.

You may watch them if you’re able to. Calmly observing while doing the exercises isn’t an attachment.

Whether or not a person can see depends on the state of gradual enlightenment of different people cultivating at different levels. Even if you’ve reached gradual enlightenment, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your Third Eye is opened at a high level just because the level of your gong is high, or that your Third Eye is opened at a low level just because the level of your gong is low. It’s different. This is because the level of a person’s Third Eye doesn’t determine the level of his gong. A person’s own factors, conditions, and different reasons determine whether he can see clearly or not, and whether he’s able to see or not—these are determined by many different types of reasons. It can’t represent how well someone has cultivated—be sure to pay attention to this. It’s wrong to think, "since my Third Eye is opened, my gong is higher than other people’s."

Didn’t someone like this emerge in our Changchun? His Third Eye was opened and he thought he was better than everyone else. He said this guy was possessed, that guy had something else, and so on—all of which was the product of his own imagination. He did a lot of reckless things at our practice site, and in the end he wouldn’t admit that anyone was better than him and he even said that he was higher than me. So we shouldn’t measure how high a person has cultivated to based on his Third Eye being open. Under normal circumstances they do go hand in hand. We have people who are especially good, yet we don’t let them see; we only let them see when their cultivation reaches very high levels. So don’t use this to judge how good or how bad something or someone is.

From now on, whether you can see me or not… it’s just like what somebody said earlier—"What should we do if Teacher isn’t around?" When Sakyamuni was in this world, there were also people who asked, "Venerable Teacher, who will be our teacher if you aren’t around?" Sakyamuni said, "Take the precepts as your teacher." We take the Fa as our teacher. A person’s xinxing level—not the extent of his supernormal abilities—should be the yardstick for how well he’s done in cultivation. Otherwise, wouldn’t everyone go after supernormal abilities? Supernormal abilities are byproducts in your cultivation process. All supernormal abilities developed through In-Triple-World-Law cultivation are inborn human abilities that have gradually atrophied as people’s thinking has become complicated.

They will naturally emerge as you cultivate. Only when you return to your original, true self, when you are returning, can your original human nature be recovered. No matter how clearly that person could see, he couldn’t see the levels I see. No matter how clearly he could see, what he could see was still really far from the highest truth in the cosmos. What he could see was only the manifestation at that level—and you can’t take that as the truth. While you’re in the course of cultivation it’s not right to use one particular level as the standard by which things are measured. That’s why they talk about "no Fa is definitive"—don’t take the manifestation of one particular level as the truth. "No Fa is definitive"—the Fa of a certain level can only take effect at that level. So he saw something at a certain level and the way things are at that level, and got complacent when he saw things clearly. Those are things at really shallow levels—be sure to remember this.

Children may practice less or more according to their ability. The main purpose of cultivation practice is to improve a person’s xinxing. So it’s beneficial for children to tell them more about things related to xinxing. When I was pretty young I couldn’t practice any of the things with external forms at all, and mainly cultivated xinxing. Today there are some children who you shouldn’t regard as ordinary children. Some children are remarkable, because when it was decided that we would do this undertaking, some people from extremely high levels followed down. When I came, people at various levels followed down since they were able to foresee what I would do. Especially in the recent period, there have been particularly more of those who came to this small universe and this Milky Way galaxy of ours. This is because they couldn’t foresee it any earlier, and only knew about it and saw what would happen during the time just before I came to the public; many of them followed down then. What do they come for? To obtain the Fa. They knew that the old Fa had degenerated, and they came to temper themselves again. Don’t consider them average people—they’re all pretty good. But it’s not that everyone’s child is like this. A number of children are quite good.

Some of our students have already reached the state of gradual enlightenment, and some students will reach the state of gradual enlightenment in increments. Whether you’ve reached it or not, and whether you can see things clearly or not, you may talk about it with other people in a discussion after doing the exercises at the practice site—it doesn’t matter. When you talk about it with people without any intention of showing off it’s beneficial to our overall cultivation. Some people have said that you can’t talk about things that are seen with the Third Eye, and that doing so will shut the Third Eye. This was something commonly held before among practitioners. It wasn’t their talking about it that made their Third Eyes disappear. Think about it, everyone: did any practitioners pay much attention to virtue (de) back when qigong was popularized? Hardly anyone did true cultivation. People didn’t know about cherishing virtue, and talked—with their attachments and a desire to show off—about everything they saw. So, naturally, their Third Eyes closed.

There were also people who talked about everything, regardless of whether it was appropriate or not. So their Third Eyes had to be closed. That’s the reason. If talking about those things is for discussion that improves understanding of the Fa, I’d say there’s no problem at all. You need to make a clear distinction about this. If someone’s Third Eye has been closed or injured, it’s because he’s said things that shouldn’t be said to everyday people or because he had a show-off mentality. Isn’t a practitioner’s show-off mentality an attachment manifesting? So his Third Eye has to be closed. Initially, when some people’s Third Eyes were closed, it was to give them an opportunity. When they could see clearly on and off—sometimes they could see, sometimes they couldn’t—it was reminding them. But those people just wouldn’t enlighten, and eventually their Third Eyes were closed completely. Some people’s Third Eyes were even injured—seriously injured.

I’ve already discussed this. Achieving a Righteous Attainment—when someone reaches the Arhat Status he has achieved a Righteous Attainment. Consummation is the conclusion of cultivation; it usually refers to having attained both a Righteous Attainment and Unlocking Gong—that is, Consummation is when the two take place together and cultivation is completed.

You have to suffer hardships among everyday people just like them. You might have attained Arhat Status, but even naughty children among everyday people might swear at you, because you still need to cultivate among everyday people and continue to eliminate your attachments. Some people—those with high inborn quality and who’ve already done well eliminating their attachments—still need to go through yet another round. In usual, normal cultivation, a person can reach Consummation in one process. Some people will experience repetition—they’ll experience two rounds. Since you need to cultivate towards high levels, you might experience three rounds, and after you’ve cultivated through those, you’ll come back to cultivate again. This occurs as a person cultivates toward higher levels, so that’s why you still need to cultivate among everyday people. If, say, you’ve cultivated to Arhat Status and nobody gives you trouble, that is, no one among everyday people gives you trouble, how could you cultivate when you are out of this environment? If those who cause trouble for you weren’t everyday people but were Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or Arhats who appeared among everyday people and made trouble for you to get rid of your attachments, how could that be possible?! Even when Master creates these things or arranges these things and all of your tribulations, they’re done by using everyday people and having everyday people interfere with you, which enables you to improve in the environment of everyday people.

Some students took part in other qigong practices after attending our seminars. What should they do if they want to continue to practice Falun Dafa?

Those people usually have rather poor enlightenment quality. But we say that cultivation depends on predestined relationship. When people want to obtain it and have learned Falun Dafa, no one has made them learn it; when they think Falun Dafa isn’t good, then they stop learning it. Later on, they find Falun Dafa good again and want to learn it again; if they can learn it, then they can come learn it. Whether they can cultivate well is their own issue. As for whether they can enter our Falun Dafa circle and become a disciple who truly cultivates, we have to tell them with seriousness: "If you cultivate here, you have to do cultivation in this one system and focus on practicing Falun Dafa; otherwise you will obtain nothing. It’s useless if you recklessly practice here instead of doing only one practice." We should tell them this kindly, and not say, "You can’t practice here." We don’t have any authority, nor the endowment to give orders to others. We can only advise people—we talk about advising people to be good, don’t we?

For the time being I’m declining all invitations to hold Falun Dafa seminars. The reason for turning them down is that there are many things I need to handle right now—many aspects of things need to be taken care of. As far as what to do later on, I haven’t made any plans yet. That’s something I’ll decide after I’ve taken care of things, and it’ll be based on the outcome. As for how Falun Dafa is developing, I can tell you this: our Falun Dafa is now being spread from person to person, and the number of students learning Falun Dafa is already considerable. I’d say that there are several hundred thousand people. This is because whenever I went to a city to give a seminar, there were always people from nearby cities and counties—almost no county was left out. In this way, after those people went back home, they would spread it among people there and pass it on like this. So its development is already rapid, and the number of people is large. In one town in Hubei province there were initially only two people who learned it. Now the number has grown to upwards of a thousand. There are many instances like this. Some people go to the practice sites to do the exercises, some don’t. It’s hard to get specific counts.

I’d recommend that you don’t drag people like this to our practice sites or to our seminars. If you don’t handle it well you’ll be damaging our Fa. If his illness relapses at our seminar or at our practice site, people might say that it’s the result of his practicing Falun Dafa—wouldn’t you be damaging our Fa? This is because we have a principle: we cannot treat illness for others. But there’s one thing: people who truly cultivate will have their minor illnesses resolved right then and there. But for people who’ve suffered from serious illnesses or people whose bodies carry too many bad things, only after they’ve changed their thinking can those things be touched—only when they want to cultivate can their karma be eliminated. Of course, some people haven’t had the thought of cultivating but they have been taken care of—they were taken care of as soon as they started reading the book. Why? It’s because their inborn quality is excellent and they deserve it. You can’t look at every case the same way. If you have a family member who has one of those illnesses but thinks that Dafa is good, you can let him learn and ask him to learn it at home. We make it clear ahead of time: I cannot casually resolve those everyday-people problems. Whether or not he can cultivate depends on him. If he can’t cultivate, you shouldn’t ask him to take up cultivation. Once a problem arises it will damage Dafa. How could I resolve these everyday-people problems? Since I won’t treat him, he’ll go around and stir up trouble, saying that he got mental illness from practicing Falun Dafa and that Teacher won’t treat him; he’ll tarnish my name. Anyway, we make it clear ahead of time: we don’t allow them in our seminars, nor do we let them come to our practice sites. Usually there’s no problem with people who suffer from epilepsy. We haven’t specified in our seminars that epileptics can’t attend the seminars. But usually our staff don’t like to let them in, because their illness is likely to relapse before their thinking changes, and when their illness relapses it’s apt to have a bad effect for us. People who suffer from epilepsy aren’t like people with mental disorders, because they have one single problem—they just have one thing in their brain—and they’ll be fine once that bad thing is taken out. That’s usually how it is.

"Holistic improvement" means complete improvement. During the process of cultivation, all of the beings in your body and the beings you’ve cultivated improve along with you. We talk about holistic adjustment—we holistically adjust the bodies for you, for students. Holistic improvement mainly means that while your xinxing is raised, your gong also follows and increases. It’s like what I just said about some people asking why they haven’t had their menses return—once your xinxing is raised, your gong will follow and increase. While the bodies of people with too much karma are being adjusted, some people can’t keep up, and so they might lag behind. In other words, to improve holistically the prerequisite is first of all xinxing improvement. If you say, "I just want to change my body," or, "I just want to avoid calamities," that won’t work, because to change yourself through cultivation you have to start with cultivating xinxing. Without the gong that determines the height of your level, that is, without your xinxing level, everything else amounts to nothing.

I’ll tell you this, it would really be strange if nobody came out to oppose us when we impart the righteous Fa! Think about it, everyone, I’d enjoy the most comfort if I weren’t doing this undertaking today. But exactly because I’m doing this for you, the trouble I’ve encountered and the trouble you’ve encountered is all meant to obstruct this Fa and prevent people from obtaining the Fa. Since humans have come to this stage, demons certainly won’t allow it when people want to obtain the Fa—they’ll obstruct you. They think: "You owe me, and I need to get payback from you. If you obtain the Fa, what about the debt you owe me?" They hate you! All kinds of factors are at work acting as a kind of obstruction. Simply put, all of these are caused by people themselves—every person has karma. Jesus said: "Mankind! You have sinned." He said that humans have sins; he referred to karma as sins. That’s the truth. Humans have generated karma by doing bad things—isn’t that sinning? It functions as an obstruction in different ways. You have obtained the righteous Fa, so of course it’ll interfere with you, that’s precisely the reason. So the things we’ve encountered are all testing our xinxing. Some people will say how studying Falun Dafa is not good or they’ll make other comments. That’s exactly to see whether you can be determined and whether you can understand this Fa fundamentally. How can you cultivate if you don’t understand this Fa fundamentally? Until you reach Enlightenment there will always exist a concept of whether or not you can be steadfast in the Fa—it’s the same in every cultivation system. If you can’t be steadfast about the fundamental things, how can you cultivate? That’s why there will be tests and interference of this sort.

You can see that whenever I hold a seminar, there’s bound to be a good number of qigong classes held at the same time. There wouldn’t have been so many things coming along had I not held seminars there. Whenever I held seminars, "woosh—" all of a sudden a slew of crooked qigong practices would come to give seminars. Why? It’s exactly because if you want to do this thing, there will need to be some demons who follow along, hand in hand. This is how it’s arranged as well. It’s exactly to see which door a person chooses to enter and whether he obtains a righteous Fa or an evil way—it’s up to you which door you want to enter. Hasn’t it been said that it’s awfully difficult for a person to cultivate? This is how it should be—it should be really hard, because everything is caused by us ourselves. But through the tribulations, a person’s xinxing and enlightening, and the issue of whether he can improve and other different factors, these are all displayed—they go hand in hand. Look at these things dialectically. This is why we have these different kinds of interference.

It’s just like someone in our Changchun who said: "I’m a Buddha, you don’t need to learn from anyone else. I’m so and so." There will be all kinds of interference, and my name might even be attacked. So it’s to see whether you listen to it and believe it, and to see what you do. They’ll adopt various means to cause damage, to make your mind waver and see whether you can be steady.

Some people say to them, "I’ll steel my will and cultivate the righteous Fa, and I don’t believe the stuff you say." In fact, a lot of our students have already experienced the Fa’s power. What’s more, the changes in them are tremendous, and they understand this principle I’ve taught. If a person is still not steady, isn’t that a problem of enlightenment quality? His enlightenment quality is very poor. That’s the reason for it. So I’d say that these kinds of interference are normal. Cultivation is like sifting sand with big waves—the sand is sifted out and only gold remains. The amount of gold that’s left depends on how you cultivate yourselves.

The promotion of our Falun Dafa and the overall method of teaching the practice are different from the promotional methods of today’s qigong practices. You might have noticed that we haven’t exaggerated things or flaunted anything—there hasn’t been anything like that. When other qigong masters cure a patient they publicize it excessively until no one listens anymore. We don’t have things like that. Our students number in the tens of thousands and all of them have become free of illness, yet we haven’t said much about it and don’t mention these things. Of course, you might have seen some information in newspapers at the beginning stage. Why? Because at the start we came out in the form of an ordinary qigong. People wouldn’t have been able to accept it if we’d taught at so high a level. So we went through an initial process which allowed people to understand gradually. As you know, when we initially held seminars in Changchun I taught very high-level things, too. But I kept mentioning qigong. Today, since we’re teaching the practice towards high levels, we no longer talk about those things. This has also been a process that’s allowed people to understand gradually.

Our Falun Dafa was at one time unfolding fairly well at the automobile plant. You might know about those demons, who have interfered severely—those are demons. But we’ve said that all these things go hand in hand. As for how many people can cultivate and how many cannot, it depends on those people themselves. How could there possibly be no interference? If no one interfered, wouldn’t you be cultivating too easily?! The broad path would be so smooth and you’d cultivate upwards without any tribulations—how could that be cultivation, right? Only through tribulations can it be determined whether a person can cultivate, and only this way can all kinds of human attachments be eliminated. But that demon is indeed large, and has played quite a damaging role and ruined a large number of people. The role he’s played has already exceeded that of an average demon. These things are known at very high levels as well—high-level beings know about them, too. How should it be dealt with? Since certain things need my approval, I like to give others a chance. Yet it looks like this chance can’t be given. In the future there will definitely be more and more people at the automobile plant who learn Dafa.

"Some students plan to attend the seminars…" Even if I continue to hold seminars, in ten years there will still be people who "plan to attend." We have so many veteran students, and we have my books, audiotapes, and videotapes, all of which can have the effect of spreading the Fa and saving people. Actually, you’ve already assumed the role of the main force; especially in this recent period you’ve definitely been the main force. A person can obtain [the Fa] without my teaching it directly to him, right? This being the case, I think we should do more work in this respect and help others. Especially when others come to the practice sites to learn, I would say assistants should be even more responsible. Your responsibility is not small—don’t think of it as just gathering people together. You should try your best to understand the Fa more, study the Fa more, and master more things.

I want to raise another point in particular. At our practice sites, all of those who’ve had troubles, who’ve gone awry, or who’ve lost their wits are ones who have practiced other qigong and not given up their other pursuits—this is for sure and there’s absolutely no mistake about it. A hundred percent of the time people like this have practiced other things or have worshiped other things in their homes that they haven’t given up—this is one situation. Another one is that their Falun have deformed, which is also because they’ve mixed in other qigong in their practice or have mixed them in their minds. I can tell you about these two situations—it’s guaranteed that these situations are what caused the problems, and these are the only two situations that my Law Bodies usually don’t do anything about. This is because they don’t belong to our Falun Dafa once they practice other qigong and mix them into their practice. So my Law Bodies don’t look after them, and the Fa is not given to them. When those messy demons see that such a person starts to practice Falun Dafa, of course they’ll punish him and harm him. He’s out of his wits and might damage Falun Dafa—this problem can occur. Some people only want to practice Falun Dafa, but they always want to sense something or add some other things, be it in their minds or when they do the exercises. They used to sense a little something when they practiced some other qigong; now they’re practicing Falun Dafa and don’t sense it anymore, but they still want to sense it. Isn’t that an attachment of pursuit? Once they add things that they used to practice, their Falun will get deformed and problems will occur with [their] Fa—that’s what is sure to happen.

Some people even have this thought: "What do I cultivate into a Buddha for?" It shows that their understanding of Buddha is really poor—"What’s the use of cultivating into a Buddha?" Don’t laugh—they really don’t know. Why does one cultivate Buddhahood? First, doing so can allow one to keep the human body forever; second, one will be eternally free of suffering and forever be in a wonderful state. A human life is short, so keeping the human body is one reason; another is that Buddhas don’t suffer. The place where your being came into existence is a dimension very high in the cosmos. [You] come from a dimension of the cosmos, and [your] original nature is kind. It is exactly because a person became bad and dropped here step by step that he is waiting to be destroyed. That’s the process. So why does one return? The place where you truly came into being is in a high-level dimension—that is the most beautiful place and where you should stay.

In the words of Great Enlightened Beings, it’s as if humans have dropped into a mud pit and are playing with mud here. But all humans came this way and think that this is pretty good. Humans think it’s pretty good—they’re wallowing in the mud, yet they think they’re pretty comfortable and that things are pretty good. We’ll give an example—but this isn’t to put people down. Take pigs, for instance. They sleep in the pigpen and live in mud with excrement and urine, but in their realm of thought it seems pretty good. Once humans ascend from this realm and look back they’ll find it just awful. That’s the reason. They say that humans among everyday people are just wallowing in mud and that it’s filthy everywhere. That’s the meaning. In this dirty environment, he thinks that if he’s a little cleaner than others he’s better off. The truth is, he can only wash his mud-covered body with muddy water. So I’d say he’s not much cleaner.

It’s not "to become a Buddha" but "to return to one’s original, true self." Complete cultivation and go back—that’s the true meaning, this is how high-level beings view it. But if you go among everyday people and ask your schoolteacher among everyday people, he won’t tell you this, because everyday people attach too much importance to everyday people’s things since they can’t see the true situation of the cosmos. Having been filled with knowledge passed on from the West, today’s humans have become too absolute in their thinking. People have become more and more materialistic instead, and they measure everything with their existing theories. Humans have gotten bogged down deeper and deeper among ordinary people.

I’ll give you an example. The Wudang Mountains was where Zhenwu, or "Xuanwu"—the Great Emperor Xuanwu, as they called him in the Dao school—practiced cultivation. I came upon Xuanwu’s cultivation story in the Wudang Mountains. It described the process of his cultivation, and there was an episode in there that told this story of him. He had practiced cultivation for many years, about forty years, and had already cultivated to a high level. One day, in his dream, a demon came to disturb him in a surreal realm, turning itself into a beautiful, naked woman. He was groggy, didn’t guard himself well, and he was stirred. Afterwards he was really mad and full of regret. He thought: "Is there any hope for my cultivation? I’ve cultivated for so many years but still haven’t accomplished anything and still can’t stay in charge of my own mind." He thought that he was a failure, became angry with himself, and went down the mountain. On his way down, he saw an old woman grinding a needle—grinding an iron rod into a needle. Maybe ancient people back then all ground needles in this way.

"Hey," he asked the old woman, "why do you use such a thick iron rod to grind a needle?" The old woman told him, "After a long time, it will inevitably be ground into a needle." Zhenwu was struck. As this old woman was grinding the needle she poured water into her bowl, and she kept pouring even when the water was already full. So he said to her, "The water is overflowing." She said, "When it’s full it naturally flows out." She was actually giving him a hint. Her words were to tell him: "During your cultivation, you shouldn’t think too much about it. You didn’t do well one time, but next time you will do well." That is, the human body has instincts, and when it’s full it discharges. That’s what she was hinting to him about. Although this was the story that was told, it’s not that complete, and maybe it’s not too exact, either. But I can tell you that this might be how it is. It’s just like with the question slip I just read—it might also be the case here.

That’s interference from the demons made by your own mind—ordinary human attachments can create demons (the interference from thought karma). Why? Because the bad-thought substances that were produced before in your mind and in your heart have a resisting effect. When you are well cultivated these bad substances will be destroyed. That’s why they won’t let it happen and they just don’t let you practice. Why do you always waver in cultivation? You think in your head: "That’s it, I won’t practice anymore. It’s so hard." Let me tell you, there’s a reason for those thoughts—when there’s no interference from external demons, there is interference from demons inside yourself, and it’s due to the effects produced by those bad substances. All matter and substances are intelligent beings in other dimensions.

Haven’t I said this: you have to destroy them if you want to complete cultivation, and only when you’ve destroyed them can you complete cultivation and can you get rid of those bad thoughts. Some people can’t enter tranquility in meditation and always have thoughts churning up. That’s exactly because you have those substances. They too are alive; they come from your thoughts, so they’re functioning as interference. If you complete cultivation they will be destroyed; they’ll be reduced to less and less, until they’re completely destroyed. Could they let that happen? When you do cultivation practice they will interfere with you.

Some people also have thoughts that say awful things about Master or say awful things about our Dafa. But you must recognize clearly that it’s not your own Main Consciousness that wants to say those awful things. Instead, it’s caused by your thought karma, this bad substance, reflecting into your thoughts. As soon as this problem occurs, resist it! Your Main Consciousness must be strong, "You don’t let me cultivate, but I insist on cultivating"—firmly expel it. Then, when my Law Body sees that your mind is determined, he will remove a large part of the karma for you. That’s why you have this experience.

If someone has cultivated to Arhat Attainment Status and he was originally predestined to reach Consummation at Arhat Attainment Status, yet he says, "No, I want to cultivate even higher," if you really have that ability and you make another vow, you can cultivate to an even higher level. There were cases like this in the past, but they were rare. Why were they rare? It’s because usually when a person’s cultivation is arranged, the level arranged for him is arranged according to his own situation in the first place; the amount of the various substances is determined by his ability to endure. So, usually it won’t be too far off. But there are also a few exceptionally good ones; some of their things are hidden and can’t be seen at certain levels. Some people have found that when their cultivation reaches a certain level, their master, upon seeing that he could no longer guide and look after them, would automatically withdraw, and someone else would take over. This situation also exists. As to guiding you toward higher levels, he’ll guide you toward high levels without your asking for it.

That was very simple. It didn’t mean that you can’t cultivate. There are other reasons for things in your course of cultivation, and usually my Law Bodies can resolve them. That state wasn’t a dream, as it was very vivid and you actually experienced it. Since during the day you can’t be steady enough, you aren’t able to see things while in ding; so it doesn’t matter if you see things in dreams. It’s normal to run into me in dreams.

There’s nothing bad about silently chanting Zhen-Shan-Ren in your daily life—that’s not a problem. But when you do the exercises you shouldn’t think about anything.

Changchun Evening Post reported that this summer a certain Tibetan master preached scriptures and more than two-hundred living Buddhas attended. How should we view this matter?

Monks and lamas are also humans. They can do whatever they like. The things they do aren’t done by Buddhas, nor are those things that Buddhas asked them to do. Everyday people consider these things really significant, but cultivators should know what’s really going on. The same is true with preaching scriptures—that’s merely a religious activity of cultivators. Besides, in the Dharma-Ending Period there’s not much to preach about. Another thing is, as you know, whether they’re monks or lamas it doesn’t matter—they can’t meddle in a country’s politics and laws, and they shouldn’t interfere with everyday people’s affairs. Doing some march thing, advocating for so-called "independence"… think about it, everyone, are these what a cultivator does? Aren’t these attachments everyday people’s attachments? Aren’t these people too invested in everyday people’s things? Aren’t these things attachments that a cultivator should get rid of? I’d say that our Falun Dafa is a pure land here—I dare to say this, as our students have really high xinxing requirements and we ask that our students emphasize xinxing cultivation. I’d say that even a hero or a role-model type figure is, after all, only a hero or a role model among everyday people. We require you to be a completely extraordinary person, to completely give up your own interests and to be entirely for others. What do those Great Enlightened Beings live for? They’re entirely for others. So my requirements for students are also high, and students improve very quickly, too.

Let me give you an example. What I just said wasn’t going overboard. No matter what kind of large-scale conferences are held by trades or professions somewhere in the country, if you lose any of your belongings they’ll be very hard to find. Of course, there are a small number of good persons, but the number is few. But whatever is lost during our Falun Dafa seminars can be found—that’s the case in every seminar. In seminars with thousands of people, watches, gold necklaces, rings, and money of all amounts—ranging from large to small amounts, and even amounts over one thousand Yuan—have been found and handed in. I would announce it and the owner would come to claim it. The students also say that this situation was seen in the "learning from Lei Feng" time but now it hasn’t been seen for many years. After the seminars, all of the students are able to demand of themselves that they improve their xinxing, to be responsible to others and to society, and to hold themselves to strict standards. Is it wrong for me to say ours is a pure land?

A student flipped through a few pages of some so-called "natural" something-or-other qigong book to a place in the book where it refuted others, bragged about itself, and put down Falun Dafa. After this student read a couple of pages, he saw a shadow of the animal of that qigong moving in his gong. This affected his entering tranquility. Why?

We’ve already said that you can’t read those things. Why would you read them? Disciples who truly cultivate have burned all those fake, wicked things, yet you still read them. Isn’t the gap between you and them huge? Isn’t your reading them brought about by an attachment of pursuit? Don’t read chaotic things. People in true cultivation systems don’t come out to teach those things and don’t get involved in those affairs of yours. The qigong masters who popularized qigong have finished their work. Nowadays a something-or-other qigong pops up one day, and another such and such qigong pops up the next. Almost all those qigong are fake. When they are out there, they disrupt and damage the spreading of a righteous Fa.

All qigong masters who are aware have stopped teaching. Isn’t he interfering with the Fa if he continues to teach? Having done what should be done, he’s done a great service, but if you do anything more you’ll be interfering. So basically all the fake qigong masters who are out for money, for making a name for themselves, and for selfish gain are demons. They don’t know that they’re demons. But we haven’t stated this absolutely in our seminars, mainly owing to a concern that some people wouldn’t be able to accept it. In fact, those are basically demons’ interference.

Right. This is also like what I just said. Because a person did bad things before and all kinds of thoughts were generated, those substances exist and those things have an effect. When you sit there doing meditation, those bad thoughts—such as wanting to say bad things about others or thinking bad things—might force you to think. It’s precisely the bad substances created by your past thoughts still having an effect. You might even say awful things about Teacher. Don’t worry. Try your best to suppress it and repel it, and it will be eliminated. Make sure you repel this type of bad thought. But don’t worry when they appear—it’s not you who wants to say those awful things about Teacher, but the reflection of thought karma into your brain.

When one student does the exercises in tranquility, another student always talks with others about how such-and-such qigong was possessed by a weasel. So the student dreamed of someone teaching him to burn incense one night. Why?

In the future you shouldn’t say those words too directly to people who practice other messy qigong. Some of our students have good friends who practice those possessing qigong, and it doesn’t matter if you tell them about it; it’s best that you tell them indirectly. If you go to many people who you don’t know and who practice possessing qigong and talk about how bad their qigong is, of course they’ll attack you, gang up to attack you, and even say some nasty things. We should avoid these troubles. We believe in advising people to do good. If they can understand it, they’ll understand it. But we should try our best to avoid these things. Those people who’ve truly entered the doors of those qigong and who aren’t willing to exit have already gotten into a crooked practice and gone down a wicked path, and their natures are already deluded and lost—or at least their enlightenment quality isn’t good. If these people can turn over a new leaf, of course it’s good; if they don’t turn around, it won’t do if you insist on persuading them. Anyway, pay attention to your approach and methods. Just pay attention to these things and it’ll be fine. The wicked things won’t be able to hurt you.

I’ll tell you what I think about these things. This student of ours is good, he does this for others, and in principle he doesn’t violate anything. But there’s the issue of money being exchanged—even though it’s sold at cost, it still involves money. I think we should try our best to avoid these things and not to involve money. The reason is, if you involve money, after a while you might feel that something is unfair, and after you keep doing these things you might start to have reservations: "I’m getting the short end of the stick. Should my travel expenses come out of this?" Or, "Should my losses here be compensated?" It can encourage all kinds of attachments in people and lead them to gradually not handle it well. So make sure you pay attention to these things.

You know, why do we ask you not to involve money? In order to keep people from involving money and property, twenty-five hundred years ago Sakyamuni led others to cultivate in remote and thickly-forested mountains. They each had only a begging bowl, and Sakyamuni even gave a Fa-lecture on the begging bowl—one can’t even be attached to a begging bowl. If these things aren’t handled well they can seriously interfere with a person and affect his cultivation. So make sure you’re careful about this. Didn’t Jesus also lead people to eat wherever they happened to be, without involving money? I’m just making this point by way of this example. You might not be able to understand it too deeply. I must take an upright path, and I can’t teach you to do those things. If after many years people say, "There were people who did that in Li Hongzhi’s time," could this Fa still be passed on? It would be through in a short time—it would be through before long. Some people want to have my picture. If you want it, you can take it yourself or develop it yourself. But we should do our best to keep it among our students. In the future we might publicly issue these things in society, because even the calendars with my pictures on them have the publisher’s serial number. In the future we’ll manage these things centrally. Be sure not to act on your own; you might even damage Dafa if you don’t handle it well.

How are you to sell them? Selling them at cost isn’t acceptable, either. Be sure not to develop this attachment—it serves no use. Cultivating and improving yourself and helping others doesn’t have to take this form. Having people learn about the Fa and telling people a little about the Fa are better than anything else. The improvement of a person’s xinxing is much better than things that have an external form. Let the Falun Gong Research Society manage these things. The General Association, the branches, and the assistant sites are not allowed to involve money. Our Falun Gong Research Society always gets my approval first before doing anything. Doing things on your own under all kinds of pretexts is not acceptable, it’s infringing upon our rights, and it’s not permitted by society’s laws.

Someone wants to really cultivate his xinxing. But in his everyday life he doesn’t have anything that provokes his mind, nor does he have any dreams. He worries that Teacher is not taking care of him.

That’s not the case. What each person carries with him and each person’s state are different, so what he carries can be complicated. Of course, I can also give you an example—and this isn’t to talk about anyone in particular. A small number of people come from fairly high levels, and they don’t need to suffer hardships. They have come to assimilate into this Fa, and they’re done after they have assimilated. There are some, a very small number, who are like this. But this isn’t necessarily the situation you mentioned. I’m just making this point. Many persons might have all kinds of factors. But whether you suffer hardships or not, assimilating into this Fa and studying this Fa are what’s most crucial.

If the movements aren’t part of the five exercises, it must be demons who came to teach you—those are all fake, and it was definitely not me who came to teach you. What I’m teaching you today is just these five exercises, and these are enough to change your body and to develop through practice all special abilities and tangible things. The gong that truly determines your level will be adequate, because it isn’t developed through practicing the exercises. When you practice them in your dreams and realize what’s going on, you should stop practicing. If you practice them it means that your xinxing is still not very solid—if it were solid you’d realize it as soon as the thought emerged.

If someone hasn’t cultivated to Consummation, if he hasn’t reached Consummation, but he has achieved an Attainment Status, he too has succeeded in cultivation. But if he hasn’t gone beyond In-Triple-World-Law his situation isn’t so good. Yet, without going beyond In-Triple-World-Law he can go somewhere in the various levels of dimensions within the Three Realms. Whatever level he’s cultivated to is where he’ll be at, and that’s good for him, too. If he says, "This isn’t good enough. I didn’t finish cultivating, so I vow to continue to cultivate in the next life," then this will cause him to truly get into cultivation in his next life and he will continue to do cultivation. There’s one thing, though: if a person can’t handle himself well it’s very dangerous; if again he can’t cultivate well, he will drop just the same and will be even worse off than before. If he cultivates well, he’ll be better off than before. This is the relationship that exists.

In the process of xinxing cultivation, every moment I’m afraid that I might make mistakes. I always evaluate things with the Fa, but I still have problems. I wonder if what I’m doing is right.

You worry about everything you do—I think you shouldn’t be so attached. It’s really hard to balance this relationship: if you think about it a lot, it’s an attachment; if you think about it little, apparently you’re afraid of doing something wrong. I don’t think we need to go as far as making our minds tense. So whenever we do something, with usual things we know right away whether they’re good or bad. Besides, you shouldn’t have so many things—after you let go of one thing another one comes up. I think that when it comes to the things among everyday people, you know whether they’re good or bad even without giving it a thought. We should think over the things that happen suddenly, and consider whether they’re good or bad. If you think like this every moment, if you think like this whenever you do something, and even think like this when you do trivial things, I’d say you’re too attached. Cultivate nobly and righteously, and focus on big things. Of course, during the cultivation process, when it comes to something you haven’t realized and you do wrong and can’t handle it well, I think that’s because you haven’t cultivated to that point. You haven’t realized certain things yet, so don’t be too attached to them. When it’s time for an attachment to be removed it will naturally manifest.

Cultivation of both a person’s nature and life is combined with the Primordial Infant (yuanying), right?

Another way to put it is that you cultivate both your nature and life, and the changes of your benti and cultivated Primordial Infant will be combined with your Primordial Spirit (yuanshen)—they’ll be combined into one body.

Eating meat doesn’t itself generate karma, nor does it involve killing. Eating meat isn’t itself an attachment—eating meat can foster a person’s attachment to the aroma of meat.

Everyone has a limited amount of virtue (de), and cultivating to a high level is predestined. After a person reaches Unlocking Gong and Enlightenment, can he continue to accumulate virtue and improve?

[A person’s] virtue is limited, and after reaching Unlocking Gong and Enlightenment a person absolutely cannot improve further. This is because after reaching Unlocking Gong a person sees everything, is in contact with everything, and understands everything, so the question of enlightenment quality no longer exists. If a person could be fully aware while enduring hardships and cultivate to high levels, who wouldn’t do it? Why does a Buddha cultivate very slowly when he continues to cultivate upward? It’s because he has almost no way to endure hardships. Only when he makes special contributions can he improve a little bit. There’s this reason. If a person’s virtue isn’t adequate, there’s karma. After enduring hardships karma can be transformed—transformed into virtue. If the person is truly able to continue cultivating, "I can continue cultivating and I still want to cultivate," then he can take on his close relatives’ or good friends’ karma, and he can work it off and turn it into virtue. Anyway, it’s really difficult, because it goes hand in hand with the person’s xinxing and how much his heart and mind can handle. That’s why when a certain point is reached it’s full, and can’t be filled any further—it manifests this way. A person who endures any more hardship might become bad, drop down, and cultivate in vain because his capacity isn’t enough.

If a person from a very, very high level—one who surpasses Tathagata by many times—cultivates, it’s possible that after reaching Unlocking Gong, without needing forty-nine years, he’ll be able to reach a very high realm after going through half the process Sakyamuni did or even a shorter process. This is related to his inborn quality, it’s directly related to the level he’s at, and it has a lot to do with the level he was at in his previous life. It varies from person to person.

Sakyamuni reached the Tathagata level after forty-nine years. Who evolved gong for him? Was his Sudden Enlightenment or Gradual Enlightenment?

His was Sudden Enlightenment. He came to save people, and not to do cultivation practice. Who evolved gong for him? No one evolved gong for him. Anyone who comes down to do these things has to discuss the undertaking with many Great Enlightened Beings before he comes down. He sees how the thing he’s going to do is set. After it’s set, the plan is followed—when to reach Unlocking Gong, when to reach Consummation, and when the mission is completed. All of these are pre-arranged. His reaching Unlocking Gong and Enlightenment is unlike what we talk about. You might not quite understand it. Meaning, his memory is suddenly unlocked, he recalls what he cultivated before, and he brings it out and teaches it to people. I’d say that the Fa Sakyamuni taught back then, the Fa from religions, and the Fa from Buddhism aren’t very high-level. This isn’t to say that Sakyamuni’s level is not high. It’s because Sakyamuni didn’t teach all of his things—what he taught targeted people who’d just emerged from a primitive society twenty-five hundred years ago. That wasn’t his Fa in its entirety.

Does the evolving of gong only take place in meditation? Or does it happen at the same time when xinxing is improved?

While doing meditation, while doing the exercises, while enduring hardships, and while undergoing tribulations, during all these gong is being evolved. The process of improving xinxing is also increasing the gong that determines a person’s level.

Don’t believe others’ nonsense. I’ll tell you, when the Dharma-Ending Period arrived the Enlightened Beings all stopped doing anything about human society, and they are not allowed to do anything about it anymore. What’s more, during the time of Last Havoc their situation is very difficult, too, and they can’t even take care of themselves. Because of these things, problems have also occurred at the levels they’re at. I’ve told you this before—I said that no one is looking after things now. I wasn’t saying sensational things. I’m telling you, these things are absolutely true. It doesn’t matter whether you worship Buddha or worship the icons of different religions—there’s nothing on them. A small number of them might have an ethereal image on them, but they can’t do anything other than talk. This is the time of Last Havoc, and that’s how things are during this time.

The gong of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara that people know today, that is, the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara that people worshipped some years ago, is actually a little higher than a Tathagata Buddha or Amitabha. That’s because a Great Bodhisattva is herself a Buddha. But she hasn’t reached the realm of Tathagata. Yet a few of her gong can surpass that of a Tathagata. This is because what she cultivates is Bodhisattva, and she does her things. There are many high-level and profound principles in this. I can’t say more, because man isn’t supposed to know these things. They’re different from what we think, and there isn’t a hierarchical relationship like that among ordinary people. They’re different.

You could say that’s the case. It’s correct to say that the Buddhas in some paradises are higher than the Buddhas in other paradises, because the level of a Buddha’s paradise also determines the paradise’s position. If a Tathagata-level Buddha also leads many people who’ve reached the Buddha Attainment Status, there will also be differences in their levels. This phenomenon exists throughout Falun Paradise as well. It’s said that the Arhats or Bodhisattvas in Falun Paradise are higher than the Buddhas in other paradises, [because] Falun Paradise’s level is very high. The Fa we’re imparting today is just immense. It’s not restricted to the Falun Paradise. What I’ve let you know about is Falun Paradise, but what surpasses Falun Paradise humans can’t know, because humans aren’t allowed to know that. I’ve said that a lot of people have realized that this Fa is just so immense. So many Great Enlightened Beings have come to assimilate themselves into this Fa. It is no ordinary Fa. It can guide people to cultivate to really high levels—there’s no question. It’s not that everyone’s cultivation is limited to Falun Paradise—this too is for sure. Neither did Sakyamuni or Amitabha say that everyone who cultivated in their schools would go to their places or go to some other specific place. When people go beyond those Buddhas’ expanses they might go somewhere else.

Is there a standard for the height of one’s gong for reaching Arhat? Is the First-Attainment Arhat determined by the height of a person’s xinxing and gong?

The Arhat level is an unchanging standard established by different Buddhas’ paradises.

The height of a student’s xinxing is just like the entire evolution form of his gong—they all have to reach this point, and everything has to be replaced by high-energy matter. They go hand in hand. I’ve already emphasized these things strongly, so the assistants should be able to explain these questions. Isn’t cultivation beyond In-Triple-World-Law doing Buddha-Body cultivation? In Beyond-Triple-World-Law cultivation you will have a Buddha-Body, which is a body that’s been completely replaced by high-energy matter; when someone goes beyond In-Triple-World-Law and enters the Pure White Body state, isn’t his entire body a transparent body that’s been replaced by high-energy matter? Cultivating further, isn’t his body a Buddha-Body? And isn’t this entering First-Attainment Arhat? That’s how it is.

There are some beings within the Sixfold Path of Transmigration, and there are also some animals outside the Sixfold Path of Transmigration. They are found in higher levels, too. Usually they haven’t reached there through cultivation but have been born in that natural environment. The beings, such as a dragon, that are developed from the body of a cultivator who cultivates at a high level are of course yours, and they will go along with you to that high level when you reach Consummation.

There’s no rigid rule for this. If you cultivated Buddhahood and then you cultivate Dao, it doesn’t matter, either. It’s just that the master of that system won’t let you go at first. If he really can’t stop you, he’ll let you go; if you’re determined and insist on cultivating in the other system, he’ll let you go. It won’t do if you have your feet in two boats at the same time, as the master of neither side will look after you. That’s a xinxing problem, and it’s damaging both cultivation systems.

Yes, there are. There are people who come out specifically in the Dharma-Ending Period to damage the Fa, and they use all kinds of forms. On the surface, they might openly attack Falun Dafa or openly attack me, and our students can recognize them—this type of demon isn’t scary, nor are sham qigong, since our students are able to distinguish them. You can at least calm down and think about whether it’s genuine or sham, and after you realize it you won’t blindly learn it as before.

The type of demons that are most difficult to recognize are as follows, and they’re capable of doing major damage. They come to learn Falun Dafa as others do, and they also say that Falun Dafa is good—they’re even more excited than others in their speech, they have stronger feelings than others, or they even see some images. Then all of a sudden they die or all of a sudden they go down the opposite path, and damage Falun Dafa this way. These are the kinds of people that are most difficult to recognize. They’re hard to recognize, and for this reason they can do the most damage. The form of their damage is arranged just this way, and it’s predestined that they would do those things, so they do whatever causes the most trouble. The demons I just talked about—the ones that can do great damage—belong to this category.

A Great Bodhisattva can already be called a Buddha. The Great Bodhisattva, you mean King Ksitigarbha? Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha is also called a Buddha. That’s the idea. But he does his own sorts of things.

I’ve already talked about this. The original beings were produced as a result of the movements of all kinds of enormous matter in the cosmos.

Don’t listen to others’ rumors. And you especially shouldn’t pass on those that affect my Fa and that damage our Fa’s image. When they reach you, you should put an end to them. If everyone does this they will have nowhere to be passed on.

I’d say that a practitioner shouldn’t think too much of what’s good or bad or what’s an achievement or mistake among everyday people. Don’t talk about everyday people’s things with so much interest. Are you interested in and attached to those things, or do you want to do cultivation practice? Everyday people’s things are limited to those things. Haven’t I said that the things of everyday people are no more than those things? People talk about them over and over again—isn’t that just everyday people talking about everyday people?

After someone reaches Consummation, there’s no way he can cultivate upwards. Reaching Enlightenment is reaching Consummation. Sakyamuni was in a state of half-enlightenment at that time. Some parts of his memory had been unlocked, but there were still many, many that weren’t unlocked, and there were a lot of things he didn’t know. Only that way could he cultivate upwards. If he knew everything he wouldn’t have been able to cultivate upwards. It took him forty-nine years to teach his Fa because his cultivation reached the Tathagata level. It was also because his state of half-enlightenment reached a very high level. Our half-enlightenment won’t reach that high, because Sakyamuni came to save people. But a few people—and I emphasize few—might reach a really high level, since each person’s situation is different.

That’s right. This cosmos just has this principle, which is also a principle that restrains people. If you generate karma and you die, your descendants have to pay for the karma. That’s why people want to create blessings for their descendants, and they want to make this much or that much money, knowing that they can’t use much of it, and leave it for descendants so that they can enjoy blessings. They consider the things in this world important, consider the second half of their lives important, and even consider their names after death important—they’re even concerned about their names when they’re not around. There’s this factor, so they’ll accrue karma—accrue karma for their descendants.

If some of us have done great things, or have done well in our cultivation, these persons’ parents might even benefit from the connection and be saved and brought up. But to which level they’re saved depends on the parents’ own, original situation. Our cultivation’s situation also influences them. Ancestors’ accrual of virtue is naturally rewarded with blessings. People say that when a person does cultivation, his ancestors acquire virtue, and that if you succeed in cultivating Buddhahood your parents will have acquired great virtue. But very few of them get out of the Three Realms—it’s just that they’ve acquired virtue and done good things. Having a son like you, or having a daughter like you, they’re regarded as having acquired virtue because of the existence of that factor. But you can’t let the parents also become Buddhas just because of this—they have to cultivate. They’ll just be heavenly beings at different levels who enjoy blessings. There’s nothing like "nine generations of ancestors ascending to heaven"—that’s nonsense.

That’s definitely a demon, and that was implying cursing. This demon’s memorial tablet was burnt and it was killed, suggesting a butcher was killing. That’s what it meant. Since it had a few abilities, it could conjure these things to confuse people. Why do those demons have to be cleaned up so thoroughly today? Think about it, everyone—it’s just like the example of an apple that I’ve given. Human society has already arrived at this stage. And not only humankind, but also substances and animals reincarnate with karma. They all have karma, and large amounts, at that. Although you might see that they know to do cultivation and so on, human affairs absolutely are not allowed to be interfered with or dominated by those animals. They’ve already had that effect, though, and this alone is in violation of heaven’s principles. The wretched demons just deserve to be killed, and this is also something inevitable in the Dharma-Ending Period and the time of Last Havoc. When they’ve developed a little bit of higher gong in cultivation they should be killed. Things are just a mess nowadays.

I’ve said that what people take to be truths are all wrong when it’s looked at from high levels. To the Great Enlightened Beings at high levels, those demons and monsters have all come out in human society; whoever wants to take things from humans simply takes them, and whoever wants to control humans simply controls them—they even think that they’ve done good things. They treat illnesses for others—but what illnesses do they treat? Isn’t their "treating illnesses" putting their things onto people’s bodies? That alone means they’re doing bad things.

It’s said that today’s animals are the product of evolution. I’d say that’s not the case at all. It’s true that species have changed as a result of shifts in the continental plates and cyclical evolution in different periods. If our continental plates were to sink today, the new continental plates that would rise from the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean would have new species—new species would be produced. Then if they were to sink again, still other new species would be produced. Then if this land plate again replaces that land plate, and after many years this land plate once again rises back up, it wouldn’t have the species it had before, either—it would generate even newer species. So because of this, people say that animals result from evolution. That’s not the case at all. Why haven’t you found things that are from in-between the stages of the evolution process? All that people have found in each case are the different forms of existence of two species, and the interim, transitional form doesn’t exist.

When a cultivator becomes a Buddha, which body of his will become a Buddha? Is it the True Body (zhen-ti), or a body given by Master?

In the past, people who cultivated in the Pure Land Sect didn’t teach cultivation of the body, they only taught cultivating xinxing, especially those cultivation ways that didn’t do actual cultivation in meditation; their Buddha-Bodies were evolved by the Buddha who received them—when he came to receive them he would just give them a Buddha-Body. Those who really do actual cultivation in meditation, on the other hand, can develop a Primordial Infant through their own cultivation. In addition, in some special cultivation ways of the Dao School and Buddha School, a person can transform his own body, achieve cultivation of his nature and life, and develop some other things through cultivation; his Main Primordial Spirit controls everything.

It can’t be understood like that. Your Primordial Spirit is composed of the most microcosmic, smallest, and most original matter. Your personality and your characteristics have already been predetermined at the origin of matter. That’s why after many years, and after lifetime upon lifetime, they’re still really hard to change. But a person’s original nature is kind.

What you said is accurate, because the European race, or the most original human race, all came from their specific dimensions, and they have their special situations there.

There are many people who saw me before they learned Dafa. Some people knew me many years or dozens of years before. There are also people who saw me in their dreams—there are many of them, too. And there are people who were told by fortune tellers many years ago, and so on. This is a manifestation of different space-times.

This child’s inborn quality isn’t bad, and what he’s said is right. Some children have extraordinary backgrounds—they have come to obtain the Fa.

Are virtue and gong the same kind of matter as Zhen-Shan-Ren?

Zhen-Shan-Ren can’t be understood as a normal type of matter—it’s not the same concept. Although everything is composed of matter, it’s still not a concept like this. It’s just like our human Primordial Spirit—if you say that it and our human bodies are composed of such and such kind of matter, just like the question I brought up a moment ago, it’s not accurate. But any kind of matter is a material being, and what truly exists is this nature, which is also a manifestation of the Fa. Virtue and gong, on the other hand, manifest in material forms, but they aren’t the same kind of matter, even though they’re both assimilated to the nature of the cosmos—Zhen-Shan-Ren.

Today in our cultivation among everyday people we haven’t specifically set this requirement. But as for our monks who do monastic cultivation, in the future they’ll have to abstain from these things. Those who really have to do actual cultivation in meditation together with others or in a group can’t eat them, either. This issue came up in the past exactly because they disturb people’s cultivation. Onions, ginger, and garlic can stimulate people’s nerves, so if you eat them often you’ll get addicted, and if you don’t eat them you’ll miss them—you can develop an attachment. Take these things lightly. As for cooked ones, that’s no problem since they don’t produce an odor. You can use chopped onions. If we look at the practicality of it, Sakyamuni didn’t allow eating them back then exactly because they disturbed people’s cultivation by giving off a strong odor and preventing others from entering into tranquility. At that time eight or ten monks would sit in a circle and enter into tranquility through meditation. If that odor was given off, nobody would be able to get tranquil. Since actual cultivation in meditation was considered so important, not eating those things was taken seriously.

Are virtue and gong the same type of matter as Zhen-Shan-Ren?

Virtue is a type of white colored matter, and it’s a special matter. Karma is also a special type of matter. As for gong, it is formed by mixing a type of elevated-virtue-matter with other matter from the cosmos. Zhen-Shan-Ren is the Fa, a type of nature, and it can’t be understood with the normal concepts of matter—it is super-matter.

Having gone beyond In-Triple-World-Law, a person has a never-degenerating body. Could a Buddha-Body degenerate? It is composed of the richest and the best matter in the cosmos. As long as the cosmos doesn’t degenerate, It doesn’t degenerate.

My Falun Paradise wouldn’t be able to hold them all! Only those who truly achieve a Righteous Attainment Status and reach Consummation can go. If whoever cultivates Falun Dafa were to go to Falun Paradise… how many hundreds of millions of people are there today? In the future more people will learn Dafa, and these people will multiply and continue to cultivate generation after generation. If everyone went to Falun Paradise it wouldn’t be able to hold them all. Those who can’t cultivate to Consummation can go to high-level dimensions, which are wonderful, too. A large percentage of our students come from different high levels and they’ll go back to their own original paradises after attaining the Fa.

If what she practices is Falun Dafa, it’s normal. This child’s inborn quality is pretty good. Make sure you don’t let her learn those messed up qigong practices—don’t ruin the child. Children like this have all come to obtain the Fa. Be sure not to have your children do bad things. There’s a large number of children like this around the country.

There isn’t any. Whoever is able to practice may practice. Of course, we should point out that people with two kinds of illnesses can’t cultivate, and this is something that I set forth: people with critical illnesses have too much karma, and it’s impossible that they cultivate; people with psychosis have too much thought-karma and their Main Primordial Spirit is unconscious, so they can’t cultivate.

If you don’t undergo that change during cultivation, how could you undergo it when you are in Beyond-Triple-World-Law? During the In-Triple-World-Law phase a person starts to change and improve himself step by step, and when he goes beyond In-Triple-World-Law he’s pretty much undergone a total change.

It doesn’t matter either way. Students will watch it as a story and they won’t follow it. With people today, if you don’t teach them the Fa, they definitely won’t learn it; even if a Buddhist monk sits right in front of them, they won’t learn it no matter what he says. So it doesn’t matter, because we’ve already emphasized in our seminars that the Zen sect doesn’t exist anymore—not only does it not exist today, it vanished after the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, and it’s been long gone for several hundred years. All that’s left is a history. Look at what the Zen monks are reading these days. They even take out Buddha Amitabha’s scripture to read. There’s nothing left in the Zen sect. The Zen sect’s Fa no longer exists in the world. Actually, in the Dharma-Ending Period, no Fa—not just the Fa in the Zen sect—exists anymore.

Since they bought them just let them be. You can’t change that since they spent the money. We don’t have any administrative or management methods. At the beginning I was against producing those things. But now we’ve allowed them because the students and disciples asked for them. So now we can only let it be.

Just ignore it. Having a heavy-feeling head isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Once a person develops a gong column (gongzhu) through cultivation, it will have some weight and he’ll feel it, too. If a big ball of light emerges up above there, it will exert pressure on you, as well; if a Buddha sits above it, this will exert even more pressure on you. Don’t worry about what’s above there, as that’s just how cultivation is. It’s all good. Many, many things might appear on top of your head; even people who work on qi might have a big qi column emerge.

That’s of course pretty good. It wasn’t your Assistant Primordial Spirit. You aren’t allowed to see what the Assistant Primordial Spirit does, you aren’t aware of it. That was you, yourself.

It still does, because those are different things of different levels manifesting in your body. There will be less and less of the kind of discomfort you have when you suffer from an illness, but this isn’t to say that there won’t be any discomfort. I can tell you that Most Exalted Lord Lao said this before, and it’s also mentioned in Dao School writings: why does a person have so much discomfort no matter how high he cultivates to? It’s exactly because he’s among everyday people.

Never in history have we been a religion. Today most of us cultivate among everyday people, so it’s not a religion. The purposes of religion are, one, to cultivate, and two, to save people, have them do good things, and to enable morality to last in the human world. These are the two things religions do. Our cultivation among everyday people can also have this effect, but we don’t assume the form of a religion. In the future we will have disciples who cultivate Falun Dafa in a monastic setting, but we haven’t arrived at that point yet. So how are we to handle this? Now there are already monks cultivating Dafa, and in any case, this Fa of ours is good for society and good for people. We don’t get involved in society’s politics and we don’t violate government policies—we don’t do those things. It has no negative impact on the nation, on ordinary human society, or on anything else—it can only be beneficial.

That too is normal, because the Primordial Spirit is very small. But it can also become large, and that’s why a person’s body can expand outward during practice. So some people feel that they’re as tall as heaven, and some feel that they’re becoming very small—all of these are normal. But there’s one thing: once a cultivator has done something not so good, he might also feel as if he’s falling; that’s his level dropping, and the volume of his body reducing.

That’s how people are among everyday people. In others’ eyes humankind is just wallowing in mud.

When someone achieves Righteous Attainment in Falun Dafa cultivation, does he have to take his benti with him?

Our cultivation way requires that one takes his benti with him when he reaches Consummation. It won’t do if someone isn’t able to take his benti with him, or, if this body of his doesn’t reach that form. Why? It’s because all of us can achieve it—with true cultivation just about everyone can achieve it. As long as you enter an Attainment Status and go beyond In-Triple-World-Law cultivation you will have already succeeded in cultivating your body. Many people have already reached this stage, only they don’t know it. Part of the person’s body is locked and restrained, making him unable to sense it. As you cultivate more, it will become more and more obvious. But there’s one thing I need to make clear: some people might have various reasons that limit them and prevent them from reaching Consummation; they might only be able to become heavenly beings at different levels, so their bodies undergo minor changes. Actually, in the eyes of an average person this is already a great blessing that’s beyond reach and just too wonderful to hope for. It’s something totally unachievable in ordinary qigong, in possessing practices, or in evil practices.

No more question slips are left. My answers today mainly targeted the issues that our assistants and mainstay practitioners raised. Of course, some of our students who haven’t even attended a seminar or who’ve only attended the seminars once, people who shouldn’t have come, are here. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t listen to this Fa, or that you aren’t able to cultivate. What I’m saying is that you aren’t able to accept these things yet, which involve major issues. If we didn’t let you in you also might not have understood it, since your xinxing isn’t high yet, and you might have said some irresponsible things. But then if we do let you come, we’re afraid that you might not be able to accept it and doubts will arise, which could ruin your prospects. Anyway, after you hear these things, if you don’t believe them, just take them to be stories. Make sure you don’t develop resistance.

The Fa I’m teaching here is mainly for our assistants and mainstay practitioners. It will be good for your work from here on out. Some questions have things in common, so when we can’t answer questions raised by other students, at least we’re aware of certain things. Actually, I’ve said that you could have still done this without holding this assistants meeting. For example, when I was about to leave after finishing the seminar in Jinan, many Enlightened Beings said to me: "You’ve taught everything in this seminar." What they meant was that all of what can be made known to ordinary people was taught. I’d advise you to just go study this Fa, and as long as you study it thoroughly there’s no question or problem that can’t be resolved. The Fa I’m teaching includes more than just the things of this one school of mine. That’s why we can say it’s enormous. Of course, what we’re doing today is different from the practices that were taught in the past or what’s been done before. Others talk about the salvation of all sentient beings, and Sakyamuni even included animals. Sakyamuni talked about the salvation of all sentient beings. He could save sentient beings and he wanted to be merciful toward all beings. Why don’t we do it this way today? Why do we select certain ones when we save people? Why is it that we have conditions for selecting the people who attend our seminars? Because everything is different from back then. Some people are so bad that they just have to be wiped out, some people are to remain, and some people might ascend through cultivation. That’s why we have this issue.

Alright, I think we all know how to understand this meeting and what we should and shouldn’t tell others afterwards, so I won’t emphasize that more. Simply put: be responsible to our Fa and be responsible to yourself, then you will know what to do. That’s all I’ll say.

... After our discussions we can deepen our understanding of Dafa further and align our understandings better. I think it will make it much easier when we answer students’ questions about certain things. That’s one thing. Also, there’s something I haven’t said yet to several of our persons in charge: could we take the lead in my hometown in organizing group study of the Fa at set times?—we can’t just do group practice. You can read and discuss together chapter by chapter, section by section. Fix the study time the way you do with group practice. I think this will be more beneficial; it can address specific issues, and this will allow us to follow the Fa when we run into actual problems later on. We’ll get the ball rolling, and it will lead the way for assistance centers around the country. Then other regions around the country can follow suit. This will be really beneficial to improving our understanding. That’s my suggestion.