It took me awhile to decide which religion to start with, but I have decided to start with the main text of the Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) practitioners - called the Zhuan Falun.
To my knowledge, Falun Dafa is less of a religion and more of a "cultivation practice." I first became interested in this practice because of a friend of mine who is a practitioner. The goal, from what I understand, is to open up your inner channels of energy for better health and better spiritual awareness. This is done, in part, through five "gentle exercises" that seem to have their root in some form of Tai Chi or Qigong. In so doing, a person will gradually become more moral and more detached from the physical and material world and more focused on spiritual issues.
I believe that the Zhuan Falun is comprised of "talks" or lectures that Li Hongzhi (the spiritual leader and founder of Falun Dafa) gave - as opposed to his sitting down and penning the book. For this entry, I'm focusing on the first paragraph of the first lecture in the Zhuan Falun, entitled "Genuinely Guiding People Toward Higher Levels."
Teacher Li, as I have heard him called, begins by defending the integrity of his teachings and defending the purity of his motivations for teaching about the Fa and cultivation practice. He explains that he is the only person who is trying to guide people into a higher level (of spirituality, I assume), while most other qigong teachers are simply trying to help their students to gain health benefits. Teacher Li addresses this issue saying that there isn't anything inherently wrong with trying to improve the health of others, but questioning why these other teachers do not teach higher levels of cultivation so that the students can benefit spiritually as well. He answers his own question, deciding that these other teachers do not teach spirituality in their cultivation practices because it "relates to questions of major concerns, profound historical reasons, a wide range of issues, and very serious matters." I'm going to go ahead and assume that Teacher Li is simply saying people in China won't teach spirituality because of the suppression of spirituality and religion in China. By the way, those who practice Falun Dafa in China are under heavy, heavy persecution.
Teacher Li also says that the everyday person cannot teach high levels (the spiritual side) of qigong because it "involves the practices of many qigong schools." I may have to do a little more research to understand this, but I know that there are different types of Tai Chi and Qigong, perhaps Teacher Li feels that a person must be highly trained in all of these different types - having trained first in one type, then in another type, and then in a third type, etc. He goes on to say that many people switch from one type to another without ever mastering any one school of qigong, thus doing more harm to their bodies than good! This type of switching around also apparently leads to a disruption in one's (spiritual) cultivation practice.
I'm not going to try to get through this whole lecture in one blog post, because it will be too long. But I wanted to get the ball rolling on this because I have some detailed thoughts about what Teacher Li says in the following paragraphs and, as usual, a little background information is needed!
In the meantime, here's a link to cool, 8 minute informational video I found about Falun Dafa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsqnRidMorM
No comments:
Post a Comment