(Minghui.org) China, traditionally known as the Land of the Divine, has a long history of spiritual practices. Under the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) totalitarian, atheistic rule, however, many people in China today are unaware of their heritage and cultural roots.
The surge in popularity of different types of qigong over the past few decades, especially Falun Gong, has brought back tradition and restored a connection with the divine. Introduced by Mr. Li Hongzhi in 1992, the practice improves one’s health and inspires its practitioners with the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. More than 100 million practitioners from all walks of life have found peace of mind and improved their moral standards as they go about their daily lives.
In these three articles, we share the stories of a Ph.D. scientist, a successful business owner, and an accomplished engineer. We hope they will inspire you with some perspectives on life’s important questions: Who are we? Why we are here?
A Tsinghua University Ph.D. Student
Wang Weiyu loved science. He majored in science and engineering and always dreamed of becoming an outstanding engineer. But despite all his scientific knowledge, he still felt confused about some very fundamental issues, such as the purpose of life. But one book changed all this. Below is his explanation.
A Door to Wonder
Wang Weiyu: Falun Gong has unlocked my wisdom
I grew up in an atheist family. My grandparents did not believe in the existence of the divine because they had been brainwashed by the CCP. Growing up in that environment, all my education was also based on atheism.
I had no idea what cultivation meant or what qigong was. Based on what the CCP had instilled in me, I thought all those things were superstitious and that created a huge mental obstacle for me.
In 1995, I saw a leaflet about Falun Gong at Tsinghua University. It said that Falun Gong was “a high-level cultivation practice of the Buddha School” and listed many benefits of the practice. For example, when we are working or studying, we may not have much time to do the exercises every day, but Falun Gong will keep refining practitioners even when they don’t have time to do the exercises.
At the time I was rather suspicious of what the leaflet said, thinking, “How could such a good thing exist in this world? It’s just pie in the sky.”
By chance one day, I came across the book Zhuan Falun. When I was reading lecture one, I felt rather excited as I began to understand that the fairy tales of the past about how people yearned for a beautiful future and kindness and how kindhearted people were blessed could all come true by cultivating.
I could appreciate what the book said from the angle of physics and my own understandings. The theory that one could achieve a high level of wisdom through cultivation resonated with me, and I could see things more clearly and completely.
Zhuan Falun showed me a totally different world, a world much bigger and comprehensive than what I had known in the past. It helped me understand the answers to many questions, such as: “What is most important for a human being? Why do people live? What is the value of life? What is our destination? Exactly what should I commit myself to to improve the quality of my life now and make it more meaningful in the future?” I was determined to achieve my goal through cultivation.
I thought: If a person lives for a hundred years, that’s only 36,500 days, which is actually a pretty short amount of time. From the atheist point of view, that would be the end of one’s life. One would disappear and no longer exist. So a person is already sentenced to death from the day she or he is born. In most cases, that would not exceed 100 years, or 36,500 days.
Then, of those 36,500 days, one-third of that time, roughly eight hours a day, is spent sleeping. So, one only has two-thirds of the 36,500 days being awake. What’s more, one cannot do much in one’s first ten years of life as a child, so we can subtract another tenth of that lifetime. Then, by the time a person reaches his or her 60s, their energy level is much lower than when they were in the prime of life, so we can deduct another 40% of those 100 years, leaving only 50% of one’s lifetime. So, if one could live to 100, his or her prime time is just over 10,000 days. One’s life is, in fact, rather short.
No wonder many philosophers were inclined to be rather pessimistic. This is because even though they wanted to achieve something, they found it hard to change the world. Plus they could only work within their scope of over 10,000 days. Life was therefore often depicted as tragic.
Because one’s life span is so short, I wanted to see further and understand more about the world. True scientists always have rational reasons to deny or affirm anything. Although I cannot prove what I learned in Lecture One in Zhuan Falun using empirical science, I can prove what it teaches me through my own cultivation, my own experience, and my own understanding. So this is also a form of proof.
For example, I have a pretty deep understanding of the celestial eye as explained in Lecture Two in Zhuan Falun.
My Understanding of the Celestial Eye
The issue of the celestial eye is a common topic in the cultivation community, but much less so in everyday life. It is especially the case in a communist country like China, where such things are usually labeled as superstition. However, I had some personal experience.
One example happened when I was in middle school. Late at night or when I was studying really hard, I would sense an external force pressing between my eyebrows, as if something rather powerful was spinning inward. I did not know what was happening and worried that I might be ill or that something might be growing in my brain.
I told my father about it and asked him to take me to see a doctor. We consulted quite a number of neurosurgeons, and they all said it could be the changes my body was undergoing during puberty. It could be that I found it hard to adapt to such “changes” psychologically and had developed a doubtful mindset, a kind of mental burden, or hypochondria.
I thought to myself: “If I keep explaining to them how I feel and argue that it is not a mental burden, but something I can really feel, a very strong feeling between my eyebrows, they might say that I have a mental problem.”
I did not want to have that label put on me, so I thought I’d better just keep quiet and not mention it anymore. But late at night when I was totally focused on my studies, I could still feel the external force strongly, and that feeling bothered me for over ten years. It wasn’t until I read Lecture Two in Zhuan Falun that I understood it. Master Li wrote, “As long as you truly put your mind to studying Falun Dafa here, everyone will feel it; the external force comes very strongly when drilling inward.” (Lecture Two, Zhuan Falun) I had exactly the same feeling that bothered me for many years. I now completely understand what it was.
For everyday people, the concept of the celestial eye might seem mysterious, and in communist countries it might be labeled superstitious. In the past people had all kinds of understandings about the celestial eye. After reading Lecture Two in Zhuan Falun, I have come to my own understanding on the issue.
I believe that the celestial eye is actually an innate ability that people have. It enables you to see light beyond wavelengths between 400 nm to 700 nm. In other words, you can see light outside the normal visible light spectrum. After the photons are absorbed through our eyes, they reach the macula at the back and generate a signal. That bioelectrical signal reaches the optic nerve and forms an image in the brain.
Then, how about the light outside the 400 nm and 700 nm range? According to traditional Chinese medicine, or in the Chinese cultivation community, people are capable of detecting those photons as well—and even smaller particles.
When I was reading Zhuan Falun, I never had a chance to share my experience with the author of the book (Master Li), and yet what he described was exactly the same as what I experienced and he explained why.
Since I started practicing Falun Gong, I often have the experience as described in Zhuan Falun: flowers blossom in the place slightly above the middle of the eyebrows; something black and red blossoming like flowers and becoming more intense. It’s not just blooming flowers, I also see more colorful images. I believe they are things beyond 400 nm to 700 nm that are displayed in my brain. They represent what is not seen in this time-space, but they do exist.
Suffering a Loss Is Actually a Blessing
Wang Weiyu reading Zhuan Falun, the main teachings of Falun Gong
I became even more interested in Zhuan Falun as I read Lecture Three in the book, because it talks about improvement of one’s mind nature. It tells how to view a loss in life and explains a traditional teaching from ancient times: Suffering a loss is a blessing.
All the other books I had read by then told me how to develop my skills, either scientific skills or skills for how to have a better life. For example, they explained how to make others like you, how to improve your social status, how to be better-off, or how to make your family life more comfortable and more prosperous, and so on. They were all about how to stand out in society.
Zhuan Falun is totally different. It tells you why you should be able to suffer losses without complaining in all your interactions. One should have an open mind and have extraordinary bearing. What’s more, one should feel happy when being taken advantage of. It explains why suffering a loss is actually a good thing for you as a person and why suffering is a blessing. This is the principle it has taught me.
I was deeply inspired. From the perspective of everyday people, if you are broad-minded and tolerant, people think that you are wise and they respect you. This is because, deep in people’s hearts, they know what is good and what is bad. So, as I read the book, I felt that what it said was so true. If everyone was like this, society would become beautiful, and people would no longer suffer.
On the surface, it shows your attitude about others, but in fact it is whether you treat yourself with kindness, and it shows people how to live a life with wisdom. Zhuan Falun teaches people how to become wiser instead of being smart. Being smart means to be clever in dealing with things so that one does not suffer loss easily, whereas wisdom embraces virtue and requires people to have a high level of xinxing.
Atheism is a CCP lie that has caused people great harm. We look forward to the day when Falun Gong practitioners’ faith in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and their perseverance in upholding kindness will be respected and appreciated by more people.
(To be continued)
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