PlasticSquirrel, please defend your statements.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> his [Li Hongzhi's] explanations of dimensions and other religions is unrivaled, and his practice of falun dafa seems superior to any other practice in every regard. not because of the movements, but because of the scope, and because the falun mechanism planted into practitioners is a direct way towards cultivating gong (shen). [/quote]
Please go into more detail on what you mean to say here, PlasticSquirrel. What support do you have for this claim?
My experience with falun gong
Okay, when I first started practicing falun gong I was only interested in learning some form of chi gong. I do kung fu, and I thought it would help. When I first read the information in the falun gong books, I was very skeptical. I didn't really practice the chi gong for a while. One night I decided to give one last try before moving on. It was late at night and all of the lights in my house were off. I had my eyes closed and I did the movements. Then I saw two flashes of lighting. It scared the crap out of me and I opend my eyes and it was still dark. I closed my eyes again and resumed the movements. Then I saw a couple more flashes of lighting. I stopped and went to the one of the falung gong books. In the back there was a question and answer section. One of the questions dealt with the issue of opening the third eye. Li Hongzhi mentioned that one of the signs that the third eye is about to open is you might see flashes of lightning. This was the first experience that I ever had along these lines. Later, I could feel the falun rotating as I practiced the movements. At around this same time, I was taking a philosophy class at my college. The teacher talked quite a bit about scientific findings that were not mainstream. It really surprised me how much information agreed with falun gong. From that point on I have practiced falun gong. I said that it changed my life, and it really has. The quality of my life has improved. There were a lot of negative things that I was involved with (drug use etc.) that I have stopped doing as a result of practicing falun gong. I am more patient and kind with people, and instead of acting out of anger when there is a confrontation I try to follow the precept of truth, compassion, and forebearence. I'm not perfect and I have a long way to go, but I feel very fortunate to have found falun gong. Also I have met many other practitioners, and I have heard many stories of how people have changed there lives for the better after practicing falun gong. I know that there are people out there who have a lot of hostility towards falung gong for whatever reason. I suppose that you have to keep in mind that you really can't trust the chinese governments propaganda. Remember, the Chinese government has a history of running people over with tanks if they don't like their ideas. The practitioners in China aren't asking for special treatment, they simply want to be able to practice their spiritual beliefs freely. Over 260 people in China have been tortured to death because they wanted to practice falun gong. Thousands of others have been arrested and persecuted. Wheather you agree with falun gong or not, you have to admit that the Chinese government is in the wrong. Well, it's a long post so thanks for taking the time to read it with an open mind.
Important info on falun gong
sorry about the title okay now i want every one who pratice falun gong to tell me why. and every one who doesnt but disagrees with them to also explain to me why do you think that i am not hear to accuse or critizie anyone i just want to know what info you both have to backup what you believe
More than just a "cult of personality"?
I was watching the news in Beijing last week. There was a report on a group of FG practicioners who kidnapped a non-believer and beat her to death, because she condemned Li. The story reported that they had Li's implicit approval; they were "excising devils".
I do not know whether the story is partially or completely true, but I have to wonder whether Li is really the "harmless nut" portrayed in US media.
falun gong = osmama bin laden
i don't usually read rolling stone but their new issue with the "9-11-01" on the cover has a great article where a journalist from the NY Times interviews young would be terrorists/Bin Laden supporters. The one thing that struck me is that NOTHING HE SAID COULD CHANGE THEIR OPINION. This "faith" is usually reserved for supernatural/deified individuals (Jesus, allah) They would make a point, he would counter it and they would just say "no!!" That's insane. I consider Falun Gong to be a bunch of weirdos. People I would once have not considered a threat at all. Mao used comic books to get to people's conscoiusness, In the early 80's, we saw absurd Rambo knockoffs as right wing propaganda...
One word I saw in college often was "loaded". that is, the use of a word being used or meaning a lot of things, possibly. The right wing support of Paula Jones was "loaded" in that it was aimed to take down Clinton, not stop seual harrasment, or at least not firstly. So now someone is taking Tai Chi and putting an ideology on it? What if someone did that with Ju-Jitsu? Egads! :eek: