Fa Teaching at the 2008 New York Conference
Li Hongzhi
May 24, 2008, in Manhattan
(Standing ovation, enthusiastic applause)
Good afternoon! (Disciples: "Good afternoon, Master!" Enthusiastic applause) You've been working hard! (Applause)
You have truly worked hard. You hail from different regions and countries, and are of different races. Dafa disciples are now found in just about every corner of the world. You are all shouldering the greatest of Dafa disciples' responsibilities: you are sentient beings' hope for salvation. Many people have been saved as a result of your clarifying the facts and as a result of your actions and conduct in this world. For that, on behalf of those sentient beings, I thank you! (Disciples applaud in a show of respect)
Now is the final moment that concludes arrangements that are eons old. History's progression to this point today has not been easy, fraught as it's been with hardship and ups and downs. From ancient times till today, the multitude of gods have been watching and closely following this affair, and are paying particular attention at this final phase. They watch carefully every action and thought of Dafa disciples. At the beginning, there were many unknowns--what would be the result of imparting the Fa in this world; would this grand aspiration that predates history be achieved; would Dafa disciples be able to fulfill their missions at the final time, and could they manage to do well. There was also the basic question of success or failure, and whether the Three Realms would be kept. And in addition, although Dafa disciples had been given the mission of validating the Fa, it remained to be seen whether they could really come through. It's gratifying that you have made it through. No matter what hardships or ups and downs Dafa disciples have gone through along the way, in retrospect, those were but a means of tempering you. It has made you more mature and helped you to remove your human attachments in the process, culminating in your progression towards Consummation. That is the path you have traveled. When you look back, you will find that to be the case.
No matter what it is you have encountered as you've gone about validating the Fa, it is all, I will tell you, a good thing--and that's especially so in these years of persecution--for those things have come about specifically because you do cultivation. Those ordeals and the suffering, no matter how great or harsh you find them to be, are good things, because they take place solely on account of your cultivation. A person can eliminate karma and shed human attachments when he goes through ordeals, and through ordeals he can improve. Whether your motive is to save sentient beings, to validate the Fa, or to make progress in your own cultivation, they are ordeals all the same. They aren't supposed to make way for you just because you think, "I'm doing this for Dafa" or "I'm doing this to save sentient beings." You know that Master may look at it that way, but the forces of the old cosmos and its beings won't see it that way, and that is part of the challenge you face. It is precisely because of this that those ordeals came into being, and this is the hardest thing Dafa disciples have had to deal with. People's ability to understand things, or lack thereof, and sentient beings' different thoughts and views on this, have become challenges for you as you validate the Fa and save the sentient beings of this world. But regardless of how they have behaved, we still need to save them, for their lack of understanding is on account of their being lost in delusion. They cause some challenges for Dafa disciples because they cannot see things as they really are. Whatever their reason for coming here millennia or eons ago, they have, all the same, been awaiting this final time. We cannot decide against saving them just because they conducted themselves poorly in one lifetime or did some particular thing wrong. When Master looks at a living being, [what he considers] spans the entire course of that being's existence. If someone did a lot of great things in history, and even had many great achievements in service of validating the Fa, can we not save him just because he has behaved poorly in this lifetime?
Yes, some have behaved so poorly that they have lost their predestined opportunity, their chance, rendering themselves beyond salvation. But you cannot, as Dafa disciples who are cultivating amidst delusion and saving people who are in delusion, tell who that applies to. So you will meet with ordeals, and you will encounter people who cannot be reasoned with. The truth is that some people simply cannot be saved and are not worthy of being saved. You will come across them. But don't let those cases affect your clarifying the facts or how you go about it, and don't let it alter your correct way of doing things. In this world, the ordeals that Master faces, as with the accompanying pressure, come in numbers greater than tens of thousands each day, yet no one has managed to make me waver, and that cannot be done. No one can alter what I want to do. No one can alter it, no matter what form the ordeals that I face take. The same holds true for your validating the Fa. But in your case, as you validate the Fa and save people, you are a cultivator still, and cultivators have human attachments or else they would be gods. And could a god do cultivation? Gods cannot cultivate. Only those with human bodies can cultivate, and only that can be called cultivation. So, precisely because you have this human body, you have the opportunity to cultivate and to improve. That opportunity is extremely hard to come by, and precious--particularly when Dafa disciples have such a grand mission. So in your cultivation, no matter what ordeal comes along or what kind of difficulty you face, you cannot let those things change [your course].
This is particularly important during these several years in which they are persecuting Dafa disciples, where it appears on the surface that an evil Party is persecuting Chinese people, persecuting cultivators, when in fact nothing in this world is tenable or can exist without there being cosmic factors behind the scenes, without there being microcosmic factors. The factors behind the evil Party are evil beings that take on the superficial appearance of an evil red dragon, but they contain many molecules, particles, and some low-level, rotten demonic beings--a filthy hodgepodge. These are what the old forces use to interfere with Dafa disciples.
Recently henchmen of the evil Party attacked Dafa disciples at the Party-Quitting Center in Flushing, New York. Similar incidents have taken place in other regions too, as you might have seen, though they haven't been as severe. From the look of it, the bad people's intention was to mount an attack against you, hoping to disperse you and stop you from organizing activities to quit the Party. They are afraid, as [the center] is a thorn in their side. The public presence of a "Party-Quitting Center," or a "center for quitting the wicked CCP," is an endless source of aggravation and exasperation for them. The fact is, it's a powerful place for destroying evil, and that is why they fear it. So if you look at it from a positive angle, what is a Party-Quitting Center? Isn't that a place for saving sentient beings? There is nothing scary about the evil. What I want to say is, after the attacks and disruptions took place, we have had--as we always do--some people who don't cultivate diligently or who have a lot of human attachments. They have been looking at things with human thinking. Aren't good and evil displaying themselves exactly for the world's people to see? Aren't those who can be saved being identified and set apart? As I said earlier, some beings are unworthy of being saved. You can clarify the facts to every person, but not every person out on the street will be saved, as some of them are no longer worthy. At critical junctures, the outcome is determined by how a person positions himself and how each person handles things. Do the person's actions originate from good or wicked thoughts? Gods are watching what each person thinks and are deciding whether that being is to be kept. Conversely, aren't these events themselves [providing an opportunity to] save the sentient beings who can be saved? Could anything that happens in Dafa cultivation, in Fa-rectification, or in validating the Fa be simply by chance? Isn't this incident itself saving sentient beings? It has generated such a big impact in society, and everyone is reflecting on it. As I have mentioned before, the evil CCP could save itself some trouble by not doing anything; whenever it does something bad, and particularly to Dafa disciples, it results in a scandal and fiasco for it, and ends up helping Dafa disciples with what they are doing. Those students who have a lot of human attachments need to remember my words. You may be clear on this now, but don't forget what I said as soon as something happens, and again view things with a human mindset.
Ultimately their attempt has failed, and failed miserably--it's like smashing an egg against a rock. Even when they have subjected Dafa disciples to such harsh persecution in mainland China, the disciples there have made it through, ever determined. Then what chance do those tactics have outside of China? How could we possibly fear it? The steadfast resolve of Dafa disciples is unshakable. Physical assault and verbal abuse are just displays of impotence. In this society physical assault is a crime. So, don't be intimidated by those evil things, and don't fall prey to the lies they use to confuse ordinary people. There's talk of how ordinary people have certain opinions on this, but what about that? Ordinary people have all kinds of opinions. You are the ones saving them, so you need to be clear on what you are doing and working toward.
The gods set forth something in the early period of my Fa-rectification, namely, that whatever the wicked Party does, regardless of its aim, will end up assisting me and Dafa disciples. So, whenever the wicked CCP wants to do some bad thing, it will turn into a failure and scandal as soon as it's begun. Take a good, objective look and you will see that everything that has happened over the past nine years has turned out that way. The wicked CCP knows that its gangster regime is deviant in the eyes of the world's people, so it has always tried to put up a façade for the public. Now even that façade has been smashed, and its mask has been torn off, so it knows it can't pretend anymore and is acting out in naked aggression. Today, this gangster regime and the entire government, including its foreign embassies, exist solely for the sake of Falun Gong. This gigantic apparatus accompanies you and casts you in vivid relief--isn't that terrific, something unheard of! They no longer bother with pretending and are pulling out all of their thuggish, underhanded tactics as they go about doing malicious things. It looks like quite an intimidating show that they put on, but I would say that that's their last flurry of activity before they perish. (Applause) Just keep watching and you will see that that's how the drama plays out. This period of history was arranged for Dafa disciples to save sentient beings, so why haven't you taken the lead role? Why give top priority to the words of ordinary people who have been indoctrinated with the wicked party's culture? Why have you paid so much attention to the evil's persecution? This is worth giving serious thought to. Master would not have said these things before the persecution started in 1999, but you are now Dafa disciples who have made it through, and you are Dafa disciples who will soon achieve Consummation. (Applause)
At present, as the Fa-rectification constantly forges ahead, the surface dimension has the look of something that would be punctured from just a little poke. There is little of it left. The evil beings are being decimated in large quantities, and right now, as long as Dafa disciples keep strong righteous thoughts, the evil beings can no longer mount any resistance. Each time they do evil, they have to gather up lots of rotten demons, turning out in almost full force. It is Fa-rectification and purification of the universe that is taking place, so they are being eliminated, and that is how the evil's strength is being decimated. Then after the elimination is complete, they settle down for a while. That's how it happens every time. So in this light, there is all the more reason for Dafa disciples to keep a calm, sober mind. You have already made it through the hardest part of your cultivation, so walk well the final leg of your journey, and cherish the path that you have covered! It hasn't been easy, and you have made it through unprecedented ordeals. You need to treasure that. The glory that lies in the future is the mighty virtue that you establish in your efforts to validate the Fa, and everything that awaits you will be the very best. (Applause)
Don't let having relatively fewer students in a particular area, or the presence of ongoing disputes among our students in some areas, become grounds for being passive about validating the Fa, saving sentient beings, or even your own cultivation. You would be ruining yourselves, then. You should know, and I have been saying all along, that when you, as Dafa disciples, look at something, you have to make sure to view it in reverse since the Three Realms are inverted, and you have to conduct yourselves in a positive, correct manner. What ordinary people regard as not good is good for cultivators--beings who wish to leave this place. If your thinking is the same as ordinary people's, then you will forever be an ordinary person and never be able to leave here. So, when you meet with ordeals, it is the perfect opportunity for you to improve. If you are able to look inside, that trying situation will become instead an opportunity, something to overcome and a chance to enter a new state. Why haven't you looked at things that way? As soon as you meet with an ordeal, you push it away. As I said, even if you quarreled over validating the Fa and saving sentient beings, or you heard some unpleasant comments, those were all for your improvement, because your improvement comes first. Without your improvement, nothing can be achieved, and that includes saving sentient beings. If you fail to improve and achieve Consummation, where will the sentient beings that you save go? Who will take them? Why not look at things that way? Of course, while you're among ordinary people, it is hard to do everything perfectly and to really be that way at each and every moment. But at least on crucial issues, such as saving sentient beings, or cultivation, you should look at things that way, right? Those of you who have fallen behind, who have become passive, who are full of complaints, who hold strong grievances against others, or who focus your attention on those in the Falun Dafa Association, none of you are willing to cultivate yourselves, and are instead looking outward. If those in the Dafa Association were to cultivate well, if other people were to cultivate well, or if ordinary people were to all turn good, what benefit would that be to you? What would you stand to gain? Well, then you would have contributed a bit to society and done a few good deeds, and that's it. That is not what cultivators want to achieve. That's merely being a good person among ordinary people, and it cannot lead to Consummation. So, as you go about cultivation, you must cultivate your mind, get rid of human attachments, and view things with righteous thoughts.
When the Three Realms was created, it was created in the inverse. There are no positive, correct principles here. If there were, then there would have been no need for a Shakyamuni or a Jesus to come here, and the matter of imparting the Fa would not have happened, much less would the Fa be rectified here. The principles here are reversed, and what people do and how they do them are backwards. What smells good to people here smells bad over there, and things that people here consider good may well be bad over there. In the eyes of gods, those who human beings consider to be heroes are people who, driven by emotional impulses and desires, get what they want by fighting for it. But in the eyes of gods, those who seize political power through warfare are bandits. And that is indeed how humankind has existed, [following the human-level principle of] "conquering the world with military force, the victor governs the country," and that's how it has always been--devoid of positive, correct principles. Everything is reversed. And precisely because things are reversed, it enables people to cultivate and gives you an opportunity to look at things with a positive, correct view while immersed in what is inverted and to regard what is "bad" as good. Of course, you can't disrupt the state of things in this dimension or intentionally do bad things that violate commonly-held principles. As you cultivate yourself, you should regard the things that you perceive to be hardship, emotional blows, or things that affect your xinxing and the like, as good things. If you consider all the hardship, ordeals, and such that you go through to be bad things, then you are an ordinary person. Hardship is the repayment of karmic debts, and things that don't go so smoothly enable your xinxing to elevate. That holds true for ordinary people as well, in fact--it's all about removing karma, and when someone is rid of his karma he will be well-off in his next life. It's just that people don't realize it. A cultivator is to reduce his karma, improve his xinxing via cultivation, and in the end achieve Consummation. For a Dafa disciple, this is the most basic teaching in the Fa and the most fundamental thing. But some people still, after several years, have not changed their notions on a fundamental level. How many years have you been cultivating for? You still fail to look at things that way, and still can't manage to look at things with a positive, correct view. I have truly been sad reading all those letters you wrote to me and all that you reported. Why are you so attached to worldly things? By this I include your attachments involving the Dafa Associations of various areas. The Dafa Associations were established simply to facilitate Dafa disciples' validating of the Fa. Their members are not supposed to be exemplars, and they are not Master. But you should treasure this form, as it can help to coordinate things locally so that the Fa is validated better and sentient beings are saved more effectively.
The biggest problem we have now is the one I just talked about. That is, when you fail to cultivate yourself and look within. Master is not worried about things being "chaotic." Master can see things more clearly than you, so I don't need you to report problems to me. What you wrote actually exposes your attachments and human thinking, spilled all over the pages, right there. What has Master come here for? Master can most accurately discern what is upright and what is not. You all know why with Divine Performing Arts we are able to present consummate goodness and beauty, and why a group of young people who have trained for only over a year are able to give performances that are the world's best, first-rate, and international in caliber. It is because Master made sure of that. Ordinary people couldn't achieve this. Master has come to do Fa-rectification--how could I do Fa-rectification if even the things around me were "chaotic"? Nothing will change on my part. The standard for measuring good and bad lies with me. I can tell you with great accuracy what every word, action, thought, or look of yours represents. It's just that Master doesn't tell you so as to give you greater opportunities, knowing how people can be as they cultivate. What I just said was to sound a warning bell for you, and to tell you to treasure the journey you have traveled in your cultivation. It has not been easy, my Dafa disciples. You have made it through the harshest of persecutions, and that honor and glory is yours already, so now it's just a matter of how to do even better.
All of what I just said was focusing on shortcomings, of course. If we are to talk about the good things, I would say that Dafa disciples are truly extraordinary. You have done so many things that Dafa disciples should do, perfecting yourselves and establishing your mighty virtue, and in conjunction with this you have been saving the world's sentient beings. And it's not just the sentient beings in this world. For although we can see what's here, if behind a being lies an immense group of lives that extend into the cosmos, then this is indeed an incredibly significant matter. Yes, think about it: if the entire Three Realms was created for this affair, then who are the beings that get to be human or some life form here during the Fa-rectification? It's no simple thing. But the human world is, after all, a human world. Even if many gods did come here, it wouldn't resemble a divine society. That's not possible, and this was taken into account long ago. When someone comes here, he has to assume the state of a human being. Only then can he cultivate--only when he is in delusion can he have the opportunity. That is why some people haven't been able to [meet the standard], and some have. That's how things are in this world.
When I arrived a little bit ago I saw that you were watching a short video about the young Dafa disciples in Divine Performing Arts and Fei Tian Academy of the Arts. But there is actually so much more than that. The things that Dafa disciples throughout the world have done are so stirring and inspiring, only they haven't been made into a film in this world. But there are films of you in the cosmos. (Applause) Not a single good thing that you have done has been missed--all of it has been captured on video. There really are video recordings. All those things are being recorded, for they make up the path that you have journeyed, and they are your glory.
So I have talked about a few things in general terms. There are a lot of things Master doesn't want to discuss too explicitly, or too much, or too comprehensively. That's because there is one thing that some of you are still not that clear on, though I have mentioned it many times: that it is you who are validating the Fa, not Master. Only when you walk your own path validating the Fa can you perfect yourself and establish your own mighty virtue. So you must do it yourselves. That's why when sometimes people come to ask Master about each project or even things they want to do as individuals, asking, "How should I go about it?" Well, with that you just gave your mighty virtue to Master. Of course I know how to do it. But if I were to spell it out for you, you would have nothing, and when you worked on it, you would merely be helping me do it and not establishing your own mighty virtue. The mighty virtue that comes with all those things would then belong solely to Master. The reason why whenever you came to ask me something I didn't want to answer, and sometimes I even gave you an unpleasant look, is because I want you to figure things out on your own. Walk your own path and don't lose that opportunity. Why can't you realize this? (Master chuckles) You always raise one question after another with me. Master affirms what Dafa disciples have done. As long as you are doing things out of a wish to validate the Fa and save sentient beings, I will affirm all that you do. And when you go do those things, there will be my Law Bodies or gods there to amplify it and make what you do yet more magnificent and extraordinary, and they will assist you. (Applause) You often fail to look at things this way, and as soon as you meet with challenges you go to Master. But when that difficulty comes up, it is precisely time for you to improve yourselves, establish mighty virtue, and bring about glory. That's all for today.
Latest update: June 22, 2008