(Minghui.org) The impact of plagues is immeasurable. Throughout history, various kinds of plagues have claimed about 20% of all lives on earth. Despite scientific advancements, mankind has no room to bargain when faced with destructive plagues.
The Plague of Athens (430 – 426 BC), for example, killed about one quarter of the city’s population. Thucydides, a witness of the tragedy, wrote, “Nor was there any to say certain medicine that applied must have helped them; for if it did good to one, it did harm to another. Nor any difference of body, for strength or weakness, that was able to resist it; but it carried all away, what physic soever was administered.”
Historians noted that the Plague of Athens often hit people who were morally corrupt and indulged themselves in hedonistic lifestyles, while sparing the righteous. Ancient sage Socrates was another witness of the plague at the time. “[Socrates] was so well-disciplined in his way of life that on several occasions when plague broke out in Athens he was the only man who escaped infection,” wrote biographer Diogenes Laertius.
Much can be learned from history and applied to the coronavirus pandemic we are facing today. Even in a digital age, we are still struggling to contain the pandemic. Have we indulged ourselves in secular pleasure and abandoned our principles? Can we return to the tradition of venerating the divine and embracing virtue like many ancient sages did?
Science vs. Virus
For many people, modern science is very advanced and capable. Compared to nature, however, it still falls behind in many ways.
One example is E. coli, a common unicellular organism that moves through an organelle called flagellum. Although with a diameter of only 45 nanometers – 4,000 times smaller than the diameter of hair, the bacterial motor is a sophisticated engine that enables bacteria to swim. “The motor self-assembles out of about 20 different proteins and can not only rotate at up to 50,000 rpm but can also switch rotational direction in milliseconds and navigate its environment to maneuver, on average, towards regions of greater benefit,” wrote a 2015 article in Advanced Science titled “A Delicate Nanoscale Motor Made by Nature—The Bacterial Flagellar Motor.” In comparison, a Formula 1 racing car costs about $10 million and can only go 15,000 rpm (revolutions per minute).
A virus, on the other hand, is even smaller. For instance, with a diameter of one-fifth of an E. coli, coronavirus is at least 100 times smaller in size. But the viruses’ numbers are astronomical. According to a 2013 The Scientist article titled “An Ocean of Viruses,” one liter of seawater usually contains about 100 billion viruses. This adds up to 1031 viruses on earth, 15 times the total number of all other creatures in all the oceans in the world. The article also estimated that the total weight of the viruses is equivalent to 75 million blue whales.
In the thousands of years of mankind’s history, science and technology have become very advanced, but viruses have also evolved significantly, destroying humans’ physical bodies and even wiping out civilizations when they strike. It is fair to say that the lethality of plagues is far greater than the defense power of science.
Viruses and humans live in two totally different times and spaces. The former is unarmed and the latter is armed with advanced science and technology. The battle between the two, though, often ends up with the humans being defeated. Despite such a fact, each time people lost the fight against viruses, they were still unable to identify the root cause and learn from it. They keep boasting about technologies while defying nature and moral principles.
Since early 2020, over 100 million people have been infected by coronavirus with a death toll of more than 2.3 million. How long will the pandemic continue and how much worse could it get? Time will tell.
History Lessons
China has a long history of divine culture. During the Sui Dynasty, for example, five plague gods were seen above the capital city in 592. A major plague then broke out that year, causing a high number of deaths. The Emperor of Wendi, a strong believer of Buddhism, ordered more temples to be built and encouraged his subjects to strengthen faith in and worship the divine.
Such a tradition continued to recent China. Xuyun (1840 – 1959), one of the most renowned monks in recent Chinese history, had lived through five emperors in the Qing Dynasty until communist China.
During the war with Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900, Emperor Guangxu together with Empress Dowager Cixi fled to Xi’an of Shaanxi Province in August, and Xuyun was invited to join. It was summer and plague broke out, leaving many people dying, with rotting corpses throughout the city. In addition to advising the emperor to call on the wealthy for donations as a remedy, Xuyun also vowed to pray at Wolong Temple for mercy from the divine to end the plague.
Nearly 1,000 monks joined the event and Xuyun led nine of them to continue praying at a ten-yard high platform. Seven days into the ceremony, snow fell. Other monks returned to inside the temple, with only Xuyun remaining at the platform. He continued meditating, praying for additional snow to alleviate the damage caused by the drought and plague in the region. More snow arrived, and everywhere was covered with snow. Impressed by the miracle and sincerity, Empress Dowager Cixi came kneeling down on the snow in front of the platform to thank Xuyun.
But all the divine culture was wiped out after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949. In early 1951, for example, officials in Hunan Province required all nuns to get married in days, while young monks were forced to join the army. Xuyun, already over 110 at the time, was targeted as a counter-revolutionist. When the Buddhism Association of China was established in 1952 and CCP officials promoted monks and nuns to get married and stop their vegetarian diets, Xuyun attempted to intervene. As a result, he was detained with no food, water, or access to a bathroom. Military police officers also beat him and broke his ribs.
Supporting the Upright
Throughout numerous political movements, especially Cultural Revolution, the CCP nearly wiped out all traditional Chinese culture and faith. This continued until Falun Gong was introduced to the public in 1992. Also known as Falun Dafa, this meditation system is based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Since the CCP promotes its core ideology of brutality, hatred, and lies, it could not tolerate traditional values, let alone Falun Gong. It started to suppress the practice in 1999 and has harmed tens of millions of practitioners in the past 21 years.
Although some people blindly followed the CCP’s persecution orders, some refused to do evil and instead supported the innocent practitioners. They have in turn received blessings.
An article on Minghui earlier last year talked about the author’s encounter with Gods of Plague, and the story of the author’s brother. In February 2020 when the coronavirus was at its worst in China, the author saw a plague god with her inner eye. The plague god praised her brother saying he would become a divine being in heaven in the future.
The author, a Falun Gong practitioner, then explained why. “In my relatives’ eyes, my brother is an honest fool. They believe that he is silly, because he doesn’t save money and he doesn’t date girls. He lends money to the relatives who need it, but those who got money from him laughed at him behind his back,” wrote the author.
But her brother was supportive of Falun Gong practitioners and respectful to the practice’s founder. He also wanted to be a good person himself, and had a high moral standard. “He once checked into a hotel on a business trip, and bargained with the owner. When he entered the room, he saw pictures of Dafa events on the wall, and knew that the owner was a practitioner. He felt embarrassed for bargaining with him, and tried to return the money to the owner, but the owner didn’t accept it. From then on, every time he comes to this town, he stays in this hotel,” the author continued.
Since the CCP has mobilized state apparatus to defame and persecute Falun Gong, many practitioners have put much effort to clarify the slanderous propaganda and tell people what Falun Gong really is.
“He also financially supports Dafa practitioners’ projects. He gave me money for making truth-clarifying materials, and helped me distribute them. He gave me money to buy calling cards for making truth-clarifying phone calls. He has also given money to fellow practitioners to make truth-clarifying calendars,” the author continued, “He often takes trains when he goes on business trips. On the train, he tells people he meets about the evilness of the Party, and the goodness of Dafa. He also recites “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” whenever he has time.”
In the article, the author said she believed the plague god was impressed by her brother’s respect for Dafa, and predicted that this righteous choice would give him a bright future.
Surviving the Catastrophe
In the past century, the communism movement has killed at least 100 million people and deprived traditional values in Russia, many East European countries, and China. As the CCP regime quickly expanded globally to advance communist ideology throughout the world, very few countries or individuals could resist it. An example is the coronavirus pandemic, during which many international organizations, including the WHO, essentially became mouthpieces for the CCP.
Some people may know the pandemic could be due to the bad deeds that the CCP committed, but others may wonder why ordinary citizens would be targeted. The reality is, when people – either within China or overseas – fail to condemn the CCP’s crimes against innocent people, including Falun Gong practitioners, or even acquiesce in the CCP’s bad deeds, aren’t they considered accomplices of the regime? To use a metaphor, if the CCP is an unpardonable demon, those who are CCP members would be like cells of the demon. When the time comes to seek justice against the demon, how could it be possible to leave out a few cells while destroying all other parts of the demon? Every cell of the demon would have be destroyed. So quitting the CCP is to stop being part of the CCP demon and to avoid being held responsible for its crimes.
The plague god in the article mentioned above explained this, “Dafa disciples have been clarifying the truth to people for more than 20 years. Many people have refused to listen to you. You have delivered many truth-clarifying materials to many households, but how many people really cherish them? It has been a long time. People can no longer tell good from bad, and the moral standard has been declining. They followed the evil Party, and have accumulated a lot of karma. This is the cause of the pandemic.”
At that time, the author saw two notebooks. “One was golden, which recorded all the people who have quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its youth organizations. That God of Plague motioned that these people would face a bright future,” she wrote, “The other notebook was black, recording all the people whose foreheads were marked by the sign of the CCP. I understood that these people were facing danger.”
In China, when people joined the CCP organizations (including the junior organization of Youth League or Young Pioneer), they vowed to devote themselves to the regime. After the CCP started the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, many people remained silent, or even participated in the persecution. As such, they have become part of the crimes against Falun Gong. In order to help these people avoid being held responsible for the CCP’s crimes, Falun Gong practitioners have been advising people to sever ties with the CCP. Over 370 million Chinese people have declared their withdrawals from the CCP and its junior organizations.
The Minghui.org websute has published many stories of coronavirus patients making miraculous recoveries after they quit the CCP and recited “Falun Dafa is good and Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
Outside China, as communism and the pandemic ravages the world, anyone who identifies with it would be at risk as well. Rejecting the CCP will bring us and our families safety as well as a better future.
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Category: Perspective
