What is Wrong With Falun Gong?

Audie · Jan 9, 2020

sun rise said:
The Chinese are locking up Muslims in concentration camps.

The Chinese lock up anyone who dissents from the party line.

The Chinese have attacked the Dalai Lama because he insists on following Buddhism.

The Chinese refuse to allow people freedom of speech, freedom of religion and other freedoms we take for granted.

The Chinese have constructed a surveillance state where they monitor everything people do.

Xi is a dictator

The Chinese parliament does what Xi tells them to do.

China is thus the enemy of everything that is good about the USA.

Perhaps you are aware that you are abnormal; your face is lopsided,
your teeth are crooked and discoloured, one eye bigger at a different angle
than the other; the list of deformities goes on and on.

The same can be said for Ms Universe, or anyone else.

If you have missed the point and feel triggered, due to hot button
issues etc, the POINT is that you can, and have, stated things
for your own purposes, to create an impression so
as to arrive at "enemy".

stvdv · Jan 9, 2020

Nakosis said:
I wouldn't even call this a religious movement. What is China so afraid of?

I think you are right, it has to do with fear. A real dragon won't be afraid of an ant. China is afraid it seems. By the way D.Trump is also afraid, that's why he banned Huawei. USA has not control about their gadgets (all made in China) anymore. First it was fun and cheap, now his inner demons started freaking out.

In Holland we had a few articles with opposite views on Falun Gong. But the one in the spoiler makes most sense to me. In Holland we don't worry much about sects, because they never threatened national security (obvious if there are like 80% Christians; although there are plenty Christian sects also).

That's why Beijing reacts so strange to Falun Gong
IT IS almost always a quiet protest. A small group of people meet on a famous square or a busy street ....

Jan Kanter5 April 2002, 0:00 AM
The Chinese state does not tolerate anything from the supporters of the Falun Gong movement. Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji recently confirmed at the People's Congress: "We will continue to fight the Falun Gong and other bigotry." For example, several Falun Gong supporters from Australia were arrested last month.

Beijing is fighting hard. Foreigners who publicly speak out for the movement are expelled from the country. Courts impose considerably higher sentences on dissidents than Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi. The government has put its arguments on the internet: the movement is spreading superstition, recommending meditation techniques that are "harmful to health," and the state is "hostile." Last year thousands of people were locked up in re-education camps - several hundred people died there - for unknown reason.

It seems like a fight between David and Goliath. Thousands of people gathered in Tiananmen Square in 1999, and recently Falun Gong members in Northwest China occupied a TV station because they wanted to broadcast a protest video. Computer experts broke into the state TV cable network and broadcast a fifty-minute video with a message from Li.

The leader of the movement now has an international empire of millions. In the People's Republic alone, one hundred million people would be supporters of the teachings of Li. He has mixed the Qigong breathing exercise with Taoist and Buddhist elements: only the path of the Falun Gong leads to happiness and success. Critics say that people can only accept Li as a leader. For example, he forbids visiting a doctor. Moreover, he spread racist ideas.

The Chinese government's harsh response betrays a certain fear. The party's fear of the Falun Gong has deep historical roots. Two thousand years ago, an originally religious-spiritual movement provoked a rebellion for the first time.

In AD 184, 300 thousand supporters of 'the Yellow Turban' created chaos in the Chinese empire. Such revolts have subsequently occurred more frequently in Chinese history. Time and again people gathered in search of the meaning of life to meditate. That common meditation and collective fasting led to the emergence of armed groups of conspirators, the so-called secret societies. They wore names such as "the Red Turban" or "the White Lotus." The last in that category were the Boxers and the Taiping movement, who overthrew the empire in the nineteenth century.

The Red Turban, for example, initially a Buddhist group, started one of the bloodiest revolts in Chinese history. Finally, in 1386, the Red Turban army brought down the Yuan Dynasty.

This parallel also imposes itself on the Taiping uprising. Leader Hong Ziuquan was looking for spiritual upliftment. He found it in strict Christianity. Hong forbade - because he wanted to distance himself from the emperors he thought had become decadent - luxury items, opium, tobacco and games of chance.

Hong's initially peaceful movement finally started a bloody civil war (1853-1864), which killed 30 million people. This war broke the backbone of the imperial dynasty, which at the same time fought against the colonial powers.

That is why, in the historiography of the Chinese empire, the official interpretation was that dynasties, that is, the emperor, can be overthrown by secret societies.

The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party know the historical cliché. Moreover, they know how powerful the collective memory of their tradition-bound people is. That is why the Chinese leaders react so hysterically to the Falun Gong.

Below is the source: Dutch article I put into Google Translate
Dáárom reageert Peking zo raar op Falun Gong

stvdv · Jan 9, 2020

Nakosis said:
How can this along with meditation, a few simple exercises be a threat to government?

It seems a big threat to Chinese government. Even the Falun Gong members in Holland are extremely harassed. Below article says it's Chinese government, which makes sense. Dutch people are way too tolerant and non aggressive to do such things.

Personally I don't go out to exhibit my faith (in my first dream Sai Baba was showing me, it's not good to be an exhibitionist). So when Falun Gong members get in trouble, it seems to me that they are actively irritating the Government. My government does not know who my guru is.

So personally I have no clue, why all this goes on. China is too far away. And since I heard about them harassing Dalai Lama, which I could not understand, since no other country seems to have such problems with Buddhism, I have a negative vibe about China when it comes to Freedom of Religion. But then again I don't know much about Dalai Lama. Maybe in reality he is a very violent man, though when I met Him He was smiling and friendly all the time. Even talked to me and shook my hands. So friendly, this man.

So, unless someone has proof the D.L needs to be persecuted, I see China being wrong when it comes to Dalai Lama. And then China might be wrong about Falun Gong also. Time will tell.

Falun Gong also suffers from harassment in the Netherlands
The relationship between China and the philosophical movement Falun Gong is by no means an exclusively domestic matter, says Y. Zhu emphatically ....

From our reporter Eva Nyst7 February 2001, 0:00
Characteristic of the Falun Gong is the non-violent resistance. The movement does not call itself a cult, but the supporters of a method introduced by the Chinese Li Hongzhi in 1992 to develop body and mind "into greater self-understanding."

Followers arouse the biggest annoyance with Chinese authorities just by meditating and being hit by the police without giving a shot. Sincerity, compassion and tolerance are the three highest virtues of their meditative teaching. Injustice is not allowed.

The practitioners of Falun Gong in the Netherlands suffer from harassment, especially via e-mail and the internet, says Zhu. "Everyone of us with an e-mail address on the internet has received mail bombardments, and messages with attached computer viruses," says Zhu, who also received scold letters. Thousands of e-mails sent one after the other are hiding the mailboxes.

Elsewhere in Europe and in the US, the situation is more serious, says Zhu. "I understand that a warehouse with Falun Gong brochures in France has been looted and the owner threatened. In Chicago, a meditation in a park is said to have been disrupted by a fight team. "

The Canadian address of the global website falundafa.org is down due to sabotage every two weeks, says Zhu. Country of sending the 'plague emails' is invariably China.

Zhu therefore does not agree with the Chinese government. He rejects the contact of Foreign Minister Van Aartsen with Falun Gong as 'interference with internal affairs'.

The telephone is another means of practicing terror in the Netherlands. Unknown Chinese people call with questions or comments about the movement or about self-immolation of alleged Falun Gongers. Zhu: "They say that we wrongly believe in the three truths, according to them, it is Chinese state propaganda. They call us, say they want to join us and get us the list of participants. I also suspect that my phone was tapped for a long time. "

It is not only the Chinese Falun Gong practitioners who suffer from intimidation. The retired chemistry teacher W. van Bavel, who has been learning Falun Gong's teachings and meditation for a year and is on the site as a point of contact for Den Bosch, takes a different e-mail address. "I have received bad e-mails, and even twice an e-mail bombing."

Zhu does not know who these staff are. But they 'cause many problems and do everything to disturb you'. He hasn't gone to the police yet. "It's not that important, we try to solve it ourselves." He is not afraid. 'We are not, and the Falun Gong participants in China are not afraid either. The Netherlands is also a safe country. "

"I am inspired by the principle of non-violence," says X. Zhu, the son of the Dutch initiator and contact person in Eindhoven. He has no need to find out where the emails come from. The discomfort that is felt in the Netherlands is not important, he says, just like his father. "They give their lives in China, much less so here."
Falun Gong lijdt ook in Nederland onder pesterij

Spirit of Light · Jan 9, 2020

Just to clearify one thing

Falun Gong is not a religion or a cult

Falun Gong is a cultivation path of high energy It is not for healing and fitness, but for cultivation of mind and body.
The Chinese Government or CCP are afraid of Falun Gong because Practitioners of Falun Gong have spoken up about the evil CCP have been doing for many years.
And CCP kind of are afraid because Falun Gong practitioners does not fight back with force only by spreading the truth about Truthfulness Compassion and forberance. And we are not Angry at CCP, Falun Gong practitioners feels sorry for the evil beings in the CCP leadership. We have compassion for their beings but we say how they do wrong and how they harm spiritual lifestyle and cultivation.

PS: I do not speak on behalf of Falun Gong internationally, I only raise my own voice as a practitioner.

Nakosis · Jan 9, 2020

Audie said:
Flaunt gong has a lot wrong with it.
Lots wrong with fake news, too.
And, if you don’t mind me aspersions your
writing style, also with rhetorical questions
like “What is China afraid of?”

Since when did you become an apologist for the Chinese government?
The question wasn't rhetorical.
I just thought I'd look into this, see what it was all about. Didn't expect to find it enmeshed in a political situation.

Is there something to be afraid of? You say there is a lot wrong with it. Fine, what?
Couldn't find anything particularly threatening in it's doctrine. What am I missing?

Audie · Jan 9, 2020

Nakosis said:
Since when did you become an apologist for the Chinese government?
The question wasn't rhetorical.
I just thought I'd look into this, see what it was all about. Didn't expect to find it enmeshed in a political situation.

Is there something to be afraid of? You say there is a lot wrong with it. Fine, what?
Couldn't find anything particularly threatening in it's doctrine. What am I missing?

Note your first two lines, in bold.
Maybe you could review what a rhetorical q is, and
how amusing it is to be asked them.
And no. "fear: is not it.

Marcion · Jan 9, 2020

Any group that has its own social or socio-spiritual ideology is suspect in nations like Russia, Turkey or China because they interfere with the ability to keep people enslaved by the ruling state powers.
If such a group even has its own socio-economic ideology, it becomes an even greater enemy in the eyes of such tyrannical states.

Such groups are always surpressed and demonized as cults or terrorist organisations, even in so-called democratic nations.
Many people are susceptible to fake news, which is also spread by corrupt governments.

Another example of such demonization is happening in some countries with Extinction Rebellion and different organizations for animal liberation.
They are characterized as extreme and even dangerous while in fact it is the governments that are being extreme and dangerous in harming the planet and the animal kingdom.

dianaiad · Jan 9, 2020

Audie said:
You are demanding that I discuss semantics and your emotional issues?

What lady could possibly resist such a delightful invitation!

I am demanding that if someone uses a word...especially a word with so much personal and negative baggage attached, that the meaning of it be known and expressed.

And my issue is not 'emotional,' except in the way any pedantic user of words can get emotional when those words are constantly, irritatingly and insultingly misused.

Look up the word "cult" in ANY dictionary. Any of 'em.

the first two definitions are ALWAYS 'great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement or work" (this is to include the Elvis fans and stamp collectors) and "a religion regarded as spurious or unorthodox'

In other words, it means 'your ideas are weird and I don't like you." It's an all purpose insult that means, precisely, NOTHING except "I want to insult you."

There is no defining set of doctrines or behaviors for 'cult.' None. The only requirement is that the 'cult' believe something different than you do, or be interested in (or devoted) to something you aren't. The people in that 'cult' can just as easily proclaim YOU as a cultist, and frankly?

You are, to them. So who gets to make the final decision? You don't. I don't.

In fact, the only way you can identify dangerous or violent groups is by adding adjectives. You know: 'mind-control, violent, militant cult."

In that case, what you have done is say that you think a group is violent, militant, and uses mind control, and btw, it has weird beliefs and you don't like it.

I have news. 'Semantics" is NOT a swear word. It is important to understand the meaning of the words one uses, because propaganda, politics and debates utterly depend upon the proper use of semantics --which is, as it happens, the historical and psychological study and the classification of changes in the signification of words or forms viewed as factors in linguistic development.

I spent my professional life studying semantics--and semiotics. If you don't know what that is, look it up. This post is too long already.

BOTH are vital to the human race and the ability to communicate.

Nakosis · Jan 9, 2020

Audie said:
Note your first two lines, in bold.
Maybe you could review what a rhetorical q is, and
how amusing it is to be asked them.
And no. "fear: is not it.

I suppose it is rhetorical for you if you never intend on answering either question.

sun rise · Jan 9, 2020

Audie said:
Note your first two lines, in bold.
Maybe you could review what a rhetorical q is, and
how amusing it is to be asked them.
And no. "fear: is not it.

Failure to respond to the question means to me that the answer is yes.

sun rise · Jan 9, 2020

I'm sure that sooner or later, hopefully sooner, the current Chinese dictatorship will lose the "mandate of heaven". They're certainly in a state of abject fear over the possibility.

stvdv · Jan 9, 2020

dianaiad said:
the first two definitions are ALWAYS 'great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement or work" (this is to include the Elvis fans and stamp collectors) and "a religion regarded as spurious or unorthodox

So far, so good when this describes a cult, I only see it as positive. I would like them.

For me negative cult vibes start when they arrogantly belittle others (w/o being provoked) as part of their belief system.

So, to me a cult is positive, until the cult shows signs of superiority complex etc.

dianaiad said:
In other words, it means 'your ideas are weird and I don't like you." It's an all purpose insult that means, precisely, NOTHING except "I want to insult you."

Many people think in such judgmental ways in my country too. It says nothing about the group it just tells me that those people judge others, often w/o real reason.

I was in India. Sect means just a certain group, no bad vibes to it.

So how people think about cult and sect, is just how they were brainwashed before (of course there are arrogant groups, so then the negative news about them, I would call "self created karma").

Twilight Hue · Jan 10, 2020

sun rise said:
The Chinese are locking up Muslims in concentration camps.

The Chinese lock up anyone who dissents from the party line.

The Chinese have attacked the Dalai Lama because he insists on following Buddhism.

The Chinese refuse to allow people freedom of speech, freedom of religion and other freedoms we take for granted.

The Chinese have constructed a surveillance state where they monitor everything people do.

Xi is a dictator

The Chinese parliament does what Xi tells them to do.

China is thus the enemy of everything that is good about the USA.

I tend to think communists are the true enemy of China. They destroyed so many traditions and customs of a once rich and flourishing cultural country.

stvdv · Jan 10, 2020

Nowhere Man said:
I tend to think communists are the true enemy of China. They destroyed so many traditions and customs of a once rich and flourishing cultural country.

I tend to think intolerance and imposing on others are the enemy; so they are their own enemy.
A tolerant non imposing communist is no enemy. There must be good communists also I believe.

Twilight Hue · Jan 10, 2020

stvdv said:
I tend to think intolerance and imposing on others are the enemy; so they are their own enemy.
A tolerant non imposing communist is no enemy. There must be good communists also I believe.

I know good people who were communist.

Unfortunately , there is no good Communism.

Spirit of Light · Jan 10, 2020

stvdv said:
I tend to think intolerance and imposing on others are the enemy; so they are their own enemy.
A tolerant non imposing communist is no enemy. There must be good communists also I believe.

Many Chinese are members of CCP but in practice, they are not communists, they are forced to be a member from birth, and can only get out of CCP at an older age. But to Falun Gong, it is the leaders of CCP that are the evil forces. But more and more people are leaving the CCP ideology today

stvdv · Jan 10, 2020

Nowhere Man said:
I know good people who were communist.

Unfortunately , there is no good Communism.

I thought that was what you meant. I know nothing about Communism, so I take your word for it.

ronki23 · Jan 10, 2020

Can someone tell me what Falun Gong actually is? It looks like Tai Chi- why is it a 'threat' to CCP? Why are their organs harvested?

By the way,a lot of architecture and ornaments survived the Cultural Revolution because of Zhou Enlai

Spirit of Light · Jan 10, 2020

ronki23 said:
Can someone tell me what Falun Gong actually is? It looks like Tai Chi- why is it a 'threat' to CCP? Why are their organs harvested?

By the way,a lot of architecture and ornaments survived the Cultural Revolution because of Zhou Enlai

Falun Gong is a cultivation practice of mind and body, and its core teaching is toward Truthfulness, Compassion, and forbearance. Yes, there are five exercises we do to heighten the Gong energy within our body. Gong level also gives a clue to what level of wisdom we have realized.
A longer intro can be seen in my profile

Audie · Jan 10, 2020

Amanaki said:
Falun Gong is a cultivation practice of mind and body, and its core teaching is toward Truthfulness, Compassion, and forbearance. Yes, there are five exercises we do to heighten the Gong energy within our body. Gong level also gives a clue to what level of wisdom we have realized.
A longer intro can be seen in my profile

"cult"

What is Wrong With Falun Gong?

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