(Minghui.org) What is a miracle? It is an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs, according to Merriam-Webster. Usually we call what we cannot explain “acts of supernatural power” or miracles.
People usually don’t see the divine power that performs the miracles, but that does not mean divine beings do not exist. Throughout history, many people with religious beliefs have witnessed miracles and recorded descriptions of them.
In the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri described his experience of seeing St. Thomas Aquinas in paradise. As one of the most famous Italian medieval theologians and philosophers, Aquinas was called “the doctor of angels” after death. He wrote the book Summa Theologica that perfectly explained the main Catholic doctrines.
However, one day in December 1273, Aquinas suddenly stopped writing when he was almost finished Summa Theologica. He had seen a miracle during a Mass. “The end of my labors has come. All I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me,” he told his secretary. “I could not write anymore,” he explained, “Compared with the miracle that I had seen and what had been revealed to me, everything else seemed trivial.”
Legends
There are many stories of miracles from China as well. For example, Zhang Sanfeng, a legendary Taoist who created the Tai Chi martial arts, cultivated himself in Wudang Mountain in China. He often meditated for long periods of time under five old trees, but no animals ever bothered him. He walked swiftly up and down the mountains and often slept in the snow in winter.
He often told other Taoists cultivating in the same mountain that the mountain was to become very famous one day. This prediction came true when Emperor Yongle of the Ming dynasty conferred the title of “Big Mountain” on Wudang, enshrining it as the number one mountain in China and expanding the number of temples there.
The book Qingxi Leisure Pen recorded a few of Zhang Sanfeng’s stories. Once he lived in the home of senior official Li Jinglong for a month. As he was leaving, he told Li that within one thousand days, Li’s family would run into big trouble and wouldn’t even have food. He left a straw hat and told Li to wear it to walk in circles and call Zhang Sanfeng’s name when he was in trouble.
Two years later, Li’s family was indeed in trouble: The government put them under house arrest and did not give them any food. Li followed Zhang Sanfeng’s advice to call his name. Shortly after, sprouts started to grow in his courtyard and were harvested in less than a month. This “special grain” was just enough to keep Li’s family going before the government provided them with food again. After that the sprouts would not grow in Li’s courtyard anymore even if Li called Zhang Sanfeng’s name.
Monk Xuyun was another legend. The Qing dynasty faced invasion by the “Eight-Nation Alliance” (Britain, the US, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria-Hungary) in 1900. The Chinese emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi retreated to Xi’an, a city 700 miles west of Beijing, only to find a plague was spreading in the city.
To save people, Xuyun held a seven-day prayer service at the Dragon Laying Down Temple. He prayed for the divine to bless people and to send down snow to eliminate the plague. It was August then. But on the seventh day of Xuyun’s prayer service, the weather changed suddenly it indeed snowed. The plague stopped. Empress Cixi even kowtowed to Xuyun to express her gratitude.
The communist regime took control of mainland China in 1949. Xuyun was detained in 1951 and beaten several times. Xuyun had his soul visit the divine world and reveal some miracles to the perpetrators, who then no longer dared to torture him.
Modern Day Miracles
Although the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nearly wiped out traditional Chinese culture, the introduction of Falun Dafa to the public in 1992 has revived those values.
Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a meditation system based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
As reported by Minghui, many people, saw their severe or terminal illnesses disappear after they began practicing Falun Dafa.
The General Administration of Sports of China surveyed 12,553 Falun Dafa practitioners in September 1998. They found significant health improvement after people practiced Falun Dafa, with 77.5% of the practitioners having made significant or full recovery and 20.4% on the mend, for a total of 97.9% efficacy.
The report concluded, “This supernatural phenomenon in the Falun Dafa practitioner community illustrates the extraordinary efficacy of Falun Dafa, which is far beyond the scope of modern medicine and worth deep consideration and exploration by the medical and scientific communities. Falun Dafa can play a significant role in the improvement of the health of all human beings and the progress of civilization, and also provides a new direction for the further development of science.”
Later survey and research reports from the Chinese cities of Beijing, Wuhan, and Dalian and places elsewhere, including Taiwan, Russia, and North America, also showed the extraordinary medical efficacy of Falun Dafa.
Traditional Values
There have also been many personal accounts of how people had their illnesses cured or were blessed after reciting the auspicious phrases “Falun Dafa is good, “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
For example, earlier this year Minghui.org published the articles “Two Little Phrases Made All the Difference” and “On the Verge of Death, German Woman Recovers from COVID after Reciting Two Auspicious Phrases.” They both recounted how people recovered from serious conditions after repeating the auspicious Falun Dafa phrases.
Why did saying these simple phrases make such a difference? An article on Minghui on September 17, 2020, gave an explanation. The article, in Chinese only, was titled “The Dilemma of COVID Vaccine Development and the Way Out.” It was co-authored by Yuhong Dong, M.D., a specialist in infectious diseases and former employee of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Switzerland, and Xiaoxu Lin, Ph.D., former U.S. Army microbiologist and Laboratory Director at the Department of Virology at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
The article said, “We have recently conducted a retrospective study regarding people chanting the two phrases. We analyzed 36 cases of COVID infection in six countries and from six ethnic groups. Although hospitals could not treat them, these individuals experienced rapid clinical improvement after sincerely repeating the phrases. The 11 seriously ill patients, in particular, showed quite encouraging improvement. Comprehensive analysis indicates that the miraculous results came from the two phrases but not from hospital treatment or medication.”
The article explained that one should rely on the body's own immune system to truly eliminate the COVID viruses. When a person sincerely recites the two phrases, he can draw in powerful positive energy, boosting his immune system and enhancing his immune system's ability to resist viruses.
Ms. Olsen, who did research in cellular biology for many years and formerly worked at the University of Aarhus' Laboratory of Chemical Pathology in Denmark, reached the same conclusion. She said that Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance are the characteristic of the universe and that repeating them connects a person to the positive energy of the entire cosmos. This strong and extremely microscopic energy can fill the cells of the person who recites them. The COVID virus cannot resist this energy and will then be killed.
Isn’t it a miracle if someone is cured by practicing Falun Dafa or simply by chanting the two phrases? Many people believe in miracles. We will find them if we look for them with an open mind.
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Category: Perspective