(Clearwisdom.net)

Question 1. I believe Falun Gong's principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance" will benefit people infinitely; however, isn't it the same if you practice at home? You suffered inhuman persecution just because you felt you must strive for a [acceptable] public and legal environment. Aren't you "asking" to be persecuted?

Answer: Let's take an example - a thief steals your wallet. He brutally beats you because you asked him to return the wallet. Then someone says, "It's OK if it's stolen. It's your fault for wanting it back. Didn't you ask for the beating?"

Isn't this a type of "thug logic?" Degenerated notions make people feel that persisting in the truth and fighting evil is unnecessary, unwise, and even detestable - because it disturbs the superficial peace. Should the evil be allowed to bully all people like lambs? If that truly became the case, how terrible would people's living environment become? Where would society's morality be?

Answer: Falun Gong did not cause any of the trouble. It was the vicious government leaders in charge that intentionally instigated this persecution.

Dafa practitioners were just going about their happy lives. If it were not for this malicious persecution, would they be fed up and go to Tiananmen? Practitioners who stepped out courageously have only done one thing from beginning to end: tell the truth, the true story, use everything they have to uphold the truth and safeguard Falun Dafa, which has brought them tremendous physical improvement and spiritual enlightenment.

So why go to Tiananmen? When all normal channels for appeal were blocked and when they would be deprived of their rights to life if they persisted in practicing, they can only go to public places where people can hear and see them.

There is a saying in Chinese: "A tiny favor should be repaid with huge gratitude." This reflects Chinese people's noble morality and consciousness. When a group of kind and serene people say some true and fair words for their respected teacher, why did they, their family, friends and even supervisors have to be persecuted so cruelly? Didn't the people who started this persecution create these troubles? Why don't you ask, "Why did you have to start this campaign?" How could you turn around and rankle and scold people with a good conscience?

After all, what brought about these troubles? Right and wrong are such crucial issues. Please be clear about it and don't say things irresponsibly.

Look at how Falun Gong practitioners weigh on the scale: on the one side is to clarify the truth to people in the world, so people can avoid hating Dafa out of ignorance and misunderstanding. In order to speak the truth, they not only suffer persecution, they are also misunderstood, despised, and cursed. On the other side is to hide at home and take advantage of the benefits brought by Falun Gong. And no matter how Falun Gong is being slandered and persecuted and people are being deluded by lies, only wanting to preserve one's own family, career, and personal interests. Falun Gong practitioners have all chosen the first one without any regrets. In a tyrannical society with an imperfect legal system, who doesn't know the consequences of speaking out? Nowadays, would people take such aboveboard and altruistic actions for selfish purposes?

If you wanted to objectively describe Falun Gong practitioners who spoke out, other than kind and peaceful, there is another word that's more accurate: compassionate.

Answer: (1). The benefits a harmonious society might receive does not come from a single individual saying one thing once, but comes from many unyielding people persevering in the long term for justice.

(2). Telling the truth, insisting on the truth and protecting kindness is basic human nature. Can today's pursuit of material goods be used as an excuse for giving up or being indifferent to justice because of fear of despotic power? Why does the good have to silently and passively endure vicious slander, being framed and being violently suppressed?

(3). The good should be greatly encouraged and carried forward. If one is not encouraging the good, it amounts to the same as leaving an opening for the bad. Nowadays there are so many terribly filthy things in society. Why can't the good be shown openly and people be allowed to learn about it? Promoting good can suppress evil. This is common knowledge. It is for the good of us all and for the nation and for posterity.

(4). How many people were deprived of their right to benefit from Falun Gong because of this irrational persecution of Falun Gong? And how many innocent lives were deluded? You need to know that a life that has bad thoughts about the principles of the universe will not have a position for existence in the universe.

Answer: Even ordinary people who went to the appeals office to tell the truth were brutally beaten and sent to a labor camp and jail. Do you think if Master Li Hongzhi returned to China, the XX Party would really start talks and peacefully solve the problem? Then, is there any real meaning in returning?

Do good people have to endure persecution by bad people in order to prove their goodness? Do you have to see good people "crucified on the cross" before you can start thinking conscientiously and rationally? The greatness and benevolence of Master Li Hongzhi does not need to be foiled and proven by persecution. On the contrary, the greatness of our Teacher just lies in his resistance and disobedience of the evil. This is being responsible for righteous elements in the universe. It is the most righteous path. You should know that meekly submitting to oppression and maltreatment is indulging the evil; it's absolutely not virtuous!

Besides, cultivation and salvation both transcend the normal. Our Teacher has always endured immeasurable karma for all beings. The extent of it is unimaginable for people who don't cultivate. Saying things irresponsibly is also a sin.

Answer: Jesus was good. Why was he crucified on the cross? If Chinese people were that kind, why did they suffer inhuman invasions? How do you answer these questions? In society nowadays, a person with outstanding righteous words and behaviors cannot be tolerated by others. They will isolate him and attack him. Falun Gong has tens of millions of practitioners. If all were righteous, wouldn't the evil feel intimidated? If all become good and righteous, wouldn't the evil lose its power? Therefore, the evil does its best to exterminate the good and compassionate and advocate what is evil and false. In order to promote goodness and suppress evil, the people of the world must together stop this persecution.

Answer: Whether one is a fatuous ruler or a sagacious one is not determined by what people say, but by what he has done. The one who tells the truth, however, is truly sagacious and admirable.

The right attitude is to seek truth from facts and correct mistakes if there are any. A government is not the government of any one person. Serving its people is not just with words. In order to strengthen his own power, Jiang Zemin has forced many kindhearted common people, as much as one twelfth of the population of the entire country of China to give up Falun Gong, a practice that has benefited them greatly. Those who refuse to give up will be persecuted using the policy of "Breaking down one's spirit, cutting off his finances, and destroying his physical body." Is such a decision different from the ones years ago during the Cultural Revolution? To those with a conscience who have seen such a severe mistake, shouldn't they tell the truth to the government and to the people? It is not against the government. On the contrary, it is supporting the government.

Furthermore, under such a situation that hundreds of practitioners have been tortured to death during the past two and a half years of persecution of Falun Gong, who has stood up to take the blame among those who are responsible? In such a situation, which one is more noble, to bring out the issue clearly in order to be responsible to the country and to its people, or to be so-called wise in order to protect oneself?

Answer : First, let's clear up one concept -- what are the interests of the country? When Hitler instigated people to persecute Jews in those years, he claimed it was to protect the interests of the nation and the country. When Japan decided to invade China, the Japanese were told it was a Holy war for the Empire and for the nation. The kind-hearted people who blindly followed became dizzy and felt fullness in their head at the instigation of fascism at that time. They never thought over how Jews or Chinese had encroached upon the interests of their nation and what was the inevitable connection between extremely tragic persecution of Jews and Chinese and the defense of the nation's interest. When instigation with ulterior motives is rampant, it seems that people can easily accept any absurd logic without thinking.

However, history always astonishingly repeats similar events. Is it any different from the past that today's people have ignorance of Falun Gong, rejecting it with no reason and feeling hostile towards it? The pitiful common people in China never think over how those people, who exercised in the parks every day and live up to the principle of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance, could possibly threaten the safety and peace of the nation. No matter how many sheep there are, they cannot become wolves. Can it bring an unstable factor when there are more of those people who will not fight back when being beaten or cursed? It can only benefit society with peace and an upgrade of morals.

Until today, after two years of increasingly intense persecution, all that Falun Gong practitioners have done is just to clarify the truth and awaken worldly people with flyers and banners.

What if it was one of your relatives or a very close friend of yours that was among those who were tortured to death? Someone whom you knew became more considerate and less concerned about personal loss or gain after practicing Falun Gong; would you still numbly feel this inhuman persecution is right?

Answer: There are conditions and costs to living a peaceful life. In a society with high and noble moral standards, people can have wealthy and peaceful lives with no locks on the doors at night. When gangs and sinister groups are rampant and the morals of the world are all lost, how can you find a truly peaceful life?

For survival under the Nazis, Priest Martin Niem eller made a statement that set people thinking, "When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant Church --there was nobody left to be concerned."

Martin Luther King Jr. has said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."("Letter from Birmingham Jail," 1963) Do not say that the persecution of Falun Gong has nothing to do with you. In reality it does. No loss, no gain. Matter does not extinguish. It is not a proper way of living to live selfishly and to seek momentary comfort.

Since ancient times, people believed in cause and effect, and predestined relationships. This theory that has lasted several thousands years is not just said without meaning. Its vitality over several thousands of years is enough to prove its truth. Then I can tell you here. History has never had such a major event (Falun Gong's influence in more than 50 countries). You encounter it. You hear and see it. You can never say it has nothing to do with you at all. A thought of yours to the contrary may affect your essential life. Cases of retribution happen endlessly. To be responsible to yourself, please draw a lesson from them.

For more than two years, tens of thousands of practitioners have given up their easy and comfortable lives to save the worldly people, including you, with compassion. They have been beaten with their skin torn and flesh gaping open; they have been tortured struggling between life and death; they had to leave home and wander around. However they are still busy working hard to tell the truth and they are unyielding for Justice. They can sacrifice their lives for us. Can't we at least have our conscience for ourselves?

Killing the kind people who believe in Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance is not just conduct utterly devoid of conscience. It is also the persecution of people's fundamental rights to life, the persecution of the people's freedom of belief, and the persecution of the principle of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. On such a major issue of right and wrong, everyone has his or her position. Do you choose good or evil? Ignoring evil is conniving it in a disguised form. It is committing a crime. Every effort and support to kindness is helping to suffocate evil. There is no such a thing as being "neutral."

Answer : Position yourself: will you support justice? Or will you help a tyrant to commit evil? I believe people with a true conscience would choose the former. Hand out a flyer that clarifies the truth to others after you read it. If it clears up his hatred and misunderstanding of Falun Gong and helps him to position it correctly in his mind, you have saved him. It is definitely a philanthropic act with mighty virtue. You will also benefit boundlessly from it. Your life will have a wonderful future.

If you often like to think about the meaning of existence and search for the truth of life, please read the book Zhuan Falun. Your own life will be forever benefited boundlessly from this wise decision you have made.