[Selected Opinion Articles] In a Society Where “Monks and Taoists Are Targeted”

(Minghui.org) In the past, I often heard from the elderly that all kinds of chaos would occur in a degenerated society. Among the signs of degeneration, one of the worst is when “monks and Taoists are targeted,” meaning people of faith are persecuted for believing in traditional values instead of the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology of falsehood, deceit, and brutality. 

Unfortunately, this is what is happening China. In the past 23 years, tens of millions of peaceful Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted for their belief in the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. When such universal values are targeted, everyone becomes a victim. 

Encounter with Hooligans 

Because of practicing Falun Gong, I was arrested in 2008 and kept at a detention center, where I met a hooligan named Ming. The guards called him a roughneck since he did not care about anything and fought a lot. 

Upon hearing that I was in detention because of my faith in Falun Gong, Ming was very respectful toward me. “Falun Gong [practitioners] are all brave people who won’t yield under pressure!” he said. I knew that he understood this because the practitioners detained there before me must have done a great job clarifying the truth. Influenced by Ming, several other hooligans in the cell also treated me well. 

From time to time, I talked to them about traditional Chinese culture and how Falun Gong practitioners apply the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in their day lives. 

“Ming, you know you are a new father, but your newborn child has not been able to see you since birth,” I said. “Maybe it’s time that you think about your future and have a plan for taking care of your family.”

Embarrassed, Ming scratched his head and said, “No one has said anything like this to me in my whole life. Had I heard this earlier, my mother would not have been so angry about me that she died. All right. I will listen to you and you can take my word.”

Other hooligans also changed. “If we knew about all of this, we wouldn’t have ended up here,” one of them said. 

Another hooligan was Nan. I lived next door to his grandmother, so I knew his parents and him.

“Uncle, I was wrong,” he said. “When you get out, can you tell my dad that I have done things terribly wrong and will promise to change? Hopefully my dad will have money to bail me out.”

“But even if my dad does not bail me out and I end up in prison, I will still change,” he added. 

One month later I was released and found Nan’s father. Disheartened over what Nan had done, his father had nearly abandoned him. When I told the older man about his son’s words, he was surprised and said, “Really? He actually said that? What happened?”

I told Nan’s father about Falun Gong and how practitioners apply the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance in their life. 

“Yes, if everyone did things in this way, I am sure the world would be much better,” he said. 

Later, Nan’s mother asked me to teach her how to practice Falun Gong. Due to the severe persecution, however, she only practiced for six months and then stopped. 

From Family to Society

The stories of Ming and Nan got me thinking. Children are the future of society. But with no traditional values, young people like Ming and Nan may become more self-centered and hardly care about others. They may gradually become a headache for their parents and in the end, parents and children may even view each other as enemies. 

This situation may explain why Falun Gong is so important for our society. Introduced by Mr. Li Hongzhi to the public in 1992, Falun Gong quickly drew many followers because of the practice’s tremendous physical and spiritual benefits. When people noticed that Falun Gong could indeed change a person for the better, they told their families, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and others, leading society toward a positive direction with a brighter future. 

But the core ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), namely, falsehood, deceit and brutality, fundamentally contradicts traditional values, including Falun Gong’s teachings. After former CCP leader Jiang Zemin began to suppress Falun Gong in 1999, countless practitioners have been subjected to discrimination, arrest, detention, torture, and even death. 

The communist agenda comes with a heavy price. As the state’s law enforcement agencies are tuned to suppress innocent citizens who simply want to be better people, many people focus on their own self-interest. This situation quickly led to all kinds of social chaos – proliferation of deceit, greed, violence, and many other phenomena associated with moral degeneration.

Since ancient times, the older generations have always told the young generations to be good people and keep in mind the principle that “good is rewarded with good, and evil meets with evil.” This was how civilization was able to continue for thousands of years. But when the CCP destroyed traditional culture in coordinated campaigns such the Cultural Revolution, and now the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, it essentially leads China to an uncertain future. 

In the past, older folks warned of an era when “monks and Taoists are targeted.” When the CCP mobilized the public, including schoolchildren, to participate in signature drives to denounce Falun Gong and its teachings, it essentially drove people onto a ship that would eventually sink with the regime. 

In many instances, when practitioners have explained to people what Falun Gong is and how the CCP made up lies to defame the practice, people were awakened and apologized. “We wish we had known about all of this much earlier – the CCP has fooled us,” many said. 

Across cultures, those who committed bad deeds were weeded out by history. We cannot agree more; in a society where Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance are targeted, everyone has become a victim. 

To stop the downslide, we need to help more people know what is really going on. By supporting the innocent from our hearts, and rejecting the CCP for its crimes, we will be able to stay on track and receive blessings for a better future.