Falun Dafa Is a Unique Form of Spiritual Cultivation

(Minghui.org) Many religions have described miracles, such as how the Divine was born or various manifestations of divine powers, in their past teachings.

Mary conceived a child by God’s divine light and gave birth to Jesus Christ. When he was born, purple clouds rose, and the three wise men from the East announced to the world that God had come to the world.

Sakyamuni’s mother dreamed of a white elephant and later gave birth to him from her side. He could walk as soon as he was born, and lotus flowers appeared in his footsteps. 

When Sakyamuni was a young prince, he wanted to become a monk and seek the Way. But his father and mother wanted him to get married, have children, and inherit the throne. To fulfill his parents’ wishes, he married and had children before eventually giving up everything, becoming a monk, and seeking spiritual perfection.

Throughout history, some people have entered cultivation, not because they wanted to follow the Way taught by the saints but because they were attracted by miracles and divine powers. Also, some people fabricate so-called miracles to deceive the world and promote various cults.

Master Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa, was born into an ordinary family, married, and had a child. When he introduced the practice to the public, although he performed many miracles, even people who benefited from them may have been skeptical or did not believe at all.

Master Li’s way of teaching Dafa (Great Law) helps prevent the world’s delusions from being broken so people can still cultivate in a world of unknowing. Those who practice Dafa need to be enlightened to higher principles based on its spiritual teachings, rather than intangible supernormal powers or miracles. In my view, this is one of the most significant differences between Falun Dafa and other religions.

Nowadays, people tend to put a lot of faith in the rituals of religion rather than the teachings. They may uphold the image of God in their minds, religious organizations, or personal feelings rather than following and disciplining themselves using the principles taught in that religion. They may believe that the divine beings who come to the earth to save people have to beg for alms like Shakyamuni or be crucified like Jesus to atone for the sins of his followers.

But we forget that the Divine decides how he will come to earth and how he will live on earth—he can choose whatever way is better to save people. It’s not something for human beings to choose. The Divine doesn’t have to suffer as human beings do—it’s we, humans who have karma to repay, not the Divine. We shouldn’t demand anything from the Divine or question why he doesn’t do things favorably for us. The Divine bestows grace and love; he doesn’t owe us anything.

Spiritual cultivators don’t necessarily have to enter temples or go into the mountains to achieve spiritual perfection. Many other cultivation forms can be used. When Jesus, Lao Zi, and Shakyamuni spread their teachings, they did not establish religions. They only taught the principles through their words and deeds. Later generations wrote down the teachings based on their personal memories and understandings of what he said, which inevitably changed the content over thousands of years.

For Dafa practitioners, Master Li edited Zhuan Falun, the main text of Dafa, himself, and we only need to work on our character based on the teachings it contains. There is no issue of the book being changed into a specific form.

Another big difference between Falun Dafa and other religions is that Dafa practitioners cultivate themselves while living in and as part of society. They do not have to enter temples or become monks or nuns. 

Cultivating within a social environment provides many challenges that one would not encounter in temples or mountains: one may get lost in various other teachings, theories, and doctrines spread in various social settings, and one may also become attached to fame and fortune, struggling to fulfill all sorts of desires. For those who can go above and beyond in such a trying environment, their improvement is the quickest and most solid, something people dared not even imagine in the past.

Falun Dafa provides us with an unprecedented new form of cultivation. It’s easy for anyone to get the book Zhuan Falun and start cultivating. But we can’t take cultivation lightly just because we obtain the teachings easily. We need to treasure them and truly assimilate ourselves to the teachings. In this way, the entire society becomes a “big temple” for us, which directly tempers our hearts while we fulfill our historic vows through solid personal cultivation.

These are my personal opinions. I share them with those who have an affinity for practicing Falun Dafa but do not yet know the form of our cultivation.