PureInsight | May 27, 2002
Introduction: I have met a lot of people who have heard about Falun Dafa. I have even met some people who have read some related books. There are misunderstandings by these people who think that there is information in Falun Dafa that is not yet confirmed by science. I would like to talk about my own experience and understandings related to this issue.
1. Supernormal Phenomenon Seen in Childhood
Many people, especially those who have received higher education, are not willing to accept the existence of supernormal phenomenon. The major reason for this is that many phenomena cannot be explained clearly by modern science. Here I would like to talk about something that happened in my childhood.
When I was very young, my family lived in a village in Northern China. There were several people in the neighborhood with supernormal capabilities who could cure diseases. Not only that, some of them even saw people who had died. My father was a teacher. Although the knowledge he had been taught could not explain such occurrences, he knew these phenomena existed.
One of my neighbors acquired some supernormal capabilities when I was in middle school. She was a very nice person. It was obvious that some spirit bodies got in touch with her to allow her to cure others. She did not agree in the beginning but complied afterwards. Thereafter she was able to cure sickness for others. The treatment effect was not bad. She also could foresee some things but she was unwilling to speak out about these things. Local and out-of-town people started to seek her for help. She offered her services for free. Occasionally, she would accept a package of cigarettes.
These are some things I witnessed during my childhood. I left for middle school and then to university with doubts about these phenomena. But these doubts definitely could not be resolved with the growth of my knowledge and I became unwilling to think about them. However, I recalled them after cultivating in Falun Dafa. I discovered with surprise that although modern science is unable to explain them, Master Li has explained them clearly in Zhuan Falun and some other books.
2.Getting in Touch with Qigong -- A New Area
Qigong was popular when my older brother was in university. Sometimes he came home with some qigong books that opened my eyes. My brother also studied qigong from a qigong Master who had some supernormal capabilities. For instance, he could treat some peoples' knee pains.
Many of the novels and movies popular in society at that time had martial art aspects, as well as scenes of cultivation practices in Buddhism and Taoism. They talked about paying less attention to the gratitudes and grudges in the human world. The human condition is like a dream, and getting out of it is a fundamental issue. They also talked about how the human body can be transformed and sublimated through cultivation. After reading these, as well as remembering the content from qigong books, I realized there were some supernormal abilities that were worthy of being explored. Some scientific experiments had been carried out in this area when many kinds of qigong were popular in China. They confirmed that qigong was indeed effective in promoting health and treating disease. Moreover, some supernormal phenomena were discovered. One time, in an experiment done in Tsinghua University, the Laplace spectrum showed that the structure of water was changed by qigong. It was noted that one of my brother's colleague's children could see an object hidden by a tree. My brother tested this phenomenon personally to confirm this ability. Many people object to qigong when they talk about it. They think that it deceives people. There are indeed too many false qigong's but 'we cannot give up eating for fear of choking'!
I found that when I look back on that period of time, what I have obtained from Falun Dafa enhances a lot of my understandings about qigong. Qigong is not for fighting or a method of healing but a cultivation practice with deep inner connotations.
At that time, I read some books about prehistoric cultures, including the Maya, and felt intrigued by them. I entered university with many questions in my head.
3. University Life: Theism or Atheism
The time when I started at the university was shortly after the June 6th Tiananmen Massacre and newcomers at some of the domestic universities were requested to undergo military training for one year. My first year in the university was in the military school. One of the major courses in military training was the study of politics. A high-ranking political drillmaster spoke this point clearly in a convocation attended by all of the students. He said, 'What we are doing is to infuse the mentality of Communism into you.' Through this one word, 'infuse', we can see why the atheistic mentality is so intractable in many Chinese people.
At precisely that time, many of my schoolmates and I started to read the Communism founder's original material and studied it diligently. However, after seriously and logically thinking, we discovered that much of the content of this material was untenable. This kind of content from the original material could not be found in the political textbooks or in the general political reading material. At that time, Western philosophy was very popular in the universities. I also met schoolmates who earnestly pondered these questions. After thinking deeply and sharing, we realized that atheism is only able to argue against the existence of gods within its framework and the arguments won't work outside of that framework. In fact, some high-ranking officials of the Communist Party, especially those who had higher educations, also knew this. A vice-president in my university said in a university-wide convention, 'Sticking to atheism or theism, isn't a problem of who is right or wrong, but is a problem of point of view.' After receiving atheistic education for many years, I only then started to realize that atheism was in vogue in China not because it was correct, but because it conformed to the political need.
The university life has provided me an opportunity to peruse many kinds of societies, philosophies, and scientific domains. After graduating from university, I continued to explore these questions. I would like to talk about several aspects.
4. The Book of Changes and Chinese Medicine
As a hobby, I have spent a lot of time studying ancient Chinese culture during and after my university period. I once selected one course about The Book of Changes. I knew that this book contained supernormal elements because I observed the phenomena during my youth. For instance, there are a lot of legends and stories about foretelling important matters in the world from the night-viewing of celestial phenomena in ancient China. At that time, the teacher did a poor job in helping his students to truly understand The Book of Changes because he only narrated from texts. Moreover, he merely regarded this as his job. There was one time he acknowledged in the classroom that he did not know if The Book of Changes 'is factual or not." I felt very depressed seeing the traditional culture presented in this manner. I read Dao De Jing and other Taoist books. Although I knew that those books had profound meaning, I did not know how to study its abstruse significance. I really hoped that I could understand them one day in the future. After studying Falun Dafa, these questions were answered. Master Li not only explained these matters clearly but also opened new ways of understanding.
I also spent time in university studying Chinese medicine. In Western medicine, studying the human body is like studying a machine, an extremely complex machine. But Chinese medicine actually regards the human body as one system, integrated by the qi and energy channel meridians. There is an old saying that "In order to cure a person, the doctor has to follow the principles of The Book of Changes." It points out that the disease of a human being has a reason. Curing diseases must obey the law of nature and cannot be reached by considering only its surface. Many people believe that Western medicine is more effective and reliable than Chinese medicine. This is a prejudiced viewpoint. I have met people who study Chinese medicine. They also knew that the effect of Chinese medicine is not good because much of the information that was passed down was incomplete, inaccurate or lost. Many people study Chinese medicine by incorporating the views of Western medicine and this has made the situation worse. I understood this point with much clarity after cultivating in Falun Dafa. Master Li said, 'Yet now these excellent parts are often criticized. What Chinese medicine has inherited are only those prescriptions or experiences from research. Ancient Chinese medicine was very advanced, and the extent of its progress was beyond present medical science.' (Lecture 7, Zhuan Falun) He also said, "This is our human supernatural capability which all great doctors in the past had. After the Celestial Eye is open, one can see from one side, simultaneously, four sides of a human body. One can see the rear, the left and the right from the front. One can see one layer after another or see beyond this dimension the fundamental cause of an illness." (Lecture 7, Zhuan Falun) [1]
5. Some Reflections on Physics
I read some popular science material when I was young, especially on the topic of holograms. As we know in photography, one part of the negative directly corresponds to that part of a picture using roll film. But this type of relation is not found in a hologram. In a hologram, each part of its "negative' reflects the information of the entire picture, and the information of each point of its picture also stores in the entire 'negative'. In other words, the stored information of some parts get lost, the entire picture is still complete, only the resolution is reduced. I was very interested in this and I related it to the Book of Changes and Chinese medicine. Can the human body, the universe, even the entire Cosmos relate to one another in a way that is not yet known by people? Under this kind of relationship, a change in one part can affect other parts. However, these ideas were unclear. But I understood the ideas after studying Falun Dafa.
I have met some opinionated physicists and together discussed physics. When discussing the Theory of Relativity, one said that students do not truly understand the theory, and they merely know of it. Actually, only studying something and memorizing it is completely different from truly understanding, especially for the natural sciences like physics. In fact, many people are willing to believe only because the others also believe. This actually is somewhat similar to religion.
A genuine, responsible scientist does not readily deny a thing not yet confirmed by him; instead he is open-minded. When a scientist just proposes a certain theory, it is formulated as a hypothesis. Even if it is tested by direct observation, it may be incorrect, because an identical result can be derived from different explanations. Sometimes, even contradictory theories may explain the identical phenomenon. On this point, Nobel Prize winner, Arthur Kornberg, said, 'You cannot believe it (a theory) because you are able to explain it'. It is regrettable that after one kind of scientific theory is accepted by the populace, it is treated as a special technical fact. People often forget its cause and effect, takes it as the standardized fact. Has this not greatly limited human beings from further understanding and discovering the world? Such matters have appeared throughout history. For instance, when Quantum Mechanics and the Theory of Relativity were just established, they at once encountered attacks from the old guard of Newtonian mechanics because they held that light was made up of photons, and that space was distorted. This has become history, but will this happen again?
A scientist can have a brand-new understanding of his field of study and of the whole world if he can have a broad field of vision, an open mind, and an unprejudiced attitude. Similar to what I have mentioned a moment ago, making an electron as big as the earth, we can observe if there are stones, trees and even animals there. Some scientists think this makes sense, while others believe it is inconceivable. But are they absolutely sure of their own viewpoint?
Master Li, in his Falun Dafa, has talked about the existence of other dimensions besides this dimension known by scientists. He also mentioned the existence of life in a more microcosmic state. These answered my questions about holograms, chaos and Minute Shape Theory. Not only that, I realized that everyday people's understanding of time-space is quite superficial. Falun Dafa practitioners are perhaps inaugurating an era with a brand-new understanding of the space-time phenomenon.
6. Some Thoughts on the Life Sciences
Since people study Life Sciences from different angles, it becomes a domain in modern science with many diverse directions. The same as in other domains, scientists have proposed more than one model to explain observed phenomena. Not only that, but the modern life sciences have gradually studied down to the molecular level. It is well known that cytologists are studying cell to cell signal transmission with cells grown in vitro. But that makes it very difficult to reflect the real situation of cells in vivo. In fact, many scientists also realize this problem. For instance, Dr. Mina Bissell, the director of the Life Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, discovered that although normal mammary gland cells and cancerous mammary gland cells are very similar in speed of development and cell configuration when grown in vitro, their growth can exhibit great differences when the micro environment for the cells' development changes to a state somewhat similar to the in vivo habitat. For instance, after adding extracellular matrix to the nutrient fluid, the normal mammary gland cell stops growing, starts to reorganize and split up, but cancerous mammary gland cell then grows very quickly to be the tumor [4 ], [ 5 ].
Adding extracellular matrix helps in vitro cell research. But in fact, the cell in vivo grows in close relationship with and as a consequence of the mutual function of several hundred million different cells. It is therefore impossible to study the cell through the in vitro system. Not only that, the piled up aggregations of single cell types cannot constitute an organism, even though the placement of mutual positioning is correct. The constitution of life needs other factors. Therefore, understanding the essentials of life is in fact a lengthy process.
However, there are other approaches to explore the mysteries of life. For instance, it is well known, the needle and the Taiji have wonderful effects in curing disease and enhancing health. Then, what are their mechanisms? In traditional Chinese medicine and in ancient culture, a life or a human body is regarded as one organic whole of Yin-Yang balance, but not a complex system like a machine made up of many parts. This viewpoint has been disregarded by modern science. Even if some people explore it, they view it through Western medicine or science. Then, where is the outlet?
Mr. Li Hongzhi has narrated the ancient wisdom and mysteries of life in detail in Zhuan Falun. For instance, he mentioned:
"Ancient Chinese science is different from our present science that we have learned from the West, as it took another path that could bring about a different state. Therefore, we cannot understand ancient Chinese science and technology through our current way of understanding things. Because ancient Chinese science focused directly on the human body, life, and the universe, and it studied these subjects directly, it took a different approach."
In fact, Zhuan Falun far exceeds the understanding of modern people and points out a true approach to understanding life.
Another related topic is genetics, with respect to the relationship between genes and cancer. There are at least several tens of thousands of genes in the human body with possible genetic flaws or changes for different cancers and patients and they vary for each person. Therefore, it is difficult to have universal applicability to prevent and treat cancer based on research on limited types of cells. In comparison, traditional Chinese medicine explored the disease in depth. It believes that one should obey the rule of nature, or so-called providence. The qi channels or energy channels of the human body lose balance when being violated, thus allowing the symptoms of illness. In addition, the identical kind of symptom, for instance fever, is possibly caused by different reasons. Therefore, it is very difficult to treat or to cure the disease based on the symptom or the external factor, because the intrinsic reason has not been found. This can explain why it is very difficult to develop vaccines for some serious diseases, and effective vaccines or antibiotic drugs lose their effectiveness after a certain period. On the contrary, Falun Dafa practitioners not only have their diseases removed, but the health of the mind and the body achieves distinct enhancement [6]. Therefore, the broad and profound teachings of Falun Dafa can indeed allow humanity to truly understand the essence of the human body and life.
7. Conclusion
Above are my personal experiences, including some of my experiences and doubts before cultivating Falun Dafa, as well as the answers found after cultivating Falun Dafa. Because time is limited, many points cannot be discussed in more detail.
I recall that when I was very young, I once stood in the courtyard alone, looked up to the sky, pondered what the world was, and what life was. I could not figure out the answers after standing there for a long time. That was the first time that I pondered such questions. In the following years, I often thought about these questions after working and studying hard. For a long time, I have searched for the answers, but nobody could give me one answer. Now I am very happy to find it, as other Falun Dafa cultivators have. I know that many people have gone through the same or similar experiences as mine. These people have continuously sought for the true meaning of life, universe and cosmos. Perhaps Falun Dafa can also bring the answer to you, please do not miss this precious opportunity.
References:
1. Li Hongzhi, 'Zhuan Falun'. 1994, Beijing: Chinese broadcast television society
2.Encyclopedia Britannica (Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.).
3.Stewart, I. Does God Play Dice? : The Mathematics of Chaos (Blackwell Publishers, 1990).
4.Bissell, M. J. & Radisky, D. Putting tumors in context. Nature Reviews (Cancer) 1, 46-54 (2001).
5.Park, C. C., Bissell, M. J. & Barcellos-Hoff, M. H. The influence of the microenvironment on the malignant phenotype. Mol Med Today 6, 324-9 (2000).
6.http://pkg2.minghui.org/qita_ziliao/health_survey/survey_index.html
7.http://www.minghui.org/mh/2/7/2/
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/4/24/15623.html
