Falun Gong
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==Teachings== | ==Teachings== | ||
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Falun Gong combines Chinese folk religion with meditate ''qigong'' techniques designed to harness energy in the body. The practice identifies as belonging to the "Buddhist school," though it also incorporates language and symbology from Daoism. Its central tenets are "truth, compassion, and tolerance" (''zhen, shan, ren'' in Chinese), which it regards as the highest manifestation of the Dao or Buddhist Dharma.<ref name=BP/><ref name=LH>Li Hongzhi, Zhuan Falun</ref> It espouses [[family values|socially conservative]] views comparable to those found in Buddhist and Christian beliefs.<ref>http://www.cecc.gov/pages/roundtables/2010/20100618/gutmannTestimony.pdf?PHPSESSID=aa5231395d2a01528efab4f9dda13220 "China's Policies Toward Spiritual Movements"].</ref> That includes prescriptions against pre-marital and extra-marital sex, as well as homosexuality, which are described as producing negative "karma."<ref>[http://faluninfo.net/article/654/?cid=23 Misconceptions: "Intolerant"?]</ref> However, these teachings are only regarded as guidelines for personal conduct, and they do not translate into a social or political position.<ref name=HP>Hu Ping (2007) "The Falun Gong Phenomenon".</ref> | Falun Gong combines Chinese folk religion with meditate ''qigong'' techniques designed to harness energy in the body. The practice identifies as belonging to the "Buddhist school," though it also incorporates language and symbology from Daoism. Its central tenets are "truth, compassion, and tolerance" (''zhen, shan, ren'' in Chinese), which it regards as the highest manifestation of the Dao or Buddhist Dharma.<ref name=BP/><ref name=LH>Li Hongzhi, Zhuan Falun</ref> It espouses [[family values|socially conservative]] views comparable to those found in Buddhist and Christian beliefs.<ref>http://www.cecc.gov/pages/roundtables/2010/20100618/gutmannTestimony.pdf?PHPSESSID=aa5231395d2a01528efab4f9dda13220 "China's Policies Toward Spiritual Movements"].</ref> That includes prescriptions against pre-marital and extra-marital sex, as well as homosexuality, which are described as producing negative "karma."<ref>[http://faluninfo.net/article/654/?cid=23 Misconceptions: "Intolerant"?]</ref> However, these teachings are only regarded as guidelines for personal conduct, and they do not translate into a social or political position.<ref name=HP>Hu Ping (2007) "The Falun Gong Phenomenon".</ref> | ||
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The founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, is regarded in Falun Gong beliefs as a type of savior who has come to the earth to "rectify" the way (the Dharma) and prevent "true" spiritual teachings from being lost. | The founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, is regarded in Falun Gong beliefs as a type of savior who has come to the earth to "rectify" the way (the Dharma) and prevent "true" spiritual teachings from being lost. | ||
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===Teachings on race and homosexuality=== | ===Teachings on race and homosexuality=== | ||
| − | The movements teaching on race-related issues are [[racism|somewhat questionable]]. Li Hongzhi maintains that interracial relationships are a sign of the [[End times|Dharma ending period]] | + | The movements teaching on race-related issues are [[racism|somewhat questionable]]. Li Hongzhi maintains that interracial relationships are a sign of the [[End times|Dharma ending period]], a period of moral decline as conceptualized in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. Li also states that different races have their own heavens, and that persons of mixed race lack a direct connection to their respective heaven (if only in the corporeal sense). A person's soul is said to be unaffected by their mixed race.<ref name=BP/><ref>[http://faluninfo.net/article/654/?cid=23 Intolerant?]</ref> |
According to a letter to the editor of the San Francisco News Sentinel in 2006 written by a man who claimed to be the son of Falun Gong practitioners, the movement also teaches that "homosexuality is not the standard of being human, the priority of Gods will be to eliminate homosexuals and that gays are demonic in nature."<ref>http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/13/975892/-Falun-Gong-The-face-of-Chinese-opposition-or-a-Chinese-scientology</ref> Other postings on the internet echo this.<ref>http://ethxblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/falun-gong-harmless-exercise-fanatics.html</ref> <ref>http://www.rickross.com/reference/fa_lun_gong/falun306.html</ref> | According to a letter to the editor of the San Francisco News Sentinel in 2006 written by a man who claimed to be the son of Falun Gong practitioners, the movement also teaches that "homosexuality is not the standard of being human, the priority of Gods will be to eliminate homosexuals and that gays are demonic in nature."<ref>http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/13/975892/-Falun-Gong-The-face-of-Chinese-opposition-or-a-Chinese-scientology</ref> Other postings on the internet echo this.<ref>http://ethxblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/falun-gong-harmless-exercise-fanatics.html</ref> <ref>http://www.rickross.com/reference/fa_lun_gong/falun306.html</ref> | ||
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===Ancient civilizations=== | ===Ancient civilizations=== | ||
Li teaches that there is a 2-billion year old nuclear reactor in Africa.<ref name=LH/><ref name=BP/> While the reactor in question definitely exists,<ref>About.com Geology: [http://geology.about.com/od/geophysics/a/aaoklo.htm The Oklo Natural Nuclear Reactor]</ref> all available evidence suggests that it has formed naturally, without any intervention from ancient intelligence. | Li teaches that there is a 2-billion year old nuclear reactor in Africa.<ref name=LH/><ref name=BP/> While the reactor in question definitely exists,<ref>About.com Geology: [http://geology.about.com/od/geophysics/a/aaoklo.htm The Oklo Natural Nuclear Reactor]</ref> all available evidence suggests that it has formed naturally, without any intervention from ancient intelligence. | ||
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| + | ==Organization== | ||
| + | Falun Gong has little to no material or formal organization. Practitioners of Falun Gong are forbidden from collecting money or charging fees, conducting healings, or teach or interpret doctrine for others.<ref name=Palmer241>David Palmer, “Qigong Fever:Body, Science and Utopia in China,” p 241-246</ref> There are no administrators or officials within the practice, no system of membership, and no churches or physical places of worship.<ref name=porterprof>Noah Porter, "Professional Practitioners and Contact Persons Explicating Special Types of Falun Gong Practitioners", ''Nova Religio'', November 2005, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp 62–83</ref><ref name=Tong>{{cite journal| first=James| last=Tong| title=An Organizational Analysis of the Falun Gong: Structure, Communications, Financing| journal=[[The China Quarterly]]| volume=171| month=September| year=2002| pages=636–660| doi=10.1017/S0009443902000402}}</ref> The practice also lacks rituals of worship.<ref>http://website.leidenuniv.nl/~haarbjter/faluntext3.html Evaluation and Further References</ref> Students are free to participate in the practice and follow its teachings as much or as little as they like, and practitioners do not instruct others on what to believe or how to behave.<ref>David Ownby, "Falungong and Canada's China Policy," International Journal, Spring 2001, p 193.</ref> In his teachings, Li is highly critical of other qigong practices that he describes as being profit-driven and/or excessively focused on rituals or formalities.<ref name=LH/> | ||
==Persecution and organ harvesting in China== | ==Persecution and organ harvesting in China== | ||
Revision as of 16:48, 5 January 2013
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Falun Gong or Falun Dafa is a Chinese cult based on traditional qi gong practices that was founded in 1992. The Chinese government's attempts to suppress the movement have resulted in the group becoming something of a cause célèbre among human rights groups and the anti-China crowd. Its support for social conservatism and anti-communist stance has helped popularize the movement in the West.
Contents |
Political movement or harmless religious group?
In explaining its rationale for banning Falun Gong and launching a campaign to suppress it, Chinese government sources charged that the group was a threat to social stability and was seeking to overthrow the Chinese government,[1] while supporters argue that they are being oppressed because the groups had grown too large and it beliefs conflicted with the government's atheist philosophy.[2] Public perceptions in the English-speaking world are skewed by the highly successful public relations campaigns operated by Falun Gong practitioners, and, in the United States, knee-jerk paranoia about the Chinese government.[3] While initially supportive of the movement, the Chinese communist party began a crackdown on the movement after a 1999 incident in which ten thousand practitioners quietly surrounded the CCP compound in Beijing to request legal recognition.[4]
Teachings
Falun Gong combines Chinese folk religion with meditate qigong techniques designed to harness energy in the body. The practice identifies as belonging to the "Buddhist school," though it also incorporates language and symbology from Daoism. Its central tenets are "truth, compassion, and tolerance" (zhen, shan, ren in Chinese), which it regards as the highest manifestation of the Dao or Buddhist Dharma.[4][5] It espouses socially conservative views comparable to those found in Buddhist and Christian beliefs.[6] That includes prescriptions against pre-marital and extra-marital sex, as well as homosexuality, which are described as producing negative "karma."[7] However, these teachings are only regarded as guidelines for personal conduct, and they do not translate into a social or political position.[8]
Falun Gong holds ancient Chinese knowledge to be a superior ontological system than Western science.[9]Because Falun Gong teaches that sickness is the result of karma accrued in past lives, followers sometimes eschew conventional medical treatment in non-life threatening situations.[10]
Falun Gong is strictly nonviolent. The groups teachings go so far as to eschew most forms of political involvement, though in the context of suppression in China, it has evolved an explicitly anti-Communist stance.[11][8]
The founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, is regarded in Falun Gong beliefs as a type of savior who has come to the earth to "rectify" the way (the Dharma) and prevent "true" spiritual teachings from being lost.
Teachings on race and homosexuality
The movements teaching on race-related issues are somewhat questionable. Li Hongzhi maintains that interracial relationships are a sign of the Dharma ending period, a period of moral decline as conceptualized in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. Li also states that different races have their own heavens, and that persons of mixed race lack a direct connection to their respective heaven (if only in the corporeal sense). A person's soul is said to be unaffected by their mixed race.[4][12]
According to a letter to the editor of the San Francisco News Sentinel in 2006 written by a man who claimed to be the son of Falun Gong practitioners, the movement also teaches that "homosexuality is not the standard of being human, the priority of Gods will be to eliminate homosexuals and that gays are demonic in nature."[13] Other postings on the internet echo this.[14] [15]
Ancient civilizations
Li teaches that there is a 2-billion year old nuclear reactor in Africa.[5][4] While the reactor in question definitely exists,[16] all available evidence suggests that it has formed naturally, without any intervention from ancient intelligence.
Organization
Falun Gong has little to no material or formal organization. Practitioners of Falun Gong are forbidden from collecting money or charging fees, conducting healings, or teach or interpret doctrine for others.[17] There are no administrators or officials within the practice, no system of membership, and no churches or physical places of worship.[18][19] The practice also lacks rituals of worship.[20] Students are free to participate in the practice and follow its teachings as much or as little as they like, and practitioners do not instruct others on what to believe or how to behave.[21] In his teachings, Li is highly critical of other qigong practices that he describes as being profit-driven and/or excessively focused on rituals or formalities.[5]
Persecution and organ harvesting in China
Since 1999, human rights groups have reported that Falun Gong practitioners are subject to widespread arbitrary imprisonment, as well as torture and abuse in custody. An extra-constitutional body, the 6-10 Office was created to lead the suppression of Falun Gong.[22] The authorities mobilized state media apparatus, judiciary, police force, army, education system, families, and workplaces against the group.[23] The campaign, driven by a large-scale propaganda through television, newspaper, radio and internet, urged families and workplaces to actively assist in the campaign. There are reports of systematic torture,[24][25] illegal imprisonment, forced labour, and psychiatric abuses, with the apparent aim of forcing practitioners to recant their belief in Falun Gong.[26][27]
Foreign observers estimate that since 1999, hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained in "re-education through labor" camps, prisons, and detention facilities for refusing to renounce the spiritual practice.[28][29] At least 2,000 Falun Gong adherents have been tortured to death amidst the persecution campaign,[30] with some observers putting the number much higher.
In 2006, the Kilgour-Matas report was released by a former Canadian parliamentarian and a Canadian human rights lawyer which suggested that Falun Gong members have been subject to involuntary organ harvesting.[31] Similar findings have been produced by investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann, who also alleges organ harvesting targeted members of the Uighur ethnic minority group in the 1990s.[32] The United Nations Committee on Torture called for China to schedule an independent investigation into the allegations.[33]
Footnotes
- ↑ One example
- ↑ Vivienne Shue, "Legitimacy Crisis in China?".
- ↑ The group's Wikipedia article, which completely whitewashes the organization, is currently under discretionary sanctions imposed after a 2007 arbitration
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Benjamin Penny (2012) "The Religion of Falun Gong"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Li Hongzhi, Zhuan Falun
- ↑ http://www.cecc.gov/pages/roundtables/2010/20100618/gutmannTestimony.pdf?PHPSESSID=aa5231395d2a01528efab4f9dda13220 "China's Policies Toward Spiritual Movements"].
- ↑ Misconceptions: "Intolerant"?
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Hu Ping (2007) "The Falun Gong Phenomenon".
- ↑ "Modern equipment is pretty advanced, but I'd say it's still not as good as ancient Chinese medical science." - Zhuan Falun.
- ↑ Noah Porter, Falun Gong in the United States.
- ↑ David Ownby (2008) Falun Gong and the Future of China
- ↑ Intolerant?
- ↑ http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/13/975892/-Falun-Gong-The-face-of-Chinese-opposition-or-a-Chinese-scientology
- ↑ http://ethxblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/falun-gong-harmless-exercise-fanatics.html
- ↑ http://www.rickross.com/reference/fa_lun_gong/falun306.html
- ↑ About.com Geology: The Oklo Natural Nuclear Reactor
- ↑ David Palmer, “Qigong Fever:Body, Science and Utopia in China,” p 241-246
- ↑ Noah Porter, "Professional Practitioners and Contact Persons Explicating Special Types of Falun Gong Practitioners", Nova Religio, November 2005, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp 62–83
- ↑ Tong, James (September 2002). "An Organizational Analysis of the Falun Gong: Structure, Communications, Financing". The China Quarterly 171: 636–660. Template:Citation error.
- ↑ http://website.leidenuniv.nl/~haarbjter/faluntext3.html Evaluation and Further References
- ↑ David Ownby, "Falungong and Canada's China Policy," International Journal, Spring 2001, p 193.
- ↑ Congressional-Executive commission on China, Annual Report 2008.
- ↑ Johnson, Ian, Wild Grass: three portraits of change in modern china, Vintage (8 March 2005)
- ↑ (23 March 2000) The crackdown on Falun Gong and other so-called heretical organizations, Amnesty International
- ↑ John Pomfret and Philip Pan. "Torture is Breaking Falun Gong." The Washington Post, 5 Aug 2001.
- ↑ United Nations (4 February 2004) Press Release HR/CN/1073, retrieved 12 September 2006
- ↑ Mickey Spiegel, "Dangerous Meditation: China's Campaign Against Falungong", Human Rights Watch, 2002, accessed Sept 28, 2007
- ↑ Congressional Executive Commission on China, Annual Report 2008
- ↑ U.S. Department of State, 2009 Country Report on Human Rights: China (includes Hong Kong and Macao)
- ↑ Andrew Jacobs. 'China Still Presses Crusade Against Falun Gong', New York Times, 27 April 2009.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Ethan Gutmann, "China’s Gruesome Organ Harvest," The Weekly Standard, Nov 24 2008
- ↑ MARKET WIRE via COMTEX, China's Organ Harvesting Questioned Again by UN Special Rapporteurs: FalunHR Reports, 8 May 2008, accessed 16/6/08