Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference

July 22, 2002

Li Hongzhi

Hello! (Warm applause)

It's been a long time since I saw you last. For a lot of different reasons I don't want to make too many appearances. The main reason is that Dafa disciples are validating the Fa and saving sentient beings; each Dafa disciple is taking his own path, and each Dafa disciple needs to have the opportunity to take his own path. So as your Master, I can't take away your opportunity to validate the Fa yourself. I have to let you do this yourselves. Of course, while a lot of students are validating the Fa, saving sentient beings, and clarifying the truth, they still have a lot of things they want to ask Master about just how exactly to handle.

Remember back three years ago, when the evil's persecution had just started -- many of our students didn't know what to do. Our younger disciples hadn't been through anything like the evilness of the Cultural Revolution. But gradually you all became composed, and you went from not knowing what to do to eventually knowing what to do. Although in the process we've had some setbacks, you have walked that path yourself. In the midst of this evil persecution, each of you thought seriously about what you should do and what kind of path you should take, and through that you established your own mighty virtue; you've come through this enormous tribulation. That's remarkable, that's what a Dafa disciple should do, and that's the Fa-rectification path you'll leave behind, the mighty virtue of an Enlightened Being. This is why a lot of times Master can't tell you all what to do. The Fa has already been taught to you, and if you evaluate things with the Fa you'll be able to do well. When there are big problems I'll definitely tell you. That exception aside, when it comes to a lot of the specific things you come across, you need to carefully think them over for yourself, and it's up to you yourself to come up with a way to resolve them. Wherever there's a problem, that is where you need to clarify the truth and save people. Don't take a detour when you run into difficulties. When you see something that does us harm, or when you see something blocking our validating the Fa, don't take a detour -- you should face it, and clarify the truth and save those beings. This is the compassion (cibei) of a Dafa disciple, and it's our saving lives. At the same time, when you're clarifying the truth you can resolve the problem of many people having been deceived, the misunderstandings, and the prejudice. After all, the lies in the propaganda from this evil persecution that's happening in China have misled sentient beings. They have covered up the truth with a deceitful show. When met with the truth, people will think things over carefully, and how people respond to all this is their own choice.

So, looking at the situation as a whole, in the last three years you've done very well overall, and you've become more and more mature, and more and more rational -- especially the students in Mainland China. Initially, since you didn't know what to do, you seemed kind of scattered. But soon you went from not knowing what to do, to gradually knowing how to face the reality of this display of evil, until eventually all of you were able to gain composure, to this point today when you've become more and more mature. Nearly one hundred million people are cultivating, and there are new students, veteran students, those who've studied the Fa in-depth, those who've studied the Fa shallowly, and those who've just begun to understand and know the Fa. Not all of these practitioners are able to understand the Fa from the Fa. Faced with this demonic tribulation, a lot of the students who haven't studied the Fa in-depth and a lot of the new students, with their human attachments, each have their own different takes on things and different understandings of validating the Fa. So when validating the Fa and clarifying the truth, a lot of people do it with human attachments to some degree or other. When they're persecuted their ordinary human attachments get stirred up by human emotion, and they will be affected by phony kindness and deceit. Whatever happens, only by keeping up your Fa-study can you get rid of your human thoughts, can you get rid of your attachments, and can you thus be unaffected by any human things. More than three years have passed, and this persecution that's been imposed on us by the old forces has made us more and more mature, more and more rational, more and more clearheaded, more and more steadfast, and more and more able to take this evil's persecution seriously as we expose the evil's lies, validate Dafa, and save sentient beings.

Dafa has been spread in the world for ten years now. Three years ago it hadn't been ten years yet -- it'd only been seven years. Although it was a short amount of time, Dafa had already deeply rooted itself in the cosmos, rooted itself in the human world, and nobody could shake it. Looking at the overall situation right now, on the surface the persecution is still quite vicious, but in reality few of those wicked, rotten demons that can restrain and control people are left. The fewer that remain, the more wildly the evil rages; the fewer that remain, the more hysterical they get. Certain cultivators who have grasped Dafa to different degrees are showing different degrees of steadfastness, and how they currently perceive the overall situation of the Fa-rectification is different, too. The different states of their cultivation result in their different perceptions. Some might think the situation is grim; for some people the situation might seem to have already eased up; and some people might think that it's precisely a great opportunity to save sentient beings and clarify the truth. People's different grasps of and comprehension of the Fa lead to different perceptions of the current situation, and all that's happening is targeting different human thoughts. Those who do well will change the environments around them, and those who do poorly will make the environments around them change according to their states of mind. Dafa disciples have different states of mind, so they have different perceptions of the environment, and that's why the way each person acts is different. The true situation, as I see it, is that the evil old forces want to do what they want to. To do well is to not walk down the path arranged by the old forces; the goal is to not allow the old forces to take advantage of your gaps. Despite all of this, our Dafa disciples as a whole have become more and more mature, and they're handling all of this with greater and greater rationality, composure, steadfastness, and seriousness. At the beginning, many students had a lot of human thoughts and displayed different cultivation states. On the surface they were validating the Fa, when in fact they had human thinking mixed in, they couldn't achieve the goal of validating the Fa, and once they were persecuted the opposite result was achieved. Things are different now. You are completely different from how you were three years ago. Of course, you are cultivating and you still have human thoughts, and because of that you're able to cultivate among everyday people. But these human thoughts will manifest, and from time to time they'll play a negative role in different situations. But compared to three years ago, you've become more and more remarkable, or in other words, Dafa disciples have become mature.

The evil's persecution won't last, because the wicked demons and rotten spirits who manipulate humans are becoming fewer and fewer. Humans don't have the ability to do anything significant on their own; humans have always been under the control of other beings. Back then the reason the head of the evil in China dared to persecute Dafa disciples was that there were also evil factors controlling that evil bum. Looking at the overall situation of the Fa-rectification, all of these things that Dafa disciples are doing to rectify the Fa, to save sentient beings, and to clarify the truth are in their final stage. An article that you wrote and that's on the PureInsight Website mentions that the Book of Revelation in the Bible says that the evil beast would attack God with his mouth for forty-two months, which is three and a half years. I won't comment on whether that's the case, but I can say that this evil drama has really come to the final stage, where it has the will but not the strength to carry on.

The head of the evil in the human world that resides in China and is controlled by evil, rotten demons is no longer human. As a matter of fact, that dumb thing died a long time ago, and everything that makes up this being is in hell in its entirety. Only the most surface layer of its postnatally-formed body, that postnatally-formed material form, is still being propped up by the evil. Because the time that the old forces arranged for the test of Dafa to end hasn't arrived yet, the old forces are trying their best to prop it up. If this surface weren't propped up anymore today, it would turn into a pile of ashes and a billow of black smoke -- there'd be nothing at all. To put it like everyday people would, it has died a hundred times over. But those rotten demons are still propping up its shape at the surface and still using this little bit of stuff at the outermost surface. But its mind is totally abnormal. It's now scared, after the fact, for having persecuted Dafa and Dafa disciples; and because of this it doesn't dare to step down from its post, because of this it's gone mad, because of this it's living for Falun Gong, and because of this it's in a constant state of anxiety and worry. Meanwhile, more and more of the evil beings that control people have been purged as Dafa disciples send forth righteous thoughts and clarify the truth. The old factors in the cosmos are, when you look at the Fa-rectification's overall picture, constantly being reduced as we do all these things. So this has reduced the evil's power further and further. It can no longer sustain its evilness on a large scale, and it can only do evil in limited areas, and their range is constantly shrinking. This is why each Dafa disciple needs to realize the importance of clarifying the truth. This, more than anything, is what you should do with all your effort, and it's the most magnificent. The salvation of sentient beings and the Consummation of cosmic bodies that correspond to you are all part of this. Every single Dafa disciple needs to do this. Don't miss a single opportunity.

You've all seen that people outside of Mainland China are getting more and more clearheaded. This is a reflection of Dafa disciples' clarifying the truth, and it's also because the force of Fa-rectification has cleared out more of the evil and made it so that the evil can't control the world's people anymore. People are thinking rationally. What used to restrain people is no longer there, and the factors that manipulated people to do bad things have been cleaned out. The people outside of Mainland China are now more clearheaded, and they're becoming even more clearheaded and are more and more able to see this evil persecution in China for what it is. So for our Dafa disciples outside of Mainland China, this is a chance for us to clarify the truth further, and to help people all over the world and the governments of each nation better understand this display of evil. So I hope you'll do your work along these lines more solidly, and help people to truly recognize all of this.

You are Dafa disciples, so no matter what environment you're in, when you do things like clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings, you should display the demeanor of a Dafa disciple. You're cultivators after all, so if you want to do this well, the most important thing to do is to study the Fa. No matter how busy you are, you have to study the Fa. This is especially true for those students who stepped forward late, or who've stumbled, or who haven't kept up -- you should study the Fa a lot, listen to criticism more, and hurry to catch up. Everyone needs to recognize the importance of sending righteous thoughts. That's because you are Dafa disciples, and you aren't everyday people doing things for Dafa, but Dafa disciples who are validating the Fa. The head of the evil in China has spread lies that I claim to be Jesus or Sakyamuni. You all know those are shameless lies made up by that bum who just lies at will. I'm not Jesus, and I'm not Sakyamuni, but the Fa has created millions and millions of Jesuses and Sakyamunis who have the courage to walk the path of Truth, who have the courage to risk their lives for the sake of the Truth, and who have the courage to devote their lives to saving sentient beings. (Long applause) Each of you Dafa disciples should truly recognize who you are and walk your path well. You really are that magnificent, so you have to rationally and seriously do well the things you're supposed to do today. Now when we clarify the truth to others you all feel that we should treat sentient beings with compassion, then all the more so should you be compassionate among our Dafa disciples. You're all disciples in the same practice, and you're giving your all for the cosmos' Fa-rectification, so you should cooperate well with one another. Don't approach things with too many human attachments, and don't cause unnecessary conflicts and arguments by interacting with each other with human attachments. In these situations your conduct should always show Dafa disciples' tolerance, kindness, and niceness. The next person's things are your things[1], and your things are his things. We don't talk about the "unity" everyday people do, which is a forced, superficial thing. You are cultivators, and your realms are higher. So in your many projects your actions should reflect an understanding of others, an ability to listen to people's opinions, and an ability to gauge what's right and what's wrong by using Dafa. Actually, now you're a lot better than before; but I think you should do even better in the time ahead.

Today I mainly wanted to see you all. Last time I didn't make it to the Fa conference in Canada which celebrated the tenth anniversary of Dafa being spread in the world. It wasn't because Dafa disciples weren't doing well, but because too many other people wanted to see me. I didn't want to make a public appearance, because if I did, all the public's focus would be on me. Now you are the ones who are validating the Fa among the world's people, and you're the ones who are saving sentient beings and consummating everything of yours in the process of clarifying the truth among the world's people. So I wanted to leave the opportunities for you and let you do these things. If I did otherwise, if I were to make a public appearance, nobody would listen to what you say to society or to what you tell the governments -- they'd all want to hear it directly from me. And if that happened, Master would have to handle things in the human world while he does Fa-rectification things -- and I wouldn't be able to do all that on my own, right? Of course, there were also other reasons.

I don't want to say much more. Today I just wanted to see you all. I hope that this Fa conference of ours goes even better. Also, one reason this Fa conference of ours can be successful, and the fact that Dafa can have a foothold in the United States, is the tremendous support from the American people. Here we thank the American people (applause), we thank the U.S. congresspersons and the legislators at the different levels of the government, and we thank all the various levels of the U.S. government. (Applause)

Walk your paths well. No matter what, everything that's the most wonderful awaits Dafa disciples, and everything that's the most terrifying awaits those people who play a negative role in the Fa-rectification. (Long applause)