WHERE IS PEACE?

Through out history, people have longed for peace and harmony and great leaders of high moral and spiritual quality have risen up to offer a way.

Jesus Christ was crucified during the time of the most powerful empire of the ancient world. Although his followers were viciously persecuted, Christianity outlived the Roman Empire by 2000 years.

Nelson Mandela brought peace and stability to South Africa by suffering imprisonment in a South African jail for almost 30 years. Not by physical might but by forbearance and compassion, he defeated apartheid and became the president of his country.

Following Mahatma Ghandi's path of non-violence, Martin Luther King gave his life to the civil rights movement and made the world a better place for all Americans of good will.

However, as our human civilization enters its third millennium, the world's moral fibre is quickly deteriorating. We are plagued with domestic disputes, criminal activity, organized crime, terrorism, war and persecution. This is an eminent threat to mankind. Local police around the globe are on 24-hour surveillance of their cities. Almost all countries have national security forces. Furthermore, they have authorities to monitor the authorities. There are several countries armed with enough weapons to destroy the entire earth. Government bodies such as the United Nations, NATO, and various Non-Government Organizations and human rights groups tirelessly monitor, inform and lobby to countries around the world to help stop the unceasing escalation of war and human rights violations.

Leaders of countries gather to decide to enforce peace by military force, brutality and imprisonment to keep the notion of peace alive.

The world has witnessed governments' refrain from stepping forward for human rights violations, as it would risk economic gain and personal ties.

The very organisations set up to bring about peace can be manipulated to allowing abuses to continue. Their "rules" gag victims taking away their fundamental right to speak.

News media prejudge and choose who and what will be heard usually fuelling indecent hate propaganda.

World leaders hold peace talks to desperately try to negotiate peace together.

In July 2000, world leaders, President of the United States Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat gathered together for the Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David.

At the end of the 2 weeks Mr. Clinton addressed the press. "After 14 days of intensive negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, I have concluded with regret that they will not be able to reach an agreement at this time...success was far from guaranteed--given the historical, religious, political and emotional dimensions of the conflict... We can't afford to leave a single stone unturned in the search for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace."

We must understand that Peace is not a commodity or a good that can be negotiated for.

We live in an era full of diversity and change. Our world is a collection of people from different cultures and heritage. People with different languages, different beliefs, different feelings, different points of view, different opinions, different dreams and different desires.

Unfortunately it seems these differences are what spark disputes among people. Countries place their future hopes for peace in their focus and negotiation on these differences themselves while their people continue to torture and kill each other regardless of negotiation or a signed piece of paper.

We must realise that focus on differences is not the solution for world peace.

People are different. There will always be people in the world with different beliefs and different views. To untangle differences is to mask the symptoms of the disease. Sooner or later conflict will flare once again.

So how do we find the solution for world peace? First, We must realize what makes up our world.

There are an estimated 2 billion people in our world. A collection of two billion individuals. People we don't know. People with families like you and I. Our friends our relatives, our families, our mothers and fathers, our brothers and sisters, me and you. It is two billion individuals like you and I who create this world.

We live our lives in a collection of relationships. We are in continuous relationship with everyone and everything we come in contact with. How we relate to each other. How we relate to our friends and families. How we relate to our jobs and possessions and how we relate to every situation we find our selves in is the quality of how we live our everyday lives. How we relate to our lives forms world our. We as individuals create our world.

Before we search outside ourselves for World peace we must ask ourselves a question. How do we as individuals relate to our world. Do we as individuals cultivate peace in every situation and every relationship we are in? Do we as individual human beings have peace in our hearts?

We grow up in our environments surrounded by suffering, pain, anger, selfishness, addiction, greed, hate, and dissatisfaction. We are taught to strive and stress to succeed for more money, for bigger and better things, to compete and struggle for our own personal interest. We become dissatisfied with who we are and what we have. We learn to look at people as objects for our own selfish needs and we judged and criticized those who don't live up to our approval or expectations. We become insecure closed off and afraid. We react to anything that challenges our set notions or our familiar surroundings.

These traits have become our deepest fundamental human characteristics. We as individuals have become addicted to our own subtle negativity and we bring this negativity into every relationship in our lives.

It's easy to look out into our world and want to stop the violence and the hate and the pain that surrounds us every day of our lives. It's easy to blame society. It's easy to blame others. However, how often do we look at ourselves and take responsibility for how we act as individuals and how we treat people in our everyday lives?

Can we consider ourselves "peaceful" people if our hearts are moved and we react with negativity when our own self-interest or notions are jeopardized or challenged?

We as individuals must take responsibility to cultivate peace within our own hearts first. Only then can our world experience lasting peace.

There's one problem. Where in our fast paced, commodity driven closed off society can we find a model for peace to help us cultivate peace into our own hearts and into our world?

In 1992 a man named Li hongzhi brought into public in China a teaching passed down from antiquity. The basis of this teaching was to restore morals and virtues and peace in individual human beings around the world. He teaches,

"If man does not value virtue, the world will be in great chaos and out of control; everyone will become enemies of one another and live without happiness... A peaceful world is what people hope for. If at this point an excessive number of laws and decrees are created to secure stability, the result will only turn out to be the opposite. To eliminate this concern, cultivating virtue around the world is the fundamental remedy. If officials are unselfish, the state will not be corrupt. If the population values self-cultivation and the nurturing of virtues, and if both administrators and civilians exercise self-restraint in their minds, the whole nation will be stable and supported by the people..."

Falun Dafa is an ancient cultivation practice. It consists of 5 sets of beautiful and gentle Qigong exercises to strengthen the body. It also incorporates self study of the main teaching found in the book Zhuan Falun. The principles in Zhuan Falun guide people to raise their morals and virtues by living their everyday lives in accordance to the Universal Characteristic of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Students learn to take responsibility for their own actions towards truth and peace and to look within for all answers to life's many questions.

In eight short years Falun Dafa has guided over one hundred million people in 40 countries around the world to profound peace and a deep respect for the meaning of life.

Master Li states in Zhuan Falun,

"If everyone searches in his inner-self and thinks about how to conduct himself well, I would say that the society will be stabilized and the human moral standard will move back up."

"You should always maintain a heart of compassion and kindness toward others and think of others before doing anything. There will not be any problem if the first thing that you think of whenever encountering a problem is whether others can put up with this manor and if it will hurt anyone. Therefore you should follow a higher and higher standard for yourself when you practice cultivation."

Nowhere can we exemplify this powerful effect on an entire society than in China.

From 1992 Falun Dafa was honoured, sanctioned and supported by the Chinese government. Tens of thousands of Practitioners were invited to national sports events to demonstrate the peaceful exercises of Falun Dafa.

Millions of people experienced fantastic changes in their relationships and in their health.

The former New York Times Beijing Bureau Chinese journalist W. Huang's elderly mother was physically sick and sick at heart about what was happening in China. "Society is deteriorating," she told her son. "Rampant corruption among the communist Party, rising crime rates, drug abuse among young people. People don't have any goal except to earn money." Her practice of Falun Dafa led to what her reporter son called a "miraculous recovery."

Researchers from major hospitals and institutions conducted surveys of more than ten thousand practitioners. They concluded that so many peoples' illnesses had been cured. A government health official stated, "We save millions of dollars a year in health care." The Chinese Government gave Falun Dafa many awards of support and congratulations.

However, in 1998 the Communist Chinese Government did their own survey and found there were over seventy million people who practised Falun Dafa. This number was substantially higher than the number of people who belong to the Communist party. For fear of the growing popularity they decided to stop it.

Their relentless persecution started. Millions of Falun Dafa books were confiscated and destroyed. State run media started to spew out lies and propaganda about Falun Dafa and its founder Mr. Li Hongzhi, as outside communications were closed. Lawyers were threatened not to represent any practitioners. Over fifty thousand practitioners were taken from their homes, work places, schools, universities and public places and thrown into jails, torture facilities, detention centres, labour camps and mental hospitals.

Practitioners were beaten, tortured, electrocuted, starved, force-fed, and raped. There is one report of a forced abortion.

Ms Zhao Jinhua was a 42 year old farmer. She was arrested and dragged off her field on September 29, 1999. The police tortured her. They punched her and kicked her in the face and head. They beat her with rubber clubs and shocked her with electrodes. On October 7 she was tortured to death.

Mr Su Gang, a thirty two-year-old factory worker was arrested and thrown into a mental hospital. He was given daily overdose injections that damaged his neural system. Mr Su could not recover from the severe mental and physical damage. He died on June 10, 2000.

Mr Zhang Zhenggang was 36 years old. He was arrested on March 2, 2000. On March 25 he was beaten unconscious. Five days later, Mr Zhang was believed to still be alive, as he was taken away and cremated. His family is not allowed to appeal.

Over 70 people have been murdered in police custody in the past 16 months.

Amidst this unparalleled evil, torture and death, not one practitioner has resorted to violence or retaliation in any way.

For the past 16 months practitioners in China continue to risk jail, torture and death to stand up for universal Truth-Compassion and Forbearance, for human rights and for peace.

Mengmeng is a little practitioner. She is nine-years-old. When she saw the brutal persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners and heard the destructive propaganda against Falun Dafa broadcast on TV. She insisted her and her mother make the trip to Beijing to verify the truth of Falun Dafa.

At 11AM on October 27, 2000 Mengmeng and her mother entered Tiananmen Square. Mengmeng saw a fellow practitioner unfurling a banner that read, " Falun Dafa is good!" Policemen immediately beat this practitioner. He fell to the ground and was kicked in the head repeatedly. He kept shouting, "Falun Dafa is good! Restore the innocence of Falun Dafa!" At that time, Mengmeng saw her mother unfurling her own banner. She walked into the crowd and shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" Mengmeng immediately unfurled her own little banner and shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" "Restore the innocence of my Teacher!"

Mengmeng and her mom were both arrested. The police asked Mengmeng why she did not stay home. MengMeng answered, "This matter is more important than any other matters, because Falun Dafa is truly great! You arrest and beat Falun Gong practitioners. You are persecuting good people. Only bad people are happy about this!"

The policeman was discomposed. He did not expect such dedication and clarity from a nine-year-old girl. He finally said in a flustered manor, "You can go now!"

Master Li states,

"I often say that if a person is free from any personal concepts, has no personal motives and is genuinely caring for others, then when he points out the shortcomings of another person, or tells him what is right, the other person will be moved to tears... Compassion is extremely powerful."

A female practitioner was arrested and put in jail. She was put into a cell where no one else wanted to go. A drug addict woman lay on the floor covered in vomit and urine. She had been there for many days. The entire cell reeked. As the lady continued to vomit, the practitioner used her bare hands to push the vomit away from the lady's face to keep her from choking and to keep her dry. The kindness and compassion that naturally came from this practitioner's heart moved this lady to tears. "You treat me like your own child," she said. " I have never been treated with so much kindness. When I get out of here I'm going to learn Falun Dafa."

A violent guard found a copy of Zhuan Falun in a prison hallway. He screamed as he walked down the hall, "Who's book is this!" An old female practitioner came out of a room and looked at the enraged guard. "Oh you found my book," she said in her natural innocence and took the book from his hand. Her peaceful state of being totally changed the angry nature of the guard. He looked at her, grinned, shook his head and said, " What are we going to do with you?"

Police arrested a male practitioner. His shirt was ripped off his back. He was beaten on his bare skin in the baking sun. When the policeman stopped to catch his breath, the practitioner turned around, bent over, picked up his ripped shirt and offered it to the police man to wipe his sweaty face. The kindness and selflessness of this practitioner moved the officer to tears.

Never in history has the world witnessed a movement of such large scale, where millions of people are standing up for truth and peace with unequalled selflessness, compassion and exceptional forbearance in the face of such vicious and brutal persecution.

All nations and people in the world will agree that if all people were truthful, selfless, compassionate and exercised tolerance in the face of hardships, our world would enjoy peace and prosperity.

Knowing this theory, a question is asked.

I think we should simply do everything according to the three words Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance. Is it right to think this way?

Mr Li Hongzhi answers,

"If you do not know the inner connotation of Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance at different levels, you will not be able to truly practice Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance in your conduct."

Falun Dafa guides people to break through their old patterns of selfishness and ignorance to find the wisdom of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in their own hearts.

Falun Dafa is the only reason millions of practitioners are able to manifest such admirable behaviour in the face of such vicious and brutal persecution. Millions of people who are not bound by any organisation or membership. Millions of people who have no governing body or level of hierarchy. Millions of people who have taken their own responsibility to cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance within them selves to better serve their families and their communities around the world. Millions of people who don't even know each other except for a common pull towards ultimate peace brought about by a single practice.

World Peace must come from the hearts of individuals first in order to be lasting and profound peace.

History has taught us the power of forbearance. While the seemingly strong and invincible quickly fade from memory, the virtuous and oppressed are long remembered by future generations. We remember their sufferings and treasure the lessons they taught us about compassion and forbearance. History teaches us that peace and harmony are ultimately accomplished by the benevolent actions of brave and compassionate people who are willing to suffer for the sake of goodness and take full responsibility for peace. Just as Jesus, Nelson Mandela, Ghandi and Martin Luther King, now Falun Dafa has risen up to offer a way.