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- BEIJING - (Agence France
Presse) "Master" to his claimed 70 million followers, an evil
of tool of China's enemies to Beijing, the leader of the Falungong spiritual
movement Li Hongzhi is an enigma to all.
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- Living in self-imposed exile in New York and communicating
rarely and only by written statement, Li has not been seen by all but his
closest aides for more than a year.
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- Little is known about him other than his age, 49, and
that he comes from the mountainous Chinese province of Jilin.
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- Li emigrated to Manhattan, New York, in 1996 after Chinese
authorities banned his books, first published in 1992. He has a wife and
teenage daughter, who attends a public school.
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- Other than that, China's Ministry of Public Security
describes him as "about 1.78 meters in height, with slanted eyebrows,
single-edged eyelids, a little bit fat."
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- Still less is known about how a former military stud
farm worker, bandsman and government grain clerk came to be the Great Master
of Falun Buddha Law and founder of the world's biggest cult.
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- Beijing accuses Li of being a manipulative, brain-washing
and even lethal fraud who has made millions of dollars out of selling books
and audio and video cassettes to gullible "disciples."
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- "His only talent in childhood was the ability to
play the trumpet," sniffed the official Chinese news agency earlier
this year.
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- Certainly some of his claims -- the power to levitate,
to make himself invisible, heal the terminally ill and telekinetically
place a protective "Wheel of Law" in the heart of followers --
as well as changing his birth date to that of Buddha and obviously faked
photographs purporting to show him meditating in the mountains seem less
than credible.
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- His website claims: "Since the time of his birth,
Master Li has received personal pupilage from masters of many different
schools, be they Buddhist, Taoist, or esoteric.
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- "The years of strict disciplining and tough training
under the supervision of these masters allow him to achieve a very high
state of attainment possessing extraordinary prowess, to master the cosmic
characteristics of Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance.
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- "Like the dazzling resplendence of a pearl puffing
the dust off the clouded mind of a practitioner with its brightness, Falun
Gong lights up the path of cultivation and practice."
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- In one of his rare public statements, on the day of the
official ban on Falungong by China on July 22 last year, Li tried to answer
some of the criticisms leveled against him.
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- "Falungong is simply a popular Qi Gong activity,"
he said. "It does not have any particular organization, let alone
any political objectives. We have never been involved in any anti-government
activities."
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- The sect combines Qi Gong, a martial art based on meditation
and breathing techniques and the twin notions of reincarnation and karma.
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- As for not contacting his persecuted followers, who have
been jailed or sent to re-education labor camps, or even died in custody,
he said although he was in Beijing when the first Falungong protest took
place in April 1999, he did not incite it or even know about it.
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- "I always travel alone in order to avoid inconvenience.
I do not get in touch with local practitioners wherever I go because there
would be many people hoping to see me."
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- His worshipful followers, however, whose reverence of
Li sets them apart from other Chinese, have no doubt.
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- Even his non-appearance and scant messages of support
or sympathy fail to discourage them.
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- "In the past year, many people say 'Why hasn't Master
Li come out?'" said Belinda Pang, a Hong Kong practitioner.
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- "But that's not the point. He's watching us."
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- Falungong combines ancient Chinese exercises and meditation
with Li's own morality and mysticism, which exhort patience, tolerance,
and rectitude as the path to good health and psychological wellbeing.
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- Analysts attribute its mass appeal in China in part to
its reputed health benefits as well as filling a spiritual void left by
China's shift from socialism to a Darwinian, market-based economy. ((c)
2000 Agence France Presse)
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