4 Li Hongzhi's explanations to the deaths of his faithful disciples

After the "elimination of Karma" has been proved ineffective and causes numerous deaths of practitioners, Li Hongzhi keeps finding excuses for himself.

Many Falun Gong practitioners died and this caused great turmoil and upset among those still alive. More and more practitioners ask Li Hongzhi, "Why would there be Falun Gong practitioners dying of illness?" And here are some of the explanations provided by Li Hongzhi:

On the one hand, it's the "arrangement" and "interference" of the "Old Force" (in the imaginary world of Li, this term is used to refer to the force that's exclusively against Li and his practitioners).

"From the perspective of cultivation, for a person to rise above ordinary people, he has to get rid of all human attachments, and that's how the old forces took advantage of this and arranged all those things. For instance, they arranged for certain students to appear sick at certain times, and for certain students to depart first at a certain time. The old forces arranged for some people they picked to come in [to Dafa]. Those people seem to be cultivating Dafa, and some even appear very diligent, but in fact they came in under the old forces' arrangements to enable those things to happen when the time came. It was the old forces' intention all along to weed out those beings. So, they made them commit sins by doing things that would interfere with Dafa – that's the role they wanted them to play. Of course, they only did that with the beings they'd selected for elimination. Among my Dafa disciples there are some who were used and deceived by them in the past, for example, [they might have said] 'for you to reach Consummation you'll have to do such and such at such and such time.' There are cases like that. That's why the true and fake ones are mixed together, and it's difficult to tell right away which ones have come to stir up trouble and which ones are Dafa disciples."[1]

"Many were Dafa disciples deceived by them, while some were arrangedby them; they all agreed to it at some point in history, and that is why it's hard to handle. Also, while being persecuted, they weren't clearheaded or rational, and didn't remember that they were Dafa disciples, nor could they remember Master, as if it were all just human beings persecuting other human beings. Plus, they were arranged that way by the old forces back in history, so they couldn't reject it. You tell me, how do you handle that?"[2]

"Cultivation and Dafa are solemn, and they can turn human beings into gods. The old forces can't stand that, so they want to test you. They want to see if you will still say Dafa is good and stay and cultivate when they have people pass away who have reached the end of their life spans. The old forces have done that, so when a student faces life-threatening danger, you can't say that he is not good or that he has some serious problems. That is actually the old forces creating a disturbance by taking advantage of human attachments."[3]

"It's likely the old forces will lead him to have problems and even make him leave us early in order to test other students."[4]

On the other hand, it's because the practitioners haven't practiced enough Falun Gong.

"If certain students can't manage to get rid of long-standing attachments inside themselves, they can be persecuted and interfered with. [They might think,] 'I've been doing the exercises, and my illnesses have been cured. I feel so good. My life has become easier.' Their understanding always remains at that level and they can't understand the Fa on the basis of the Fa, and that makes it easy for problems to come up."[5]

"Cultivation is a serious matter. That test of one's mind is a black or white issue. The more attached you are, the worse you will feel. When you go to the hospital for an examination you will be made to see that your illness has gotten worse. Yet you still don't enlighten to it. Yet you still don't enlighten to it. Since you still don't enlighten to it, it becomes more and more serious, and in the end you truly can't make it. That happens because you are not a genuine student, you don't study the Fa, and you can't let go of your attachment to your illness. You are just an ordinary person who wants to get his illness cured. …If you can truly cultivate, when you can truly let go of your attachment to living or your fear of death – and not just act that way for others to see while constantly thinking about it inside – then no matter what kind of illness you have, it will be cured."[6]

"If that person still doesn't get it after being given chances for so long, even if he has cultivated for years and has followed others in doing Dafa work, if he still can't let go on a fundamental level of his attachment to getting healed, then on a fundamental level he is still not a student, and he will depart when he reaches the end of his lifespan."[7]

There's also another explanation, that is, a few practitioners died because they reached consummation (that is, they accomplished Cultivation and became either Buddha or God as described by Li).

"As for deceived Dafa disciples, there's no doubt about it, Consummation is for sure."[8]

"Regardless of whether my Dafa disciples were killed as a result of persecution or departed this world as a result of being persecuted by the old forces during this period of time, they have all reached Consummation."[9]

Whether or not some Falun Gong practitioners really reached consummation and became Buddha and God or not, no one knows, for all that we can see are cold cadavers.

In this sense, as for Li Hongzhi, the death of Falun Gong practitioners has nothing to do with either his theory or the practicing of Falun Gong.