User talk:CovenantD/Mediations Archives 1

=Falun Gong=

Fulan gong
One or two pictures is fine but there are six or seven up there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samuel Luo (talk • contribs)

Friend,

The pictures will let the reader know what Falun Gong practice is all about. They play a vital role in this regard. The CCP has used terrible mis-information in its attempt to salnder Falun Gong. It is really saddening to see innocent people dying each day for holding up freedom of belief. The Chinese goverment has cut off the Chinese society from all websites except state propoganda. Try a search "Dalai Lama" or "Falun Gong" on google.cn.. none of these websites ( including wikipedia will turn up).. The wikipedia article plays a vital role in bringing truth to the people and in bringing and end to this horrible Genocide... I am really sorry if I overwrote any edit of yours in edit conflicts.. there is A LOT of mis-information.. Rather than surface ojectivity we must give more importance to truth... This is an urgent situation we are faced with.. Innocent Humans are losing theirs lives in the most brutal and humiliating torture.. Turth is what matters most now.. I need your help in removing non-factual information from the article.. A lot of mis-information has been engineered by the CCP to slander Falun Gong.. we need to be careful about the sources we use. We cant have Chinese newspaper articles as authentic sources.. Those Newspapers have even calimed Falun Gong are FBI agents out to topple CCP!!! All teachings being available online, you must go through the teachigns first-hand to understand Falun Gong. Dilip rajeev 05:16, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Citations for the asserted superiority of FLG over other styles of qigong
Greetings! These quotes are from Li Hongzhi's 1998 lecture:

I put them here because I didn't want to clog up the talk page at FLG, but when the time is right we can move them there if you'd like. This is just from the first few pages of the lecture, but it is typical of his discursive style, one of his main themes is how superior what he is teaching is to anything that has gone on before, as you can see. This is a notable feature of his public speaking, but other schools claim it too (Tibetan Buddhism is perhaps the most famous example).

"Many of you present here haven’t studied the Fa in depth and have often treated it as ordinary qigong.* The spread of this Fa in China has resulted in up to 100 million people studying and practicing it. The number of people in regions outside of China is also quite large. Why is that so, and why is it that the education level of those who are learning this Fa is relatively high? Many are noted individuals in intellectual circles. In many regions of China as well as other places there are people of relatively high social standing who are practicing. Of course, when ordinary qigong was first introduced to the public in China, most of its practitioners were older people and people with illnesses. So people regarded it as a type of physical exercise and something to help keep them healthy. Of course, qigong did discuss some supernormal phenomena that aren’t easily seen in ordinary human society, and this gave qigong an air of mystery, but that’s all it was. Many people aren’t able to completely understand what qigong is about. Since the time Dafa was made public, I have unveiled some inexplicable phenomena in qigong as well as things that hadn’t been explained in the qigong community. But this isn’t the reason why so many people are studying Dafa. It’s because our Fa can truly enable people to Consummate, truly save people, and allow you to truly ascend to high levels in the process of cultivation. Whether it’s your realm of mind or the physical quality of your body, the Fa truly enables you to reach the standards of different levels. It absolutely can assume this role I just mentioned that many people are studying the Fa. People who are well educated are clearheaded and generally won’t learn something blindly. These people are usually rather steadfast once they learn the Fa because they know its preciousness. The book reveals many of Heaven’s secrets, and what’s more, its inner meaning is enormous. No matter how high a realm or how high a level you wish to achieve in cultivation, it is able to guide you. No one has ever taught this Fa to humankind before. If you didn’t study Dafa, you wouldn’t obtain this knowledge no matter how many books you read or how great your achievements in human society were. That’s because this isn’t something one can learn from books or can find in humankind’s knowledge. You could rummage through every book there is—ancient or modern, Eastern or Western—and you still wouldn’t be able to find it."

… "Consider this: In cultivation practice it used to be that a master would guide his disciple. When it was time for you to improve, he would tell you how to practice, how to improve, and what it’s like at each level and in each realm. But that could only be done on a small scale and with a small number of people. Today we have so many people—as many as 100 million people are learning. It’s impossible for me to teach everyone in person and show them every exercise movement. So to resolve this challenge, I’ve written into this book everything that I can give you and everything that can enable you to improve and transform yourselves—all these are compressed into this work of Fa. Not only will your improvement be guided by its principles: Behind the Fa there is powerful inner meaning. Its concepts are extraordinary, they are absolutely not everyday people’s theories. What we’re dealing with transcends the realm of everyday people. So teaching these things will affect life-forms that are beyond that of ordinary humans and the way other dimensions are. In other words, although the book(s) appears to be black ink on white paper, behind every word there are infinite dimensions at different levels, and behind the words even Buddhas, Daos,* and Gods of different dimensions are manifesting themselves."

… "Before, when I discussed enlightening, I expounded on a heavenly secret nobody had disclosed: “Cultivation depends on oneself, while gong depends on one’s master.” For thousands of years people have thought that they themselves were cultivating and elevating. Actually, you can’t achieve anything cultivating [on your own]. Nothing can be resolved if you don’t have a master taking care of you. That is, the real issues are resolved by your master—they’re resolved by the factors behind the Fa. Your own enlightening is only about your continuing to cultivate after you overcome difficulties in your practice. That’s what we mean by “your own enlightening.” As for truly enlightening to something from the principles, if this Fa doesn’t let you know it, you can’t enlighten to it no matter how you try. So you have to meet one condition: You must genuinely practice cultivation."

… "Qigong exercises are for nothing more than healing illness and maintaining health, no matter how you perform them or how much some qigong masters boast about them. They definitely won’t lead you to a high and profound realm. In the past, it was absolutely impossible for anyone—whether he was in some cultivation circle or religious community—to know a Fa this profound and unfathomable. Ordinary qigong only teaches people how to heal themselves and keep healthy, for it doesn’t have Fa to guide people in cultivation. What I’m saying is, if you want to reach that realm and develop profound abilities, your realm of thought has to be up to par."

--Fire Star 19:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Controversies
Yeah, I may get to it in a few hours, I hope. My main concern will be reporting the controversies without it becoming a hatchet job. Cheers! --Fire Star 19:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Absent editor
Greetings. I'm sorry that I have been away from the discussion at FLG for a while. I had a minor auto accident on Monday (for me, anyway, if not for the car!) and have been getting things together to get my classes covered and my bagnol repaired. I sound like a broken record, but I haven't given up and will try like heck to contribute more soon. --Fire Star 火星 07:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not remove anything
Why you are so angry? Fnhddzs 22:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC) CovenantD, look at the age carefully! It is so ugly with each subsections repeat twice! Fnhddzs 22:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I said they are redundant in my comments! I am also surprised why the number of subsections seem less than before. But they were simply twice! Some errors must have happened. Fnhddzs

Well, I try not to get involved in the FLG debacle other than maintaining some basic netiquette (which is too often breached and a source of headaches). -- Миборовский U 01:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Miborovsky, it was you who locked the page. Of course I first request you to do the favor to put a "protected" mark on it, which I think it is a basic netiquette. Should I ask some other admins? Sorry about stating this on CovenantD's page. Feel free to delete. Fnhddzs 02:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Protecting the Falun Gong page
Could you please prove when you talked to Miborovsky? Since I did not find any on the talk pages. It is understoodable that you may communicate by emails or some other means though.

You had made mistakes by assuming I deleted things arbitrarily and being very angry at me (Samuel already apologized on that ). Just please stay really cool. Fnhddzs 02:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I think your request happened when you were angry by mistake. Fnhddzs 03:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Persecution of Falun Gong
Do you think stating persecution of Falun gong is a POV or tries to make the page like a pro- Falun Gong article? I think it is cruel, bold and how to say, silly that people are numb to the persecution that truly exist. From today on, I will try to send you the articles from media reports if your answer is yes. I understand you may not believe what Falun Gong side says. There is a lawyer named Gao, Zhisheng in China. He published three open-letters to China leaders about stopping the persecution of Falun Gong. He is not a Falun Gong practitioner. I am amazed by his courage. Attorneys were not allowed to defend for Falun Gong practitioners. I think few people can finish reading his letter without tears. Here is the text of the third letter. As you could imagine, this attorney is harrassed. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks. Fnhddzs 03:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC) From your friend, with tears in heart. Fnhddzs 03:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for requesting the protection. --Samuel Luo 08:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Pics on Teachings page
I did it to provoke some discussion that is all. --Yueyuen 02:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)--Yueyuen 02:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Covenant, Could you kindly find out why the main-page is kept locked for so long? It is not reflecting the content changes in the sub-pages. Thankyou. Dilip rajeev 19:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou. :) Dilip rajeev 19:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Covenant, Could you please ask tomanda to stop reverting to a messy version. I have been asking him to specifically point out what has been deleted/removed and if I have introduce the content to appropriate sub pages. I have also requested him to edit/improve the intros.. The sole reason he insists on keeping a messy version is the fact that lies and unsourced stuff can only exist in such a version.. while it would be almost impossible to do so on a neat page... that terribly vandalized version has stayed under the pretext of "discussion" for so long.. In my opinion, if some focused discussion is to really happen we must add/discuss content on appropriate subpages and discuss intro paragraphs and related material in the main page. Dilip rajeev 08:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Making money from FAlun Gong
I deleted the last two paragraphs of the “making money from Falun Gong” section to avoid an edit war. If you compare the section from an earlier version to the version before my deletion  you will see that statements from FG critics are deleted leaving only FG rebuttal. I didn’t want to reintroduce those statements for it might provoke another revert war. The deletion also makes the article shorter.--Samuel Luo 18:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

FG intro
hi, I just reverted the intro back to a earlier version where no new changes was made. Let' be fair to all, the version you reverted to have many new changes that had no consesus. --Samuel Luo 17:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

RE:Vandal block
Done. I'll leave the FLG talk page semi'ed just in case. -- Миборовский U 15:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Covenant. Could you look into the changes made by Samuel in the last edit and do whatever you find appropriate. Now the article even says.. "Falun Gong was banned for its illegal activites." ...and Samuel is calling me for a revert war... please see the history/changes.. i didnt do any "revert" as he claims... Dilip rajeev 17:45, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure.. but I think.. no changes happened in your edit.. please make sure the NY times figure stays.. and that the word "alleged" doesnt disappear.. Dilip rajeev

Dilip can not play by the rules
In ignoring your suggestion and disccusion on talk page, Dilip again reverted the intro. I inserted the NY Times figure to show my coorporation, but Dilip clearly can not play by the rule. What to do now? --Samuel Luo 19:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, The page already exists. Please allow me to move the discussion to the pageTalk:Theoretical and Epistemological studies on Falun Gong... also wanted to poit out that a link to the page exists on the Falun Gong page. Dilip rajeev 07:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Falun Gong main Page
Again an editor has changed the paragraphs in intro, including the 3rd paragraph. I am not doing any edits. I hope appropriate disciplinary actions would be taken.(Please see changes here  )Dilip rajeev 13:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Covenant, we decided after days of discussion on a version to be put on the main page. and that the text should be completly NPOV. But what do we have there now? .."Falun Gong's main website"... "However,..." Samuel Luo's personal website cant stay in the references section.. He is reverting whatever edits I make and citing reasons that make the change sound like something else... I think "however" serves a POV.. making it sound like the preivous figure was a mistake or wrongly reported.. and its not Falun Gong "main wesbsite" .. Your version said .. "a falun gong website"... and please remove that link from the references section... Dilip rajeev 19:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

explain your revert
CovenantD why did you revert the statement back to an earlier version? Is this your way of saying that you do not appreciate my editing your words in the 3rd paragraph of the intro? --Samuel Luo 22:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the message. I was a little upset because I couldn’t figure out your logic.  The paragraph should be either reverted back to the protected version to start over or the one including the posting from the Chinese embassy to keep some progress since no one has objected to the main content of that version.  I see Dilip’s message in your box; he is lying about the status of that website which is indeed Falun Gong’s main/official website.  Please check out my response in the discussion.

I hope you don’t mind that I am changing the 3rd paragraph, intro back to an earlier version to preserve some more progress. --Samuel Luo 23:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

CovenantD, if you look at the version you just changed you will see that it included all three figures which we all agreed to include. We also agreed to replace the people’s daily article with a statement posted on Chinese embassy. The only problem with this version (the one you just replaced) is that practitioners-editors do not like to qualify that website as “main” website, but this problem has been solved (check talk page). --Samuel Luo 20:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

main website
ConventD, FalunDafa.org introduces clearwisdom.net as the “main” Falun Gong website:
 * Clearwisdom.net: The main Falun Dafa web site for practitioners and whoever is interested in Falun Gong issues. It is mainly for telling the truth of Falun Gong, sharing insights and information in Falun Gong and cultivation practice, and disclosing the persecution in China.

Since qualifying that website as "main" website is backed by facts, it should be stated as such. --Samuel Luo 00:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Covenant, Please see my edit.. I replaced the material, which was entirely non-factual with blockquotes from primary source on the matter. The quotes covered the topic comprehensively. Dilip rajeev 20:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Falun Gong
Hi Covenant, I was just responding to the request for unprotection. Would semi-protection help? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

---

Hi Covenant,

Since I still can't edit the Falun Gong talk page, I wanted to ask if you could put the following in there for me. (I assure you that even though I just recently created an account on wikipedia.com I have no interest in voicing my personal opinion regarding Falun Gong, and that I just want to do what the founder of Wikipedia once suggested to me).

Here is my suggestion, please put it in the talk page for me and ignore the bad spelling... (english is not my native language) :

"Falun Gong practitioners as well as supporters of the Communist Parties crackdown on Falun Gong, each have there own websites on which they each have allready extensivly stated their point of view. So why is there so much conflict, and discussion and no consent?

Because each party wants to see the content of their websites in the wikipedia article. And why is that so important to them even though it allready is on their respective sites?

Because they think if they are able to get their stuff in the wikipedia article, people will be more likely to belive them if they see their point of view in an "independent encyclopedia entry". So this is the actuall cause of the entire despute. But I think it's pretty stupid, because there is one very simple way to solve this, and make it less interesting for both parties to vandalize the article. I suggest that the first thing we do is to remind the viewers at the top of the article that everbody can edit wikipedia, and that there is no independent staff or team of experts, and that supporters of Falun Gong as well as supporters of the Communist Party are frequently changing the article, and therefore on this subject wikipedia might very likely not be NPOV, and is as credible as something writen with chalk on the sidewalk. (Actually as I understand it Wikipeda being like Chalk on the side walk is basicly the reason why Larry Sanger left it :-)

Okay, putting it that way might be putting Wikipedia down a bit, but the comparison is not all that wrong, and many people don't realize this.

But most importantly it will end those sensless debattes and endless edit-wars.

I am sure that if you don't put something like that in the article, you can continue to debate for another 5 years and still won't be able to get to any consent.

So this is my suggesion. --Hoerth 12:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)"

biography
Please do not hide information from the biography. Thanks. Fnhddzs 19:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC) CovenantD, no. I don't agree the excuse of "it belongs to history and timeline.". If we use the same standard. the Origins part exactly belongs to history and timeline. So we should not have two sections of "origins" and "history and timeline". The Origins is part of history and timeline. Please either combine the structure and put them in the daughter article. Or keep the edits there. They are from the SAME biography. Fnhddzs 19:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

origing
Convent you did the right thing to move that material to history of Falun Gong. I see that Dilip just reintroducing that material. Can you warn him since you have not take sides. --Yueyuen 21:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Dude,

E-mail me about the Falun Gong nuts. cj_cawley@yahoo.com

May the eternal Vishanti grant you the wisdom to see them clearly, but seriously, e-mail me.

Thanks Chris

The "admins" buzzing around the FLG page
As for the FLG page, there is a religious agenda to some of the editors, IMO, and they will do anything to promote their agenda: multiple reversions to the point of violating 3RR, misleading edit summaries, you name it. They aren't realistically discussing ther article because where they are at, they possess the sole truth of the universe and everyone else is a demonic heretic whose opinion can be ignored if they can't be converted to the "Fa". It is unfortunate, but 'I'm afraid all we can do is stick to it and block and ban them when enough policies are violated to justify it (which is why I'bve pulled way back in the editing of the article myself, just in case). In the past I've made requests for comment on the article for just this reason with no response. The mediation step is stalling, not through lack of good will from our mediator, but from obstinance on the part of the editors. The next step is arbitration, if we can interest an arbitrator... --Fire Star 火星 01:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC) on miborovosky's page

Fire Star and miborovisky on "Samuel Lou"'s page.. who has violated the 3RR rule quite a few times...

I need to see all four reverts given to me in link form. Your browser's time is different from mine (I set mine to Wikimedia server time). '''Also, if Dilip violated 3RR I will decide how much time if any he gets. I don't "need" to block him for 24... blocks are preventative, not punitive. -- Миборовский'''

Hi. I'm afraid the idea of having two articles won't fly. I took a day off because I was bit frustrated myself. I hope in a day or two it will settle down again. The next thing we can do if it doesn't is request page protection. I'd protect it myself, but I've done a lot of editing on it. Hang in there! --Fire Star 04:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Response to your suggestion about main page summaries of criticism page & technical issue
Hi Covenant: I agree that the Scientology main page content on Criticism looks cleaner, but I think you might have missed that it nevertheless does include 4 sub-categories, which don't appear until you scroll down a bit. One big difference is that there is vastly more content in the Critism for Scientology than there is for Falun Gong. Here's what I propose to do as a partial improvement: 1) write a much longer summary at the top of the page summary (which will spread out the text and make it look and read better and 2) work on collapsing two of the subsections into one (Li as God and Savior, Li's intervention in world catartrophes. I think that would be a nice start.

Also, I tried my best yesterday to emulate what you had done with references postings for people like Patsy Rahn on the main page. My intent was to go through the entire Criticism page and add or re-arrange footnotes as needed. But my first attempt failed, which was copy and paster your reference to Patsy Rahn to the first occurance of Patsy in Criticsim. I couldn't get it to work. Here's what I copied and pasted:

I also created a new headlined subsection on the criticism page assuming the Wiki software would automatically place my new "reference" as item number one in that section. Can you help..perhaps by doing the first one of these on the Criticism page to serve as a model? --Tomananda 18:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Please review my first test case for footnotes and answer some questions
Covenant, I've done my first test footnote for the Margaret Singer book, which you can find at the top of the "Allegations of exclusivity and intolerance in Falun Gong ethics" section in Criticism. Please review it for correct format, etc. I do have some questions: 1) When we use this type of footnote on an auxialiary page, should we also have the book itself posted as a reference on that page, or is it ok to have the main book posting appear on the main page, as it does now for Singer (2003)? 2) I couldn't figure out the programatic use of the "ref name" which in this case was "Singer" If there are multiple sources used for Singer, do we need to have multiple "ref names" ? Also, what does the "ref name" match up to? 3) Once having used this method, is there any reason to cite the title of a book in the text as well, or can we just continue to use this footnoting method as we go along? --Tomananda 19:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Too Small Type Size for References in Falun Gong Criticism Page
Hi, I just saw that you changed the type size to "small" and since I don't have the greatest reading glasses in the world being 61 and all (ahh..) would you mind changing it back to at least "medium"? After all, I'm the guy who has posted the greatest number of these fancy-formatted footnotes! --Tomananda 00:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Having technical problem with footnotes
Covenant: In response to your message about combining the Patsy Rahn2002 footnotes, I totally agree with you but have been undable to do so. I have tried two methods: 1) repeating the complete footnote information (which hasn't worked) and 2) simply placing the following in the text for subsequent citations:    When I do that, I keep getting an eror message which seems to suggest the link is not recognized. I've tried this over and over again, just relying on the preview feature to see if it works and it hasn't. Figure I must be doing something wrong, so your help would be much appreciated. --Tomananda 19:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)