(Clearwisdom.net) The 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture is a foundation for today's people to understand the truth about and to practice Falun Dafa. If today's people are familiar with the moral values, ideologies, and thought patterns of traditional Chinese culture, then they are may be more inclined to understand and accept the truth about Dafa.
We ought to bear in mind, however, that it is Dafa and not traditional Chinese culture that can save people. There must not be any confusion about this. Otherwise, we may end up speaking too much about the traditional ways, thereby hindering people's chances to know the truth about Dafa.
Some practitioners who are teachers incorporate Dafa's cultivation principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance in their teaching and use traditional Chinese culture as supplementary material. They also teach their students the exercises and facilitate Dafa group study as extra-curricular actitvities. As a result, their students have made substantial improvements in their moral characters, and some have even started practicing Dafa.
Some practitioners have introduced the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party to help people negate the Chinese Communist culture. Some have referenced traditional Chinese culture to show how atheism lacks reason. Once the obstacles of the Chinese Communist culture and atheism have been removed, people often become more receptive to the truth about Dafa. These are examples of practitioners using tradtional Chinese culture and their wisdom in a beneficial way.
On the other hand, I have noticed how some practitioners become so mesmerized by traditional Chinese culture and stories of reincarnation. These practitioners assume that if others embrace traditional Chinese culture, then they would naturally negate the Chinese Communist culture and be saved. They feel that the entire Chinese society would thus undergo drastic changes.
Sometimes there is a very thin line between truth and fallacy.
Let's think about it for a minute. If traditional Chinese culture alone could save people, then why did Teacher bother at all to impart Falun Dafa or ask us to clarify the truth about Falun Dafa, the persecution against Falun Dafa or the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party?
In my opinion, focusing more on spreading traditional Chinese culture than the truth about Falun Dafa may actually be a pursuit of an "avant-garde" approach. The avant-garde approach itself is a deviation from the core value of the traditional Chinese culture. Today's people pursue individualism and uniqueness. However, it is not part of traditional culture, but of the degenerate modern culture. "The Doctrine of the Mean" was revered in traditional Chinese culture, the guiding principle of which is that one should avoid acting in excess. In addition, it is not our goal in the Fa-rectification period to restore traditional Chinese culture, but to clarify the facts about Falun Dafa.
Beliefs such as "Man is an integral part of Heaven," and "One will be ultimately rewarded for good deeds and face retribution for bad deeds," are necessary aspects of an upright culture. Values such as kindness, loyalty, rites, wisdom, trust, filial piety, love between siblings, uncorruption, and the feeling of shame are required for a person to be respectful. It is due to possessing these traditional values as a foundation that today's people are capable of knowing right from wrong, telling truth from falsehood, and saving themselves from the modern, degenerate notions that they can come to better understand the truth about Falun Dafa.
I believe that every practitioner is interested in clarifying the truth well, but not all approaches are necessarily appropriate. It is not just a personal cultivation problem, but the deeply penetrating Chinese Communist culture and modern degenerate culture at work, combined as well with a lack of respect for the traditional ways. By sharing my personal understanding on the subject, I hope that practitioners will have a renewed understanding on traditional Chinese culture.
