My Personal Understandings about Article 23 of the Basic Law

Understanding Article 23 from the Perspective of the Principles of Falun Gong

Personally, I think that the arrangement for Article 23 is quite concealed and deceptive. The reason they chose to set the consultation date in September is because:

1. Since the economy in Hong Kong is currently not very good, Hong Kong residents would only pay attention to the economy and may not care about political issues;

2. The U.S. and the U.K. are busy with anti-terrorism efforts, and they would have little time to focus on what's happening in Hong Kong;

3. Falun Dafa practitioners were busy with many truth clarifying activities during Jiang's visit to the U.S. Therefore, people would be focusing on other issues and would not have a strong reaction against Article 23.

No one is worthy of testing this Fa [Law and principles of the Buddha School]. As Falun Dafa practitioners, we oppose this persecution. Teacher has clearly told us about the Fa principles and the situation in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Experience Sharing Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.," "And as your Master I don't acknowledge this thing, and I don't acknowledge the whole arrangement..." Hopefully we will study the Fa together and improve together.

Then which mentalities of our Dafa practitioners are been aimed at in this?

Personally, I think the mentalities are: paying attention to and waiting for changes in society, and becoming less diligent in our efforts to actively clarify the truth to the world's people. If this has been arranged according to this mentality, I think we should keep our powerful righteous thoughts and act without pursuit. Only when we keep the powerful righteous thought's can we prevent being attached to the results in human society and not be affected by the illusions of human society.

We have learned a big lesson from the behaviour of the premier of China back in April 25, 1999 [acted differently from how he acts now] to the recent 16th Party Congress. If Dafa practitioners are attached to non-practitioners doing something that is beneficial to Fa-rectification, in other words, if we hope they will make decisions that are beneficial to the Fa-rectification, then interference would cause the final outcome to be different from what we had expected.

Moreover, I want to share with fellow practitioners a part of Master's lecture in Philadelphia: "When you've been persecuted or been under pressure in the ordinary society, it's hard to prevent your human attachments from having an effect, so some ordinary people's thoughts might surface, but don't think too much of it. Fa-rectification disciples, the persecution has already come to this stage, and Dafa has already come to this step in Fa-rectification: what's there for us to still be afraid of? Haven't you already seen your future well?" ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Experience Sharing Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")

Some of My Understandings on Doing Things in Society

Right now, the economy in Hong Kong is bad and many Hong Kong people are paying attention to the economy and ignoring politics. We don't have to be attached to politics and human rights during truth clarification. In fact, Article 23 of the Basic Law has its greatest impact on Hong Kong's economy. The reason Hong Kong was prosperous before it acceded to China was because it had a free political and economic environment in contrast to the surrounding environment in China and other regions. The founding of Article 23 will completely destroy this environment and will necessarily cause funds and business organisations to migrate, which will further affect Hong Kong's economy and increase unemployment. In fact, many economic institutions and business organisations are opposing the founding of Article 23. From the perspective of economics, it's easier for us to show that we are helping people.

For overseas practitioners, it is better if we clarify the truth to the governments from the perspective of human rights, but if we add the impact that "Article 23 of the Basic Law" will have on other countries' economy and how the interest of citizens of other countries will be affected in Hong Kong, the outcome might be better.

Above are my shallow understandings; please benevolently point out anything inappropriate.