Li Wei-sheng of theT'ienti Teachings Association

Q: Why was the T'ienti Teachings Association founded? What are its main doctrines?

A: The Lord in Heaven worshipped by T'ienti Teachings Association is the God who created the universe. Therefore, T'ienti Teachings Association is at one with the universe. Whenever there is a dramatic change or crisis in the universe, the Emperor of Heaven will cope with the situation and send out shizhe (spokespersons, facilitators, prophets) to come to the relevant planets and save the world.

When my father Hanjing Laoren was a young man, he studied with Hsiao Chang-ming, head of the Tian De religion. He was Hsiao's most important disciple. When Hsiao passed away on Mt. Huang in mainland, my father received the call from the Lord in Heaven, who told him to found a religion. At that time, my father called this Tianren Jiao.

However, later the situation grew chaotic and the threat of nuclear war increased daily, so my father appealed daily to Heaven for the doctrine to be allowed to circulate in the world. Finally, at the end of 1980, when my father was 80 years old, he received approval from Heaven to establish the T'ienti Teachings Association. And, with the renaissance of the T'ienti Teachings Association, my father was made the first chief shizhe among men.

The doctrine of the T'ienti Teachings Association includes three points: religious harmony, world harmony, and harmony between man and Heaven. The basic spirit is "equality among the divine and the mundane." To achieve these goals, we engage in three types of "struggle": against ourselves, against nature, and against Heaven. Thus we call our brothers and sisters in the faith "co-combatants." Our struggle perspective arises from our concern for life.

We believe that all living things in the universe are equal in the eyes of Heaven. Most religions are focused on comprehending the life and death of the individual, but we see human life as just one part of life in the universe. When a person's life ends here, they return to the universal life, return to nature.

Q: T'ienti Teachings Association places emphasis on the "intangible world" and "communication between man and Heaven." Could you explain these concepts?

A: We believe that, besides God, who has absolute divine status, there are other "deities" and "holy spirits" who have the same origins as ourselves. But, limited by similar laws of nature, they are composed of dianzi (materiality) and hezi (spirituality). Because the spiritual cultivation of every life is different, they rise or sink to different levels or realms. The higher life forms in the "intangible world" are deities, the lower are demons or ghosts. The highest life form in the "tangible world" is human beings, and the lower forms are animals, though God sees us as equals.

We hope to receive information from the intangible world, which is why we have various tools and techniques for communication between man and Heaven. With these we can get a great deal of information from the intangible world. We are currently training shizhe for such communication, and at the same time, thanks to the hard work of many co-combatants who studied science, we are developing technology to communicate with the intangible world.

What I want to clarify is that T'ienti Teachings Association is not superstition, nor is it monotheistic. We do not play up to ghosts or deities or the like. Everything begins with the dignity of human life. For example, our places of worship only have the "light screen," but no worship of idols. Besides God, who is creator of the universe, all other deities and boddhisattvas of the intangible world are of equal status, and human beings are equal to them as well. Everyone can have their own deity to pray to. We do not exclude any kind of religion.

As for otherworldly matters, most people should just concern themselves with being upright, and they don't need to worry about those things. This was my father's basic attitude. The greatest asset he left to T'ienti Teachings Association was the idea of being "upright and aboveboard."

Q: I have heard that when you were younger you personally were the shizhe for your father Hanjing Laoren to communicate with the intangible world. Can you describe your experiences as a child?

A: That was discovered really by accident. At that time my father was doing self-cultivation on Mt. Hua, and some of his fellow practitioners were down at the bottom, practicing fuluan (writing characters with the guidance of spirits and deities). They unintentionally called forth a number of spirits, and were really terrified, and went up the mountain to look for my father to help get rid of the spirits. Later, at the place my father was, they again engaged in fuluan, and asked me to try. At that time, Mt. Hua was a real wilderness, and there was no recreation at all. So when I did it, it was like a game.

At that time I discovered that the levels of the soul are like neighborhoods. There are high-class neighborhoods and low-class neighborhoods. If the person receiving the communication is of low spiritual cultivation, he will only be able to receive communications from low-level spirits. Based on the traditional Chinese idea of qi, that is an outcome caused by qi.

Later, I wrote the book Xin Jing Jie (New Realm), which explains the doctrine of the religion, through fuluan writing that I did as a young man. After that I developed the ability to see writing on the "light screen" with the naked eye. All of the texts we use in the religion today were written down by me back then when I was in communication with Heaven.

Right now there are people in the scientific community doing research on this kind of thing, and they have made considerable progress. But I think that you have to be very careful if you want to take a child to do this kind of thing, and you shouldn't cultivate a few superstars, or there will be big problems. This problem exists in religious communities in both East and West. After a religious leader is produced, if he loses the true faith, and has no philosophical foundations, his leadership will be based only on personal charisma, and will certainly lead to political ambitions and a "cult of personality." This is how the White Lotus Society and other heretic groups were produced.

Based on my own experience, a child who has this ability will be very pleased with it, out of curiosity. But I often say that this ability is not a "sixth sense," but a "first sense." Over a long period of time this type of "first sense" will slowly dissipate. When it disappears, the child will feel disappointed. On the other hand, if this ability persists, he will feel that he has "special abilities." This is a real temptation for young people.

Taking myself as an example, when I took the university entrance exam, I tried to foresee the questions. Of course I was not allowed to see them, and for a long period of time I couldn't receive any communications at all. This is a problem of human nature. Human nature is both good and evil, and often hangs in the balance between the two. Religion is basically to bring out the good side of human nature, to correct the evil side of human nature. But if you leave the right path, and use your abilities for the evil side of human nature, this could create a huge catastrophe. In other words, once people with this ability head toward a crash, they take the mysterious element in a religion and use it as a tool to gain money or sex. There are many examples of this kind of thing.

Q: Did Hanjing Laoren have the ability to communicate directly with the intangible world?

A: No, he himself did not. I think he got most of his religious understanding through meditation. He began meditating at 25, because of an illness. He studied under Huang Chang-ming, leader of the Tian De religion. From the time he was 25, until he passed away at 95, he collected 68 years of merit from meditating. His health and his wisdom were both acquired through meditation. He left behind his own meditation technique, that he developed himself.

Fundamentally speaking, traditional Daoism divided meditation into two kinds. One is called youwei, the other wuwei. The youwei method involves breath control, control of the pathways of qi, and shouqiao (concentrating on various vital points in the body). The wuwei method doesn't need any of these, it is entirely "making emptiness." My father's method was a natural wuwei method.

Q: In the various words of wisdom passed along by spirits and deities, the ideas of "forces of catastrophe" and "anti-catastrophic forces" often come up. Can you please explain these a little?

A: Hanjing Laoren thought a great deal about the threat of a Third World War, a nuclear war, which he said was clearly foretold by an ancient Chinese prediction of a "final disaster." Nuclear weapons destroy all levels of life forms. A nuclear war would be the most destructive of all wars. So my father prayed to God to bring the T'ienti Teachings Association back among men, in hopes of avoiding this catastrophe.

Hanjing Laoren was a pacifist all his life, and this is reflected in his religion. He believed that catastrophe arises from the human heart, that it is man-made. Problems of the human mind are the most important key in the creation of disasters. Weren't nuclear weapons created by man for the use of man? Thus, when the T'ienti Teachings Association talks about forestalling catastrophe, it means rescuing the human heart and mind. There is no mystery to it.

The most important elements are self-criticism, sincere repentance when praying to God, and praying for the good of all living things. Through repeated reflection and prayer, there will be love in one's heart, and tolerance; hate will be put aside, and we can gradually emerge from the pain created by human beings.

In fact, the forces causing and forestalling catastrophe are two sides of the same coin. The so-called "intangible" has two systems-Dao (the Way) and demons (which are brought on by human greed and lust). Dao and demons stand in opposition to each other, and also co-exist. We often say that the "war between Heaven and man" is the process of opposition between Dao and greed in the human mind. The strength to forestall disaster comes from Dao. The hope is to rectify people's hearts, but if they persist in doing evil, and cannot be corrected or conform to the Dao, then the only thing to do is allow the demons to bring on disaster. From the point of view of Heaven, this is tragic, but is necessary for purifying and instructing the world. Of course, this is very harsh, extremely harsh. That is why this year I made an appeal for a "Year of God's Lenience."

The concept of the Year of Lenience goes back to the September 21 earthquake. One of our houses of worship was right at the epicenter, and my beloved mountain city of Puli was made a ghost town, which affected me deeply. An earthquake is caused by collective karma, but since God is compassionate and cares about living things, does he not give living things some time to catch their breath and reflect for a while?

For this reason I sincerely prayed to the intangible to designate this year as a Year of Lenience. I will be at the head, leading all of our T'ienti Teachings Association co-combatants in seeking forgiveness and praying and helping change people. Recently we held an event to free the souls in hell, and thereby reduce suffering and anger in the tangible and intangible universe. The intangible approved the selection of 7.7 billion living things in Hell to come forward and accept "crossing over," to dispel the anger of Heaven and Earth. This is our great desire, and we hope everyone can take this opportunity and correct themselves.

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Li Wei-sheng, the chief mediator (shizhe) of the T'ienti Teachings Association religion was formerly a journalist and academic, has, since retiring, devoted his energies to his religion. He believes that mankind can be improved through prayer, contrition, and forgiveness.

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This is the Year of God's Lenience for T'ienti Teachings Association. At a ritual to rescue 7.7. billion souls from Hell, over 1000 of the faithful prayed and chanted in a solemn atmosphere. (courtesy of T'ienti Teachings Association)

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(right) In the halls of worship of the T'ienti Teachings Association, they have panels displaying cases of people from the community who have been cured of their illness. This particular poster describes the principles of qigong.

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(left) Hanjing Laoren, the founder of the T'ienti Teachings Association faith, passed away five years ago, but his every word and deed is still of vital importance to the faithful. The photo shows him as a young man.

This is the Year of God's Lenience for T'ienti Teachings Association. At a ritual to rescue 7.7. billion souls from Hell, over 1000 of the faithful prayed and chanted in a solemn atmosphere. （courtesy of T'ienti Teachings Association）

（left） Hanjing Laoren, the founder of the T'ienti Teachings Association faith, passed away five years ago, but his every word and deed is still of vital importance to the faithful. The photo shows him as a young man.

（right） In the halls of worship of the T'ienti Teachings Association, they have panels displaying cases of people from the community who have been cured of their illness. This particular poster describes the principles of qigong.