Li Hongzhi is the founder of Falun Dafa, a cultivation practice rooted in Buddhist and Daoist traditions. What does it mean that the day recorded as his birth in Gongzhuling, Jilin Province, falls on the day the tradition honors as Sakyamuni Buddha's birthday?
On May 13, 1951, a child was born on the plains of northeastern China. This volume traces the unseen preparation of a Teacher before the public transmission of the Fa. During the Cultural Revolution, when temples were destroyed and texts burned, a young man of inner life tended his cultivation in secret. He worked as a trumpet player in a performing arts troupe, attending to the discipline of an ensemble while continuing years of private spiritual development under Buddhist and Daoist masters. The narrative brings the reader to the threshold of the Changchun lecture hall in the spring of 1992, before the Great Law was given to the world.
- Manchurian landscape: how the cold earth of Jilin Province shaped the physical and cultural world of Master Li.
- Hidden lineages: what the tradition records of the Buddhist and Daoist masters who passed their teachings to a student.
- Cultural context: why the spiritual hunger and physical discipline in China created the historical moment for the Fa to emerge.
- Gathering expectation: how early practitioners described a stirring in the Chinese spiritual world before the teaching had a name.
Book One of Turning the Wheel: The Life and Teaching of Master Li Hongzhi focuses on the quiet years before the Fa was made public, establishing the foundation for Turning the Great Wheel, which details his travels across Chinese provinces to share the practice with vast crowds. The series concludes with What the Wheel Carries, an exploration of the written teachings and their significance for those cultivating Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
Readers seeking to understand how cultivation was maintained in secret during the Cultural Revolution, why the quiet years in Jilin Province were necessary, and what unseen preparation preceded the public transmission of the Fa.
