Editing Karma (section)

===Falun Gong===
David Ownby, a scholar of Chinese history at the University of Montreal,<ref>{{Cite news|last=Kahn|first=Joseph|date=22 August 2008 |title=Book Review {{!}} 'Falun Gong and the Future of China,' by David Ownby|work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/books/review/Kahn-t.html|access-date=14 March 2019|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=23 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180923121905/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/books/review/Kahn-t.html |url-status=live}}</ref> asserts that [[Falun Gong]] differs from Buddhism in its definition of the term "karma" in that it is taken not as a process of award and punishment, but as an exclusively negative term. The Chinese term ''[[De (Chinese)|de]]'', or 'virtue', is reserved for what might otherwise be termed 'good karma' in Buddhism. Karma is understood as the source of all suffering – what Buddhism might refer to as 'bad karma'. According to [[Li Hongzhi]], the founder of Falun Gong: "A person has done bad things over his many lifetimes, and for people this results in misfortune, or for cultivators, its karmic obstacles, so there's birth, aging, sickness, and death. This is ordinary karma."{{sfn|Ownby|2008|p={{page needed|date=September 2023}}}}

Falun Gong teaches that the spirit is locked in the cycle of rebirth, also known as ''[[Saṃsāra|samsara]]'',<ref name="TRAN">{{cite book |translator=Li Hongzhi |chapter=Lecture 2:Transcending the Five Elements and Three Realms |title=Zhuan Falun (English Version) |chapter-url=https://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/lecture2.html#4 |url=http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/zflus.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110609043918/http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/zflus.html|archive-date=9 June 2011 |access-date=31 December 2007 |date=5 January 1996 |url-status=live}}</ref> due to the accumulation of karma.<ref name="kar">{{cite book |translator=Li Hongzhi |date=5 January 1996 |chapter=Lecture 4: Transformation of Karma, Zhuan Falun |title=Zhuan Falun (English Version) |chapter-url=https://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/lecture4.html#2 |access-date=2008-01-01}}</ref> This is a negative, black substance that accumulates in other dimensions lifetime after lifetime, by doing bad deeds and thinking bad thoughts. Falun Gong states that karma is the reason for suffering, and what ultimately blocks people from the truth of the universe and attaining [[Enlightenment in Buddhism|enlightenment]]. At the same time, karma is also the cause of one's continued rebirth and suffering.<ref name="kar"/> Li says that due to accumulation of karma, the human spirit upon death will reincarnate over and over again, until the karma is paid off or eliminated through cultivation, or the person is destroyed due to the bad deeds he has done.<ref name="kar"/>

Ownby regards the concept of karma as a cornerstone to individual moral behaviour in Falun Gong, and also readily traceable to the Christian doctrine of "one reaps what one sows". Others say [[Matthew 5:44]] means no unbeliever will not fully reap what they sow until they are judged by God after death in Hell. Ownby says Falun Gong is differentiated by a "system of transmigration", although, "in which each organism is the reincarnation of a previous life form, its current form having been determined by karmic calculation of the moral qualities of the previous lives lived." Ownby says the seeming unfairness of manifest inequities can then be explained, at the same time allowing a space for moral behaviour in spite of them.{{sfn|Ownby|2008|p=110}} In the same vein of Li's ''[[monism]]'', matter and spirit are one, karma is identified as a black substance which must be purged in the process of cultivation.{{sfn|Ownby|2008|p={{page needed|date=September 2023}}}}

According to Li, <blockquote>Human beings all fell here from the many dimensions of the universe. They no longer met the requirements of the Fa at their given levels in the universe, and thus had to drop down. Just as we have said before, the heavier one's mortal attachments, the further down one drops, with the descent continuing until one arrives at the state of ordinary human beings.<ref name="ZFLII">{{ cite web
| author = Li Hongzhi
| author-link= Li Hongzhi | url=http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/zfl2.htm 
| title = Zhuan Falun, Volume II |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821023901/http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/zfl2.htm|archive-date=21 August 2011
| orig-date= 1996 | year= 2008
}}</ref></blockquote>He says that, in the eyes of higher beings, the purpose of human life is not merely to be human, but to awaken quickly on Earth, a "setting of delusion," and return. "That is what they really have in mind; they are opening a door for you. Those who fail to return will have no choice but to [[reincarnation|reincarnate]], with this continuing until they amass a huge amount of karma and are destroyed."<ref name="ZFLII" />

Ownby regards this as the basis for Falun Gong's apparent "opposition to practitioners' taking [[medication|medicine]] when ill; they are missing an opportunity to work off karma by allowing an illness to run its course (suffering depletes karma) or to fight the [[illness]] through cultivation." [[Benjamin Penny]] shares this interpretation. Since Li believes that "karma is the primary factor that causes sickness in people," Penny asks: "if disease comes from karma and karma can be eradicated through cultivation of ''xinxing'', then what good will medicine do?"<ref name="Fellow">{{cite web |url= http://www.nla.gov.au/grants/haroldwhite/papers/bpenny.html |author=[[Benjamin Penny]] |title=The Past, Present and Future of Falun Gong – A lecture by Harold White Fellow, Benjamin Penny, at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2001 |publisher=Harold White Fellowships |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080325202921/http://www.nla.gov.au/grants/haroldwhite/papers/bpenny.html |archive-date=25 March 2008 |access-date=31 December 2007 }}</ref> Li himself states that he is not forbidding practitioners from taking medicine, maintaining that "What I'm doing is telling people the relationship between practicing cultivation and medicine-taking." Li also states that "An everyday person needs to take medicine when he gets sick."<ref>Lectures in United States, 1997, Li Hongzhi.{{full citation needed|date=September 2023}}</ref> Danny Schechter (2001) quotes a Falun Gong student who says "It is always an individual choice whether one should take medicine or not."<ref name="schechter">Danny Schechter, ''Falun Gong's Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or Evil Cult?'', Akashic books: New York, 2001, pp. 47–50.</ref>