“Banned Books”, “Illegitimate Child” and “The Third Birthday”––“Birthday Gifts” to Cult Hierarch Li Hongzhi

May 13 is Li Hongzhi's so-called "birthday". Here are three special "gifts" for Hierarch Li and his Falun Gong––
 
The first gift––long-kept secrets concerning family memories
According to online information, Li Hongzhi's parents met in early 1951 and got married in the fall of the same year. Then, July 7, 1952, witnessed the birth of Li Hongzhi. Depending on the doctor who delivered the baby at the time, Lu Shuzhen, Li Hongzhi's mother, had a difficult labor,. Only after being given an injection of oxytocin could she deliver the baby smoothly. (Li Hongzhi later claimed that he was born on May 13, 1951. The problem was that Li's parents had not married at that time, so some people even suspected that Li was an "illegitimate child"). It is believed that this age-old family history will give Li Hongzhi's fake birthday a "sense of ceremony".
However, Li Hongzhi's mother, Lu Shuzhen, maybe a tragic figure. It is said that in the early days of Li Hongzhi's establishment of Falun Gong, Lu Shuzhen often publicly debunked his tricks. In her later years, Lu Shuzhen said many times to people around her, "He is not a Buddha at all. He knows best and is just a normal person." "Don't flatter him." This greatly infuriated Li Hongzhi. After Li Hongzhi's brother-in-law Li Jiguang died of illness, Li Hongzhi found an excuse to arrange for Lu Shuzhen and his sister Li Jun to live in Flushing, New York. Li Hongzhi did not pay much attention to his mother's health, so that Lu Shuzhen even had to go to Longquan Temple, the headquarter of Falun Gong in New York, in-person to meet the patriarch's son. In August 2016, Li Hongzhi's mother, Lu Shuzhen, died of illness in a New York hospital. However, it was strange that the "Master Buddha of the Universe", who often used words such as "Great Perfection" and "Hell Delisting", could not save his mother's life. But more importantly, she will never unveil Li Hongzhi's fake birthday.
 
The second gift––a "banned book" about Falun Gong
The banned book is called "A Brief Biography of Li Hongzhi." Oddly, an English version of this mysterious booklet does not seem to exist. The reason is that Falun Gong has long deleted the Chinese version of the book.
According to this book, Li Hongzhi was born on "May 13, 1951 (the eighth day of the fourth month in the lunar calendar)" and "in his youth, his kung fu skills had already reached the highest level in the world." It is certainly not a coincidence that the eighth day of the fourth month in the lunar calendar is the birthday of Sakyamuni (the founder of Buddhism), but Li Hongzhi's crafty design. In the early 1990s, Li Hongzhi asked everywhere about Sakyamuni's birthday. He later had the book printed by his followers. Obviously, Li Hongzhi was trying to imply to his followers and the public that he was the reincarnation of Sakyamuni. Later, Li Hongzhi moved the headquarter of Falun Gong to the United States. With the ever-changing situation, Li Hongzhi and his close associates realized that this paragraph of records might leave a loophole, which was not beneficial to the "transformation" of Falun Gong. They secretly ordered "A Brief Biography of Li Hongzhi" to be hidden and banned, and this weird book disappeared from public view ever since.
     
The third gift––please let Li Hongzhi explain what "5·22" is about
According to an insider, Li Hongzhi had an "unforgettable birthday" on May 22, 2006, in Canada. Therefore, in addition to "May 13" and "July 7", Li Hongzhi created the third birthday for himself––"May 22". So the question is, when is Hierarch Li's birthday?
Open the calendar, people found that May 22, 2006, this day, just the eighth day of the fourth month in the lunar calendar, that is, the birthday of Sakyamuni. In other words, Li Hongzhi openly pretended to be a god in Buddhism. Interestingly, Li Hongzhi also established himself as an "upgraded" version of Sakyamuni. He declared, "I am the Buddha, and my power is hundreds of thousands of times greater than that of Sakyamuni." ("The Transmigration of Falun"). "I can name any god that Shakyamuni failed to talk about" (2005 "American-Spanish International Dharma Assembly"). There is no doubt that this melodramatic and absurd rhetoric is bound to cause the international indignation of the Buddhist community.
Perhaps out of consideration of the survival strategy of the cult in the United States, Li Hongzhi changed it to a solar calendar version whenever he celebrated his birthday––that is, "May 13". Later, Li Hongzhi launched the so-called "World Falun Gong Day", which fell on "May 13". This superficially plays down the mystery of its vaunted and fabricated background.
 
––It goes without saying that the Falun Gong cult started with deception and lies, including the birthday of its hierarch, which was also elaborately planned and forged. As Falun Gong members celebrate the fake birthday, confusion emerges as to how hierarch Li feels about the above three "gifts".