Phoenix's Posts (6)

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Everyone Must be a Worker 

Yixian
(Translated by Conglong and Edited by Kaer)
 
January 23, 2014



This beautiful fairyland is created by hard work, especially manual labor, and it is built with one block at a time. Even the picture in our mind is very beautiful, but everything would be void if we did not do anything.

The beautiful life and environment are the products of creation, and no matter how grand and beautiful the ideal is, it will not be realized without the practice of hard  work.

Work can purify one’s soul. One who is not willing to participate in labor work is the one who looks down upon laborers and thinks himself superior. It is only when we join the labor work and are grateful for others’ contributions that can we cherish the fruits of other people’s labor and our own labor.

Xuefeng requests each resident member of the Second Home to pass the labor test first. No matter whether you are a millionaire or a talent, and no matter whether you are a man over eighty but still capable of working, or a young girl, firstly you have to be a manual laborer who is not afraid of doing dirty jobs. One who is not a slacker is someone useful and able to shoulder the responsibilities.

Every brother and sister in the Second Home must do one or two hours of manual labor each day to avoid becoming corrupt, even if they are a teacher or a website administrator. Actually, doing a manual job for one or two hours each day is a good adjustment for those who sit in front of computers for long periods of time and it is also good for maintaining the body’s vitality.

Each job in the community has one person in charge, but this is also flexible. When everyone is imperfect, people could have conflicts. so if someone is not happy working with someone else, it is fine to request changing which job they do. Because the community intends to make everyone feel happy and free, you can also request to change if you do not like a particular job or want to try another one. The spiritual guide or the branch manager will make a change when a situation calls for one. Therefore, nobody will feel unhappy because they are doing a job they do not like, and in the mean time, everyone has an opportunity to experience a variety of different jobs.

There are all kinds of group work projects in the Second Home, for example, mixing cement, moving bricks, fertilizing, watering vegetables, and planting flowers, trees, and potatoes. Collective work is always a happy experience because they are not only physical exercises, but they also make people feel happy as they joke with each other, and by working together, the job can be completed quickly. Therefore, all web administrators and teachers enjoy this kind of collective work very much.

In the Second Home, working is very enjoyable because no one needs to worry about their basic needs, and specialists in their fields wash the clothes, cook the food, clean the rooms, and do all the other jobs, and each member has a separate bedroom so they can enjoy their privacy and rest well. Members get along with each other very well and the living environment of the community is very beautiful, clean, and tidy. No matter what your job is, you will not be supervised or examined by anyone as long as you try your best.

Each worker is expected to work for six hours each day with high efficiency and to strive to deliver first-class results. As “paradise management” is implemented, each one has ownership of their job, so as long as the job is done and it does not affect others, it is up to the job owner to decide when and how it is done.

Because there is neither worry nor pressure, working has become an enjoyable game. Everyone one can put their talents into full play and enjoy the happiness and most jobs in the community are connected with nature. When working alone, one can contemplate the magnificence and secrets of nature quietly, but when working in a group, they can enjoy the comradery of team cooperation in a very relaxed and cordial atmosphere.

Manual labor can create material wealth directly and make life more comfortable and convenient, as well as preserving the living environment, clean and tidy. It can also purify one’s soul; people become more humble and know the importance of respecting the laborers as well as the importance of respecting both their own work as well as the work of others. They will also become grateful and realize that there is no free lunch, therefore they cherish their blessings and refuse to waste or live extravagantly. When one connects more with Mother Nature, their heart will become softer and they will realize the importance of revering LIFE and nature. 

Therefore, I feel that it is because everyone enjoys working and because nobody even thinks about exploiting or oppressing others, that the Second Home becomes so beautiful and harmonious. Everyone has the spirit of serving others and contributing to community. In this home, people who are diligent are regarded as very beautiful, especially the manual works.

source: http://lifechanyuan.org/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=6734&extra=page%3D1

生命禅院中文网 http://www.lifecosmos.org/bbs/portal.php

生命禅院英文网http://lifechanyuan.org/bbs/forum.php

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Ladies Shall be Firstly Respected 
Yixian 
(Translated by Conglong and Edited by Kaer)
 
January 24, 2014

Women have been suffering discrimination for thousands of years, and their positions are quite low in both marriage and society. Although the development of society has raised the value of women, within marriage, traditional families, and society, they still belong to a disadvantaged group and their values are not acknowledged. Their dignity has been denied and their safety is still not guaranteed, and 
this can be proven by the amounts of domestic violence and sexual abuse.
 
There have been many women living in the Second Home, the middle-aged are the majority, who have shown that women are awakening and they are not willing to be ruled and discriminated against. Instead, they want to lead dignified, meaningful, and free lives. 

In the Second Home, we have implement the value that, “the positions of men and women are reversed and women should be firstly respected”. The rights, safety, and dignity of women are fully guaranteed. You cannot see women being bullied or discriminated against, and there are no more heavy household chores for women, but they can put their talents into full play. Each woman has her own space which is free from disturbance and it is unnecessary to lock her
 door at any time because nobody is allowed to enter into a woman’s room without her permission, and nobody dares to sexually harass a woman. Besides, there are no “leaders” who will impose their will on women and all things are done voluntarily. Women do not need to worry about the care of seniors or the education of children because the community takes full responsibility for those chores. There are no more conflicts between women and mothers-in-law or sisters-in-law. On the contrary, they have many close sisters with whom to chat, play, study, and work.

In Lifechanyuan, women should be firstly respected in all situations. Women are the lotuses, and men are the green leaves.
 
1. Men are not allowed to contend with women.
2. Men should be willing to and be brave enough to sacrifice for women.
3. It is fine for women to seduce men, but men are not allowed to sexually harass women.
4. Under any dangerous circumstances, men should be in front to protect women.
5. Women take precedence over men in the matter of enjoyment.
6. Men shall take the initiative in doing heavy and dirty tasks, while light and clean work shall be reserved for women.
7. Men are not permitted to humiliate, desecrate, abuse, beat, maltreat, persecute, scorn, or deride women.
8. Men are not permitted to limit women's personal freedoms in the name of love, physically or spiritually.

Experience has shown that having the value that “women should be firstly respected”, all female members feel very happy and safe, and almost none of them are willing to go back to their traditional lives.

The community also becomes more harmonious this way, because women are naturally more quiet and peaceful, and they like harmony and serenity. They are naturally kind and loving with soft and big hearts.

Women are firstly respected means that men are not allowed to seduce women in this community. In the aspect of sexuality, women have the great freedom of being able to take the initiative, which is good to foster their independence, and will eventually be helpful for their spiritual development and sublimation.

Women are firstly respected also means that men are passive in love. This is good for men to cultivate their personalities. “Butterfly will come when the flower scents”. It is only when a man is becoming perfect and he brings happiness and joy to women that his appearance becomes enjoyable, and therefore welcomed by all women.

As a woman in the Second Home, I often have the feeling of being cared for and loved. I feel very blessed.

In fact, when a women feels happy, men will be happy too. 
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We Will Not Change Our Original Intention
Xuefeng
(Translated by Tongxin & Conglong)
 
April 15, 2014
 
After the Second Home was disbanded in Yunnan, some government officials kept telling me that although the community was very civilized and ideal, its existence did not match the current national objectives, so the future development direction of the Second Home should be focused on market economic development, rather than on building a utopia.
 
Recently, the Second Home has taken this lesson and started shifting our focus toward economic development. However, we have ignored the infrastructure development. Many people live in one room, and there is neither a shower room, nor a toilet. Our living conditions are very basic: we drink the bitter saline - alkali water and eat almost exclusively turnip and Boy Choi, instead we have invested quite a lot on trees, vegetables, and the growing of crops. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this in the short term, but this kind of living situation should not be allowed to continue.
 
I am always thinking that we have done nothing wrong in the past. What we have done before is beneficial to the sustainable development of human beings. It is beneficial to our country as well as to each citizen. The complete “defeat” we had experienced in Yunnan is not because there was something wrong with our strategy, nor in our tactics. The problem lies in the conflicts between civilization and barbarism, the conflicts between the backward consciousness/system and the advanced ideology and lifestyle, and the conflicts between the conservative authority and innovation.
 
In today’s society, everything revolves around the axis of money and profits. People’s relationships are based strictly on financial interests, and the relationships between people and nature are like life and death contests. Human beings have lost their moral constraints, their conscientious judgement, and their dignity. They have lost their faith and love, even the love of their family and friends. If such situations continue, nature will take “revenge” on people, and what is more severe is that people will live very tiring lives, and they will get exhausted both physically and mentally.
 
But in our community, we act in a contrary way. We follow the teachings of Lao Tzu “Like what people do not like, and do what people do not do”, and the teachings of Jesus “The way that the general public is walking on is the way leading to death”. Now, if we surrender to the secular world and study the money oriented and prioritized values and principles, we will be moving backwards and walking towards self-destruction.
 
The past five years’ practice of our community has fully proven that this new production and life mode accords well with the law of nature, humanity, and the people’s nature of origin. It also accords with the direction of humanity’s sustainable development. Chanyuan celestials who have lived in the community can prove this too. Although such a mode is not in accordance with present world trends, and is not accepted by our nation and people, it completely accords with the long-term interests of human beings, the interests of our children and grandchildren, and many people’s pursuits of realizing a better life.
 
Therefore, we cannot change the original intention of our community, we need to swim upstream and be the mainstay of civilization. Of course there will be prices to pay, even the price of encountering a similar difficulty again. We will meet lots of difficulties on the way forward, and it is full of crises and dangers too, but no matter how big the resistance is that we will meet, there is no way we can retreat. What we will do is to go forward without fearing death. Even if we die, we should die on the way toward the “spiritual mountain”.
 
This requires us to follow strictly the teachings of Buddha, to “be free from the forms of an ego, a personality, a being, a life, a dharma”, be empty and free in heart, because only when there is nothing distracting your heart, can one achieve a state of no fears, no worries, and no troubles, can one overcome all obstacles and resistance on the way to realize the highest ideal of human beings and the dream of going to heaven.
 
We must be the pioneers of a new era. As pioneers, we should not be afraid of any difficulties in life: no matter whether we are in the sunny comfortable south or the windy dusty north, no matter whether we live in a five-star hotel or in a leaking thatched hut, no matter whether we wear silk and jewels or patches of rags, and no matter we have a table with delicacies or we eat branny pharynx course, as long as we can still breathe, we will create and pursue a beautiful life, and we will try our best to establish a new system where people, society, and nature can coexist harmoniously. We will create an oasis in the desert, a fairyland on earth -we will build a real Xanadu. 
 
Do not change the original intention, and always go forward without fears of death. This is the spirit of Chanyuan celestials, and this is the character of Chanyuan celestials.
Learn more from the following Links:
Life Chanyuan(Chinese)
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Action against the Fourth Branch of the Second Home is Starting

Xuefeng

(Translated by Ailian and Edited by Kaer) Nov 28, 2013

Following the forced cancelation of our contract on the third branch of the Second Home in Chuxiong, Yunnan, without any legal compensation and which forced our forty brothers and sisters in the third branch to leave, the landlords of the first branch which locates in Anning city, came in droves and wanted to cancel the contract with us. At three o’clock this afternoon, seven “guests” came to our fourth branch which locates fifteen kilometres away from Lincang city. These guests included the judicature leader of the Mangpan township government to which local villagers belong, the vice principle of Lincang technical school which has a signed contract with the local village committee, the landlord of the fourth branch, and another four unidentified people. The landlord said that these four people are his “friends” and that they came to inform me that local villagers want to take the land back and that the technical school has decided to return the land to the local villagers, and hence our contact is no longer legally valid. Our landlord said that he has no choice. Here I want to add this point, the local village committee signed the contract with the technical school, and later on it was transferred to our landlord. We have a twenty-three year contract with our landlord. The expiration date is 31st July 2034. The local villagers are requesting to take the land back because they think we changed the nature of the contract. In fact, the nature of the contract did not change at all. The nature of the original contract is to allow for planting and cultivating and also to provide a practice field for students in the technical school. We have always met and continue to meet those two requirements exactly. Obviously these are all just excuses; the essence is that their true purpose is to wipe out all three branches of the Second Home in Yunnan province within three to four months. Our requirement is that we want to carry on the contract.

 source from http://lifechanyuan.org/ 

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 The Second Home of Lifechanyuan in China Seeks Urgent International Help!

 

Nov 09, 2013

Our community is facing a calamity, as the government is trying to dismiss all members in the community.

 

Six months ago, the 3rd branch of the community, located at Chuxiong City, Yunnan Province, China had their power, telephone, and network cables cut, and a large hole was dug in the road leading to the community. Recently, twenty local villagers came to the 3rd branch under the authority of local government. They pulled down our gate and cancelled  the lease contract by force. They also required that thirty-six members who lives in the 3rd branch leave, and they sent officers from local Police Station, Public Security Bureau, Civil Affairs Bureau, National Land Resources Bureau, City Building Bureau, and Forest Security Bureau to carry out their objective. Today, they even sent a bus intending to take people away.

 

Community members of the 3rd branch are going to be dismissed, after that, it is very possible that the government plans to do the same to the other two branches.

 

In the last four and a half years, we have never done anything illegal. Last year, 350 police officers were sent by Public Security Bureau a few times to do a thorough investigation of this community branch and confirmed that we had not done anything illegal and that we had no criminal backgrounds. Further, we have never harmed nature, Chinese society or any person, and we have never opposed the Chinese government and the Communist Party of China. We keep our community fully transparent and publish almost everything on the internet. Friends from France, India, America, Germany, Belgium, Malaysia, England, Japan and some other countries had visited us and bear witness that the Second Home is a very civilized community.

 

We have yet to determine whether the action was a decision of the provincial or central government.

 

I am asking for urgent help and moral support from international communities and ecovillages, as well as from other international organizations and individuals. Please do whatever you can to save our community as soon as possible. Please!

 

 

Xuefeng

Founder of the Second Home

 

 

Attached: The Full Story of the 3rd Branch Event

 

 

The Full Story of the 3rd Branch Event

 

June 13, 2012 The Public Security Bureau from Chuxiong city conducted an sudden investigation of the 3rd branch without notice. They claimed that they had received reports of illegal activities taking place within the community.

 

A pair of police officers interviewed each member and asked many questions, including the community founder’s name, the member’s home address and national identification number, how the community finances itself, the level of freedom that community members enjoy, our spiritual values, how children are educated, and the like.

 

They also checked every one’s room and the data in the personal computer. The police officers used three video cameras to record the entire investigation.

 

June 15, 2012 The Public Security Bureau informed our community founder Xuefeng that the investigation was a legal process and that all members of the 3rd branch were free. They also asked for our support in any future investigations.

 

Mar 6, 2013 We were notified by local Village Committee that the government was going to reclaim the land that the 3rd branch leased because the local villagers had insufficient land on which to live, but no formal written notice was presented.

 

Founder Xuefeng then wrote to the committee, explaining that as long as everything was being done through the legal process, we would be ready to support any decisions of the government.

 

Mar-April 2013 There were a few negotiations between the community and village representatives, but no agreement was met. We bought the property at the price of 540,000RMB. According to the contract terms, if any party breaks the contract, the other party would receive compensation equal to ten times the contract value, also counting in the investment that was put on renovation and new buildings, we asked for a total compensation of only 5,000,000RM. But the village representatives did not agree and also said we can take new buildings and roads with us.

 

Apr 25, 2013 The road leading to the 3rd branch was vandalized, and power and network cables were cut.

 

May 17, 2013 The wall of gate was pull down.

 

Note: During the last six months, we have reported the above incident to local police station. They came and investigated the case, but gave us no feedback and took no action to satisfy our complaints.

 

Nov 05, 2013 A group of people claiming to represent the Village Committee and other government bureaus, but without proper identification, came to the 3rd branch and called Xuefeng to tell him come to a meeting in Chuxiong city immediately.

 

On the same day, they informed us that our important guest Michiyo, the president of GEN Asia and Oceania, should not visit the 3rd branch.

 

Nov 06 -07, 2013 Xuefeng met with local village representatives who claimed that the lease contract signed between our landlord and us was invalid and that they wanted to reclaim the land. No photo or video recording were allowed during the meeting. After the meeting, they disassembled the gate to the 3rd branch and took it away.

 

Nov 08, 2013 In order to avoid any possible physical harm to community members, we decided to give up the property of the 3rd branch and agreed that we would move out before November 23. Government and village representatives then announced that the lease contract was cancelled immediately and that we would not be given any compensation. They also required all residents to go home and that they not go to the other branches.

 

Nov 09, 2013 A bus was sent to the 3rd branch by police and they contacted the families of community members and told them that Xuefeng is a big cheater and that the families  should take their relatives back home immediately. They also told people that they were coming to save them.

 

In the evening, Xuefeng had lost contact with all members in the 3rd branch including the branch manager.

 

On the same day, We decided that Lifechanyuan will apply non-violent noncooperation when facing representatives from any government departments.

 

  http://lifechanyuan.org/

            

            

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