• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / Featured China

Guan Yin Citta: Leader Dies, Crackdown on Buddhist Movement Continues

11/13/2021Zhao Zhangyong |

In 2019, Bitter Winter revealed a secret plan to eradicate the group, whose leader died on November 10, in China. It did not succeed.

By Zhao Zhangyong

Master Lu Junhong. Source: Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door website.
Master Lu Junhong. Source: Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door website.

In 2019, Bitter Winter published a confidential document by Fujian province authorities whose title was “Notice on Conducting the Special Work of a Massive Investigation, Massive Purge, and Massive Research of Guan Yin Citta.” The document noted the expansion in China of a Buddhist new religious movement headquartered in Australia, Guan Yin Citta, labeled it a xie jiao (i.e., a group banned for propagating “heterodox teachings”: the common translation “evil cult” is less accurate), and called for a crackdown, which extended to Shanxi and other provinces.

It seems that the crackdown was not successful. In October and November, devotees of Guan Yin Citta have been taken to police stations to be interrogated in Shanghai and other cities, and another violent media campaign has been started against the movement, claiming its growth in China is cause for serious alarm.

What is Guan Yin Citta? Its complete name is Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door (心靈法門) and it has been founded by Master Lu Junhong (卢军宏), who died on November 10, 2021 in Sydney, Australia, at the age of 62. Lu was born in Shanghai on August 4, 1959, in a family of musicians. His father was a teacher at the Shanghai Opera School, where Lu also graduated. After graduation, he worked as a conductor in Shanghai.

In 1989, he moved to Australia, and in 1995 became an Australian citizen. He started devoting more and more time to spreading Chinese Buddhism in Australia, through a magazine he founded, “Buddhism,” an Australian Chinese Buddhist Association, and several radio shows, which led to the foundation of his own radio station, the Australian Oriental Chinese Radio. Eventually, the Australian Oriental Media Chinese Buddhist Association obtained registration as a charity in Australia, followed by the UK Guanyin Citta Dharma Door Buddhist Charity Foundation, registered as a charity in London in 2016.

Several centers were also opened in the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan. According to the Fujian confidential document, activities in Mainland China were started clandestinely in 2009. As other leaders of Asian new religious movements, Master Lu was also involved in peace activities, including through participation in events hosted by the United Nations.

Grand Dharma rally with Master Lu in Singapore, 2017.
Grand Dharma rally with Master Lu in Singapore, 2017. Credits.

Guan Yin Citta emphasizes the repeated recitation of classic Buddhist mantras and sutras, and the practice of setting animals captive or in danger free in the nature. For instance, devotees buy and liberate in appropriate waters fishes sold for domestic aquariums.

Some of Lu’s practices have been criticized by other Buddhists as non-traditional. Lu practiced “totem readings,” believing that each human being has a “double” in the spiritual world called “totem,” which remains the same through the various reincarnations. Contacting the “totem” allows a spiritual master to know about the past lives of a devotee, and also to obtain information useful to improve health and cure illnesses.

Lu also introduced the practice of the “yellow paper houses.” These are sheets of paper with dots to be crossed each time the devotee chants a mantra. When all dots have been crossed, the “yellow paper house” is ritually burned. Critics also claim that Lu was worshipped by disciples as an incarnation of Guan Yin or Avalokiteśvara, the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion. Devotees argue they saw Lu more as a “spokesperson” for the bodhisattva.

A “yellow paper house.” From Weibo.
A “yellow paper house.” From Weibo.

In 2017, an article in the CCP-owned daily The Beijing News claimed that Guan Yin Citta had been listed as a xie jiao. Devotees of the movement have repeatedly told Bitter Winter that as far as they know Guan Yin Citta is not included in any official list of the xie jiao. However, it seems that now being consistently called a xie jiao by CCP media and the China Anti-Xie-Jiao Association leads to being treated as a xie jiao by the police and the courts of law.

The CCP has also mobilized the government-controlled China Buddhist Association, which has declared that from a Buddhist point of view Guan Yin Citta is not orthodox, and similar statements have been published by the Hong Kong Buddhist Association and Malaysian Buddhist bodies that are normally influenced by their Chinese counterparts.

These statements did not seem to have stopped the progress of Guan Yin Citta, either in China or internationally. The China Anti-Xie-Jiao Association recently claimed that Guan Yin Citta has three million members. It looks like just another failed attempt at eradicating a movement labeled (although perhaps not listed) as a xie jiao. Normally, these failures lead to more violent forms of persecution, although how the group will evolve after the death of his leader is difficult to predict.

Tagged With: Buddhism

bw-profile
Zhao Zhangyong

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Buddhist Temples Vandalized in California

    Buddhist Temples Vandalized in California

  • Pure Land Buddhism Under Attack in China

    Pure Land Buddhism Under Attack in China

  • Institute of Tantric Buddhism: The Repression Continues

    Institute of Tantric Buddhism: The Repression Continues

  • Outdoor Buddhist Statues Destroyed in Temples and Scenic Areas

    Outdoor Buddhist Statues Destroyed in Temples and Scenic Areas

Keep Reading

  • Chinese Buddhist Monks Compelled to Watch “Red” Movies
    Chinese Buddhist Monks Compelled to Watch “Red” Movies

    As part of their mandatory study of Communist Party history, “Party movie classes” are organized in monasteries.

  • Followers of Persecuted Buddhist Leader Arrested in Henan
    Followers of Persecuted Buddhist Leader Arrested in Henan

    Nobody knows whether Tian Ruisheng died or went into seclusion. What is certain, members of his Xiang Gong movement are still persecuted.

  • The Xuanzang Temple Incident: Who Was the Agent Provocateur?
    The Xuanzang Temple Incident: Who Was the Agent Provocateur?

    A woman left in the Nanjing shrine memorial tablets of Japanese war criminals. The CCP seized the opportunity to promote a nationwide crackdown on temples.

  • Puning Temple: Why Xi Jinping Celebrated a Genocide
    Puning Temple: Why Xi Jinping Celebrated a Genocide

    The Chinese president visited the complex built by the Qianlong Emperor to commemorate his 18th-century extermination of 650,000 Dzungar Buddhists.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • There Are Christian Uyghurs, Too: New Organization Launched in London by Ruth Ingram
  • Hui Muslims Clash with Police Over Mosque’s “Sinicization” by Ma Guangyao
  • Russia: Lunatic Theory that Yellowstone Volcano Caused the War in Ukraine Gains Momentum by Massimo Introvigne
  • Xi Jinping: Beijing’ National Art Museum Is Not Socialist Enough by Hu Zimo
  • Hong-Kong-Style National Security Law Comes to Macau by Gladys Kwok
  • Vandalism Against Catholic Churches on the Rise in Bavaria by PierLuigi Zoccatelli
  • Pakistan: Bishops’ Patience Exhausted After Killings at Catholic School by Daniela Bovolenta

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY