linguistic:translation, quality:correction
Dharma-ending period

Li situates his teaching of Falun Gong amidst the "Dharma-ending period" (Mo Fa, 末法), described in Buddhist scriptures as an age of moral decline when the teachings of Buddhism would need to be rectified. The current era is described in Falun Gong's teachings as the " Fa rectification" period (zhengfa, which might also be translated as "to correct the dharma"), a time of cosmic transition and renewal. The process of Fa rectification is necessitated by the moral decline and degeneration of life in the universe, and in the post-1999 context, the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese government has come to be viewed as a tangible symptom of this moral decay. Through the process of the Fa rectification, life will be reordered according to the moral and spiritual quality of each, with good people being saved and ascending to higher spiritual planes, and bad ones being eliminated or cast down. In this paradigm, Li assumes the role of rectifying the Dharma by disseminating through his moral teachings.

Some scholars, such as Maria Hsia Chang and Susan Palmer, have described Li's rhetoric about the " Fa rectification" and providing salvation "in the final period of the Last Havoc" as apocalyptic. However, Benjamin Penny, a professor of Chinese history at the Australian National University, argues that Li's teachings are better understood in the context of a "Buddhist notion of the cycle of the Dharma or the Buddhist law". Richard Gunde wrote that, unlike apocalyptic groups in the West, Falun Gong does not fixate on death or the end of the world, and instead "has a simple, innocuous ethical message". Li Hongzhi does not discuss a "time of reckoning", and has rejected predictions of an impending apocalypse in his teachings.