.png)
A person practices the fifth exercise of Falun Gong, 'Strengthening Divine Powers'. (Jeff Nenarella/The Epoch Times)
In ancient China, people believed in a greater power beyond the material world, says Frank Zhao, a Falun Gong practitioner from mainland China. People lived in harmony with nature and believed that good would be rewarded with good and bad would be punished.
Mr. Zhao said he had always felt from an early age what the old Chinese people talked about was true, but he could not see how one could meld the old values with the modern world.
“I just could not believe that when people die that they just disappear, so I have a lot of interest about Tao and Gods theory. So … I have this feeling, I want to gain both of them—living in the modern society and modern life and at the same time cultivate.”
Falun Gong, he says, allowed him to bring those two apparently divergent paths together. “You could live a normal life and at the same time be a good person and cultivate yourself and improve yourself,” he said.
Falun Dafa (“Great Way of the Law Wheel”), also known as Falun Gong (“Law Wheel Qigong”), has been described in a number of ways, including as a “heart cultivation practice”. However, it is described on the Falun Dafa website as “a high-level cultivation practice guided by the characteristics of the universe—Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance”.
Combining elements of the Buddha School (compassion) and the Taoist School (truth), the Falun emblem accordingly carries ancient symbols of both—yin and yang symbols (also known as Taichi symbols) from the Taoist School and srivatsas or swastikas (known as wan in Chinese) from the Buddha School.
The “practice” involves four standing exercises and a fifth sitting meditation, which look similar to other qigong exercises. It is the “cultivation,” however, that sets Falun Dafa apart.
“Cultivators of Falun Dafa strive to cultivate their xinxing [mind-nature, or character]”, says the Web site, and harmonize with the three universal principles.
“The higher one is able to elevate xinxing, the deeper the understanding one has of the teachings presented in Zhuan Falun (Falun Dafa’s primary text).”
John Deller, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association in New South Wales, says it was the teachings that really attracted him to Falun Dafa when he began practising around 10 years ago.
Having taught Tai Chi and martial arts for over 20 years, Mr. Deller said he was familiar with qigong, but says, “I just found the universality of the principles—truthfulness, compassion and forbearance—very pure and it just drew me to want to know more about Falun Dafa.”
Having been diagnosed and treated for Hodgkinson’s disease, a virulent form of cancer, some years before, Mr. Deller says that Falun Dafa has kept him healthy and in a positive frame of mind.
“I am able to be calmer and to not react to things, and to look within myself in a conflict rather than blaming others.”
According to the Falun Dafa Web site, Falun Dafa has an ancient history and has been passed down quietly through the ages from a single master to a single disciple.
It was first taught publicly in 1992 by Mr Li Hongzhi (referred to by practitioners as “Master” or “Teacher”) in the city of Changchun, China. As Mr. Li lectured around the country, people began to share their individual experiences and the practice spread rapidly.
By 1998, at least 70 million people were estimated to have taken up the practice in China alone, the Web site says.
Thomas Dodson, now a resident of Australia, learned the practice while living in Paris some 12 years ago. He visited China in early 1999, before the July clampdown, and stayed in Changchun City, an experience he says he will never forget.
“It was incredible at that time because just about every family had one, if not two, members practicing Falun Gong,” he said, noting that Changchun then had a population of around seven million people.
“On the second day I was there, a special event had been organized for the Ministry of Sport and over 10,000 practitioners had come together to demonstrate the exercises,” he said.
Mr. Dobson said there were “practice sites everywhere,” with some of the sites having two sessions in the morning alone, each with around 200 participants.
“If you said you were a Falun Gong practitioner there would be a lot of respect,” he said.
“To have the whole city working on personal cultivation—that was pretty impressive”.
Jennifer Zeng is the author of Witnessing History, a grueling account of the torture she endured in a labor camp because she practiced Falun Gong.
Now a resident of Australia, Ms. Zeng says everyone was talking about Falun Dafa in China before the persecution.
“You don’t have to advertise for it; people are so eagerly relating it to their families and friends, to everyone they meet, because they are so excited after discovering such a good thing,” she said.
Ms. Zeng, like many of those who took up the practice, experienced remarkable healing benefits, which allowed her to lead a normal life after being bedridden for years with hepatitis C, something she had gained from bad blood transfusions.
It is not, however, the main reason that she remains a practitioner.
“I had always been searching for the ultimate truth of the universe. Falun Dafa answered all my questions towards life.”
