Chicagoans Celebrate Falun Gong

Falun Gong practitioners exercise beneath a Chicago landmark, the Picasso statue on Daley Plaza. The steel statue dominates the plaza, which is outside the Richard J. Daley Center, a building used for city and county administrative offices and courtrooms. (Stephen Gregory/Epoch Times)

CHICAGO—Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) practitioners gathered together on Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago on Friday afternoon to celebrate and tell others about the benefits of their spiritual practice. They hosted a picture exhibition that told a little of the history of Falun Gong and performed the practice’s five meditative exercises.

The occasion was Falun Dafa Day, which is at once the birthday of the teacher of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi, and the anniversary of the date in 1992 that Mr. Li began publicly teaching Falun Gong in China. The Epoch Times spoke with practitioners about what this day means to them.

Cui Zijiang is a former teacher at Tsinghua University—often called “China’s M.I.T.”—who began practicing Falun Gong in China in 1995. She says she normally has a calm heart, but each year, a few days before Falun Dafa Day, she says she feels very excited. It is a feeling, she says, that is hard to express in words.

Yang Qing, 76, is a retired engineer. He says that each year when Falun Dafa Day comes “I feel my life being raised being up. I am very excited and feel most fortunate and happy.”

Wendy Yang (no relation to Mr. Yang), 36, is a former marketing executive in Shanghai. Arrested for her practice of Falun Gong, she suffered torture and in 2008 fled China for the United States, where she obtained asylum. She says the meaning of Falun Dafa Day is found in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, the core principles of Falun Gong’s spiritual teachings.

“These are the principles I live my life by,” she says.

Holly Kellum, 22, is a college student in Boulder, Colorado who happened to be in Chicago on Dafa Day. She says Falun Dafa Day is “a really powerful time for us to come together and share with the world what Falun Gong has to offer.”

Tom Sun, a 45-year-old former freighter captain, fled China for the United States in 2008 with his family after suffering persecution. He spoke of the gratitude his family has to Falun Gong.

Before he began practicing Falun Gong Mr. Sun had problems with his vision, and his wife, Ni Zhou, had rheumatoid arthritis. Within one month after he and his wife began practicing Falun Gong, Mr. Sun says his vision problems cleared up and his wife’s arthritis was “completely cured.”

Mr. Yang’s family also experienced extraordinary improvements in health from practicing Falun Gong. “My wife was diagnosed with blood cancer. She tried different qigong practices and went to different hospitals, but nothing helped. She began practicing Falun Gong, and was quickly cured. When she walked, I couldn’t even keep up with her,” he said.

“I had witnessed such a dramatic change. This is how I began practicing Falun Gong. I had seen its spiritual power,” Mr. Yang said.

Others in his family then also took up the practice and also experienced remarkable changes. “My son had hepatitis B, which is very difficult to treat. After he practiced Falun Gong, the disease disappeared. My brother had been addicted to cigarettes for 30 years. Soon after he began practicing Falun Gong, he stopped smoking,” Mr. Yang said.

“Now, I am 76 years old, but I still do home construction and room decoration,” Mr. Yang said.

For Ms. Kellum, Falun Dafa Day is an anniversary of sorts. Her sister had started practicing Falun Gong in 2007, and she herself began practicing one year later, “almost on Falun Day Day.”

“I always felt that I was on this earth for a reason, for a very pressing reason, but I never knew what that reason was. But I read the teachings of Falun Gong and felt this was what I was waiting for. It felt like something I had been looking for for a long time,” Ms. Kellum said.

The practitioners from mainland China speak of Falun Dafa Day having special significance because of their experience of persecution.

“On Falun Dafa Day in 1999 I wanted to go out to practice the Falun Gong exercises with other practitioners, but there were policemen at my apartment who prevented me from going out. In Wuhan at that time the police were preparing to start the persecution,” said Ms. Yang.

The persecution officially began on July 20, 1999 with mass arrests of practitioners.

“Currently in China, many, many families are being persecuted, just like my family before,” said Mr. Sun. “We are very fortunate to be able to come to the United States. So, a day like today is very special to me and to my family.

“I hope today more people can come to understand better Falun Dafa from today’s activities. I also hope that governments around the world and people around the world can support Falun Dafa,” said Mr. Sun.

Ms. Cui sees Dafa Day as having worldwide significance. She pointed out that since Mr. Li had first taught Falun Gong, 100 million people had benefited from it and it is now practiced in 104 countries. “Falun Dafa Day is not just for myself but it is a day worth celebrating for everyone,” she said.

Ms. Yang looks forward to a future Falun Dafa Day. “Today I can do the Falun Gong exercises outside in public in the United States and it is so exciting. After 1999 I could only practice these exercises inside my home. One day in the future all of the Chinese people will be able to do these exercises outside,” she said.