Weekend of Celebration of World Falun Dafa Day Begins in New York

Outside the United Nations building in New York City on May 11, two Falun Gong practitioners hold a banner emblazoned with the core principles of this spiritual practice: truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. In the background, hundreds of practitioners meditate. The event is part of a celebration of the 20-year anniversary of the introduction of Falun Gong in China. (Epoch Times Staff).

NEW YORK—What was an anomaly near the UN on Friday morning used to be a daily occurrence throughout China in the mid-90s.

Hundreds of people lined up in neat rows, a sea of peaceful faces with eyes closed—meditating.

Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on 1st Ave. was filled with people who had traveled from all corners of the word to celebrate 20 years of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) as part of a weekend-long observance of World Falun Dafa Day.

“[Falun Gong] is…the greatest single spiritual movement in Asia today. There is nothing that begins to compare with it in courage and importance,” Mark Palmer, former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary and board member of Freedom House, said a decade ago.

Exactly 20 years ago on Sunday, Mr. Li Hongzhi taught his first public class of Falun Dafa in a schoolhouse in Changchun, northeastern China—introducing a practice with roots extending back thousands of years, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC). By early 1999, there were 100 million people practicing Falun Dafa in China alone.

The rest of the world has been catching on, too—Falun Dafa is practiced in over 70 countries around the world, according to the FDIC. Outside the UN practitioners from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Asia could easily be found, alongside practitioners from the United States and Canada.