Perhaps you’ve seen me sitting out on Healy Lawn, with legs crossed and eyes closed in peaceful meditation amidst the hustle and bustle of the early afternoon. So what is this meditation practice? Is it tai chi? Yoga? Why do I practice it? Actually, this practice is called Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa), and my reasons for practicing it are much deeper than mere stress relief and peace of mind.
I came to first learn about Falun Gong in high school. I had read about famous East Asian figures such as Lao Tzu, Confucius and Milerepa. What did these people all have in common? They all talked about “cultivation,” which I understand as improving one’s mind and heart, getting rid of one’s bad attachments and desires with the goal of returning to one’s true self. I was deeply interested in cultivation and wanted to do it. But how was I to do it? None of these people were still alive, and thus were no longer teaching anything about cultivation directly.
I came across Falun Gong after hearing about it from a schoolmate. Falun Gong is an ancient cultivation practice that has been passed down from master to disciple in pure form for thousands of years. Its teachings are unaltered and direct. Li Hongzhi made Falun Gong public in 1992, and only nine years later, more than 100 million people in more than 50 countries around the world practice it. When I began to read Zhuan Falun, the main text of Falun Gong, I became very excited. It was a book of cultivation! Moreover, although the book is very profound, its principles were simple enough to be summed up in three words: truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. To cultivate Falun Gong is to assimilate to these three principles and to the universe. In addition, Falun Gong has five sets of gentle exercises, which serve to cultivate and purify one’s body.
I immediately started to study the teachings of Li, which are the guide for Falun Gong cultivation practice, and do the exercises everyday. As I became more and more diligent with the practice, I truly began to transform myself from the inside. My thoughts, words and deeds, which always used to come from a self-centered point of view, were beginning to align more and more with truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Relationships with my family and friends improved, my grades improved, and I became much more socially adept because I was learning how to think of others first instead of my own self-consciousness and shyness. In high school, I even gained the courage to sit out on the lawn and give my fellow classmates an opportunity to learn about Falun Gong.
This virtuous practice is being brutally persecuted in its birthplace, China. Tens of thousands of innocent and kindhearted Falun Gong practitioners are being beaten, tortured and killed just for trying to improve their minds and bodies. In the Aug. 5 issue of The Washington Post, a Chinese government official admitted to using violence, brainwashing and propaganda as the means to eradicate the practice. Falun Gong practitioners are being forced into labor camps and “brainwashing” sessions, where they are denied sleep and are deluged with state-fabricated propaganda for days, even weeks or months. Even here in the United States, Falun Gong practitioners have been beaten by Chinese thugs hired by the Chinese government and have been verbally harassed and threatened simply for cultivating their hearts.
However, truthfulness, compassion and tolerance will always prevail, and Falun Gong practitioners in China have truly manifested these three words in their actions. Throughout the course of the two-and-a-half year persecution, not a single Falun Gong practitioner has ever fought back against his or her oppressors. Furthermore, they have risked beatings, torture and even their own lives to peacefully appeal in Tiananmen Square. They do this solely for the right to practice truthfulness, compassion and tolerance without harassment. One quote from the teachings of Li sums this up well: “We are not against the government now, nor will we be in the future. Other people may treat us badly, but we do not treat others badly, nor do we treat people as enemies.”
