Falun Gong

Falun Gong, literally "Practice of the Wheel of Law", also known as Falun Dafa, (Chinese: 大法; pinyin: Fǎlún dàfǎ; lit. "Great Law of the Wheel of Law"), is a system of "mind and body cultivation" introduced by Li Hongzhi to the public in 1992. Falun Dafa has five sets of meditation exercises (four standing and one sitting meditation) and moral requirements summarized as Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. The teachings of Falun Dafa are articulated in the two main books of the practice, Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun. Teachings deal with issues such as "cultivation of virtue and character", "moral standards for different levels", and "salvation of all sentient beings", among others. The teachings have been variously described as spiritual, religious or metaphysical.

Falun Gong has been the focus of international attention since July 20, 1999, when the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) imposed a ban and began persecution of those in mainland China. Several governments, international human rights organizations and scholars consider the persecution a human rights violation. Amnesty International believes that the crackdown is politically motivated and a restriction of fundamental freedoms.

Particular concerns have been raised over reports of torture, illegal imprisonment, psychiatric abuse, forced labour and organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The crackdown by the Chinese government has led practitioners attempt to draw attention to its cause by demonstrating the meditation exercises, distributing flyers, and displaying banners, thus publicising Falun Gong more widely in developed countries. The U.S. House of Representatives accused China of unlawful harassment of United States citizens and residents who practice Falun Gong, and passed a resolution (by a 420:0 vote) which called on China to "cease its persecution and harassment of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States".

The exact number of Falun Gong practitioners is not known. Falun Gong claims that there are 100 million practitioners worldwide, in more than 80 countries and the books have been translated into over 40 languages.

Origins

Falun Gong (Falun Dafa) was introduced to the public by Li Hongzhi on May 13, 1992 in Changchun, Jilin. According to Li, Falun Gong is an advanced "cultivation system" in the "Buddha School" which, in the past, was handed down to chosen disciples and served as an intensive "cultivation method" that required practitioners with extremely high “Xinxing” (mind-nature; heart-nature; character) or “great inborn quality.” Li taught the practice for three years and since then Falun Gong has also been promoted by practitioners themselves voluntarily.

Theoretical background

The content of Li Hongzhi's books include commentaries on questions that have been raised in China's qigong community. Falun Gong originally surfaced in the institutional field of alternative Chinese science, not religion. The debate between what can be called "naturalist" and "supernaturalist" schools of qigong theory has produced a considerable amount of literature. Xu Jian stated in The Journal of Asian Studies 58 (4 November 1999): "Situated both in scientific researches on qigong and in the prevailing nationalistic revival of traditional beliefs and values, this discursive struggle has articulated itself as an intellectual debate and enlisted on both sides a host of well-known writers and scientists — so much so that a veritable corpus of literature on qigong resulted. In it, two conflicting discourses became identifiable. Taking “discourse” in its contemporary sense as referring to forms of representation that generate specific cultural and historical fields of meaning, we can describe one such discourse as rational and scientific and the other as psychosomatic and metaphysical. Each strives to establish its own order of power and knowledge, its own “truth” about the “reality” of qigong, although they differ drastically in their explanation of many of its phenomena. The controversy centers on the question of whether and how qigong can induce “supranormal abilities” (teyi gongneng). The psychosomatic discourse emphasizes the inexplicable power of qigong and relishes its occult workings, whereas the rational discourse strives to demystify many of its phenomena and to situate it strictly in the knowledge of modern science." The Chinese government has generally tried to encourage qigong as a science and discourage religious or supernatural elements. However, the category of science in China tends to include things that are generally not considered scientific in the West, including qigong and traditional Chinese medicine.

David Aikman wrote that unlike in America, where many may believe that qigong is a socially neutral, subjective, New Age-style concept incapable of scientific proof, much of China's scientific establishment believes in the existence of Qi. Controlled experiments by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the late 1970s and early 1980s concluded that qi, when emitted by a qigong expert, "actually constitutes measurable infrared electromagnetic waves and causes chemical changes in static water through mental concentration."

Theories about the cultivation of elixir (dan), "placement of the mysterious pass" (xuanguan shewei), among others, are also found in ancient Chinese texts such as The Book of Elixir (Dan Jing), Daoist Canon (Tao Zang) and Guide to Nature and Longevity (Xingming Guizhi). Falun Gong's teachings tap into a wide array of phenomena and cultural heritage that has been debated for ages. However, the definitions of many of the terms used differ somewhat from Buddhist and Daoist traditions.

Li Hongzhi states in Falun Buddha Fa Lecture in Europe: "Since the time Dafa was made public, I have unveiled some inexplicable phenomena in qigong as well as things that hadn’t been explained in the qigong community. But... the reason why so many people are studying Dafa...[is] because our Fa can truly enable people to Consummate, truly save people, and allow you to truly ascend to high levels in the process of cultivation. Whether it’s your realm of mind or the physical quality of your body, the Fa truly enables you to reach the standards of different levels."

Andrew P. Kipnis said that qigong may seem to be religious to laymen in the West because it deals with spiritual matters. As many Falun Gong concepts can be traced to Buddhism and Taoism, it may seem even more like a religion to the outsider "Falun Gong grew initially into a space termed scientific [in China], but was insulated from the spaces formally acknowledged as institutionalized science in Western countries"

Founding and pre-persecution

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Li Hongzhi teaching the System in United Nations General Assembly Hall, Geneva

Invited by qigong organizations from each area, Li traveled to almost all major cities in China from 1992 to 1994 to teach the practice. Since then, Falun Gong has been spread by practitioners themselves, with Li only giving speeches on an irregular basis around the world. Falun Gong quickly grew in popularity in China, and starting in 1996 Li and practitioners introduced the practice to other countries.

According to the biography which appeared as an appendix to Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi had been taught ways of "cultivation practice" (xiulian) by several Masters of the Dao and the Buddhist schools of thought from a very young age. This biography says that he was trained by Quan Jue, the 10th Heir to the Great Law of the Buddha School, at age four. He was then trained by a Taoist master at age eight. This master left him at age twelve, and he was then trained by a master of the Great Way School with the Taoist alias of True Taoist, who came from the Changbai Mountains.

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Falun Gong morning practice

After Li stopped teaching the practice in Mainland China, before 1999, people learned the practice by word of mouth, and was usually practiced in the morning in parks like many other forms of exercise in China. After teaching publicly in Changchun, Li began to make his ideas more widely accessible and affordable, charging relatively less than other qigong systems for lectures, tapes, and books. For the first few years of transmitting Falun Gong, Li was granted several awards by Chinese governmental organizations to encourage him to continue promoting what was then considered to be a wholesome practice. As noted by University of Montreal scholar David Ownby, neither Li Hongzhi nor Falun Gong were particularly controversial in the beginning. Li became an "instant star of the qigong movement," with his practice method celebrated at the Beijing Oriental Health Expos of both 1992 and 1993. Falun Gong was welcomed into the Scientific Qigong Research Association, which sponsored and helped to organise many of Li's activities between 1992 and 1994, including the 54 large scale lectures given throughout China in most major cities to a total audience of 20,000. Its scale was unprecedented at that time. The practice was popularized in mainland China for seven years, mainly by word of mouth. It attracted many retired persons, factory workers, farmers, state enterprise managers, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and students.

Since 1995, Li taught the practice outside of China. Starting in France, Li gave a series of conferences in the Chinese embassy in Paris in 1995. In 1994 Falun Gong was also being taught at the Chinese consulate in New York, as part of the Party's cultural propaganda to the West, alongside Chinese silk and cooking. The Chinese consulate at that time also set up the Falun Gong clubs at MIT and Columbia University, which are active to this day. On January 4th 1995, Zhuan Falun was published.

Much of Falun Gong's success in the 1990s was due to claims that it could heal without costly medicine, as many citizens had lost medical benefits and services due to changing economic conditions. Some in China maintained that Falun Gong was the most popular qigong practice in the country, and that many professors from Peking University practised the exercises every day on the campus grounds until the crackdown in 1999.

The exact number of Falun Gong practitioners is not known. Falun Gong consistently states that there are no practitioner registers or membership. According to a New York Times article published in 1999, the PRC government estimated there were 70 million practitioners.

1999 onwards

Main article: Persecution of Falun Gong

Demonstration against persecution of Falun Gong at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City

In April 1999, He Zuoxiu, a prominent physicist, wrote an article in the Tianjin College of Education’s Youth Reader magazine entitled “I Do Not Agree with Youth Practicing qigong,” and made criticism of Falun Gong . The mention of Falun Gong was considered unfair or untrue by practitioners, who gathered to appeal the article. Police were allegedly called, and then beat and arrested a number of them. On April 25, Falun Gong practitioners lined the streets near Zhongnanhai in silence, seeking legal recognition and protection of the practice in light of the alleged beatings and arrests in Tianjin.

On July 20, 1999, following seven years of rapid growth of the practice within mainland China;, the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) banned Falun Gong and began a nationwide crackdown, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. A World Journal article suggested that certain high-level Party officials had wanted to crackdown on the practice for a several years, but lacked sufficient pretext until this time. Jiang Zemin is often considered to be largely personally responsible for the final decision, both by Falun Gong and academics. Possible motives include personal jealously of Li Hongzhi, anger, and ideological struggle. Others implicate the nature of Communist Party rule and a perceived challenge to it as causes for the crackdown. The government explanation is that Falun Gong was "jeopardising social stability" and "engaged in illegal activities." In late 1999 legislation was created to outlaw "heterodox religions," and applied to Falun Gong retroactively.

Every aspect of society was mobilized against Falun Gong, including the media apparatus, police force, army, education system, families, and workplaces. An extra-constitutional body, the 6-10 Office was created to "oversee the terror campaign," which was driven by large-scale propaganda through television, newspaper, radio and internet. Families and workplaces were urged to cooperate with the government's position on Falun Gong, while practitioners themselves were subject to various severe coercive measures to have them recant. Amnesty International declares the persecution to be politically motivated and a restriction of fundamental freedoms. There are particular concerns over reports of torture, illegal imprisonment including forced labour, and psychiatric abuses. Falun Gong comprise 66% of all reported torture cases in China, and at least half of the labour camp population. Since early 2006, allegations of systematic organ harvesting from living practitioners have been made, a charge yet to be disproven by the authorities. David Matas declares the persecution of Falun Gong to be the biggest human rights abuse in China.

Protests in Beijing were frequent for the first few years following the 1999 edict, though have largely been eradicated. According to a statement posted on Practitioners' presence in mainland China has become more low-profile, as they opt for alternative methods of informing the general populace about the persecution, such as through overnight letterbox drops of CD-ROMs. Practitioners have occasionally hacked into state television channels to broadcast their material. Practitioners are globally active in appealing to governments, media, and the people of their respective countries about the situation in China.

In May 2000, Peng Shanshan, also known as Belinda Pang, a Hong Kong practitioner attempted to usurp the position of "Falun Gong Master", attracting a breakaway faction of 30 followers. The faction claimed the master found a new physical body in Peng on Li's 50th birthday. Threatened with a split, some followers claimed she was a Government agent; Li declared that Peng was "irrational scum" and a saboteur." Little has been heard from her faction since.

Beliefs and teachings

Main article: Teachings of Falun Gong

A group of people practicing Falun Gong

The foundation of Falun Dafa are teachings known in traditional Chinese culture as the "Fa" (Dharma), or "Dharma and principles" – that are set forth in the book Zhuan Falun: "Falun Buddha Fa is a great, high-level cultivation way of the Buddha School, in which assimilation to the supreme nature of the universe, Zhen-Shan-Ren [Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance], is the foundation of cultivation practice." Falun Gong teaches that the Fa or "Buddha Law" can be summarized in three words – Zhen 真, Shan 善 and Ren 忍, which translate approximately as 'truthfulness, benevolence (or compassion), and forbearance'. The process of cultivation is said to be one in which the practitioner assimilates himself or herself to Zhen, Shan and Ren. The teachings of Falun Dafa are articulated in the two main books of the practice, Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun[1].

Falun Gong is an introductory book that discusses qigong, introduces the principles and provides illustrations and explanations of the exercises. Zhuan Falun is the core text of Falun Dafa practice.

Falun Gong lays emphasis on its ideas of good moral nature and morality. Practitioners are required to emphasize virtue (de), be a good person in all environments, and always be considerate of others when doing things.

According to Li Hongzhi, the sole criterion that distinguishes good from bad is the unchanging characteristic of the universe: Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance). In Zhuan Falun, Li states:

“As a practitioner, one must follow this characteristic of the universe to conduct himself instead of the standard of ordinary people… As a human being, if you can follow this universe’s characteristic of Zhen-Shan-Ren, you are a good person.”

In May 1998, Li made statements condemning homosexuality. He stated that homosexuality was "dark state of mind", and suggested that homosexuality was incompatible with cultivation. However, homosexuals can practice Falun Gong if they "correct this bad behavior."

In a speech in Los Angeles (2006), Li Hongzhi emphasizes that in practicing cultivation one must lay emphasis on cultivation of one's own heart nature or "xinxing":

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Li Hongzhi "teaching the Fa" at the 2004 New York Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference.

• "Cultivation is about looking inside yourself. Whether you are right or wrong, you should examine yourself".
• "Cultivation is about getting rid of human attachments. If you always reject reproaches and criticism, always point your fingers at others, and always refute others' disapproval and criticism, is that cultivating? How is that cultivating? You have grown used to focusing on other people's shortcomings, and never take examining your own self seriously. When others' cultivation one day meets with success, what about you?"

Third Party Views

Main article: Third party views on Falun Gong

In the years since mid 1999, Falun Gong has received a range of scholarly attention from western academics, at the same time garnering some attention from mainstream media and civil rights groups due to allegations of persecution by the Chinese Communist Party. This article does not treat the scholarly analysis of the suppression of the practice in China, but is focused on academic treatment of Falun Gong from other perspectives, such as its relationship to other beliefs, the role of Li Hongzhi in Falun Gong, Falun Gong’s relationship to wider society, the question of finance in Falun Gong both currently and when it was transmitted directly by Li Hongzhi in Mainland China before the crackdown, as well as scholarship on the modern American anti-cult movement and its members' views on Falun Gong, along with counter-criticisms.

Some scholars such as Benjamin Penny of the Australian National University have given detailed treatments of Chinese Buddhist publications and what they have written on Falun Gong, while others such as Noah Porter, Susan Palmer and David Ownby have made ethnographic studies of Falun Gong as it is currently transmitted and practiced in the United States. James Tong has written about the development of the campaign to persecute the practice in Mainland China, also analysing the use of the Communist states' media apparatus in its portrayal of Falun Gong as a well-financed organisation. Scholarly research on Falun Gong and its place in contemporary society has been approached from different angles. Ownby, for example, has analysed Falun Gong from a historical Chinese perspective as well as commented on his personal experience of meeting modern Falun Gong practitioners. Ownby has also speculated on Falun Gong as a cultural renewal of ancient Chinese cultivation forms starting in the Ming dynasty. Stephen Chan has written about Falun Gong's relationship to Buddhism and other qigong, as well as commenting on deeper reasons behind the persecution in Mainland China.

Outside mainland China

Main article: Falun Gong outside the People's Republic of China

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In a candlelight vigil remembering those who were tortured to death in China for practicing Falun Dafa, over 1,000 practitioners and supporters of Falun Dafa sit in formation of the Chinese characters for "Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance" next to the Washington Monument in Washington, DC

Activities bringing to focus the Human rights situation, in relation to the Persecution of Falun Gong in the People's Republic of China (PRC) have increased dramatically since the PRC government began a nation wide persecution of the practice in 1999. The crackdown by the Chinese government has helped Falun Gong's reputation in the United States, because the news generated by Falun Gong focuses attention on China's human rights record. Practitioners and human rights activists have mounted protests and sit-ins in many major cities around the world, and have found a willing ear in Western electronic and print media. Falun Dafa practitioners and human rights activists have also organised protests, large-scale rallies, parades, and other events to draw attention to the plight of practitioners in China.

The suppression of Falun Gong practitioners has been regarded by some western governments as a major international human rights issue. The PRC government is accused by Falun Gong and many human rights groups of violating the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), also ratified by the People's Republic of China. In July 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives accused China of unlawful harassment of United States citizens and residents who practice Falun Gong, and passed a resolution, unanimously by 420:0 calling on China to "cease its persecution and harassment of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States".

As of December 2005, sixty-one lawsuits have been filed in about thirty countries charging Jiang and several other senior officials with genocide, torture, and crimes against humanity for their roles in the treatment of Falun Gong in mainland China. Chinese consulates and embassies around the world have sought to counter the activities of the Falun Gong through a variety of means, ranging from counter-propaganda to active interference in Falun Gong activities. The response of the local community has been mixed, with some local Chinese communities attempting to limit Falun Gong activities but also some members of local communities responding favourably.

Further reading

• Ian Adams, Riley Adams and Rocco Galati, Power of the Wheel: The Falun Gong Revolution (Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 2000) hard cover ISBN 0-7737-3270-5
• Maria Hsia Chang, Falun Gong: The End of Days (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004) ISBN 0-300-10227-5
• Barend ter Haar, Falun Gong - Evaluation and Further References (incl. extensive bibliography)
• Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong (Law Wheel qigong) (Yih Chyun, 1993)
• Li Hongzhi, Essentials for Further Advancement (Yih Chyun, 2000?)
• Danny Schechter, Falun Gong's Challenge to China (Akashic Books, 2000) hardback ISBN 1-888451-13-0, paperback ISBN 1-888451-27-0
• Margaret Thaler Singer, Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace Revised edition. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003). ISBN 0-7879-6741-6
• Mo Wen, Poisonous Deceit: How The Chinese Government Literally Gets Away With Murder By Lying Deceiving And Fabricating Its "evidence" Against Falun Gong: An Hbcu Story (Toronto: Deep Six, 2002) Paperback. ISBN 0-9731181-0-5

External links

Falun Gong sites

• Falun Dafa
• Clearwisdom
• Falun Dafa Information Center

Critical sites

• Rick Ross Institute
• About Falun Gong, Wrong Saint, Yet More Geller Boo-Boos, Light on Buxton, Clarifying the JREF Challenge, KKK....., Commentary by James Randi, August 3, 2001
• Supes Support “Homophobic Cult”, article by Matthew S. Bajko, Bay Area Reporter, February 2, 2002
• Dissident media linked to Falun Gong, article by Vanessa Hua, San Francisco Chronicle, December 18, 2005
• Critics and followers of Falun Gong, article by Vanessa Hua, San Francisco Chronicle, December 18, 2005

Other sites

• The China Psychiatric Crisis: Following Up on the Plight of the Falun Gong, Alan A. Stone, M.D., Psychiatric Times, May 2005, Vol. XXII Issue 6