San Diego Union-Tribune: Local followers defend sect banned in China

24-Jul-1999 Saturday

Falun Gong: There is no chanting, no humming.

Just slightly closed eyes, hands reaching slowly upward and outward for the universe, and quiet recitals of almost poetic Chinese names assigned each motion.

"I'm energized," said Lili Feng, a 47-year-old assistant professor at the Scripps Research Institute, opening her eyes. "Now I can go back to the lab and get some more work done."

Feng, who was raised in China, is a recent convert to Falun Gong, or Buddhist Law, which teaches physical and spiritual renewal. She said the discipline is the answer to what she considers moral decline in her motherland and the world.

"This is an extremely powerful tool," Feng said. "We grew up being taught by the Communist Party not to believe anything. But I believe in this.

"This is amazing."

Not so for Chinese authorities across the Pacific Ocean, however. It has banned Falun Gong practices and is said to have begun a wave of arrests of Falun Gong practitioners after an April 25 protest drew 10,000 followers to Beijing's leadership compound.

The demonstrators, who sat together quietly, were protesting their treatment by the government and were demanding official recognition.

"We have seen what the Chinese government was capable of doing in 1989 (during the bloody suppression of student democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square)," said Shizhong Chen, a 37-year-old Scripps Research Institute associate.

"We don't want that to happen again," Chen said.

Whether their beliefs can withstand the Chinese government is unclear. Just recently, Chinese authorities accused Falun Gong of inciting disturbance, and a senior government official warned the group not to "promote superstition."

"We can only hope the rest of the world will help us," Feng said.

Falun Gong -- founded in China and strictly translated from Chinese to mean the practice of the wheel of law -- blends traditional Buddhist principles and Chinese breathing exercises to promote physical and spiritual well-being.

It claims 100 million disciples around the world, with 70 million in China, according to local adherents.

In San Diego, 40 followers practice on their own or in gatherings. Their leaders, fiercely loyal to their cause, on Thursday made public a statement from Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi, 48, who now lives in New York.

"We are not against the government now, nor will we be in the future," Li wrote. "Other people may treat us badly, but we do not treat others badly."

Indeed, Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, has been regarded by outsiders as an esoteric pursuit.

It has been called a sect, a religion, and even a cult, references that raise the ire of Dr. Wenyi Wang. She is a second-year resident in pathology at UCSD's Medical Center in Hillcrest.

"We are not even organized. We practice on our own," she said. "How can we be a cult or a sect? It's really very misleading."

Founder Li, a former grain bureau clerk in China and referred to as Master Li by his followers, calls it a form of exercise.

His discipline, which started in 1992, teaches a two-prong approach to physical and spiritual health. Falun Gong prescribes exercises that look like Tai Qi movements and advocates the practice of "Truth, Compassion and Forbearance," virtues extolled in the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization.

The exercises, generally done to music, consist of soft hand motions performed either standing up with eyes slightly closed or sitting in a meditative position.

The movements are said to open up the body's channels of energy, balance the yin and the yang, heal, release stress, promote mental alertness, relieve pain and improve one's general health.

To advance to a higher level of well being, however, practitioners also must devote their lives to seeking the truth, being compassionate, and being tolerant of others and tolerant of hardship.

"It teaches me how to live happily and successfully," Feng said.

"I used to be extremely unhappy. I wanted and wanted and desired and desired. But the (Buddhist) Law teaches me not to chase success, just do my best.

"I'm doing better science and I've never been happier."

Chen said Falun Gong taught him to look inward for answers to his frustrations.

"It teaches me to look in myself first to find the source of conflict, "Chen said. "When I do that, I don't feel angry. I don't know what it's like to be angry any more."

After just three months of practicing Falun Gong, Feng and Chen said they are noticing differences in their behavior and health.

"Shizhong used to get frustrated and say, `I don't want to do this, I don't care. I'll give up my career if I have to,' " Feng said of Chen. "Now he's mellowed out."

Feng herself found relief from the pain she used to suffer from edema in her legs.

Wang says it cured her allergy to latex and her two young children have not needed to see a physician for two years since she started her family on Falun Gong. Her sister in China, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and was disabled, is walking, she said.

While scientific testing has not been applied to such claims, Feng said she'd like to try.

"I'd love to do a science project on this -- compare growth factors, find out why it makes people well, makes them feel young," Feng said. "Maybe an important gene was altered."

Whatever has happened and whatever the mechanism, Falun Gong apparently is good for counteracting a certain obsession, Feng said.

Her 12-year-old son, Shizai Xia, has been cured of what she described as a serious case of "computer-game attachment."

"We don't have to tear him away from the computer any more," Feng said.

Copyright Union-Tribune Publishing Co.