(Jan. 18)

We had a workshop at Stonetown Borders bookstore in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon and it was a very positive experience.

Before we got there, Borders had arranged everything well, in the center of the store rows of chairs had been set up well. Table, TV and VCR and microphone were all ready. People already had Borders' public calendar which listed Falun Gong workshop there. The staff, Christopher, was greeting us before we even walked into the store.

The workshop has two parts, a presentation and exercise teaching. We ran through some slides with a projector telling them what Falun Gong is about, what are the benefits and the characteristic of this practice, what practitioners do in daily life and how to get started. People occasionally asked questions and I answered as best as I could. Someone asked the question which was almost always asked during workshops, "Why do Chinese government ban this?" I just told them of my understanding and it seems they have no difficulty understand the situation from our point of view.

About 30 people sat through the whole presentation. When it came to exercise teaching, more than 40 people were there learning. People are very serious and sincere in learning, and I felt strong energy while I was teaching.

When it came to five exercise, I had all people meditate for about 2 minutes. In the middle of a busy commercial bookstore, we had dozens of people sitting quietly and concentrating on meditation. It was a very serene and moving scenes. After the practice we announced Lee-fong's 9-day seminar in San Francisco. Many people bought the books and video although we don't know the number of copies sold. One thing that I felt impressed is just the fact of our offering this workshop in a big bookstore: it seems Falun Dafa is walking into open scene of American society and anyone passing by has a chance to get to know this precious cultivation way which is meant for everyone.

Before the presentation started I found out I had only half of the slides with me. "I shouldn't be anxious and use this as another chance for cultivation" that is what I realized. I remained calm and used what I had at hand to do a job as well as I could. In the meantime Huang Yun rushed all the way from San Mateo to San Francisco to bring the whole set of slides and solved the problem in time.