Falun Dafa Introduced to a Community College

On November 8, 2000 three practitioners followed through on a personal invitation by a professor of social studies at a community college to introduce Falun Dafa to three of his classes.

Upon arriving, our host gave us a tour of the campus and introduced us to faculty and staff along the way.

I was pleasantly surprised by the warm reception given by our host as well as by the large amount of participation. Six faculty members and approximately one hundred students took part in the day's events.

Our host let me know that he first discovered Falun Dafa on a visit to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. this past July. It was there that he had an opportunity to interact with practitioners who were demonstrating the exercises, as well as drawing attention to the one-year anniversary of China's crackdown on Falun Dafa.

I would like to note here that having participated once before in an introduction of Falun Dafa at an ivy league school, I noticed a clear distinction between the two events in terms of turnout and interest. The ivy league school event was lightly attended and, from my point of view, there appeared to be relatively little interest in our presentation.

However, this was not the case at this small rural campus. For instance, in our third and final introduction, a massage class of twenty students asked permission to attend. The school's staff worked with us and found a suitable space at the last minute. The impromptu assembly of sixty students and staff actively participated in listening and doing the exercises with us. It was especially touching when the entire audience sat down on the cafeteria floor and did their best to follow our sitting meditation exercise.

In conclusion, I found that the key to making this event work so well was a sincerely interested host, who also had some general understanding of our cultivation practice, and also a clear and knowledgeable delivery by a veteran practitioner.

As a follow up we have been given varied opportunities to put Falun Dafa into the upcoming class schedule under the heading of "non-credit course listing/mini-semester." As we follow up on this event over the upcoming months and continue to develop our relationship with this school, I will bring you further updates.

A Falun Dafa practitioner from the Boston area.