Philadelphia Inquirer: Finding freedom to practice their beliefs

On the banks of the Cooper River near the Lobster Trap restaurant, Ru Tang Chen and Ning Fang Chen have discovered a place to practice Falun Gong in freedom. In their native China, public displays of the spiritual discipline were banned last year, but Falun Gong has spread - some say thanks to the government crackdown - and the Chens have found their spiritual brethren here.

About 20 people visit the Cooper River site on Saturday mornings to practice the five meditative exercises unique to Falun Gong. It takes the group, which includes non-Asians, about two hours to complete "Buddha Showing 1,000 Hands," "Penetrating Two Cosmic Extremes," and the rest of the exercises. The Chens, both musicians, are here on a six-month visa, visiting their daughter, Ying, who lives in Marlton. The Saturday meetings, they say, remind them of when they were free to practice Falun Gong in Beijing parks. "We are so happy to see so many co-practitioners do this freely," Ning FangChen, 59, said.

Like thousands of other Chinese citizens, the Chens have been imprisoned for refusing to disavow Falun Gong. Others have been beaten. Some have been killed. Although Falun Gong borrows from such ancient disciplines as Buddhism and Taoism, it was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, a mystic who, after teaching it in China for a few years, moved to Queens, N.Y.

Now, Falun Gong, which can be translated as "the practice of the wheel of law," claims adherents not only in China but also in Australia, Europe, and throughout the Americas. According to Jing Duan Yang, a Chinese emigre completing a residency in psychiatry at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and a regular at the Cooper River meetings, there are two superficial reasons for the Chinese crackdown and one that is more substantive.

On the surface, Yang said, the sheer number of Falun Gong practitioners - estimated at between 70 million and 100 million - is a threat to Government control. The communist Chinese government frowns on religious practice; Falun Gong involves believing in spiritual forces and in an afterlife, Yang said. But, he said, of greater importance is the way China's leadership has traditionally protected its power. There is a core group of politicians who tend to conserve their strength by fabricating threats to social harmony and national security, Yang said.

With the Chinese people's increasing acceptance of Western culture and technology, these politicians are having a harder time using that time-tested tactic. Hence, Yang said, Falun Gong has become the new enemy.

The Chens are that enemy made flesh. In February, they made their way to what they called the "appealing bureau" in Beijing." Supposedly, the purpose of this bureau is to allow people to express their opinions," Ning Fang Chen said. "Certain people in the government do not understand Falun Gong. We felt we had to explain this to them." After it became clear that the Chens had come to express their displeasure with the government's stance toward their faith, bureau security called the local police station. An officer arrived and took the Chens to a detention center in Beijing, where they were incarcerated for a month. The Chens said that when they asked their jailers why they were being detained, they were told: "The orders come from above."

The Chens, however, have no angry words for their captors. Falun Gong, Ru Tang Chen said, enables him to respond calmly to the "bad things" he sees in his society. The exercises by the river are one aspect of Falun Gong. The other, considered equally significant, is the cultivation of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. The unity of those three qualities is viewed as the primary principle of the universe, adherents say.

Ying Chen, 32, has been going to the Cooper River site to practice Falun Gong for a year and a half, or roughly since people started the tradition. More come out, she said, in summer and spring, and those new to Falun Gong are sometimes shy and unwilling to practice outdoors.

Like many practitioners, Ying Chen credits the discipline with improving her health, teaching her how to handle stress better, and deepening her spiritual life. "I feel like I have found the truth," she said.

Emily Myers, 22, a religion major at Swarthmore College, was among those who joined the Chens one recent Saturday. "It has helped me to live a peaceful and balanced life," Myers said. "In many ways, I have become more sensitive to others' needs and to what is good for me." Myers, who was brought up Baptist, called her Christian upbringing "a wonderful groundwork" for the practice of a discipline in which she discerns elements of religious teachings from across the globe.

Myers, who practices Falun Gong with a handful of others at Swarthmore, has been following news reports of what is happening to Falun Gong practitioners in China. She said she intended to return to the Saturday meetings by the river to practice with the Chens. "It is really meaningful" to see the Chens practicing their faith here, Myers said. "It gives a face to all the stories."

Will Van Sant's e-mail address is [e-mail]