"Falun Gong é Bom!" (Falun Dafa is Good)

S o Paolo is a large, sprawling and bustling city in Brazil. Unlike Rio, where everyone's lives are centered around their beautiful beaches, S o Paolo is the center of all business activities in Brazil. It is a 1.5-hour drive to the ocean without traffic, which is rare, so the people of S o Paolo take their exercise in their beautiful parks and work off the stress from their hectic city schedules. It was in one of these beautiful parks that Falun Dafa practitioners joined with the local practitioners to practice and teach the exercises to all interested people. The Blue and White T-Shirt has a Predestined Meeting To prepare for local Latin American activities, US practitioners had the idea to make Falun Dafa t-shirts in white with blue letters in Spanish and Portuguese for Latin American practitioners. Some Chinese practitioners didn't like the color very much as white has a negative connotation in China and is used for funerals. However the Latin American practitioners were confident that these colors would be very popular in South America. Later we discovered these t-shirts were to have a pre-destined meeting. Upon arriving at a park in S o Paolo we set forth to find a good place to practice and teach the exercises. We noticed that the majority of people in the park were wearing white t-shirts, which confirmed that our color choice for our Latin American t-shirts would be popular. Walking around the beautiful lake that had some exotic birds, we noticed a cement platform next to the footpath. No one was there so we thought it would be an excellent spot to begin to practice. We put down the mats, turned on the practice tape and began to practice the exercises. After the 1^st exercise quite a few people were watching and asking questions, after the 2^nd exercise there were even more people watching. After the 3^rd exercise a large crowd had gathered. I opened my eyes and noticed they were all wearing white t-shirts with blue letters. A little confused at first, I looked closer and noticed their t-shirts had the name of another qigong school. By this time the crowd was very large and well over 30 people. Everyone was asking us what type of exercise we were doing and were very interested to know more. We passed out flyers and arranged to teach anyone who wanted to learn later in the evening at a practitioner's home. We told them about Dafa and explained the exercises were always free of charge. After speaking with them, we discovered that they all arrived to practice their qigong, which was for health and also free of charge. They practice on the same cement platform at that day and time we were there. We had "accidentally" and unknowingly used their spot an hour earlier than their practice started. We apologized for our mistake and prepared to leave but they insisted that we finish the 4^th exercise so they could watch. Later a few came in the evening to learn the exercises and really liked it. More planned to come and learn Dafa the next time we were in the park. In this way a lucky "coincidence" was really a pre-destined meeting. The Energy Field Brings Tears to a Practitioner's Mother As two of us were practicing the standing exercises while a local practitioner's mother sat on a bench and watched us. During the holding the wheel exercise we felt an incredibly strong energy field. One practitioner even felt very light and thought she would lift off the ground. When they finished the practice and opened their eyes they noticed that the practitioner's mother had tears running down her cheeks. She kept apologizing and said she didn't know why she was crying. We comforted her and told her that other people have experienced this. She said it happened after she felt the strong energy field. Before we arrived, local practitioner's parents were very nervous about Dafa but after we spent time with them and they watched our practice they felt that the practice was very pure. A New Student is Excited to Eliminate Karma A woman in the park saw us practicing and came over to learn the exercises. She was very enthusiastic and learned very quickly. The local contact person spoke to her for a long time and felt he should explain the issue of eliminating karma to her. After she left the park, she began to feel a very severe pain in her neck while driving her car, causing her to become extremely nauseous. She pulled the car over to the side of the road due to the pain and vomited. Upon arriving home she remembered what the practitioner told her and realized she was probably eliminating karma. As soon as she had that thought, the pain disappeared completely. She was so excited she called the local practitioner's cell phone immediately and excitedly shared her story. She came back later that evening and again the next day. On the third day she came to park to help us demonstrate the exercises to the public. "But What is the Dafa?!" After spending a few hours demonstrating the exercises and helping new people learn, we proceeded back to our car. Two older and well-educated men passed by us. One of the men, who was a lawyer or a professor, turned to read our t-shirt out loud and said, "Falun Dafa?" In Portuguese he asked us "What is Falun Dafa?" One practitioner's father began explaining about the Buddha law and the principles of Falun Dafa to him in Portuguese. The man then said, "I didn't ask you what Falun is, I want to know what is the Dafa?" As it turned out, he understood the word "Falun" to be a similar word in Portuguese and Latin. The verb "Falar" in Portuguese means "To speak or to tell." In Portuguese or Latin "Falun" would mean a big statement, something to pay attention to. So he was interpreting the shirt to mean "Hey! A big statement: DAFA." And he asked us again, "I want to know what is the important Dafa!" After we understood what he was asking we all laughed and explained the principles of Falun Dafa, and after learning more he laughed at his interpretation of our t-shirt. He was very interested to know more and asked us for information on how to learn the practice. As Brazilians love to make jokes with words, we also found it amusing how our Teacher helped him to get to know Dafa. "Which one of you got robbed!" One of the wonderful qualities of Brazilian people is that they love to tell jokes and play little jokes on each other. Here is an example of one joke that was played on us that helped us to introduce Dafa to everyone. When we reached the park gate and began to walk by the park police office a uniformed park police officer slowly came toward us. He was an older man and had a very serious look on his face. There were a few guys sitting outside the station and they also looked at us with serious faces. We stopped, wondering what was going on or if there was some problem. The officer marched up to our group with authority. He said very seriously, "Which one of you got robbed?!" We were a little confused because none of us had been robbed. So we asked him why he was asking us that question? He still looked very serious and didn't say anything, then in a flash he quickly held up his hand, in which he was holding one of our bright yellow Falun Dafa buttons with the Portuguese words "Falun Dafa, é Bom" [Falun Dafa is good!]. It must have fell off of a practitioner's shirt. Then he had a huge smile on his face and all the guys outside his office were laughing and smiling because they had played a successful joke on us. We laughed too and gave him the button to keep as a reminder of us. The other guys wanted buttons too so we gave all of them buttons. Each of them proudly put them on their shirts and even took a group photo with us. After the photo, the officer tried to give us the button back. We told him it was our gift to him. He seemed surprised we were giving it to him. We told him that even though he had played a joke on us, we were not playing a joke on him and we would like him to have it to remember us. He gave us a really big smile and kept the button. We also gave them flyers and they said they would like to learn the exercises. We had so many good experiences in this park. Many people ran after us and asked for a flyer or how they could learn the exercises, what was the local practice schedule, etc. The local practitioners were very happy we helped them introduce Falun Dafa to a larger group of people and were looking forward to having more people in S o Paolo know that Falun Dafa is good. April 17, 2001