A mix of community members and students of the Claremont Colleges gathered on a Harvey Mudd College lawn last Sunday to practice an activity that, in China, would have put them at risk for arrest, torture and even death. Slowly and gently stretching their bodies, stirring the air with smooth hand movements and sitting in quiet meditation, they were practicing the ancient Chinese self-cultivation and exercise tradition called Falun Gong.

Matt Gnaizda, HMC sophomore and co-leader of the workshop earlier this week, traveled to China a few years ago to study the controversy and persecution stories surrounding Falun Gong, a practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Though his studies yielded gruesome reports about practitioners' fates both in China and around the world, he still wakes up early every day on his current home turf here in Claremont for several hours of practice.

"There may be some risk, but if I were to let the Chinese government stop me from doing what I thought was right, that would be awful, so I'm not going to change what I do," said Mr. Gnaizda, a native of San Francisco.

Falun Gong, for several thousand years practiced only by masters who formally passed along the tradition to their students, gained public awareness in China in 1992 and, meeting almost instantaneous popularity, blossomed to nearly 100 million practitioners by 1999. Instead of supporting the well-loved phenomenon, China's communist leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, outlawed the practice and claimed he would eradicate it in 3 months. Forthcoming was a massive propaganda campaign that demonized the practice and the detainment of hundreds of thousands of practitioners, many of whom were sent to forced labor camps.

"He was not exactly the most compassionate leader," Mr. Gnaizda commented.

He explained that the communist party, whose 60 million members paled next to the growing masses of Falun Gong followers, probably felt threatened by the burgeoning loyalty to the meditative practice and sought to safeguard themselves [...] (1).

In essence, Falun Gong--Fa meaning way, Lun meaning wheel and Gong meaning energy practice--also called Falun Dafa (Dafa meaning great way, method or law), is a set of 5 gentle and meditative exercises helping people to cultivate not only their bodies, but their minds and hearts as well. In the qigong family and sharing a distant cousin-type relationship to tai chi and yoga, Falun Gong seeks to help practitioners achieve a tranquil but conscious state of mind.

"Clearing the mind, that's the hardest thing for human beings to do. There's no tricks, no shortcuts," Mr. Gnaizda acknowledged. "The emphasis of the practice is to cultivate the heart and mind in every moment, not just the 2 hours a day or a week while doing the exercises."

While similar to other Eastern practices, Mr. Gnaizda makes the distinction that, quite often, the physical exercises of the ancient traditions are the only remnant of the original practice, but with Falun Gong, all of the higher principles have been retained since antiquity. It can be regarded, he continued, as a spiritual practice, but not a religious one.

"Some have considered it a religious practice, but religion has a broad definition," he said. "As far as practices and beliefs, it might fall into that category, but Falun Gong has no worship, formalities or precepts. And, you never pay any money."

This last characteristic of Falun Gong was established by Li Hongzhi, who introduced the practice to the public, to ensure that teachers do not become hooked on the idea of income.

"The practice is about giving up attachments, and when money is involved they might form attachments," Mr. Gnaizda explained.

When Mr. Gnaizda first encountered Falun Gong in Australia shortly after his 2001 high school graduation, he was struck by the "peaceful, kind and gentle" personalities of the practitioners and regarded them as people "really trying to adhere to principles".

After his troubled and baffled feelings about the revolting persecution compelled him to China, he discovered how thoroughly the state-run propaganda distorted the truth about the practice and, upon returning to the states, he made Falun Gong a transforming part of his life.

"After the trip, I thought very hard about it. I found it to be a very good practice," he shared. "In a very short time, I received amazing benefits and rewards."

Among them, the disappearance of psoriasis and warts that had plagued him for a long time, a greater overall healthiness and the experience of greater openness, acceptance, freedom, wisdom and more harmonious relationships.

"When I encounter conflict, if I take a step back and look at it with the wisdom I've gained, I can handle the situation and myself properly. Any peccadilloes or pet peeves I had just faded away without doing it intentionally. I'm even calm during finals.

"It's all about compassion and treating others with kindness and this has really affected my life. Now, I always look at the other person's perspective first and I've never regretted doing so. Doing things with others in mind and giving up selfishness has been helpful not just to others, but to me mentally," Mr. Gnaizda shared.

He feels great compassion for his fellow practitioners who are not granted the same freedom to practice. At this point, he reported, "almost 900 practitioners have been killed, but sources in China say it's well into the thousands". Despite insufferable torture, most practitioners are unwilling to give it up.

"How are you practicing truthfulness if you sign a statement against what you believe in?" he posed.

He has hope, however, that the persecution will end in the near future, citing both tremendous budget constraints--"imagine how expensive it is to persecute 100 million of your own citizens"--and his belief that people are starting to wake up to the truth. The "ridiculous propaganda" will be the persecutors downfall, he said. Harassment of Falun Gong practitioners is not confined within China's boundaries. Documented reports exist of physical assaults, property defacement, death threats, burglaries and tapped phones occurring in the United States, many European countries and elsewhere around the globe. Speculation, Mr. Gnaizda said, holds that such acts are carried out through Chinese embassies and consulates.

"The question is, what will happen to a nation that condemns the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance?" Mr. Gnaizda queried.

[...] (2)

"It's right for me," he said.

Source: http://www.claremont-courier.com/mt/archives/000519.html

(1) We deleted a term that originally came from the persecutors of Falun Gong. The term has been used to defame Falun Gong, so we have chosen not to repeat it.

(2) We removed a passage in which the interviewee is reported as trying to estimate the number of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States. There is no membership in Falun Gong, and no lists of practitioners are kept, so the number of practitioners in the U.S. is not currently known.