(Clearwisdom.net) On October 26, 2007, a Falun Gong workshop was held at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The workshop lasted one and a half hours. Five Falun Gong practitioners were invited to share their personal cultivation experiences and to discuss the persecution of Falun Gong in China.
Ms. Gwendall Cooper from California was a special guest at the workshop. She is an expert in Native Americans studies at the University of California, San Diego and a professor emeritus. Ms. Cooper shared her cultivation experience of following the principles of Falun Gong - "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance." Ms. Cooper is nearly eighty years old, with excellent health and spirit.
Tony Liang, another guest, discussed how before he began practicing Falun Gong, he learned other practices in the Buddha and Dao schools. From his own understanding, he summarized the important characteristics of Falun Gong, which are different from other schools of practice. He said, "Only Falun Gong teaches people how to truly cultivate and improve one's level."
Guo Ying, who was a masters candidate at the China Central Conservatory of Music and who now lives in Hawaii, described his own and his family's experience of persecution in China for practicing Falun Gong. He said that during his studies at the Central Conservatory of Music, he was advised to quit school because he clarified the facts of Falun Gong. His cousin, Li Dongmei, was sent to a forced labor camp twice for practicing Falun Gong. She is still imprisoned in a labor camp. Another cousin, Li Yamei, is also imprisoned in a forced labor camp simply because she practices Falun Gong.
Hawaii practitioner John White shared his experience of practicing Falun Gong. He stopped smoking after practicing, even though he had smoked for twenty-five years. His experience had a big impact on the audience.
Jiang Hong, a professor at the University of Hawaii, said that she read many books on religion, philosophy and psychology. None of them could answer some of her basic questions about human life. The profound principles of Falun Gong answered these questions of hers and led her to cultivate in Falun Dafa. She also said that one of her relatives in China was sentenced to a seven-year term in prison for practicing Falun Dafa. Her relative is still imprisoned in the Harbin Women's Prison.
The audience members were interested in the practitioners' stories and asked many questions. One student asked, "What have Falun Gong practitioners done? Why are they persecuted in China?" The practitioners explained that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persecutes all individuals and groups with different views. The CCP is afraid of losing power and tries to destroy traditional Chinese culture, of which Falun Gong is a part. Many audience members came to know about the CCP's evil nature and put forward suggestions to stop the persecution.
The workshop ended with the practitioners' demonstration of the Falun Gong exercises. After the workshop, some members of the audience stayed to continue talking with the practitioners, who encouraged them to tell more people about the CCP's persecution.
The workshop is part of series of activities for "China's Human Rights Week" at the University of Hawaii. The week-long series of events ran from October 22 to October 29. Besides the Falun Gong workshop, other activities included Professor Jon Van Dyke's talk, "China's human rights and the Beijing Olympics," the movie "Concrete Revolution," and a seminar on organ transplantation in China by human rights lawyer David Matas and a medical expert. Through the week-long events, information about China's human rights situation and the persecution of Falun Gong were spread to many people at the University of Hawaii.
