Falun Dafa

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In April, 1999, Western news media began covering a relatively new Chinese religious group called Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, which has generally been translated as "Buddhist Law." (Falun means "Dharma wheel;" gong means something like "exercise;" dafa means "great law/Dharma.") The group was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, who now lives in New York. His teachings combine elements of Buddhism, Taoism, and qigong. Falun Gong claims to have about 100 million followers worldwide, most of them in China, but also including many overseas Chinese and some non-Chinese in other countries. The Chinese government estimated about 20 million in China in the late 1990s. They first gained notice in the western media by staging a silent sit-in around the residence compound of China's top leaders in Beijing, on April 25, 1999, to protest what they said was a slanderous magazine article and the refusal of the authorities to let them register as a religious organization.

Here is an excerpt from one of their websites describing one of their central beliefs:

Falun Gong is characterised by the cultivation of a Falun [Dharma wheel], located at the lower abdomen. As an intelligent entity of high energy substance, the Falun automatically absorbs energy from the universe and relieves the body of bad elements. The rotation of Falun synchronises with the revolution of the universe. It has thesame characteristics as the universe and is a miniature of the universe. The Taoist Yin-Yang and the Buddha's Dharma-wheel both have their reflections in the Falun.

Falun is constantly rotating, putting the practitioner in the state of cultivation for 24 hours a day. Of all the qigong/cultivation systems known to the public, Falun Gong is the first and only one which solves the conflicting time-requirements for practising and work or study.

Falun Gong gives top priority to the cultivation of XinXing (inner nature) and its assimilation to Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truth-Compassion-Forebearance) - the supreme nature of the universe. XinXing is the key to the growth of cultivation energy and the level of XinXing determines the level of cultivation energy.

Zhen-Shan-Ren

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(For another collection of news articles, mostly from other sources, see Falun Gong Updates at the Center for Studies on New Religions)

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Edit date: 8/15/02

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