May 17, 2002

A system of exercises intended to promote peace and virtue is illegal in its native China, but was practiced openly in Old Fort Park Sunday.

Falun Dafa, better known in America as Falun Gong, consists of a set of five basic, simple to learn exercises that include both physical movement and extended stillness.

Falun Gong is a form of qigong (pronounced chi-gong), practices aimed at cultivating "gong," energy within the body for health, strength and longevity. Qigong is practiced by some in hopes of being able to produce feats of strength and athletics seen in martial arts films.

But the goals of Falun Gong are more modest and less spectacular, aiming at the improvement of virtue and moral character, local practitioner Brett Hawkins said. This moral character, or "Xinxing," consisting of the virtues of truth, compassion and forbearance, is also the essence of the universe according to the teaching, he said.

"These are practices that are simple to learn and follow," Hawkins said. "Improving your xinxing is becoming a better person all the way around. As you improve your xinxing, your gong, or high energy matter, increases. The only way to improve your level of gong is to improve your xinxing."

Practitioners meet on Sundays in Nashville's Centennial Park, Hawkins said.

"We like to get together and share each others energy, and that disturbs the government in China," Hawkins said.

It became seriously disturbed after incidents in which thousands of practitioners spontaneously gathered together without government knowledge or permission.

"This is non-political, but it freaked the Chinese government out. Later on the Chinese government did a survey and found out there were actually more Falun Gong practitioners in China than there were members of the Communist party, and in 1999 they clamped down and began arresting and detaining Falun Gong practitioners, and it's still going on today."

Passed from individual teachers to students in China since ancient times, from the time it was first publicly taught in China until it was declared illegal by the Chinese government in 1999, an estimated 70 to 100 million people had taken up the practice.

Since declared illegal, more than Chinese 100,00 practitioners have been detained, over 25,000 sent to forced labor camps, over 1,000 forced into tortured to death, according to Falun Gong literature.

[...] Hawkins said, "It's not a religion. There is no worship, no donations. It's not like you go to church; people mainly use this way to cultivate themselves to get health, mental and physical."

"Some of the principles reflect the principles of Buddhism, Taoism, and Tantrism, and there are some areas that overlap and reflect each other, but this isn't a religion where you have formal worship. It's very spiritual, but it's non-political and non-religious."

Mrs. Lin, a native of China, learned about Falun Gong only after moving to the United Sates. She has seen health benefits from the practice, she said, "I used to have to take a pill every day for a thyroid condition," she said "I don't like to take medicines, so I wanted to find an alternative medicine. I don't know why, but very quick, my disease was gone," she said, "I don't need to take any pills, and I feel so much energy now more than before. I slept eight hours and still felt tired. But now I sleep between five and six, and I feel fine."

Hawkins said he frequently got colds before taking up the practice a little over a year ago, and hasn't gotten sick since.

"You don't go into this not to get sick, that's kind of a by-product," he said, "You go into it to become a better person. But being in better health is a nice by-product of the practice."

Charlie Xie, also from China, learned it there while it was still legal. He left the country about a month after the government crackdown began. "I learned to practice qigong because I have a liver disease," he said. The practice has helped with that, but "Probably the mind thing is more important than the health. I do it to improve my health and to improve my mind."