Falun Gong, the Chinese spiritual practice banned in its mother country, is now making its presence known on these shores – particularly in New England. Is it simply a series of meditative physical exercises, as practitioners claim? Or is it a politicized cult that has gained sympathy and popularity only through its persecution?
CHRISTINE MOON, A senior at Tufts University, spent two weeks of the past month in Geneva, Switzerland, hovering around UN headquarters. To purchase plane tickets, she eagerly cashed out her small getting-started savings account. And like every day before and since, her time overseas was spent passing out fliers, collecting signatures, and dutifully poring over the same non-school-related book. With only one month to go before graduation, she’ll tell you it was all worth the money and time; in fact, she’d like to do it again. That’s because Moon, a slim, pretty, ponytailed 22-year-old, says she’s discovered “the meaning of life.”
That is, she has been welcomed into a warm community and initiated into her first political cause: Falun Gong. What’s more, Moon says she’s upped her hip quotient in the process. “Most of my friends will tell you they think I’m much cooler now,” admits the Long Island native, who’s been practicing the group’s meditative techniques for a little over two years. “People like me better. They say I’ve become more understanding. Maybe I’ve become more mature.”
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa (or “The Practice of the Wheel of Dharma”), is a spiritual practice that melds meditative physical exercises with a mixture of traditional Eastern beliefs. Practitioners perform qi gong (pronounced chee gong), a slow set of movements said to circulate energy, and study a primary text, Zhuan Falun, written by the group’s leader, Li Hongzhi. These days, though, Falun Gong is better known as the beating block of the Chinese government, which banned the nine-year-old group in July 1999. The Communist regime has taken a hard — and, some say, inhumane — line against Falun Gong, and has been accused of imprisoning, beating, and killing people who continue to practice their beliefs in spite of the ban. To date, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center’s Web site (www.faluninfo.net), 197 people have been murdered, around 50,000 have been taken into police custody, and 10,000 have been sent to labor camps. The Chinese government has also been accused of placing Falun Gong practitioners in mental facilities and using mind-control techniques to force them to give up the practice. Last month, the Geneva Initiative of Psychiatry, an international foundation working to end the politicization of psychiatry, publicly condemned the People’s Republic of China for “using psychiatry as a means of repression against its citizens.” And efforts to flee persecution have led to harrowing deaths: in a well-publicized case last January, three Falun Gong practitioners were found dead in a Seattle port, locked in a ship’s cargo crate with dozens of others who survived the perilous overseas journey without light, water, or food.
At first glance, a peaceful-looking assembly of Falun Gong practitioners, breathing deeply, moving slowly, and smiling sweetly, might seem harmless. But even some of those who fault the Chinese government for violating human rights believe that practitioners are participating in a cult — irresponsibly disseminating false information and blindly padding the pockets of an increasingly wealthy leader who holds the copyright to the required text, Zhuan Falun, as well as to the accompanying videos, tapes, and CDs.
Now that it’s the target of persecution, however, the religion has taken on the trappings of a sexy, self-sacrificial cause, especially in cities like Boston that are teeming with young people searching for answers, community, and purpose — people like Christine Moon. “The fact that the government has taken such strong action against [Falun Gong] has, in part, politicized them,” explains Merle Goldman, a professor of Chinese history at Boston University and the author of the forthcoming An Intellectual History of Modern China (Cambridge University Press, 2001). “The reason we’ve paid so much attention is because of how the regime has reacted.” And if China incubated the movement — unintentionally turning what was essentially a quiet spiritual practice into a human-rights crusade — Boston has become a petri dish of Falun Gong culture. On any given day, in all the major universities, in the Arnold Arboretum, on Boston Common, or even in front of Malden City Hall, practitioners of all ages, races, and economic levels can be seen doing the same movements, to the same tape, with similar claims of renewed faith, healing, and long-sought-after answers. If not for China’s crackdown, how many of them would even have heard of Falun Gong?
SINCE ITS inception in 1992, Falun Gong has grown with lightning speed, and it has done so across generational, geographical, professional, and class lines — a first for a spiritual or political movement in China, according to Goldman. Though Falun Gong leaders have been accused of amping up their membership numbers with claims of up to 100 million practitioners worldwide, even the most conservative independent estimates put membership at 30 to 40 million. Goldman believes the movement’s popularity is a byproduct of the Communist regime’s instability, greatly facilitated by strides in Internet and cell-phone technology. High-tech communications explain the speed with which such a tight community has been able to form.
In Beijing on April 25, 1999, as many as 10,000 Falun Gong members came out of the woodwork — cascading down from mountain villages, emerging from laboratories, and stepping out of government offices — to assemble for a peaceful demonstration in front of the Communist Party compound. Three months later, the government — shocked by the sudden appearance of what it saw as a cultish threat — declared the group illegal and put out an arrest warrant for the man members call “Master” or “Teacher” Li. (These days, Li is rumored to be sequestered somewhere in Queens.) In a statement issued by the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, the government explained its actions: “The Falun Dafa, or Falun Gong, a cult headed by Li Hongzhi, has deceived and harmed a lot of people and been involved in many illegal activities that have seriously disrupted public order, misguided people, and confused right and wrong.”
Yet the movement has continued to grow, and not just in China. The New England coordinator of Falun Dafa, Michael Tsang, boasts a New England membership of about 150 people. One of their assorted meeting spots is Room 110 at the Harvard Science Center, a room the university lends out to practitioners on Friday and Sunday evenings. On days when sessions are not held at Tufts, Christine Moon heads there for her weekly group-practice and study sessions, on either Friday or Sunday nights.
On a recent Friday evening, a little before seven, Moon is joined in Room 110 by six familiar faces. She sits down on a small exercise mat, peels off her sneakers, and begins swirling her arms slowly around her torso and legs as Master Li — via audio tape — guides the group through the exercises and hashes out the finer points of Zhuan Falun. Whites and Asians, professionals and artists, middle-aged and senior citizens, the wrinkled and the smooth-skinned — all have devoted Friday night’s prime time to the spiritual effort to, in the words of one, “become a better person.”
With the air of friends getting together to discuss the new Tom Wolfe, they form a circle and chitchat about topics ranging from Moon’s recent trip to Geneva (where she joined 600 others speaking out in support of the UN Human Rights Commission’s resolution to condemn China) to one woman’s stiff neck and the exercises that could work magic on the pain. They all agree that they’ve been looking forward to this moment all day. After flipping off the light switch and pushing back desks, they arrange their limbs carefully on their rolled-out mats. Someone punches “Play” on a scratchy boom box, and they embark on what has become a daily ritual for a growing number of Bostonians.
For an hour, they move their arms fluidly and slowly, swishing down to the ground and then up around head level, always returning back to swirl around the belly with languid circular flourishes. The five exercises that make up the total qi gong set are accompanied by Master Li’s lulling monotone, heard over the nostalgic musical strains of old-school Orientalist purrs, twangs, and chimes.
The faithful claim that Falun Gong — whose motto is “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance” — has cured disease, saved lives, and increased moral tolerance among its members. Asked to explain what keeps her coming back to Room 110 every Friday and Sunday for three hours a crack, Linda DeHart, a 62-year-old silk-screen artist in Cambridge, lets out an overwhelmed sigh. “Whoa,” she laughs. “It’s been a varied experience. Most importantly, though, I have peace of mind, and I’ve been able to let go of material attachments.” DeHart, however, is unable to pinpoint exactly what “material attachments” she has in mind. “I’ll have to get back to you,” she says with a smile.
Followers of Falun Gong exude serenity; in some instances it may be studied, but it is always pronounced. Sitting quietly in the MIT student center before an interview to discuss his imprisonment in China, Zhiyuan Wang, a cardiologist from Beijing who began working at Mass General when he emigrated three years ago, sits quietly with eyes closed and hands neatly folded in his lap, listening intently to a CD of Master Li while students flurry about, grabbing cups of coffee and heading to the library. When the interview begins, Wang again sits with closed eyes, his face and body absolutely still, a soft expression painted on his lips. When it is his turn to speak, he contributes slow, warm, carefully worded sentences, while closely watching an interpreter to make sure everything is just so. “Without Falun Gong,” he says, forming the words precisely, “I would have died.” After peeking around for the effect of this pronouncement, he again closes his eyes.
DRAMATIC CLAIMS like Wang’s have given rise to missionary fervor in the movement. Candlelight vigils, photographic dioramas on Copley Square, and publications strategically distributed around town are continual reminders of Falun Gong’s growing presence. “Our intention is to let the public know the situation in China,” said Tsang last month, monitoring a crew of 10 or so people who had assembled on Copley Square to collect signatures endorsing the UN resolution condemning China’s human-rights violations. (The resolution, which the US supported, was shelved April 18, by a vote of 23 to 17, after China motioned to take “no action.”) He added: “The more people are aware of what’s going on, they will support it more, and maybe clear up the persecution.” The words “persecution” and “crackdown” are used frequently, often as a way of marking time in the movement’s history (i.e., “before the crackdown,” “after the crackdown”). The Falun Dafa Information Center has prominently posted a page devoted to “Crackdown Facts & Figures.”
For some, the compulsion to publicize both the horrors of the crackdown and the tales of healing and redemption is so strong that it’s worth sacrificing personal safety. Wang, who emigrated here from China three years ago, was introduced to Falun Gong when a co-worker took him to a nine-day seminar in Cambridge. After only several months of regular practice, he says, he was wholly cured of a debilitating degenerative muscular disease that had had him hospitalized in China.