Falun Gong

Dear Friends,
I just read a few posts on the forum related to Falun Gong and that is what prompts me to make this post…

[b]here are excerpts from an article on Falun Gong written by Shao, Xiaodong considered by the acedemic community to be one of the world’s foremost “experts” on Qi Gong…. :[/b]

My name is Shao, Xiaodong. I obtained my bachelor’s degree from China Western Medical Science University and my master’s degree from China Chinese Medical Science Research Institute. I have a master’s degree on Qigong and Acupuncture certified by the State Education Commission of China, and have served as the Deputy Chairman of Heilongjiang Provincial Qigong Science Research Society and counselor to Liaoning Provincial Qigong Science Research Society. I was also nominated and recommended by Mr. Zhang Zhenhuan, formerly Director of China National Defense Science and Industry Commission and now Chairman of the China Qigong Science Research Society and China Human Body Science Society, as academic counselor of therapeutic Qigong. Since 1985, I have had many opportunities to give lectures in European and American countries upon invitation. In 1989, I came to Japan to teach upon invitation. In 1990, I accepted appointment to work in Japan and settled down in Tokyo.

Prior to coming to Japan, I worked as a leading attending physician for China’s State Chinese Medical Science Research Institute in Beijing and a Specially Invited Lecturer for the Therapeutic Qigong Research Institute of the Beijing Chinese Medical Science and Medicine University. To a cultivation practitioner, the education, degrees and titles mentioned above are of little significance. I listed them just to show that I have received formal trainings in modern science and I am not a novice at Chinese and Western medical sciences, Qigong and human body science research. In addition, being a senior high school graduate in the early 1960’s and having gone through the Culture Revolution and all types of ideological movements, I am used to evaluating various theories and doctrines with a critical eye, would not have carelessly believed in and blindly followed anyone and any of his theory. As to things new to human kind, I am of opinion that we should not carelessly believe them, or carelessly deny them. Rather, we should avoid the influence of our acquired perceptions and probe them with rational thinking and personal experience. Only after that shall we be able to draw the conclusion.
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Today I will talk about my personal experience in choosing to practice Falun Dafa. What I will talk about here is from a beginner’s perspective, superficial and won’t be of much help to veteran practitioners. But to beginning practitioners and those interested in learning Falun Dafa, it may help them learn more about Falun Dafa and start practice.
In mid 1993, I left Japan for China to conduct research on various schools of Qigong practices. Near the Golden Fish Pond of the Zhongshan Park in Beijing, I heard pleasant music and was attracted to take a look. I saw dozens of people were practicing a Qigong system that I had never seen before. What surprised me was that three out of four standing stances they practiced were high-position stances (that is, the center of palms is higher than shoulder). Since I specialized in Qigong research, I knew that all traditional practice schools started their standing stance practices with low-position and middle-position ones. I had never seen such a school that began with high-position stances, regardless of the practitioners’ length of practice or blood pressure. From the conventional therapeutic Qigong’s perspective, practicing like this may result in rising blood pressure and is dangerous to high blood pressure patients. However, after talking with the practitioners on the site, including former high blood pressure sufferers, I found no problems. Those that had suffered from high blood pressure got their blood pressure lowered and those with low blood pressure got it raised to the normal level. What did it indicate that the phenomenon did not fit the conventional Qigong theory? I immediately realized that judging from the surface, the practice was not an ordinary heath-improving Qigong. It must be extraordinary, unique and profound. Later on, after I practiced Falun Gong myself, I came to know that each practitioner of this school have a Falun (Law Wheel, existing in another dimension) ever rotating in his/her abdomen and “it is the Fa (Law) that cultivates the practitioner”. Practitioners put their hands in different positions of their body to reinforce the law wheel and mechanism and all cultivation procedures operate automatically under the effect of the mechanism.
my observation continued, I was even more surprised to see that the fifth set of practice was a sitting meditation and practitioners were required to do lotus sitting (with two legs crossed) as long as they could possibly do, whereas all other popular Qigong schools only practice sitting meditation after reaching a high level. Since lotus sitting is difficult to do, most people only practice it at home and never show it to others. Publicly promoting the lotus sitting practice on a large scale plus the so-called “secret among the secrets”-the hand signs, was rarely seen and almost never heard of. Judged from the appearance, the system starts at a high level, higher than traditional health-promoting Qigong systems. That was the conclusion I drew at that time from a bystander’s point of view. Later, Teacher Li said explicitly in the class: “This set of practice is the kind of cultivation at a high level, the one that I did alone in the past. I presented it to you without any modification.”
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After the practice finished, I had a conversation with the practitioners. They told me that the practice was called Falun Gong and the Teacher was Mr. Li Hongzhi. Teacher would plant a Falun (law wheel) in every practitioner’s abdomen. Whoever fortunately get the Falun actually had already been halfway successful in cultivation. They also mentioned that Falun Gong was a cultivation practice and Teacher Li not only taught the practice, but also lectured the Fa (law and principles), which guide spiritual cultivation at a high level. Since the practice is supernormal and miraculous, I definitely should treasure this precious opportunity. I thought to myself: this might be the advanced cultivation Dafa (Great Way) I have been seeking for years. Then, I hurriedly moved to a nearby hotel and started learning Falun Gong at the park every morning. Upon hearing that Teacher Li was going to give another series of lectures in Beijing, I asked contact person of that practice site to enter my name too.

August 27, 1993 was a day most worthy of celebration in my life. On that day I attended the 13th Falun Gong lecture series in Beijing.
During that period, every evening I went to attend the lectures practice teaching given by the Teacher at No.27 Beijing Locomotive Factory way outside the city proper. Returning home after the 3rd lecture, I practiced the fifth set of sitting practice for 30 minutes and felt light and comfortable all over the body, with no numbness and pain when doing the lotus sitting. That was the first time I physically experienced the great power of Falun Dafa. Just as Teacher says: “For a cultivation practitioner to reach the stage of Milky White Body in other schools, it may take more than 10 years, dozens of years or even longer. We take you to that stage in no time.” “We push you beyond that and let you achieve the state of no illness.” Before I attended the lectures, when I practiced lotus sitting up to 30 minutes, I would feel swelling pains.
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At 5:30 on the morning of the New Year’s Day, the temperature in Changchun was 23C below zero. We overseas Falun Dafa practitioners practiced together with Changchun’s local practitioners in a park. At that time I only wore a pair of thin gloves. In the posture of Embracing the Wheel before the Head, according to the music tape, we only needed to practice seven minutes. But seven minutes at that time was even harder to endure than 70 minutes’ usual practice. My fingers were almost frozen into ice bars and there were extreme pains in my hands as if freezing cold needles were planted into my flesh. It’s like a hell torturing. After the 7 minutes of hard endurance, I had planned to change to the posture of Embracing the Wheel Before the Abdomen according to the music and use the opportunity to take a breath. Then an idea came to me: why not impose higher standard on myself and continue to practice another 7 minutes? Although the environment was harsh and the practice was difficult and painful, was it not a result of karma accumulated by myself over the previous lives? Teacher said: “When it is difficult to endure, you can endure it; When it is impossible to do, you can do it.” Why not just do it? It is true that good or bad comes from an instant thought. Falun is something of intelligence. It was not long before I felt small Faluns rotating around my 10 frozen and painful fingers. When the second 7 minutes finished, my fingers were no longer painful and actually started to warm up. Experiencing in person that sweetness comes afte the bitterness is really memorable. Deep inside I concretely experienced the majesty and realness of Falun Dafa. I further realized Teacher is strict with but full of paramount compassion for every practitioner. Falun Dafa is not empty preaching, but all truth. Only genuine practitioners can experience it at different levels of genuine practice.
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Falun Gong is a cultivation practice of both mind and body and encompasses the Buddha-body (The never-degenerated Vajra body as it is called in the Buddha School, or “Yuanying” in the Tao School) cultivation. In the section of “Xuanguan Shewei” of Zhuan Falun, Teacher expounds on every evolving step of the Buddha-body cultivation in plain languages and revealed “Xuanguan”-the secret among the secrets-in explicit details. I specialized in the research of “Dan Jing” and “Tao Tsang” (two ancient Chinese books on cultivation practice) in the library of China Chinese Medical Science Research Institute and the title of my graduate dissertation was “The Analysis of the Internal Dan of China’s Taoist School Qigong through Ancient Works”. For “Tao Tsang” alone, the library had a wealth of 5285 books. However, even though you go through all the ancient books, you are still at loss as to what exactly “Xuanguan Yiqiao” means. However, our Teacher fully discloses this ancient mystery, which is regarded as the secret among the secrets.
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