(Minghui.org) The Falun Dafa Club at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) hosted a meditation seminar on August 20, 2021. Attendees learned about the cultural and historical background of the spiritual practice of Falun Dafa.
Approximately 20 students and faculty attended the three-hour seminar. Guest speaker Dr. Frank Tian Xie, a professor at the University of South Carolina Aiken, discussed the concept of cultivation as well as different schools of thought in traditional Chinese culture and how they are related to Falun Dafa, a cultivation practice that has physically and mentally benefited more than a hundred million people in more than 100 countries.
The seminar was followed by an exercise demonstration, and attendees learned the five Falun Dafa exercises. During the Q&A session, attendees asked many questions about the practice. Several participants said that the seminar was an eye-opening experience. One student said from the seminar she understood that “tolerance is one of the main virtues.”
Students and faculty listen to Dr. Xie’s presentation during the meditation seminar on August 20, 2021 at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC).
Attendees learn the Falun Dafa exercises.
Nekaybaw Evans (first on the left), who enjoys meditating, said he “felt extremely relaxed” after learning the Falun Dafa exercises.
Nekaybaw Evans, an exercise science major and an avid meditator, learned all five Falun Dafa exercises. “I felt extremely relaxed. I was just going nice and slow,” she said. She found doing the exercises to be a relaxing pause in her busy college days: “I liked how in this practice we were moving our arms and doing some slow, gentle rotational practices and just taking it nice and slow. No rushing, just nice, easy.”
Mary does the fifth Falun Dafa exercise, the sitting meditation.
Mary Dang, an elementary education major, attended the seminar and said she found the experience meaningful. “I really enjoyed this event. I feel like the exercises really made me feel open and lighter,” she said.
Christina Moss does the second exercise, the Falun Standing Stance.
Christina Moss, a student majoring in exercise science, also found the event eye-opening. She thought the seminar was “very informational, very calming, interesting, very communicative, and inclusive.” “I really appreciate it,” she said.
While she did the second exercise, the standing stance, she had difficulty holding her hands up. She said she reminded herself that “tolerance is one of the main virtues” of Falun Dafa and that tolerating such difficulties was encompassed within those virtues. Following the sitting meditation, she said, “I really appreciated feeling blank, with no thoughts.”
During the seminar, Dr. Xie also discussed the ongoing persecution of Falun Dafa in China that has persisted for more than 20 years, and many attendees were stirred upon learning about it.
Nekaybaw expressed sympathy when she heard about the persecution. She asked, “How could you find the rules or put the laws together to persecute somebody for literally doing nothing or just doing something to benefit themselves without hurting anybody? ... I thought that that was pretty scary and really crazy because I just don’t understand that.”
Background: What is Falun Dafa?
Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) was first introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China in 1992. The spiritual discipline is now practiced in over 100 countries and regions worldwide. Millions of people have embraced the teachings—which are based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance as well as five gentle exercises—and experienced uplifted health and well-being.
Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), perceived the spiritual discipline's growing popularity as a threat to the CCP's atheistic ideology and on July 20, 1999, issued an order to ban the practice.
Minghui.org has confirmed the deaths of thousands of practitioners as a result of the persecution over the past 22 years. The actual number is believed to be much higher. More have been imprisoned and tortured for their faith.
There is concrete evidence that the CCP sanctions the harvesting of organs from detained practitioners, who are murdered to supply the organ transplant industry.
Under Jiang's personal direction, the CCP established the 610 Office, an extralegal security organization with the power to override the police and judicial systems and whose sole function is to carry out the persecution of Falun Dafa.
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