Friday, July 20, 2001 | 4:34 a.m.
Two years ago Chinese police pushed a 59-year-old woman into a van, drove her to jail and kept her there for 24 days. She had confessed to being a practitioner of Falun Gong -- a spiritual philosophy banned by the Communist government.
She tells her story at Las Vegas' Desert Breeze Park, standing in her sock feet, having just finished two hours of spiritual exercises, freely, under a bright yellow Falun Gong banner strung up between two palm trees.
"It's very good -- very different -- to have freedom," she says in Chinese with the help of a translator.
But her teacher, Kaijin Liang, cautions her not to give her name to the newspaper. And he warns against publishing her photo. Soon, her visa will expire, and she will return to Beijing, where she could face persecution if the government knew she still practices Falun Gong.
Liang then points across the park -- beyond a playground full of children -- and says, "Sometimes the spies from the Chinese government are taking pictures of us from over there. They are zooming in. I saw it." Such photos, he says, would be used to indict practitioners should they return to China.
And yet about 250 Las Vegans practice Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, at Desert Breeze and Sunset parks. They don't recruit members, says practitioner Margaret Lee, "But it is very important for us to have Western friends."
Because of the number of Chinese that participate in Falun Gong -- an estimated 70 million to 100 million -- that country's government considers the group a threat to Communists, whose numbers are estimated to be about 60 million.
Falun Gong practitioners -- who prefer not to be called "members" and refer to their spiritual practices as "cultivation" instead of religion -- adamantly deny espousing any political ideology.
Instead, they say their physical poses and spiritual meditation increase their health, make them "better people," and -- ultimately -- may lead them to develop "supernormal abilities."
China banned the practice in 1999, concerned less with the spiritual beliefs per se than that the group represents a rebellious faction that might at some point become a catalyst to political upheaval.
More than 12,000 practitioners have been arrested and many tortured and killed in the last two years, prompting the U.S. Congress to condemn China for violating the group's human rights.
Local governments have also issued proclamations in support of the group: Last year Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman declared Nov. 18 "Falun Dafa Day," the Clark County Commission declared Dec. 10-16 "Falun Dafa Week" and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn declared December "Falun Dafa Month."
Still, while clearly opposing the violent persecution of the group in China, U.S. religion-watchers are increasingly scrutinizing Falun Gong in an attempt to place it in the spiritual landscape.
At a Seattle conference, "Cults and the Millennium" last year, Berkeley, Calif., religious psychologist Margaret Singer said of Falun Gong, "If you want a good description of a cult, all you have to do is read what they say they are.
"They actually say, 'Don't think, just follow the master's teachings.' "
Falun Gong blames the Chinese government for spreading such ideas: "China's biggest weapon against all spiritual practices it to call them 'cults' because the derogatory connotations of that word is enough to put people on guard, and in the case of Falun Dafa, it is a label that is completely inaccurate," an official Falun Dafa website says.
Propaganda war
Much of the propaganda war between the anti-Falun Gong and the group itself takes place on the Internet, where many Chinese-government controlled articles report that Falun Gong followers are discouraged from seeking professional medical care, and are being led toward mass suicide. The group denies both assertions.
"It's all propaganda from Chinese government," Lee said.
So what exactly is Falun Dafa? The principles are loosely rooted in traditional Eastern philosophies, but have additional elements -- "it's more advanced," Liang said.
"Tai Chi and yoga give you limited growth, but this can bring you further up," Liang said. "Many people have been cured from chronic disease -- cancer, high blood pressure..."
Liang, a civil engineer from China who has been in Las Vegas for nine years, leads a Falun Gong practice session on Sunday mornings. He stands with his hands over his head, eyes shut, meditating. About 20 other people stand in the park with him, on mats, eyes shut. For more than an hour they slowly change their physical poses. A full practice session consists of performing five sets of body movements -- stretches and poses -- while listening to the tape-recorded spiritual guidance of founder Li Hongzhi set to harpsichord music.
After the physical routine, they sit and study the philosophy, which is based on the ideas of "truth, compassion and forbearance."
"It gives you a lot of benefits in body and mind," Liang said.
Li, a former Chinese government clerk, created Falun Gong in 1992. Today he is in hiding in the United States, and issues statements to his students via the Internet, such as this excerpt from an essay published in July 2000:
"In the several years of your cultivation practice, I have not only endured a great deal for you, but also, in the meantime, I have constantly given you hints for your improvement, looked after you for your safety and settled the debts that you've owed at different levels so that you can reach Consummation -- these aren't things that just anyone can do, and neither can they be done for everyday people. It's simply that these people (Chinese government) are too irrational and don't know to treasure Dafa and the opportunity to practice cultivation."
Liang said Li is a "powerful" person who is advanced in the study of Falun Gong.
"It's not really the movements alone, it's the power of the founder. He treats you as a disciple. He is the only teacher," Liang said.
Supernatural abilities
Falun Gong also teaches that those advanced in the study may obtain supernatural abilities: "They (some practitioners) have developed a supernormal walking ability that shields them from the rain. Some have developed the supernormal ability of teleportation," Li wrote in the introductory book, "China Falun Gong."
Teleportation is the scientifically theoretical transportation of matter through space by converting it into energy and then reconverting it at the terminal point.
"Western countries, such as the United States, Great Britain, etc., call it magic. David Copperfield, a magician in the (United States), is a master of supernormal abilities, and he once performed the feat of walking through the Great Wall of China," Li wrote.
Chinese and Humanities professor Charles Wu at Reed College in Portland, Ore., said he is concerned that Li places himself above all other Buddhist and Taoist sages.
"He's the only leader who can teach the principles of Falun Gong," Wu said in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor last year. "I myself feel it has cult tendencies."
"We are not a cult," counters Earl Walker, a Las Vegan who began practicing Falun Gong six months ago. "We live in the everyday world. We take no contributions. We have no rituals. We don't worship anybody. We do it as we want to do it. We come and go as we please. It just makes you a more productive member of society."
And those gathered at the practice on this Sunday morning -- most of whom are from China -- say that their lives have been positively affected by Falun Gong. Reports of less stress and better health abound.
"We are just trying to be a better person, and when there is conflict in our lives, we look inside ourselves for the answer, we go back to the principles of truth, compassion and forbearance," said Kelly Rogers, 31, an accountant who moved to Las Vegas from Beijing nine years ago. Her name has been changed to protect her family from persecution.
Rogers' parents still live in Beijing and not only practice Falun Gong secretly, but are in hiding because of it.
"They are too afraid to go out. If you go out in China, you may be asked by the police to say something bad to defame Falun Gong -- to make sure you are not a practitioner. So they stay at home to avoid the confrontation.
"They really want to go out to clarify the truth. The Chinese people are misled by the government to believe that Falun Gong practitioners are bad people.
"My parents want to tell that people are good, but they risk everything."
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