China’s Ban of Sect Worries Local Members

The Chinese government’s crackdown on a vast spiritual movement called Falun Gong is resonating sharply in Southern California, where Asian immigrants and others have increasingly embraced the mystical ideology.

Many local followers say they are deeply troubled by reports that more than 5,000 fellow members have been rounded up in China since the sect’s beliefs and practices were outlawed there last month. In protest, some local adherents flew to Washington to join a mass meditation last weekend.

“I think the Chinese government lost its mind,” said Grace Shi, a 38-year-old law office manager from Rowland Heights, who attended the sit-in. “I don’t understand how they can treat good people so badly.”

From Temple City to Beverly Hills, Falun Gong is finding a growing following in Southern California, where it is fanning out from Chinese immigrant communities in the San Gabriel Valley to Westside cliques that have helped make such Eastern practices as tai chi and yoga so popular.

Despite Chinese officials’ claims that the movement poses the biggest threat to the government since the student movement of 1989, which led to the Tiananmen Square massacre, members contend that their belief has no political objectives and merely promotes physical and spiritual healing.

Falun Gong is a type of qigong, an ancient method of channeling energy within the body to heal. But Falun Gong goes beyond qigong and takes on religious overtones in dealing with issues of morality.

Its founder, a former grain clerk named Li Hongzhi, 47, who now lives in New York, denounces premarital sex and homosexuality and has issued strict tenets by which followers should live. According to his gospel, disciples should be emotionally detached, abandoning anger and happiness and longings for comfort and wealth.

Tens of millions of people worldwide are disciples of Falun Gong. But it is difficult to tell exactly how many practice in Southern California. John Li, a Caltech graduate student who helps organize Falun Gong conferences, guesses that local membership is about 1,300, with many more in San Francisco and New York.

He said many people practice it privately without joining a group, making numbers difficult to ascertain. Falun Gong circles exist in Alhambra, Temple City, Rowland Heights, Pasadena, Beverly Hills and Torrance, among other locations, Li said.

In Rowland Heights, Shi routinely meets other disciples for a two-hour session before work at Schabarum Park.

An immigrant from Beijing, Shi began practicing here a year ago, after her boyfriend committed suicide and her life fell into disarray. “I was lost,” she said. “I felt it was meaningless to live in this world.”

Now, she believes that Falun Gong has purified her mind, giving her focus and a reason to live.

In the cool, foggy stillness of a recent morning, she gathered in a circle with nine other retired and middle-age people. Graying and in some cases feeble, they looked like anything but revolutionaries.

To cleanse their minds and bodies through yoga-like meditation and exercise, they performed silent, fluid rituals below the park’s damp sycamores. On Colima Road just a couple hundred feet away, fan belts whined and large trucks worked loudly through their gears, but the group’s focus never wavered.

As a tape player wafted gentle sounds of flute and Chinese guitar, the congregants stood with arms outstretched, still as scarecrows, then moved their hands rhythmically as if they were pouring water on themselves from a stream.

Like other more ancient schools of Chinese thought, their goal was to channel outside energy into the body. At times, they spun their hands in circles around their abdomens, rotating the “Wheel of Law” to regain energy--a central concept to the practice.

“This is not a cult,” said Joseph Cheng, a local businessman. “We cultivate our mind and exercise our body. We try to be good people. That’s it.”

Regardless, some do call Falun Gong a cult, partially because of its skyrocketing numbers. It was founded only seven years ago and, by some estimates, now has 60 million followers. Unlike other schools of qigong, its disciples cannot practice other religions.

Moreover, many followers seem taken by the personality of Li Hongzhi, who some attribute with superhuman powers. In an interview, two practitioners continuously paused while explaining their beliefs, making sure they weren’t misquoting “Master Li.”

“Oh, we should let Master Li say that,” one said, when she thought the other was overreaching in his statement.

But some scholars say it is too loose-knit to be considered a cult. There is no organization to join, and followers can stop practicing without reprisal or consequences of any sort.

Waning Faith in Chinese Communism

“I think these are people looking for well-being,” said Richard Baum, director of UCLA’s Center for Chinese Studies. “There’s a real spiritual vacuum in China since the moral collapse of Communism.”

With rampant unemployment, poor health care and no job security in China, people there are searching for something to create personal contentment and stability, Baum said. New faiths and established religions have been claiming ever more adherents since the mid-1980s as the country has lost faith in the promises of Communism, he said.

Qigong as a whole is experiencing an explosion in its number of schools and followers. So too are the mainstream religions of Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity.

In Southern Californian, followers said they took up Falun Gong for a variety of reasons, but all those interviewed reported that it has given them focus and new meaning in life.

Gina Sanchez, 26, a master’s student at Samra University of Oriental Medicine in Los Angeles, said she had been looking for a “system to attain enlightenment.”

Routine confrontations used to stress her out, and she wanted a way to step mentally above the daily fray. “I’ve definitely attained the kind of equilibrium, emotionally and physically that I’ve been seeking,” she said.

John Li, 38, of Caltech said he was suspicious of Li Hongzhi’s teachings when he heard of them several years ago. At the time, he was head of a Caltech entrepreneurs club, with his own goals firmly rooted in money and power, he said. He was also suffering from allergies and back pain and various vague ailments that doctors could not cure, he said.

Gradually, Li said he grew more curious about Falun Gong, and attended one of “Master Li’s” conferences in New York. He soon began to practice the meditation and breathing exercises. Li said his pains have not come back since.

Now, he organizes local Falun Gong events, including a recent sit-in meditation at the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles.

“We’re trying to let people know that our people aren’t violent,” he said. “We hope international organizations will pay attention to this harassment.”

A human rights group reported last week that hundreds of Chinese government officials who practiced Falun Gong were detained and forced to study communism and renounce their beliefs. Printed materials have been seized and homes have been ransacked.

All Chinese practitioners have been told to make a “clean ideological break” with the sect and stay away from any organized activity. The government’s offensive is reminiscent of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, when communist officials tried to purge the country of old customs and religious practices, said Baum.

The current crackdown stems from an illegal April protest at the government headquarters in Beijing, when 10,000 Falun Gong followers suddenly appeared for a silent protest of the government’s treatment of the sect. Leaders probably became worried that the group was too organized and could wield too much power with the populace.

Li Hongzhi, meanwhile, has said that the group has no organizational structure and no defined local leaders, such as priests. Many say the movement’s communication is done through the Internet.

Because Falun Gong disciples are instructed to avoid anger, Southern California followers say they are saddened, but not surprised, by the recent events in their homeland.

“The government is doing something terrible,” Cheng said. “This is ridiculous. It’s basic human rights. They’re putting these practitioners in jail.”

Li, who left China three years ago, said the government is merely revealing its own insecurities and will not crush the movement.

“They can’t change our hearts or minds,” she said. “People won’t practice in public any more, but they’ll practice at home.”