Three People Start to Practise Falun Gong in Southern Germany

Over one hundred Falun Gong practitioners from Germany, Austria and the German District of Switzerland would gather together in a hostel located in snowy Odenwald in Southern Germany, in the four days around New Year’s Day every year. They would practise the five sets of Falun Gong exercises, study the Falun Gong teachings and share the cultivation experiences they gained over the past year. What was different for the 2005 New Year gathering was that a group of new practitioners, who started to practise Falun Gong last summer, including some Chinese as well as some Germans, attended the gathering. According to practitioners from various places, there were quite a lot of new practitioners starting to practise Falun Gong in most areas of Germany in 2004.

Anne, who always wears a shining smile on her face, is working with the City government of Cham, which is a small town in Germany. She heard of Falun Gong the first time in a church choir. In May 2004, when she was thinking about learning qigong (Exercises for cultivating ones body) to improve her breathing, the conductor of the choir happened to attend a gathering introducing Falun Gong not long ago. Therefore he introduced Anne to a Falun Gong practitioner in Cham. Anne started to learn the Falun Gong exercises and borrowed a Falun Gong book for studying at home.

After finishing reading the book, Anne, who had been educated in Catholic schools since she was little, suddenly found that she was able to understand the Bible even better than before. That was a shocking exploration in her mind. She realised that Zhuan Falun, which contains the core teachings of Falun Gong, was much more profound than the Bible and so she decided to start practising Falun Gong.

Over the past six months, Anne has encountered various tests of her heart. Talking about her test of red wine, she couldn’t help laughing. She used to love drinking red wine, which is known to all her family and friends. After practising Falun Gong, she stopped drinking without telling others. On one occasion, a friend sent her a bottle of red wine. She didn’t want to disappoint this friend, so she didn’t tell him that she had quit drinking. Surprisingly, a few days later, she received red wine successively from her friends. She enlightened that she wasn’t truthful enough, because she should have told people frankly about her current situation. She then told her friends that she had quit drinking after practising Falun Gong. Unexpectedly, all her friends expressed that they understood her situation.

After she started to practise Falun Gong, she also learnt more about the persecution taking place against Falun Gong led by Jiang Zemin and his tyrannous regime. Whilst participating in a Falun Gong Information Day activity in Cham City for the first time, she was a little bit uneasy being seen by acquaintances. What’s even worse was that the last people she wanted to see on that occasion came to the booth asking for information about Falun Gong. She let go of her attachment of uneasiness, telling them calmly that she was there appealing for the freedom of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Another new Falun Gong practitioner is called Galina, she is forty two years old and has a small figure. She is from Ukraine, but her ancestors were from Germany. Along with her husband and son, she left Ukraine for Germany in 1992. She had long sought after the true meaning of life, and had read many books. She often felt that she was able to understand the content of a book after reading it one or twice. After receiving Zhuan Falun from her friend in the summer of 2004, she started to read it. But she felt it was quite difficult for her to understand. She had many questions after reading it for the first time; she thus read it again continuously. In the meantime, she started to learn the Falun Gong exercises. She used to sleep for a long time, but still felt tired from time to time. However although she now sleeps less than before and works longer hours, she never feels tired at all.

Galina left Ukraine at the age of thirty. When studying in middle school in this former socialist country, she already knew that all the propaganda launched by the Communist Party was lies. But a lie might become truth after being repeated a thousand times. After having lived in Ukraine for thirty years, as soon as she first heard about the persecution against Falun Gong, her past experience allowed her to immediately understand that the same approach has been taken by the Chinese Communist Party to slander Falun Gong via various media channels.

Though Galina speaks softly and has a pair of gentle, timid, large eyes, she can clearly differentiate between justice and injustice. She lives in the Ruhr Industrial Region near Cologne, but she spares some time every week to distribute materials about Falun Gong to the tourists visiting from China at the Cologne Church.

Bock (alias) is a native of Germany and is retired. There are three deep vertical wrinkles between his two eyebrows, coupled with his forehead that is densely covered with wrinkles, Bock looks like a philosopher. As a matter of fact, he is inclined to think about things. He started to research different aspects of spirituality since his twenties. Over so many years, he has been taught by many masters, spent much money and travelled to many places, but he has just grown more and more doubtful. He pondered whether people should spend so much money to find a spiritual way out? .

All Falun Gong's activities are free of charge, including the exercise-teaching, which was something new to Bock. He immediately decided to give it a try. With twenty five years of experience in meditation he was very much fascinated by Falun Gong’s exercises. He had never had any significant feeling when sitting in meditation in the past, but he was clear-headed and felt very comfortable after practising Falun Gong’s five sets of exercises. Moreover, he was overwhelmed by Zhuan Falun because it provided the answers that he had never found in any other cultivation practise.

He was impressed with the gathering participated in by the Falun Gong practitioners at Odenwald. He has participated in many other similar activities organised by spiritual or qigong organisations, but he had never seen any gathering attended by over one hundred people who are so orderly, without noise or conflicts resulting from discontent. He believed that it was because of Falun Gong’s magical power.