Switzerland: Story about a New Falun Gong Practitioner

The morning of October 21st was sunny and bright. We rode in a Falun Gong practitioner’s car all the way from Switzerland to Strasbourg to participate in a two-day petition in front of the European Parliament. About 50 practitioners from various countries in central Europe took part in the activity. We began by practising the Falun Gong exercises for an hour at noon, but it rained heavily while we were practising the ‘Holding the Wheel’ exercise. When we rushed to our car parked nearby, three practitioners persisted in standing still in the rain to practise the exercises to the end.

When sitting in the car, I looked out the window and found these three practitioners were so calm and peaceful as if the rain had not fallen on them. I noticed that one of them was a Western practitioner named Cornelia who had started to practise Falun Gong just two months ago.

Looking at her practising the exercises, I happened to recall our first encounter at our practice site last Tuesday: It was the second day after she returned to Switzerland from India, and it was the very first time for her to meet Falun Gong practitioners in Switzerland. As I was the first practitioner she had met there, she was excited to tell me about her unusual experience in India. She told me that she tried various kinds of qigong, including tai chi, as she had been in search for the true meaning of life since she was sixteen years old. When she met practitioners in India two months ago, she finally found the profound cultivation practice she wanted. After knowing this activity, she took initiative to join us, though I was wondering if it was suitable for a new Western practitioner who just started to cultivate Falun Gong two months ago.

However, what I saw today proved that my doubt was unnecessary. When finishing practising that set of the exercises, she was drenched to the skin. I thus called her to get into the car, and asked her if she felt cold. While smoothing out her hair, she smiled and told me, “I am Ok. It is not cold today, so it’s nothing for me to get drenched.” In fact, the temperature was simply about 10 Celsius, and she was only wearing thin clothes with a pair of plastic slippers on her feet. When it was not raining so heavily, she got out of the car to distribute flyers until the conclusion of the event in the evening.

When it was still drizzling in the early morning of the following day, Cornelia stood with a peaceful smile at an entrance of the European Parliament building to distribute flyers to those who entered the building. Many people accepted the flyers. I assumed that they should have been moved by Cornelia’s peaceful smile.

On our way home, I talked to her in the train, “You are indeed great. Though you have only started to practice two months, you are so diligent.” She replied, “I just tried my best to do what I should do.”
Although it was a plain sentence, I was really touched by her enthusiasm. She did it seriously simply because she thought that it was what she should do. I found my own shortcomings from her actions.