Falun Dafa also known as Falun Gong is a modern Chinese spiritual practice that combines meditation and Qigong exercises involving body posture, slow movements that embrace the philosophy of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. It was founded by Master Li Hongzhi based on principles of Buddhism and claims to bring a person to a state of wisdom and harmonious existence.
It has five sets of exercises usually accompanied by rhythmic background music and can be performed any time, anywhere.
INTACH Madurai chapter along with LAMPS Trust and Lean In Madurai Circle organized an orientation workshop on Falun Dafa for the first time in the city. Tatiana, a Russian Falun Dafa practitioner based in Puducherry, full of wit and energy went around correcting the body posture of the participants practising Falun Dafa for the first time.
At 63, she effortlessly sat in Padmasana while people half her age struggled to do the same.
“I have been doing Falun Dafa for ten years and it has worked wonders for me,” she says.
Mamta Fomra, a fashion designer, is the reason Falun Dafa reached Madurai.
“On my recent trip to New Zealand , I met Winnie , a Falun Dafa instructor for 15 years. I did a session with her and found it to be effective, impressive, energising and healing.
I then invited Winnie to India and with her reference we co-ordinated with Chitra Devnani and Deepak, Falun Dafa instructors from Bangalore, to organize the workshop.”
There are various reasons for which people take up Falun Dafa. Deepak says, “ Falun Dafa is the kind of practice you discover yourself and get self-refined with practice. I used it to control my temper and it has made me a better person.” While Chitra adds, “ I took up Falun Dafa as a last resort to a persistent back ache troubling me for years. Within a week I felt a positive difference and my visits to doctor stopped.”
Winnie says she used to intermittently fall sick till she took to this spiritual practice. “Now I feel energetic all the time and my whole lifestyle has improved for the better. Falun dafa heals not just your body but helps cultivating a positive attitude and strengthens your mind as well’
Mamta, Winnie and a few other participants from the workshop continued practicing Falun Dafa for over a week at Sundaram Park, KK Nagar, where the public watched and even randomly joined them out of curiosity. showed good interest with many people joining for the session. Mamta explains, “Falun Dafa evoked good response and is more interesting and fulfilling when practised in groups,” says Mamta and is confident that more locals will happily explore this rejuvenating practice.”
Falun Dafa, first taught publicly by Master Li Hongzhi in North East China in 1992, received wide publicity initially but was legally banned by the ruling Communist party during mid 1990’s fearing the immense popularity and the network of people from all sections of society coming together to practice it.
However Falun Dafa continued to gain popularity outside China and the books and teachings by Master Li have been translated to several native languages.
The demonstration videos and course material can be accessed for free at www.falundafa.org . For connecting with Falun Dafa practioners in Madurai reach out to mamtafomra@yahoo.co.in
