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Falun Gong or Falun Dafa (literally, "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a Chinese spiritual practice that combines meditation and qigong exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance (). The practice emphasizes morality and the cultivation of virtue, and identifies as a qigong practice of the Buddhist school, though its teachings also incorporate elements drawn from Taoist traditions. Through moral rectitude and the practice of meditation, practitioners of Falun Gong aspire to better health and, ultimately, spiritual enlightenment. Falun Gong was first taught publicly in Northeast China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi. It emerged toward the end of China's "''qigong'' boom"—a period which saw the proliferation of similar practices of meditation, slow-moving exercises and regulated breathing. It differs from other ''qigong'' schools in its absence of fees or formal membership, lack of daily rituals of worship, its greater emphasis on morality, and the theological nature of its teachings. Western academics have described Falun Gong as a qigong discipline, a "spiritual movement", a "cultivation system" in the tradition of Chinese antiquity, or as a form of Chinese religion. Although the practice initially enjoyed considerable support from Chinese officialdom, by the mid- to late-1990s, the Communist Party and public security organizations increasingly viewed Falun Gong as a potential threat due to its size, independence from the state, and spiritual teachings. By 1999, government estimates placed the number of Falun Gong practitioners at 70 million.〔 Tensions culminated in April 1999, when over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered peacefully near the central government compound in Beijing to request legal recognition and freedom from state interference. This demonstration is widely seen as catalyzing the persecution that followed. On 20 July 1999, the Communist Party leadership initiated a nationwide crackdown and multifaceted propaganda campaign intended to eradicate the practice. It blocked Internet access to websites that mention Falun Gong, and in October 1999 it declared Falun Gong a "heretical organization" that threatened social stability. Human rights groups report that Falun Gong practitioners in China are subject to a wide range of human rights abuses: hundreds of thousands are estimated to have been imprisoned extrajudicially, and practitioners in detention are subject to forced labor, psychiatric abuse, torture, and other coercive methods of thought reform at the hands of Chinese authorities.〔 As of 2009 at least 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners had died as a result of abuse in custody.〔Andrew Jacobs. ('China Still Presses Crusade Against Falun Gong' ), New York Times, 27 April 2009.〕 Some observers put the number much higher, and report that tens of thousands may have been killed to supply China's organ transplant industry.〔Ethan Gutmann (10 March 2011) ("How many harvested?" revisited ) eastofethan.com〕〔 In the years since the persecution began, Falun Gong practitioners have become active in advocating for greater human rights in China. Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi has lived in the United States since 1996, and Falun Gong has a sizable global constituency. Inside China, some sources estimate that tens of millions continue to practice Falun Gong in spite of the persecution.〔〔 Hundreds of thousands are estimated to practice Falun Gong outside China in over 70 countries worldwide.〔〔David Ownby, ''Falun Gong and the Future of China,'' p 126.〕 ==Origins== Falun Gong is most frequently identified with the qigong movement in China. ''Qigong'' is a modern term that refers to a variety of practices involving slow movement, meditation, and regulated breathing. Qigong-like exercises have historically been practiced by Buddhist monks, Daoist martial artists, and Confucian scholars as a means of spiritual, moral, and physical refinement. The modern qigong movement emerged in the early 1950s, when Communist cadres embraced the techniques as a way to improve health.〔 The new term was constructed to avoid association with religious practices, which were prone to being labeled as "feudal superstition" and persecuted during the Maoist era.〔〔David Ownby, ("Falungong as a Cultural Revitalization Movement: An Historian Looks at Contemporary China" ), Talk Given at Rice University, 20 October 2000.〕 Early adopters of qigong eschewed its religious overtones, and regarded qigong principally as a branch of Chinese medicine. In the late 1970s, Chinese scientists purported to have discovered the material existence of the qi energy which qigong seeks to harness.〔David Ownby, ''(Falun Gong and the Future of China ),'' (Oxford University Press, 2008), ISBN 978-0-19-532905-6.〕 In the spiritual vacuum of the post-Mao era, tens of millions of mostly urban and elderly Chinese citizens took up the practice of qigong,〔Benjamin Penny, "Qigong, Daoism and Science: some contexts for the qigong boom," in M. Lee and A.D. Syrokomla-Stefanowska (eds.), Modernisation of the Chinese Past (Sydney: Wild Peopy, 1993), pp 166–179〕〔Richard Gunde,"Culture and Customs of China," (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002).〕〔Nancy Chen. "Breathing spaces: qigong, psychiatry, and healing in China",(New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003)〕 and a variety of charismatic qigong masters established practices. At one time, over 2,000 disciplines of qigong were being taught.〔Zhu Xiaoyang and Benjamin Penny, "The Qigong Boom," Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 27, No. 1 (1994)〕 The state-run China Qigong Science Research Society (CQRS) was established in 1985 to oversee and administer the movement.〔Benjamin Penny, "(The Religion of Falun Gong )," (University of Chicago Press, 2012), ISBN 978-0-226-65501-7.〕 On 13 May 1992, Li Hongzhi gave his first public seminar on Falun Gong (alternatively called Falun Dafa) in the northeastern city of Changchun. In his hagiographic spiritual biography, Li Hongzhi is said to have been taught ways of "cultivation practice" by several masters of the Buddhist and Daoist traditions, including Quan Jue, the 10th Heir to the Great Law of the Buddha School, and a master of the Great Way School with the Taoist alias of ''True Taoist'' from the Changbai Mountains. Falun Dafa is said to be the result of his reorganizing and writing down the teachings that were passed to him.〔Li Hongzhi, (9-day Lectures in Guangzhou (audio), lecture 1 ), 1994.〕 Li presented Falun Gong as part of a "centuries-old tradition of cultivation", and in effect sought to revive the religious and spiritual elements of qigong practice that had been discarded in the earlier Communist era. David Palmer writes that Li "redefined his method as having entirely different objectives from qigong: the purpose of practice should neither be physical health nor the development of extraordinary powers, but to purify one's heart and attain spiritual salvation."〔 Falun Gong is distinct from other qigong schools in that its teachings cover a wide range of spiritual and metaphysical topics, placing emphasis on morality and virtue, and elaborating a complete cosmology.〔 The practice identifies with the Buddhist School (''Fojia''), but also draws on concepts and language found in Taoism and Confucianism.〔 This has led some scholars to label the practice as a syncretic faith.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Falun Gong」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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