Star-Telegram: Forbidden to follow [Excerpt]

ARLINGTON, TX -- At four in the morning, she woke, unable to sleep through the pain. The years Hsiu-Er Shen spent working 10-hour days as a seamstress had embedded needling pain throughout her body.

The arthritis was so debilitating she couldn't raise an arm or ball up a fist. But that morning, as she tried to walk on the street near her home in Taiwan, she heard music and followed it to a children's park. There, sitting in lotus positions, men and women moved their arms in slow, rhythmic motions, in unison like an array of antennae. The meditation seen by Hsiu-Er, Falun Gong, has become part of her life, as it has for millions worldwide. ...While it harks back to the ancient mysticism of China, the Chinese government's reaction to the movement is a metaphor for all that seems wrong with the superpower -- suppression, torture and murder. Two years have passed. Hsiu-Er, now in the United States, sits lotus-style in an Arlington apartment, opening and closing a fist, pain free. The 58-year-old woman said she has given up her medication -- some of which added to the swelling of her knuckles -- as well as pills to treat a liver ailment. All thanks, she said, to Falun Dafa or Falun Gong, as it is also called. (Pronounced Fall-en Da-Fa, it means "the great wheel way.")

Despite its positive health benefits, the Chinese government has branded it an[Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted]. The state banned the practice in 1999. Practitioners say that since then, more than 250 people have been tortured and killed by the Chinese government, and that thousands of others have been arrested. In June, Chinese authorities reported that about a dozen Falun Gong followers hanged themselves at a labor camp where they had been imprisoned. But Falun Gong followers denied the government's claims of a mass suicide and said the prisoners had been tortured to death. This month, the Chinese government presented an anti-Falun Gong exhibition in Beijing to mark the second anniversary of the state's ban of the practice. [...] Followers of Falun Gong decry the government exhibit as a smear campaign intended to discredit a hugely popular movement that the state sees as a threat to its totalitarianism.

Millions -- Falun Gong organizers estimate between 70 million to 100 million in China alone -- continue to practice the tai chi like movements and the deep meditation, which followers refer to as cultivation. The reasons for its popularity, practitioners say, are twofold. Followers say the meditation brings enlightenment. And, they believe, it also eradicates disease. And practitioners believe Falun Gong can bring even more. Throughout Falun Gong runs a current of the paranormal. Followers believe enough meditation will bring potent abilities.

[...]

But for most followers, Falun Gong's teachings and exercise are a way to achieve a positive mental outlook and a healthy body, members said. Wayne Chai, an Arlington practitioner of Falun Gong, said he is cultivating his spirit, mind and good health. It isn't clear how many people are practicing Falun Gong in the Metroplex. Small groups practice in Arlington, Richardson, Dallas and Alien. Falun Gong demands that its students practice the noble qualities of Zhen-Shan-Ren -- truthfulness-benevolence-forbearance. [...]