Majestic Parade in Manhattan Marks 26 Years of Falun Gong

A parade through Manhattan on May 11 marked the main event for Falun Dafa Day festivities. Around a thousand practitioners participated. May 13 is the birthday of Li Hongzhi, Falun Dafa’s founder. Falun Dafa is also called Falun Gong. Practitioners who joined the parade come from all walks of life. They say the practice has immense physical and mental benefits, that changed their lives. Simon Vereshaka, from Australia I was always looking for how to cultivate the mind and my taichi teacher at the time came upon the book Zhuan Falun. I got the book. That was in 1998. I was really touched. … It made me be a better person straight away. The practice also helps to answer the many questions people have in their lives. Rong Yi, Former Chinese Diplomat After learning this I found this is what I’ve been looking for. … I found myself totally changed because I found the meaning of life—that’s what I was looking for. My life turned out to be very bright and very meaningful and I got to know why I was here. Falun Dafa is based on three simple principles: truthfulness compassion and tolerance. Jacob Zocco, local practitioner (note: the one with the baby girl) To have those three principles in my life, it just made the quality of my life so much better, brought so much more harmony to my life and through following those three principles it actually is a way to achieve better health and have more energy. Olli Torma, originally from Finland It completely changed the way I think of these kinds of practices and I found it so incredibly powerful. .. Physically and mentally it’s made me a lot better a different person. Yulia Zhirnova, originally from Russia I was looking actually for things that were alternative medicine, I couldn’t really find anything that worked for a long time and when I started practicing Falun Dafa within a month there was a huge transformation. I no longer needed any naps during the day, I had a lot of energy.