Reasons For Practicing Falun Gong
In surveys of the Falun Gong practitioners in North America, the most commonly reported reasons for being attracted to the practice were the teachings, cultivation exercises, and health benefits. In a study conducted by David Ownby, close to 30% of practitioners said they were attracted to Falun Dafa for its "intellectual content", 27% for "spiritual enlightenment", 20% for "health benefits", 15% the exercises, 7% for Li Hongzhi himself, and 2% for the community. The "intellectual content", according to Ownby, refers to the value of Falun Dafa doctrine in describing the "functioning of the moral and physical universe."
Scott Lowe's survey found that Falun Gong's spiritual teachings and promise of good health were the most common reasons for people to have taken up the practice. In Lowe's survey, 22 respondents gave "Master Li's philosophy and his answers to life's most difficult questions" as their primary attraction to the practice, while another twenty were attracted for health benefits. Nine were drawn by the moral principles, twelve by the books, ten by the exercises, and small numbers of others by a variety of other factors. Several respondents apparently realized that other forms of qigong were "shallow, exoteric, and superficial," while they came to believe that Falun Gong is the "most complete, efficacious, and comprehensive system of spiritual cultivation on the planet."
In Lowe's survey, The practitioners were asked if their attraction to and focus on Falun Gong practice had changed over time. Ten claimed that they had no change, since they started Falun Gong with the intention of gaining enlightenment, which is the goal of practice. Others, over time, put less emphasis on the health improvements they experienced, which they came to see "as a relatively trivial result of cultivation." Twenty-six respondents said they felt a newfound sense of moral certitude and spiritual growth, while ten "discovered a firm determination to carry their cultivation through to the end goal of enlightenment or consummation, no matter what obstacles might appear in their path."
Read more about this topic: Falun Gong Outside Mainland China
Famous quotes containing the words reasons for, reasons and/or practicing:
“While there are practical and sometimes moral reasons for the decomposition of the family, it coincides neither with what most people in society say they desire nor, especially in the case of children, with their best interests.”
—Robert Neelly Bellah (20th century)
“One of the reasons for the failure of feminism to dislodge deeply held perceptions of male and female behaviour was its insistence that women were victims, and men powerful patriarchs, which made a travesty of ordinary people’s experience of the mutual interdependence of men and women.”
—Rosalind Coward (b. 1953)
“The daily arguments over putting away the toys or practicing the piano defeat us so easily. We see them coming yet they frustrate us time and time again. In many cases, we are mothers and fathers who have managed budgets and unruly bosses and done difficult jobs well through sheer tenacity and dogged preparation. So why are we unable to persuade someone three feet tall to step into six inches of water at bathtime?”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)