How This Jersey Shore Girl Came to Practice Falun Gong

I have always had my eye on the big picture. I mean the BIG picture.
Even as a little girl, the questions in my mind were always life’s greatest mysteries: Who are we? Why are we here? What’s out there? How big? How small? Who created all of this? Is science correct? Is religion correct? Is there a God? Many Gods? What is the actual truth? What about these callings in my soul? What of these things I inherently know that no one’s taught me and that I can hardly explain? And on and on and on…
Cut to age 25, sitting on a train with my (apparent ;)) future husband, Matt. We were commuting into work when he handed me the book, “Zhuan Falun.” He had received this book from a colleague. He told me I should give it a read and that it was right up my alley. I knew he wouldn’t just casually recommend any book like this, and he had been commenting about how amazing it was for weeks, so I decided to give it a go.
Upon my first read of this main text of the practice of Falun Dafa or Falun Gong, I came across many parts I didn’t quite understand and many that resonated with me deeply. One part, in particular stuck with me in a powerful way. The author, Li Hongzhi, described in perfect detail the exact elements of a recurring experience I had as a child. I never knew what it was and no one could ever explain it to me. I knew this book was something special.
Further reading opened my mind to many new understandings of the very big questions I’d always had. Upon completion of the book I wanted to read it again to understand it better.
That was 14 years ago and I still study “Zhuan Falun,” along with Master Li Honghi’s other writings regularly. I am constantly gaining deeper understandings of these teachings.
It took me a little while to feel like I was qualified to call myself a Falun Dafa practitioner. I wasn’t very diligent, at first, in doing the other component of the practice: the exercises, even though when I did them I felt amazing and had more energy than I had ever had before.
I still waiver in diligence. What I’ve learned from this cultivation practice is that cultivation itself is a journey of constant improvement. I constantly strive to live my life according to the core principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance.
Soon after learning about Falun Gong, I learned that across the world, in China, where it was first introduced to the public, those who practice and live their lives according to these upright principles were being brutally persecuted by the Communist Party in power there. This began on July 20, 1999 at the hand of former leader Jiang Zemin and has been going on since.
I know first hand how wonderful this practice is and how my entire family has benefited from it. I will continue to do all I can to shed light on the horrific persecution of such good people until it is no longer allowed to continue.