Is Falun Gong a religion!

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Falun Gong (pronounced fah- luhn goong, and means "the Practice of the Wheel of the Dharma"). Falun Dafa originally referred to the movement that practices Falun Gong. Li Hongzhi is the founder of Falun gong. He was born on May 13th 1951 it is also considered as the birthday of Siddhartha Gautama,the Buddha.

The Chinese government claims his birthday as July 7th 1952.

Jilin is a northeastern province where he was born. Falun Gong was found in the year 1992. He played the trumpet in a People's Liberation Armyband, worked as an attendant in a hostel and a clerk in a grain and oil company. Li immigrated to the U.S. in 1996 and on October 12 that same year his first lecture on American soil was given in Houston, Texas. Because of the ban in China, the Falun Gong and Li have received a tremendous amount of media coverage and honorary proclamations in the U.S. Li was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 by forty-two U.S. congressmen for promoting the highest humanitarian values.

Li Hongzhi claims 100 million members worldwide, 80 million of which are in China. Chinese religion historically has focused on physical health, longevity, and even immortality. Chinese medicine is most closely linked to the Chinese concepts of yin yang and the five phases arose independently of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.

Today this tradition is called Ch'i gong pronounced chee-gong. Ch'i means Universal life energy ; andGong means Cultivation energy. Ch'i gong consists of cultivation methods including physical stretches, meditation, and slow movements. The Falun Gong movement is within the ancient Chinese cultivation methods. Falun Gong secrets were passed only from a master to select students. Hongzhi made the teachings public in 1992 Today the Falun Gong exists in high tension with the Chinese government