At 85, Harvey Eller is the picture of health and vitality, much of which he attributes to his practice of Falun Gong.
The retired teacher has been practising the system of meditation and spirituality for the past five years and leads classes every Saturday at Polson Park.
“It’s basically about having peace within yourself,” said Eller.
Also known as Falun Dafa, the practice combines gentle gigong exercises and philosophy based on truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, whose practitioners seek to align their thoughts and actions with these principles in their daily lives.
But in China, its practitioners have been persecuted by the government. According to www.stoporganharvesting.org, prisoners of conscience in China, which includes practitioners of Falun Gong, have been killed on demand to fuel a state-run transplant industry, supplying organs for 60,000 to 100,000 transplants a year.
Canada’s parliamentary subcommitee on international human rights has adopted a motion condemning and calling for an immediate end to the state-sanctioned organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China.
On Saturday, a team of Falun Gong practitioners from the Lower Mainland — part of the B.C. Falun Gong Car Tour — will present a free workshop of Falun Gong exercises that is open to the public, from 10 a.m. to noon at Polson Park (close to the Japanese garden).