The Freytag: The Quiet Persistence in the Good

Why the World Remembers Three Chinese Words on May 13th—and What They Mean

May 13th. Anyone strolling through Manhattan on this day will encounter a procession that transforms Fifth Avenue into a flowing stream of yellow banners, blue drums, and calligraphed streamers. Those walking through central Berlin in May might spot people at Potsdamer Platz raising their arms with a slow-motion serenity, as if drawing an invisible wheel from the air. In Stockholm, London, Taipei, Lima—everywhere, the same choreography is being repeated during these days. It is World Falun Dafa Day, and this year marks its thirty-fourth anniversary.

Why this particular day? On May 13, 1992, in the northeastern Chinese industrial city of Changchun, a then-unknown man stepped before a small group of interested individuals and delivered his first lecture on a practice he had named Falun Gong—later, in a broader sense, Falun Dafa: the "Great Law of the Dharma Wheel." Li Hongzhi, the teacher, was also celebrating his birthday on that very day. What began as a humble lecture in a provincial city developed a speed of dissemination that astonished even the most dispassionate observers. Within seven years—without advertising, without an organizational apparatus, driven solely by word of mouth and the quiet example of the practitioners themselves—the number of adherents in the People's Republic swelled to a magnitude that even Chinese government estimates placed at around 70 million; other sources cited figures as high as one hundred million.

Three Words and Their Aftermath

At the center stand three words whose simplicity is almost disarming: *Zhen*, *Shan*, *Ren*—Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. These are not moral maxims in the Kantian sense, nor are they imperatives; rather—according to the teachings—they are qualities inherent to the cosmos itself, to which the practitioner aligns themselves through meditation and character cultivation. That such a triad should find resonance in a modern, industrially accelerated society might seem surprising. It seems less so, however, when one considers that the practice comprises five simple exercises—performable both seated and standing—which are taught free of charge and without any organizational apparatus. Anyone wishing to learn them requires neither membership nor dues. Accessibility is a core principle.

Perhaps this very fact explains its success—and the subsequent tragedy. For that which grows without a hierarchy cannot be halted by intervening in a hierarchy. When the number of practitioners in the People's Republic exceeded the membership of the Communist Party, a calculation began in Beijing that had nothing to do with morality and everything to do with power. On July 20, 1999, then-General Secretary Jiang Zemin signed the decree banning Falun Gong as a "heretical organization" and establishing a dedicated apparatus for its persecution—the notorious "610 Office," named after the date of its inception. More than a quarter of a century has passed since then, yet the persecution continues: arrests, detention in labor camps, documented cases of torture, and—most grave of all—state-orchestrated organ harvesting from practitioners. In 2019, the London-based China Tribunal—chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, who once led the prosecution against Slobodan Milošević in The Hague—issued a judgment following several years of evidence-gathering; it declared that state-organized organ harvesting from prisoners had been proven beyond any doubt—a verdict that continues to leave its mark on the diplomatic discourse of Western capitals to this day. In the spring of this year alone, the Chinese-language platform Minghui documented several thousand new abuses; the objective, analysts note, remains unchanged: to force practitioners to renounce their faith.

Official Recognition—An American Phenomenon

While Beijing remains silent and punishes, institutions elsewhere are speaking out. It is remarkable—particularly in the United States—with what breadth and naturalness elected officials officially honor May 13th every year. The list of proclamations reads like a tour of American federal geography. In Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro commissioned letters of congratulation; the Maryland House of Representatives passed its own resolution marking the thirty-third anniversary. The mayors of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh—Cherelle Parker and Ed Gainey—issued proclamations. In Ohio, the mayors of Dayton, Westerville, Englewood, and Pickerington declared May 13th the official "Falun Dafa Day" for their respective cities. In Missouri, the mayor of St. Peters issued a similar proclamation. In the Texas Senate, two U.S. Senators honored the occasion; in Nevada, the Governor and Lieutenant Governor presented certificates of recognition. This year, a corresponding proclamation also passed through the Illinois Senate.

From a European perspective, these events may initially seem unfamiliar, as one is accustomed to a different relationship between the state and religious communities. However, the American self-conception—dating back to the *Federalist Papers*—embraces a different view: religious freedom is not merely the state’s tolerance of private matters, but a constitutive prerequisite of the Republic itself. In 1785, in his *Memorial and Remonstrance*, James Madison wrote that conscience is a right "which we cannot alienate," because it precedes any civil order. Thus, when the mayor of a small town in Ohio declares a day in honor of a Chinese spiritual discipline—whose language he does not speak and whose teachings he may never have studied—he is not defending a specific doctrine. Rather, he is defending the principle that a citizen has the right to guide their life by such teachings without ending up in a labor camp as a result. This is, at its core, the difference between a free and an unfree order—and it is the quiet, everyday dignity of elected officials that manifests itself in such gestures. Beyond Canada, too—where in no fewer than twenty-three cities, city halls were illuminated with colored light and flags were raised—this day has acquired an institutional naturalness that is still unparalleled in Europe.

European Voices: Quieter, Yet Resolute

In Europe, the celebrations are less flamboyant, yet the imagery is no less striking. On weekends throughout this year, practitioners gathered in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and at Potsdamer Platz, demonstrating their meditation exercises and setting up display boards that, with quiet factualness, recount the persecution taking place in China. In Hamburg and Frankfurt, practitioners gather as a matter of tradition; likewise in Munich—a city with a decades-long history of Chinese exile activism—these events have become a fixture on the annual calendar. Lahnstein and Koblenz, Stuttgart, Cologne, and Cham in Lower Bavaria: the list of German locations where small groups meet is long.

From the German Bundestag to the European Parliament, voices have spoken out over the years. Former CDU Member of Parliament Martin Patzelt—a long-standing member of the Human Rights Committee—once declared with his characteristic, unadorned clarity: Falun Gong is a movement that benefits people and brings joy and harmony—one could hardly ask for more. Michael Gahler, a Member of the European Parliament from Hesse, echoed similar sentiments. In Sweden, parliamentarians write messages of greeting; in London, a large parade recently marched through the City; and in Stockholm, a rally was held at Kungsträdgården. Italy, France, Spain, and the Netherlands also host their own gatherings—often smaller in scale, yet recurring with steady regularity. In front of the Chinese Embassy in Berlin, practitioners have maintained a daily vigil for some two decades—an act of silent perseverance that inevitably reminds anyone who consciously passes by of Václav Havel’s famous maxim: to "live in truth," even in places where power demands the lie.

Human Rights Put to the Test

If one wishes to ascribe to World Falun Dafa Day a significance extending beyond its specific cause, it is this: it serves as a litmus test for human rights. In Article 18, the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights articulates—with rare brevity and beauty—that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this includes the right to manifest one's beliefs, either alone or in community with others, in public or in private, through teaching, practice, worship, and the observance of rites. Eleanor Roosevelt, who, as chair of the drafting committee, steered this text through diplomatic shoals with tireless patience, later spoke of the "smallest scale": human rights, she said, begin in those small places—close to home—so small and so close that they cannot be found on any map of the world. Yet, she argued, where such rights mean nothing, they mean nothing anywhere.

Precisely therein lies the uncomfortable truth to which May 13th reminds us every year. The right to practice meditation exercises in a park—what could be conceived as more harmless, peaceful, or inconspicuous?—is, in one of the world's largest nations, met with the threat of imprisonment, torture, and the gravest of outcomes. Paradoxically, the true threshold of rights reveals itself precisely in their most unassuming applications. It is not the political prisoner who marks the hour of reckoning; rather, it is the retiree who heads to the park before sunrise—and pays for it with the precious little that remains to him. It is there that the true nature of a society is ultimately decided.

Standing Up for One’s Faith—A European Practice

Anyone who has read Bonhoeffer knows that standing up for one’s own faith is not some peculiar Oriental phenomenon, but rather a profoundly European practice. From his prison cell, the pastor of Flossenbürg penned this simple line: "Who is—and remains—a Christian, other than the one who is prepared to die for his truth?" This question reaches far beyond the confessional sphere; it touches anyone who holds a conviction. A conviction that costs nothing is no conviction at all. Here lies the quiet, often overlooked kinship between the German Confessing Christians of the 1930s, the Czech Charter signatories of the 1970s, and the Falun Gong practitioners of today—those who, in Chinese detention camps, would rather endure the worst imaginable suffering than recant three simple words: Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.

One need not subscribe to the doctrine itself to appreciate this stance. It suffices to recognize the universal principle enshrined within it: that human dignity consists not in what a person possesses, but in that to which he is willing to hold fast—even when the world around him challenges his right to do so. Dietrich Bonhoeffer encapsulated this in a famous formulation: responsible action, he wrote, is that which possesses the courage to stand "in the indispensable renunciation of one’s own blamelessness." Anyone who stands up for their faith knows that they are exposing themselves; they accept the risk of being misunderstood, slandered, or—in the worst-case scenario—subjected to violence, because silence would exact a far higher price. The practitioners gathered at the Römerberg, the Brandenburg Gate, Trafalgar Square, and the Place du Palais Royal demonstrate nothing other than this: a stance of steadfastness, made visible through a choreography of gentleness. They do not shout; they do not block streets. They simply stand there, clad in yellow, in quiet dignity, doing what they do. It is a form of resistance that stands closer to the Central European tradition—from Francis of Assisi to the peace prayers at St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig—than one might suppose.

Concluding Thoughts: What Is to Be Inherited

The twenty-four-meter-long banner that, in recent days, a small aircraft towed across the New York skies above the Hudson River bore a simple inscription: "Falun Dafa is good." Three words—almost banal in their directness. Above the Statue of Liberty, above the George Washington Bridge, above the Manhattan skyline, this small assertion hovered like an echo of those other three words that, for thirty-three years, have circled the globe, originating from Changchun. There is a singular grace in the fact that, in the very loudest metropolis of the Western world, this quietest of all messages is displayed again and again.

Perhaps this is the true significance of this day. Not a promotional event for a specific doctrine, but rather an annual reminder that there are values which are not negotiable. A world in which an elderly man is disturbed while meditating in a park pays the price with the loss of a peace that cannot be regained. And that, beyond all political differences, all geopolitical calculations, and all diplomatic rhetoric, there ultimately stands a simple question: What do we leave behind? What kind of world will our children and grandchildren inherit?

The answer—however old-fashioned it may sound—lies in the three words that, on May 13th, are carried from city to city. The world needs Truthfulness. It needs Compassion. It needs Forbearance. And it is good to align ourselves with these values, so that we may leave behind a peaceful world for our descendants.

Sapere aude!

Finally, here is an instrumental piece of mine for Falun Dafa. It is dedicated to my Master Li—as a humble expression of gratitude that I cannot put into words.