San Francisco World Falun Dafa Day Parade 2024

Celebrations are being held around the world by practitioners of a meditation practice. World Falun Dafa Day is officially observed on May 13. Many activities were held over the weekend, and NTD's Jason Blair caught up with a parade in San Francisco. It's the 32nd anniversary since the practice was first introduced to the public. San Francisco Bay Area practitioners are celebrating with a parade. They have floats, costumes, colorful banners, and even a ten person dragon. The parade started outside of San Francisco's iconic Ferry Building. I think it's great. I think these are obviously a lot of people that believe in peace and well being and what they're doing. The practitioners of Falun Gong live according to universal principles. Truth, compassion and tolerance. And that really helps me to become a better person. They're just very like grounding values and I think important for the basis of all humanity. Like I was saying, like this compassion, it's so important. And I think our society, while it says that it's very empathetic, it's not. And while it says that it's compassionate, it's not. So it's definitely important, you know, to practice principles like that. One passerby said she was drawn to the positive energy of the event. This is like having that connection with God, right? And that's what it's all about. So that's what I see here. The San Francisco Tian Guo Marching Band consists of all volunteers, and they've been participating in this parade since 2007. It's all Falun Dafa practitioners from around the Bay Area. And so we join about ten to twelve parades per year, and we do that to share Falun Dafa with the community. Thompson said the music they play is original. So all the music that you hear in our band is original music scores that are composed by famous composers that are also Falun Dafa practitioners. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, Falun Gong is practiced by millions in over 100 countries. Practitioners mention noticeable benefits to their health, well being and moral character. I want to do better. I want to help more people. For me, it's a day of celebration and for the way that it's just changed my life. It's just made me such a happy person. The practice originated in China. However, after it quickly grew in popularity, the Chinese Communist Party saw it as a threat and started violently persecuting the practice in 1999. So since then, practitioners have been imprisoned, tortured, or even killed for doing this. And the most horrific atrocity that we found was organ harvesting. The persecution is still happening today. Jason Blair, NTD News.