What *do* other Buddhists think of Falun Da Fa? And is it harming the reputation of predominantly white Buddhist Communities?

You don't have to look very far on my blog to know that I have been highly critical of the Portland Buddhist Peace Fellowship in recent years because of their unfortunate embrace of Falun Da Fa, aka Falun Gong at the Portland Buddhist Festival.

I'm not going to rehash all the reasons that I feel Falun Da Fa has no place at a meeting of Buddhists - or rather, they have as much a right to a place at a meeting of Buddhists as Evangelicals, Taoists, Muslims, and maybe Sam Harris. 

Falun Gong simply does not represent any kind of Buddhism within established traditions.  While it claims to be of "the Buddha School," it as as "Buddhist" as Frederick Lenz's "American Buddhism."

So I've said this for several years now.   Groups like the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and other white liberal groups have tended to be reflexively anti-China.  China is a far from perfect country,  and has done things that I cannot condone, but the white liberal narrative of Buddhist politics and China is ridiculously over-simplified, and I cannot condone that either. 

But I'm curious as to how other Buddhist groups think about the presence of Falun Da Fa at these meetings - not simply Western-based sanghas, but also Asian Sanghas.   We in the Portland area have an abundance of temples nearby; - and we have temples in Vancouver WA as well.  There's also on-line Buddhists, representing Asian viewpoints as well as yes, white convert Buddhists.  I should also point out something about the Portland Buddhist Festival: It seems to have gotten whiter over the years.

I intend to ask members of the local Buddhist communities about Falun Da Fa. So, if you happen to be one of the people or temples I ask about this, I would deeply appreciate a response; but I would also deeply appreciate a thoughtful response. My question will be: How do you feel about Falun Da Fa represented as Buddhist given what is written in general in the Zhuan Falun, and especially the chapter on Falun Da Fa and Buddhism?

I'll publish whatever I wind up with. Hopefully together - including the Buddhist Peace Fellowship - we can come to some kind of closure as to what to do about Falun Da Fa in our Buddhist communities.

Why the Heart Sutra?

Christians have, at times, touted the Lord's Prayer as the "perfect" prayer; it contains evidently all the stuff that monotheists want in a prayer.

The Heart Sutra, in my view, is substantially more profound than the Lord's Prayer, and, at the same time, is not a prayer.  It's more-or-less a sutra.

"Sutra" as Wikipedia helpfully explains, is a Sanskrit word that means string or thread; yes, it is equivalent to the English word "suture," which is what surgeons put in you when they stitch you up after surgery.  Yeah, humanity is that close that a sring or thread in Sanskrit is a string or thread for surgery in English.   Did I mention that the words "Zen" and "thank" also have a common origin?

The Lord's Prayer is a prayer directed to the Christian deity written in the second person. The Heart Sutra on the other hand, is said to be the words of the Buddha to his disciple Sariputra; thus, it is not meant to be addressed to anyone,  rather, it is the quote of the Buddha taken as a statement of fact.

The main point of the short sutra - with is the main point of the "wisdom" sutras in general - is that experiential phenomena - our apprehensions of the five "aggregates" of  form, feeling, volition, conciousness have no inherent essence; thus all is but a temporary co-existence of these aggregates.

This statement of fact by the Buddha includes that when the Bodhisattva of Compassion deeply saw the reality of the emptiness of the five aggregates that they obtained complete awakening. 

How can this be, or why is this so?