(Minghui.org)
Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
My 78-year-old mother, who is also a Falun Dafa practitioner, was illegally arrested by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) police on October 16, 2022. On February 14, 2023, she was illegally sentenced to four years in prison. My attachment to my mother and my cultivation state made this period of time feel like a life-and-death test. With the compassionate protection of Master and the selfless help of fellow practitioners, I went through the process of being at a loss and not knowing what to do, to finally understanding the situation from the Fa. I am writing down this experience to express my gratitude to Master and to thank fellow practitioners.
When my brother in China called to inform me that my mother had been arrested, it felt like the sky was falling. I was heartbroken. My mind filled with worry about my mother. I was unable to sleep. When I did manage to fall asleep, I would wake up again. An invisible pressure made it hard to breathe, and my heart raced as if it was about to jump out of my chest. Negative thoughts flooded my mind, and fear and pain made me wish I could sleep and never wake up. At that time, giving up my life seemed easier than letting go of my worries about my mother.
I grew up under the protection of my parents and had a strong emotional attachment to them. I remember when I was planning to emigrate, I went to the police station to apply for the necessary documents. An officer asked about my family members. Without thinking, I blurted out, “My dad, my mom, and my brother.” The officer looked at me for quite a while, asked again, and I answered exactly the same. He pointed to my husband and daughter sitting next to me and asked loudly, “Do you not want to include your husband and daughter?” I always recounted this experience as a joke. Over my years of cultivation, I never realized that my attachment to my parents was an attachment. I have enjoyed the warmth brought by this familial love and didn’t want to let it go.
Master taught us,
“What’s given up is not oneselfBut instead the folly of delusion”(“Discarding Attachments,” Hong Yin II )
I realized that the only way to move forward was to persist in studying the Fa. The substance of fear made my hands cold when I held the book, my legs tremble when I sat in the full lotus position, and my voice quiver when I read the Fa. But I persisted by joining The Epoch Times group study every morning, studying the Fa with my daughter in the evening, and then studying with an online Fa study group. I also continued to memorize the Fa by myself. I didn’t let my mind become idle, even though I often found it hard to calm down. Compassionate Master kept giving me hints. One day during Fa study, it was my turn to read this passage:
“Some people think that they face great hardships when they do spiritual practice, but those hardships aren’t actually that great. The more you think that the hardship is great, the larger it actually becomes, and the smaller you become. If you pay it no heed and don’t take it to heart, thinking, “As long as the green mountains remain, there will always be firewood to burn. With Master and the Way by my side, what is there to fear? I’ll just forget about it!” As soon as you let things go, you’ll find that the hardship shrinks and you grow, you will be able to overcome it with ease, and the hardship will become but a trifle— it’s guaranteed that things will go like that. When a person can’t overcome a hardship, it’s in fact because he’s unable to let go of his attachments or lacks faith in the Way. Most such people have one desire or another that they can’t let go of, and it’s because of this that they can’t overcome it. The person can’t overcome it because he can’t take that step back from humanness.” (Lecture Given at the Conference in Sydney).
As I read Master’s Fa, I felt as if Master was encouraging me like a kind father. My body was filled with energy, and I had a small righteous thought:
“With Master and the Way by my side, what is there to fear?” (Lecture Given at the Conference in Sydney).
The true protector of us is the Fa and Master. Facing tribulations is a test; we must let go and not increase our burdens due to sentimentality.
One day I thought of the story of Milarepa’s master making him build houses, and also of Master’s teaching about “Buddha’s infinite grace” (Fa Teaching Given at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference). Tears streamed down my face. My previous understanding of Master’s compassion was mostly due to the changes in my body and a sense of gratitude for how I had benefited from the Fa. I now had a different understanding: Nothing is accidental; all tribulations are caused by our own karma, which we must bear. Master is merely taking advantage of these tribulations to test our xinxing, help us let go of attachments, temper our will, and eliminate karma.
“So the ordeals that people face are how they pay for their karma.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
Master is helping us elevate our xinxing through suffering and guiding us toward consummation.
Fellow practitioners said that my voice when reading the Fa had gradually changed, becoming more composed. I understood that my mother is Master’s disciple, a being who has obtained the Fa, and she can cultivate anywhere with Master’s care. She has her cultivation path arranged by Master, and I have my path arranged by Master. Master’s arrangements are the best. No one can take another person's place in cultivation. As a daughter and a Dafa disciple, letting go of the attachment to sentimentality and doing what a Dafa disciple should do would be the greatest help to my mother.
Local practitioners with experience advised me to collect the phone numbers and information about the police and related personnel from the Public Security Bureau and the police station to aid in the efforts to rescue my mother. Practitioners who work in the media suggested holding a press conference in front of the consulate to expose the evil. At that time, an immense invisible pressure caused me to retreat and feel unwilling to face the pain. Consequently, many of these specific rescue tasks were carried out by fellow practitioners.
A practitioner encouraged me: “It is your mother who was arrested, you should be the one to call the Public Security Bureau and the 610 Office to clarify the truth.” But I was afraid of hearing bad news about my mother. Negative thoughts controlled me, making me think of the worst case scenario, and the more I thought about it the more scared and more overwhelmed I felt. I was wavering. Every time I picked up the phone, I became overcome by fear and put it down. A fellow practitioner shared her insights with me: “We should view the issue with righteous thoughts. We are using this opportunity to clarify the truth and save sentient beings. If you only think about rescuing your mother, it is still an attachment to qing (sentimentality) and is still focused on self. The more selfish and fearful you are, the less likely you will be able to rescue your mother.”
The practitioner suggested that we make calls together, with one of us sending forth righteous thoughts and the other making the call. That was my first time dealing with the evil directly. I was so nervous that I was sweating. I dialed the 610 Office head’s mobile number, and it went through. I told him, “I am the daughter of the person you arrested, so-and-so.” He said, “Oh, you are so-and-so,” accurately using my name. He added that he had received many calls from abroad recently, but hadn’t answered them. He decided to answer mine today. I explained how my mother had benefited physically and mentally from practicing Falun Gong. My voice was trembling, and my mind was blank. After I said those words, I didn’t know what else to say. The fellow practitioner quickly took over and talked about the staged self-immolation incident and the widespread practice of Dafa worldwide, explaining the principle of good being rewarded and evil being punished. The call lasted more than 20 minutes before the officer hung up.
It was a baby step for me. Although I still felt the substance of fear filling my entire field, I kept clearing these bad substances with righteous thoughts. Whenever fear arose, I rejected it: “This is not me; I don’t want it.” With continuous Fa study and sending forth righteous thoughts, I could call the lawyers to clarify the truth and even had the courage to call the prison.
In the subsequent signature campaign, I spoke to people about my mother’s arrest and the persecution of millions of Falun Gong practitioners by the CCP over the past 20 years, and about the wonder of Dafa. My thoughts became clearer: I no longer focused on how many signatures I got, but truly used my mother’s case to reach more people and tell them the facts. My tense and painful heart also eased a bit.
On the day of the press conference in front of the Chinese consulate, there was interference. Three subway lines broke down during that time, and many practitioners had to take taxis to get there. I realized that the evil feared exposure the most. The press conference in front of the consulate shocked the evil in other dimensions. I developed some righteous thoughts: Overseas anti-persecution efforts are indeed reducing the pressure on Dafa disciples in China; clarifying the truth and letting people know about the evil nature of the CCP is essentially disintegrating it. While reading my speech, my heart became much more peaceful and pure. The Western practitioner who also gave a speech said that his voice was strong that day and felt like it penetrated through layers of dimensions.
Looking back on my rescue efforts, I initially had a mentality of seeking results and did things with attachments to emotion and strong selfish desires. Subconsciously, I was trying to rely on non-practitioners, hoping that Amnesty International and different levels of government would pressure the CCP to get my mom released. I had it all backwards. I did not think about my role from a cultivator’s perspective: it’s the sentient beings who are counting on us! What I needed to do was to use my mother’s illegal sentencing as an opportunity to clarify the truth and save sentient beings, while eliminating my attachments and improving myself in the process.
A month after my mother was illegally sentenced, she was transferred to a provincial prison, and we had no news of her for more than four months. My brother constantly made phone calls, wrote letters of inquiry, and even personally went to the prison to request visits, but all of his requests were denied.
One day while studying the new scripture “Why the Creator Seeks to Save All Life,” I thought of all the people in the world as Master’s relatives. A thought came to me: I should write a letter to the prison guards where my mother is detained.
When I first started writing the letter, a trace of resentment still remained in my heart. Four months had passed without any news about my mother, and my family couldn’t visit her. So I had set a tone for myself that was neither humble nor overbearing: from a human perspective, it was very concerning that my family couldn’t visit my nearly 80-year-old mother. Legally speaking, we knew that prison regulations allowed inmates to meet with their family members and that their dignity should also be respected and protected by law.
I went on to write about how my mother had benefited physically and mentally from practicing Falun Dafa, and how our family admired the extraordinary nature of Dafa, leading many of us to start cultivating in Dafa. Over the years, my mother had been arrested multiple times, but she remained steadfast in her faith. She had visited Canada and the United States. She has witnessed the spread of Dafa overseas, where people can freely practice in parks, and during parades, police even lead the way with patrol cars. She had said that she must bring this message back to China, “Falun Gong is practiced worldwide and praised by various countries, but only in China is it suppressed.”
At the same time, I encouraged the prison guards to be kind in my letter. My letter ended with this sentence, “‘A single kind thought toward Dafa brings blessings and peace from heaven.’ Everyone in life has unexpected encounters, and perhaps heaven arranged for us to form a good bond through my mother. I sincerely hope you can treat my mother and other detained Dafa disciples fairly! I believe your kindness and good actions toward my mother and other Dafa disciples will certainly receive blessings from heaven.”
I almost wrote this letter in one go. During the process, the traces of resentment in my heart disappeared and were replaced by kindness. I thought not only of my mother, but also of other Dafa disciples and the prison guards. Every word came from the bottom of my heart.
After finishing the letter, I felt refreshed and clear-minded. The next day at the truth clarification site, many people came to sign the petition. After I explained everything, a tourist took the petition board with my mother’s photo from a fellow practitioner, called other tourists over, and said, “This 80-year-old lady was sent to prison for practicing Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance should be a moral standard for everyone in the world. If everyone followed it, our world would significantly improve.” He held up the board and invited me to take a photo with him, saying he would post it on his Facebook page to show people how evil the CCP is.
The following Monday morning, my brother called from China and said the prison had called, saying that they had arranged a time for him to visit my mother in September. I thought kindness can indeed be passed on. I had not even mailed the letter, but because I had set a righteous foundation and had a bit of kindness, shifting from selfishness to selflessness, the situation had changed. I mailed the letter. The next day, my brother called again and said he didn’t need to wait until September, he could visit her that weekend.
On Sunday morning, as usual, I went to the park to do the exercises. I thought my brother should be back by now, so I should call him. But fear of bad news made me hesitant, so I thought I would call after finishing the exercises. If anything happened, my brother would call me. I focused my mind on just practicing the exercises. Since practicing required entering tranquility, I tried not to think about anything. At that moment, I felt that Master had removed much of the emotional substance from me. As a result, my meditation was very calm, and by the end I felt as if I had entered a state of tranquility, indescribably wonderful. I only felt my true self in my dantian (three inches below the navel) area sending out a thought, “No problem,” followed by another thought, “Let go completely.” When the music ended, I picked up the phone, and my brother’s first words were, “Mom is fine.”
After more than a year of xinxing tests and persistent Fa study, I have become stronger. I deeply realized that no matter what the situation is, we need to have firm faith in Master and the Fa. I didn’t know how to cultivate before, but now when things happen I first look inward, and I have a new understanding of tribulations. I no longer fear them because all tribulations are arranged by Master based on our own foundations and our ability to endure. They are all stepping stones laid by Master for us to ascend to heaven.
During the whole process, I received selfless help from countless fellow practitioners: those who worked overnight to make banners; those who held up signs in the snow and wind to collect signatures; those who made rescue calls to the CCP police, 610 office, and prisons; those who wrote truth clarification letters to prisons, those who clarified the truth to Amnesty International to ask for help; those who wrote to mainstream media to invite them to attend our press conference in front of the Chinese consulate; those who wrote to legislators of all levels, and those who presented the facts to legislators’ offices and submitted signature forms; as well as those who kept me company during the Shen Yun season, reminding me and encouraging me to join the Shen Yun promotion activities.
In the end, we collected more than 1,000 petition letters calling for my mother’s release, and more than 10,000 signatures of support. On May 10, 2024, in the Canadian House of Commons, Pierre Paul-Hus, a federal member of Parliament from the province of Quebec, presented the petitions to the Parliament; and on June 19, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs responded to the petitions in writing.
The experience of rescuing my mother has given me a deeper understanding of Master’s scripture “Why the Creator Seeks to Save All Life.” People in the world are Master’s relatives. All the different formats practitioners use in truth clarification are for awakening people’s consciences and kindness. Dafa disciples are truly one body, helping, reminding, and improving with each other as we upgrade ourselves in the process of assisting Master in saving sentient beings.
Thank you, fellow practitioners, for your selfless help!Thank you, Master, for your compassionate salvation!
(Presented at the 2024 Canada Fa Conference)