December 12, 2002
(Clearwisdom.net) I dreamed of my mother again tonight after she was imprisoned a second time.
Everyone recognized that my 70-year-old mother was a good person. She would lend a hand whenever others were in difficulties, even though she suffered a lot and had to be very thrifty. Twice in the last two years, she has been imprisoned, and for only one reason: she wanted to be an even better person.
My mother had a rough life. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, my father was deprived from his job and position, and our whole family was banished to the countryside. My mother relied on her two thin arms to endure the hardships that the Cultural Revolution brought upon our family. She tried her best to protect her six children. After the Cultural Revolution, we six enrolled in colleges and earned masters and doctoral degrees, but my mother fell ill from the many years of overworking. She was bedridden for several months, unable to move. In addition, severe hepatitis, gastritis and coryza ruined her appetite. She lived on medications and injections. My mother became emaciated and feeble. Her hair turned almost entirely gray. She lost the will to live.
In 1996, just a few months after my mother began practicing Falun Gong, a miracle took place! All her pain and illnesses disappeared. After two years of cultivation, her gray hair turned completely black. My mother transformed into an entirely different person. Her face was glowing with a fair and rosy complexion, just like a young woman's again. My whole family is grateful to Falun Dafa for giving her such a wonderful new life!
People in our town saw the changes in my mother and thus many of them came to learn Falun Gong. My mother became the busiest person in our town. She volunteered to travel several miles each day to teach others the exercises and buy Falun Dafa books and exercise videotapes for others. People also came, one after another, to my house to learn the exercises, and they were always warmly welcomed by my mother. She once said, "I got benefits from Dafa, thus I must let others know about Dafa so they can benefit from it too." With the principle of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance," Falun Gong teaches people to be compassionate and be good persons. My mother is very strict with herself according to the principle of Dafa, and so she became more open-minded and peaceful.
Subsequently, however, dictator Jiang banned the practice. In 2000, my mother was arrested and her house was ransacked. She was charged with practicing and enthusiastically spreading Falun Gong. In prison, my mother ate mildewed foods and endured threats and abuses. Nevertheless, she still peacefully told the police and criminals who scolded her, "Falun Dafa is good. It gave me a second life." After a year of such torture, my mother's health deteriorated dramatically. My family asked for help everywhere, and in the end we spent more than 10,000 Yuan [500 Yuan is the average monthly income in urban areas of China] for her release.
My mother's second arrest was in October 2002. The police came pounding at her door at 11 o'clock in the night. The reason for the arrest was that the Chinese ruling Party was going to hold its 16th Congress soon. But the Party's 16th Congress was concluded in November, and they still haven't released my mother. What could a 70-year-old lady do to the Party's 16th Congress?
In this foreign land, separated by countless mountains and seas, I woke up in the middle of the night after a dream, my mother's voice and features came to my mind. In the dream, I saw her comforting a sobbing little boy. I saw her giving money to a stranger who didn't have enough money to buy seeds for farming in the spring. And I saw her smiling with contentment after recovering from her illnesses. Mother, you always taught us that when we receive a drop of favor we must repay with a fountain of gratitude. I now understand what you meant.
Dear mother, in my heart you are the embodiment of the virtues of compassion, perseverance and integrity. I, your daughter, know that you are right. My gray-haired mother, now behind prison bars, can you hear my heart crying?
Mother, kindhearted people will help me rescue you and the other Falun Gong practitioners in China who are being persecuted for being good people. The long night will soon be over, righteousness will surely bring light.