(Clearwisdom.net)
I am an ordinary Chinese citizen with a mother who happens to practice Falun Gong. My mother used to suffer from a stroke due to a blood clot in her brain. For seven years now, She has persevered in practicing Falun Dafa. During that time, she has remained very healthy and has never felt the need to take any medicine in that seven-year period. Another person, who had a similar disease as my mother's, has suffered from the disease numerous times. In our eyes, my mother is a very kind and conservative person. We've never seen her do any extreme things used to slander Falun Gong practitioners as shown on the broadcast TV and Radio propaganda. However, we personally experienced and witnessed the repeated detention, defamation, and torture of my mother by the police in recent years.
I remember one evening around midnight, when we were in a deep sleep, my mother was abducted by police officers who deceived her by saying that "they would let her go back home once they obtained some information." However, she did not come home for almost a week. We received a notice that they would release her as long as we paid them a fine of 3,000 Yuan.* From then on, fearing repeated troubles and harassment by the police, and because we dearly love our mother, we had to restrain her from practicing Falun Gong.
Today, I picked up a pen and wanted to speak up for Falun Gong. This is not a simple matter for me because I have experienced heavy pressure, and my conscience has suffered condemnation, for I know that my mother is righteous and unselfish. One time, I learned that many fellow practitioners often gave 3 Yuan or 5 Yuan bills to my mother. This money was used for printing truth-clarification material. One day our home was illegally searched by the police and they stole all of our money, our television, and even our motorcycle. Our entire family almost broke down mentally. After my mother was taken away, my father and I discovered the money saved by mother and her fellow practitioners when we were cleaning up the messy house. The total amount was 1,457 Yuan. After suffering from the family disaster due to the persecution and its implications, I felt resentment towards my mother and I hid the money. If my mother asked me about it, I planned to say that the police department took it away.
During the half-year period when my mother was in detention and was being subjected to torture, the police took the opportunity to try to extort property and money from my family in exchange for my mother's return. To the very end, my mother stayed firm and unyielding, which forced the police to give up the attempt.
From the beginning to the end, my mother did not stain Dafa's reputation. During my mother's detention, I used that money to buy gifts for the police, so that I could socialize with them. I found a good excuse for myself, "I did not spend that money; it was those bad people who took the gifts." When my mother returned home and asked about that money, I immediately answered, "I do not know, I never saw it."
Several months have passed since this incident; my mother always believed that it was the police who took away my family's money as well as the practitioners' money. However, my mother often said, "Whoever, against his own conscience, spent the money that was intended to print Dafa materials will suffer retribution." From then on, whenever I accidentally heard the phrase "against his own conscience" at my work place or at home, I felt a shock in my heart and felt myself having betrayed my mother and Dafa. Each day, I felt that my conscience was condemned. One day, my mother suddenly found an envelope containing 1,000 Yuan inside the clothes cabinet where she had stored her money. My mother thought that she had found the Dafa materials money. I realized that the money was actually my personal savings that I had forgotten to take with me over a year ago. With this, I suddenly woke up. The return of my conscience enabled me to have the thought of redemption. In the past when I took care of my mother, I only bought her clothes and tasty food, but never gave her a penny, fearing that she would spend it on Dafa materials. Recently, in order to redeem my mistake, I decided to take action to upgrade my intention of serving my mother.
It was my mother who made me understand the true meaning of life and the mighty power of Dafa, so I finally obtained the Fa.
* Yuan is the Chinese currency. The average monthly salary of an urban worker in China is 500 Yuan.
July 24, 2003
