By
sister initiate, Tan Yu-ying Los Angeles, California, USA
My
grandmother died three months after giving birth to my father, leaving
him an orphan. He grew up during wartime and became a general in his early
thirties. Since my childhood, I thought that his desire to wield "absolute
control" over everything was a result of his long-time career as an army
general. He was young and so assertive that every member of our family
was terrified of him and his temper. But it was only recently that I realized
that his desire to control everything was due to his extreme insecurity.
These feelings of insecurity may be traced to his infancy. As he advanced
in years, he found himself losing control over many things, and became
apprehensive and even more insecure. He was afraid to spend money or even
enjoy the simplest pleasures of life. He was haunted by the thought that
disaster might strike unless he took precautions in advance. Actually,
the biggest disaster in his life was the fear that he clung to so tightly.
However,
after his initiation and his experiences during my mother's passing, his
faith grew and he gained a sense of security that he had never known before.
Father became a totally different person. He was very happy and found
contentment in even the smallest things. He became a father who was extremely
easy to please. Whatever you did for him, he would be happy like a child.
He gained a passion for life, which drew people to him. He loved life.
He loved his friends! Love, like sunshine, warmed him and others. For
all these changes, we must thank Master and the gift She bestowed on him
-- the fearlessness that let him enjoy the most beautiful time in his
life even after losing his wife.
Even
at the age of 85, my father was in very good health and great spirits.
He enjoyed traveling between Formosa and the United States, staying for
short periods with each of his sons and daughters. At the end of 1995,
he flew from Boston back to Los Angeles. As soon as he arrived, he asked
my youngest sister and myself to invite all the local initiates and Convenient
Method practitioners to dinner, so he could express his gratitude for
their kindness. He made arrangements for his property and told us how
he wanted his funeral to be held. We thought he was just looking for something
to do and thought little of the implications of his words.
Despite
the rain on February 25, 1996, he went to group meditation with my younger
sister as usual and chatted with my aunt in the car. Not long after meditation
began, the guards came looking for my youngest sister. We ran to where
my father was, and saw a few sisters doing artificial respiration on him.
I stood in a state of shock. My youngest sister pulled me to the side
and said, "Now I know why father said three days ago that he saw the manifestation
form of Master, and She had blinked Her eyes and smiled at him."
The
ambulance came and rushed Dad to a suburban hospital. As soon as I got
there, I called a younger sister who was living in another state, whereupon
she immediately went to meditate. A few minutes later, the phone rang,
and in describing her inner experience she said, "Dad has gone! Master
took him to Mom. He looked so young, as if he were in his twenties or
thirties. He was very excited and was running around like a kid and looking
at everything. He kept saying that it's so much fun there! Master scolded
me for crying. Mom just smiled while Dad comforted me and told me not
to be upset, since we will be seeing each other again." After I hung up
the phone, I felt my tense and rigid body relax. She was right. I thought
to myself, "Why should we cry? How many people could have great merit
like father's so as to be able to pass away with such dignity? We should
rejoice for him and be grateful on his behalf."
* * *
After
waiting for a long time, someone finally came out and said "Sorry" to
us. According to the rules at the hospital where my father died, a deceased
person should be transferred away from the wards within three hours of
death. However, the hospital granted our request for our father to remain
for eight hours, and even gave us a room where we could meditate for him.
Everyone at the hospital treated us kindly and warmly. After eight hours,
we heard a knock. It was the head nurse of the emergency wards. She asked
if there was anything she could do for us. After I had thanked her, she
asked if she could talk to me. It turned out that it was all God's plan.
The
nurse had been working in the emergency wards for more than ten years,
but she said that she had never seen anyone leave the world in such peace
and tranquillity. She was especially curious as to why we had accepted
our father's death so calmly that morning. I told her the reasons and
invited her into the room to see my father's ruddy complexion and smiling
face. I also showed her his hands, which were still soft and flexible.
I told her that my mother's body was in the same, flexible state when
she had died, and the pallbearers had dropped her body on the floor when
they were removing it a day after she passed away. The nurse found this
incredible! She was so good-hearted that she waited for the pallbearers
at the back entrance of the hospital, just to ask them to be careful not
to drop my father's body.
When
we left, she gave me her phone number and asked me to contact her if Master
came to town. Master came two weeks later, and luckily, the nurse was
not on duty at the hospital that day. I invited her to come early to the
Center so I could have time to tell her about Master and the Quan Yin
Method. When the time of her initiation approached, I suggested that she
seriously consider her sacred decision, which also entails a lifelong
vegetarian diet. She answered me with all certainty that she was ready
and that she had already been a vegetarian for five years. She had suffered
a mental blow some years earlier and was still in deep sorrow. She had
always wanted to learn meditation to attain inner tranquillity. So, on
that day she received initiation and met with Master.
* * *
In
May 1996, we met and I asked if she had any questions about spiritual
practice. I lent her some English News magazines and videotapes of Master's
lectures. She was in very good spirits that day and told me that she felt
much better and had been having very good inner experiences. Later, we
were both so busy that we lost touch with each other. Then, in November,
I suddenly received a call from her. Her father was seriously ill and
she had taken a two-month leave to return to New Jersey to be with him.
She asked me how to handle the tapes that I had lent her. I suggested
that she take them with her and play them for her father so that Master
could take him Home. She was overcome with emotion and was thankful that
she had made that call, even though she did not know why she had done
it. In January 1997, she called me again to say that her father had passed
away a month earlier and, just like my father, had left with a ruddy complexion,
smiling face, and soft body, much to the surprise of her family.
And
now, let's get back to my father. His funeral ceremony was held on a Saturday
so that all our relatives and friends could come to bid him a final farewell.
All my brothers and sisters were present. On Friday night, we went to
group meditation together. There, Master's manifestation form appeared
to my younger sister and said that father had died at the Center in order
to remind fellow initiates that we practitioners should pass away like
true gentlemen. And Master added that She was very happy to see fellow
initiates sharing their love and offering their merits gained through
meditation to others.
At
the end of the meditation session, as fellow initiates were offering their
merits to my father, Master let my sister see as the waves of light hit
my father one after another, and my father exclaimed in gratitude, "Enough!
Enough! Please save them for yourselves."
On
the day of the funeral, almost every initiate we knew attended. Everyone
sang along with Master's Buddha's chanting tape, and my sister saw Master's
picture on the wall radiate light and blessings over the arena. She also
saw Master's manifestation form hold my father up to sit cross-legged
on his coffin. When we bowed to him in farewell, his eyes filled with
tears of appreciation as he bowed in response. He told my sister that
the floral decorations given by the initiate brothers and sisters were
very pretty. Just as the lid was placed on the coffin, my sister was suddenly
overcome by a feeling of suffocation and fear, but my father comforted
her, saying, "Don't worry. I am outside." Almost all of our relatives
agreed that this was the most touching funeral ceremony that they had
ever attended.
Let
me also mention a few things about my mother who had passed away about
ten years previously. Five years ago, she had already changed her white
garb for the robes of the Bodhisattvas when she rose to the fifth level.
Sometimes, while my sister was meditating, she would appear, and once
she said, "I came to the world to bring you, my children, Home." My mother
was unique in many ways and we were blessed with many miracles in my family
before and after we met Master. I know that, before we were born, we had
arranged to meet with Master in this world and just as She took care of
my father, She will also take care of us in this life and in the hereafter,
until eternity.
