"Okay, let's check all your boxes and see who has the most money." My mother's eldest brother said to his younger brother and sister. All the savings boxes made of wooden slats were broken open. After he looked at all of them, he asked my mother in disbelief, "Where did all your money go?" She said she never put anything into her savings box. She had been giving away one pya (a penny in Myanmar - modern name of Burma), a quarter of her daily allowance, into the charity funds for the blind and the elders. Everyday in her class at the Christian school, after she dropped her pya into the donation bowl, her teacher would ask her to go to the blackboard and mark off with a tally line. She had been doing that since she started kindergarten about the age of seven or eight.

When she was twelve years old, she learned from her mother to eat only vegetarian food on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month and the days dedicated to Guanyin Bodhisattva, even though she didn't know how to read the lunar calendar yet.

She was fourteen when World War II started. Bombs were flying. People were in panic. She was only curious to watch the black things the size of bananas coming down from the fast diving planes. Her elder brother pulled her down in the ground pit behind their house where they were hiding. At one time during the war, to find a safe place from all the chaos of war, her whole family went to the village of Kyi-tair to stay with her mother's relatives-all four families of about twenty people under one roof. The village was on the coast of Irrawaddy River between Prome and the capital city of Rangoon. One time, she saw from between the cracks in the house many British soldiers walking through. Two days later she saw Japanese soldiers pass through the village. No fighting between them took place in that village, though. She found it interesting that villagers came out to welcome the Japanese whereas they did not do the same for the British, who were Myanmar's colonial rulers.  

Nevertheless, she was fascinated by the sight of village women, most of whom were Burmese, going off early every evening to worship at the local pagoda, each of them holding a flower. She found out that the whole village was vegetarian. No shrimp, fish, or meat was sold there at all; the market sold mostly squash, tomatoes, potatoes, and beans. After about a year there, hearing that the war was over (it turned out to be a rumor), her family moved back to Rangoon.

After the war was over, her mother said to her, "Why don't you help me take care of your younger sisters and brothers?" Being a compliant daughter, she obeyed her mother. She stopped her studies before completing seventh grade. She started helping around the house and making clothes for everybody in the family.

Before my mother got married forty-five years ago, she acquired an adorned Guan Yin Bodhisattva statue from Singapore that she still worships. She piously paid respect to Guan Yin Bodhisattva in addition to reciting anicca, dukkha, anatta (impermanence, suffering, no-self) on her recitation bead, as most Burmese Buddhists were practicing. Her future mother-in-law also had an affinity with Guanyin. One time, there was a fire that almost destroyed the whole town of Chauk where she was living. When the fire almost reached her hut, she quickly lit incense at the altar where she worshipped Guanyin Bodhisattva. Strangely enough, the fire changed its course near her hut and went into the nearby river. People believed that fire to be a manifestation of a dragon.

When she was pregnant with each of her six children, for the first four or five months she lost her appetite for meat or any other food for that matter, eating only simple food like rice gruel with a little bit of green beans and vegetables. Seeing her eating voraciously, her housemaid tried it and found out with dismay that it was actually tasteless. Whenever the time drew near to giving birth, her doctor would ask her whether she felt pain or not. She would ask the doctor innocently, "Where is the pain supposed to be?" She never had any labor pain during any of her pregnancies. She was mindful of the Buddha and always had faith in Guanyin Bodhisattva.

When she came to the United States with all her six children in 1972, she carefully and protectively carried her Guanyin statue along with her. In 1987, after she took refuge with Venerable Master Hua, she encountered Guanyin Bodhisattva's Dharma door of the Great Compassion Mantra and became a vegetarian along with her daughters. Although she couldn't read the Chinese characters or the romanization for the mantra, she managed to learn this mantra from listening to others reciting it. Now she tries her best to recite the Great Compassion Mantra 108 times a day. She knows without any doubt that Guanyin Bodhisattva is mindful and protective of her the way she is mindful of the Bodhisattva.