Their Souls Are Free - Letters from Prisons

Every year Korean initiates spread the good news of eternal liberation among inmates in different prisons. We also visit those already practicing the Convenient Method of meditation on a regular basis and encourage their spiritual practice. We have often received thank-you letters from them. The following are excerpts from some of these letters.

I'm deeply grateful to Master for Her infinite love. I feel as if I were in Heaven because I know I'm always with Master, who does everything for me and makes me live a new life. I'm also thankful to fellow initiates for their concern and love as well as their trouble for me. With love from Master and many others, I'm trying to commit myself to meditation and to the study of Master's teachings. Since it's not “me” who does this, I try to relax and focus on communicating with Master.

I regularly receive the News Magazines you send me. Every single edition is filled with so much love that I don't think I can find more precious jewels in this world. Whenever I read the News Magazines, I know I'm being baptized and reborn again. That I had wretchedly tumbled and fallen before was kind of the arrangement for Master to come into my life. Whenever I think of this, I know the divine providence of God. Because all I want now is to get initiated into the Quan Yin Method of meditation, I surrender myself to Master as if I were a toddler learning how to walk again.

In the presence of Master's holiness and righteousness as well as fellow initiates, this small cell is a Heaven for me.

I think somehow getting in contact with Master's teaching was the biggest happiness in my life when I was constantly moving from one prison to another as a lifer. Though doubtful in the beginning, I read Master's books, kept the vegetarian diet and practiced meditation according to Her teachings. I eventually achieved the peace of mind, which I never experienced before. I could not get fully initiated because I was in a prison; instead, I practiced the Convenient Method of meditation. While incorporating Master's teaching and meditation into my life, I was able to live a new life and get rid of the bad habits that had weighed on me in the past.

Listening to fellow practitioners' stories on their spiritual journey and discussing our daily practices, I found myself changing for the better; my face became brighter as I put down the old me and embraced a brand new life. Meditating every morning and night, I was no longer a prisoner even though my physical body was still behind bars. These exemplary behaviors received recognition and made me the chief of the labor team. And at the time of any trouble, I was able to wisely solve it by thinking of Master and by meditating. Because of this, I believe that having met fellow initiates here was the biggest luck for me. May Master's blessing and glory be with them!

On May 14, Golden Year 4 (2007), a group of fellow initiates visited Andong Prison and held a small party for the inmates confined in 15-foot white walls. Then a little girl came up and handed me a small gift wrapped by her tiny hands, saying, “Please take this.” At that moment I felt tears well up in my eyes. She was just like my late daughter. I didn't know how to express this overwhelming emotion at that time, so I wrote this humble poem.

Pure and pristine, a little Quan Yin bodhisattva

Made a pure and pristine spring.

A gentle star in my heart

That never fades until far into the night.

One morning

When the world is overflowing with the scent of flowers,

The brilliant blue sky opens,

Thus the darkness we have all crumbles to the ground,

And our hearts become infinitely warm,

I'll sing a song for the little Quan Yin bodhisattva, pure and pristine.

A song of love that will continue to resonate

Though the sun sets and the moon sinks

The little Quan Yin Bodhisattva

Made a spring in my barren heart,

The sweet nectar of which lulls me peacefully into sleep.

Brother Kim from Andong Prison