Ashin Htavara September 22, 2007 Meeting with the One in Chains

September 22, 2007

Meeting with the One in Chains

            There were about seven thousand monks and twenty thousand men in front of the compound of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the University Avenue Road around twelve o’ clock in the afternoon.

            We went through the University Avenue Road. When we passed Yangon University, we remembered the students who were cruelly killed in the military government’s violent crackdown. I also saw the remorse faces of the students participating in the protest.

            We reached the first gate to pass the road of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s home. She was in our heart and we usually called her ‘Mother Su’.

            There were five security guards at the gate. We passed easily. We faced difficulty at the second gate because the guards did not allow us to pass through the road, saying that they had no right to do so. We said to them,

            ‘Just spreading loving-kindness for her by our monks, and just that, not anymore, it’s our promise!’ and we could pass at last. 

            We knew that she was not in good health and in still living four years home arrest in her home so that we wonder if she could see us from her house.

            She might heard the sound of Mitta Sutta under the light rain drops, I thought. The old doors of the gate was slightly opened, and we could see the appearance of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, rising her both arms together above her head towards the marching monks. Tears dropped from my eyes with my joy to see her. We pray Mitta Sutta for her for fifteen minutes. The sound of the praying sounded trembling in my ears. Troops barricaded her house. She was standing with respectable manner behind her house’s wall under the raindrops,  and I saw students, monks and people crying in front of her compound in the rain.

            ‘Why the sky isn’t clear? How do people feel in their hearts? The sadness of people struck me and I felt it. I believed that all could felt that. I heard that everyone cried at that moment,

‘Long live Mother Su, be wealthy Mother Su,

Democracy campaign, Success!

Democracy campaign, Success!

Democracy campaign, Success!’

             Some men were taking the photographs of the monks. Our monks went back there to the Shwedagon Pagoda, reciting Mitta Sutta. We parted at about half past five in the evening from there, agreeing to launch the all round strike to oppose the government the following day. ‘Monks meets Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at her arrested home’ became the head news that night.