20150409顧好心念‧獨立人生Helping Countless People through the Cycle of Love
April 7 is the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda for the world to reflect on the lessons from past global affairs and the relations between various ethnic groups.
History on the genocide in Rwanda 21 years ago resurfaces to show us how internal conflicts led to the genocide in Rwanda. When we look back to that history, more than 800,000 people died due to the ethnic conflict and fighting.
Then, an epidemic outbreak followed. In that disaster relief, Dr. Wang, who is with Tzu Chi’s hospital now, and Mr. Hsu, a volunteer were part of Tzu Chi’s delegation that went deep into Rwanda and worked with a French medical relief team.
In the refugee camp, Tzu Chi’s flag flew high in the international NGO tent city. Some people said that this flag had never been seen before. No one knew which country or which organization this flag represented. Our partners often answered these inquiries by introducing Tzu Chi, an international humanitarian organization from Taiwan. Thinking back to that time, Tzu Chi had gone to Rwanda to provide charity and medical aid.
The genocide was truly a horrendous and brutal tragedy in the history of humankind. Therefore, we must work hard to keep peace in people’s hearts. Of course, the society now is very different from 20 years ago.
With the advanced technology we have now, I hope people can use it wisely to gain more knowledge and broaden their view of the world and to learn ways of bettering the world by loving one another and protecting the land so that we can all create a peaceful and harmonious society where everyone can live a safe, peaceful and happy life.
From Da Ai News, we also saw that Tzu Chi volunteers in Africa are actively inspiring people in six African countries to have love for others and become spiritually rich through caring for others.
Our volunteer from Lesotho, Jennifer Chen, joined other Tzu Chi volunteers from South Africa for their latest outreach in Botswana. Like in Lesotho and South Africa, there are Taiwanese people doing business in Botswana.
These Taiwanese in Botswana saw the humanitarian work being done by their counterparts in other African countries. While living in a foreign land and utilizing the local resources, the Taiwanese businesspeople were giving back to the local communities.
The Taiwanese in Botswana felt that they could do this as well in Botswana. One of the businesspeople therefore provided his factory for the visiting Tzu Chi volunteers to stay at overnight.
He and his family hope that the Tzu Chi volunteers from Lesotho and South Africa can inspire the same spirit of love and caring amongst communities in Botswana. We see how diligent they are over there. Every day they watched my Life Wisdom program downloaded from the Internet and shared it with the local people.
Every day, volunteers there got up early in the morning, just like the volunteers in Taiwan did, and listened to my Dharma talk with discipline. We see how diligent they are. They can share Tzu Chi’s Great Love with the local people no matter where they are, whether it’s inside buildings, at restaurants, or out in the fields.Their diligence is truly toughing.
All this is made possible by having faith--- with love in our heart; we’ll be able to bring peace and harmony to every place we go to.We also see what wonders love can do. It is very heartwarming. Yesterday, the previously-conjoined Filipino twins were discharged from Tzu Chi’s hospital and returned to the Philippines.
We’d like to thank the entire medical staff for treading us like family of their own. I’d like to express my deepest and sincerest gratitude.
All of us in the Philippines, we would like to thank Tzu Chi Foundation in Taiwan to the leadership of Master Cheng Yen.
Yesterday, on behalf of the Catholic Church and the Philippines government, a priest expressed his thanks to Tzu Chi. He then visited me at the Jing Si Abode.
I asked him, “The twins are cute, aren’t they?” The Father joyfully replied: “They are very playful and cute indeed.”I then asked him: “Have you held their hands to walk around yet?” He said, “Yes, yes. They can walk now.”
They’d been joined together for more than a year, and they had only been separated for around a month. Seeing them walking well and being healthy, the Father told me that they’ve been well looked after and have gotten chubby.
Indeed, while they were here, we had looked after them well. Such is the sincere love of our medical team and volunteers, while allowed the previously-conjoined twins to live freely as two separate children.
Now they are very healthy and have returned home.All in all, there is much to be grateful for wherever there is love. When we reflect back on what we have done, we must be grateful.
I want to thank our medical team and Tzu Chi volunteers both in the Philippines and in Taiwan for working together to help give this pair of conjoined twins their freedom as individuals.
In this and past cases, we’re always grateful be able to help. That was a beautiful service we did leading to many heartwarming stories.
Yet, when we speak of Rwanda, it brings up the horrible images of the atrocity, too heart sickening to remember. What had happened was due to people’s hearts and minds having gone astray.
If we have love in our heart, we can start a cycle of goodness the generates countless good deeds which help countless people. If our mind goes astray and gives rise to unwholesome thoughts, we can start chaos and unrest in society and cause turmoil in people’s minds, creating disasters that will spin out of control. All in all, we have to really take good care of our heart and mind.
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