20151010恆持正念護乾坤 To Always Protect Mother Nature
Time flies by so fast. Therefore, we have to seize out time. Life is very short. There are 24 hours in a day. In terms of seconds, that’s exactly 86,400 seconds, but a second more. In other words, a second is a very short time. In this very short time, can we calm our mind down? Ordinary people cannot keep their mind calm. Affiliations, as many as 86,400 in number, unsettle people’s mind in every second. This is the nature of ordinary people’s mind.
Yet, life is the sum of these fleeting moments. How can we capture our fleeting and change thoughts and make them eternal? I often mention that we have to seize the moment and make it lasting. History originates from thoughts in people’s mind. All tangible objects are subjected to impermanence in any given time. We should focus our mind and make it lasting, but impermanence lies within every second. This is something that we have to think deeply about.
It is not possible for us to possess eternal life. Yet, we should take in life's truth into our heart and practice them to show people the right direction in life according to life’s truth. We must seize the opportunity to do the right thing, keep moving forward and lead future generations down the right path to preserve the Dharma and life’s principles forever withstanding the test of time.
This takes a focused mind overcoming impermanence in any moment. Similarly with unwholesome thoughts, unwholesome thoughts combined with life’s impermanence can result in tragedy and regret. The harmful thoughts in people’s mind or a momentary lapse of judgment have created disasters in this world and destroyed Mother Nature, causing Nature to go out of balance. Those are the series of consequences.
Our body and Mother Nature are similar in nature. Inside the body of every person, countless living organisms exist, such as bacteria, alive and moving. In our experience, we often hear doctors use a metaphor to explain diseases that is like a war being fought inside our body. When malignant cells attack healthy cells and if the healthy cells are low in immunity, malignant cells will overtake the healthy cells. A disease is then formed.
All illnesses and disorders begin when the microcosm inside our body becomes out of balance. However, when mankind does not live in harmony with Mother Nature, we create many abnormal phenomena around the globe and cause endless chaos and natural disasters. This is the impermanent nature of life we create in our world.
We should think deeply and come to see that all the discord and chaos that we create in our world, be it out of our ignorance or greed, and will contribute to Mother Nature having all sorts of abnormality. These abnormalities are accumulated over time caused by many reasons, including the irrational heart and mind of people. All in all, our mindset plays a key role to how we act.
What truly worries us is people’s disharmonized heart and mind that leads them to live an excessive lifestyle which ends up disturbing the whole earth’s ecosystem. We see the outbreak of Dengue Fever in Taiwan and in many other countries now. We need to pay attention to Dengue Fever. Right now in the world, we see many countries trying very hard to prevent it and to terminate mosquitoes. Actually, this is related to the entire ecology.
With the impact of global warming, Earth’s average temperature has becomes higher causing Nature’s water element to go out of balance, resulting in too much rain or drought. After excessive rain, some places lack good sanitation. With growing population, people are living closer in more places and generating a lot of waste, creating a burden for the surrounding environment.
When tiny mosquitoes come to the urban areas people have developed and together with climate Mother Nature has created, it creates a favorable condition for Dengue Fever outbreak. A female mosquito can lay hundreds of eggs at one time. How to terminate mosquitoes multiplying in this environment favorable for its breeding?
In summary, a tiny mosquito can carry the disease and infect so many people with Dengue Fever. In our living environment, we should always take good care of sanitation and really pay attention to environment protection. It is important for everyone to pay attention to this outbreak and take preventative actions by cleaning their surrounding environment and removing any stagnant water in the premises, which is likely to breed mosquitoes under this kind of climate.
Tzu Chi volunteers keep giving of themselves to clean the environment. However, such effort is too little. After all, this is everyone’s responsibility for we all live in this environment. In areas overgrown with weeds or littered with trash, these areas need to be always kept clean and dry. Time is running out for preventative measures and also public education.
All in all, everyone needs to know their responsibilities. We can’t afford to wait any more for actions. Otherwise, it will be too late. Time is truly not enough for us to do all that we have to. We truly can’t take our time in explaining things. We have to speed up our actions. Our way of life is now in a critical time. We have to be more mindful.
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