20180809愛惜生命常自省Nurturing Wisdom by Seizing Time to Serve
I'm a patient of Marfan syndrome, which is a genetic disorder of the connective tissue. It has many symptoms. It may also cause sudden death. I've had four surgeries on my eyes in two years. In 2015, I was diagnosed with aortic dissection. Luckily, I survived. I've received treatment on my eyes, heart, and ankles When I went to the hospital again after I recovered, I understood that life is like a fish in a shrinking pond. I have to make good use of my body and seize every moment to give.
While we're leading our lives, time is also passing by unceasingly and as we age, our lives also diminish. Yet, our lives can be of great use indeed. Given that, we must cherish our lives (and make the most of the time we have.)
When looking into how we can cherish our lives, we see that whatever we do, our lives are always connected with the world, the passing of time, our everyday living, our interpersonal relationships and issues, and our emotions such as joy, love, hate, affection, abhorrence, and so on. In life, we inevitably give rise to these emotions from time to time. Such is the way of mundane beings.
Nonetheless, mundane beings can also become living bodhisattvas. So, how can we achieve this? We should learn the Dharma so that we can be moved by its true principles, be inspired to understand the principles deeper, and put them into action. After we listen to Dharma talks and are moved and inspired by the true principles, we must take action to live them out. (Such is how we become living bodhisattvas.)
Yet, although we have all begun to learn the Dharma and walked onto the Bodhisattva Path, we might still remain mundane. While we're doing good and giving of ourselves without expecting anything in return, our habitual tendencies, which we've accumulated in life, may make us attached to what we like and stay away form what we hate. This is because we're still mundane beings.
Yet, as we're fortunate to be able to walk the Bodhisattva Path, we must cultivate ourselves by seizing time to go amongst people to serve. When we seize our lives to serve as volunteers while walking steadfastly on the Bodhisattva Path, naturally we can gradually transcend our mundane way.
As we work hard to instill ourselves with the Dharma and go amongst people to serve by working with more and more Tzu Chi volunteers, we'll feel great joy in our work and feel deeply touched when giving of ourselves. By doing so, we'll transcend our limited lives and grow in wisdom. Wisdom-life is not subject to the passing of time, as I of ten mention.
When we return to our innate Buddha nature, our wisdom is always brand new regardless of our age. (We can apply our wisdom again and again) everyday when we encounter different people and matters. (And with wisdom,) we can eliminate our ignorance or afflictions. Every day, we must eliminate the afflictions that we gave rise to the day before. Then, each day marks a new beginning, and we can embrace everything with a pure heart and mind.
Recently, I've often mentioned that we should keep forming good karmic affinities with others. (To do that,) we must nurture wisdom and apply it at all times. I often say that when we pass away, there's nothing we can take with us except the karma we've created. No matter how wealthy or famous we are, when we pass away, we can take nothing with us except our habitual tendencies and the karmic seeds (that are stored in our eighth consciousness.)
When we leave this world, all we take with us to the next life is the karmic seeds we've created. The Dharma teaches us the karmic law of cause and effect. (Take livestock slaughtering for example.) Every day, countless animals are killed, crying out with painful screeches and screams. Last year, to satisfy people's meat consumption, over 100 million livestock were killed every day. And I think the number has not reduced at all now as the world population is still growing and many people still eat meat.
Moreover, we see reports of Dengue fever and avian flu spreading at alarming rates. And these diseases spread in areas with a dense population and a polluted environment. So, we humans truly must reflect on ourselves. We must harbor sincere piety and think mindfully how we can make the environment cleaner. With such large population in the world and (the amount of garbage people produce,) it's up to all of us to reduce garbage.
And everyone needs to share an understanding of the garbage problem and work in unity to cherish resources. We must cherish things like we cherish lives. We shouldn't discard things because they've become old or out of fashion. Nowadays, doing business really brings harm to the environment. We humans truly must reflect on ourselves and work to make a difference.
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