20200113光照苦難益人間To Shine a Light in the Dark Corners of the World
I want to tell everyone that to teach the Bodhisattva Way is not as easy as just to talk about it and people will understand. Talking about it alone won’t work. Just listening and talking about it will not get us to experience it. It’s better to get to know it and take a part in serving people. Only after we have personally served people will we know what Bodhisattva Way is and have a deeper understanding of the Dharma that we’ve learned.
If we don‘t personally take part in serving people, we will never connect the Dharma with our daily life. Where is the holy mountain? How far away is the holy mountain? It’s in our hearts. So, don’t seek far away for the Buddha in the holy mountain. It’s far away from us. If we just talk about it and seek after it, we will never get to it, because it’s far away. Yet, within the heart of everyone, there is a holy mountain.
We’ll find it when we self-reflect. Those who do not self-reflect will never attain the Dharma they seek. Through self-reflection, we will realize that the Buddha is right in our hearts, like a shadow following a person. The shadow is a shadow of a person. There is truly a person here, we are not just seeing the shadow.
Typically, our medical outreach serves remote areas or disadvantaged groups. Central Taiwan is quite big, so we go out to serve almost every week. This era, we have 16 locations; at the Genesis Social Welfare Foundation in Taichung, Miaoli, Caotun, we serve PVS patients; we focus mainly on dentistry.
For the disadvantaged groups, there are the Nantou Education and Nursing Institution, for those with intellectual disability. We visit Onesiphorus Children’s Home in Puli twice a year. Also, at Chen Chou Boys’ Home, we also provide medical services for the disadvantaged children there.
For the remote areas, we go to villages without medical care, like Xinshe, Miaoli, Zhuolan, Pinglin, they are far away and without doctors. In Nanzhuang, there are many indigenous residents, with rough roads and a lot of hills.Therefore, when we do outreach there, we have four routes, and each route has about five care recipients. So, every time we go, besides giving our medical care, we also bring Master’s love to them; there are about 20 care recipients.
Last year, we had 3,990 volunteers, plus 3,602 medical personnel. Now, in TIMA of central Taiwan, those who regularly participate, include nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians, dentists, and doctors of Chinese Medicines, are 1,540 people. We did 90 services last year.
Hearing our TIMA volunteers visiting villages in the remote mountains; though the mountainous roads are rough and difficult, they are still very eager to go. They paid their own expenses, gave of their medical services, and took their own medical instruments with them; They brought everything with them.
For each outreach, they survey the location first. Is there water and electricity supply? They have to check the water and the electricity supply, know their ways around the areas, and find out how many patients are bedridden who need a house call.
Seeing that family, they truly endure a lot of suffering. This family has a person with brittle bone disease. Who is taking care of him? His parents are gone; who will take care of him? Fortunately, he has a little bit blessing in his life. His aunt is taking care of him, but it’s difficult.
Life is originally full of suffering, adding on being ill and disabled. That is more suffering on top of one suffering after another. It’s truly a lot of suffering. We see people’s suffering, so we need to take up the work of relieving people’s suffering now that we have the affinity to create blessings in this life. Moreover, we need to make vows to do the same in our future lives.
TIMA volunteers in northern, central, and southern Taiwan are all the same. They all serve with genuine sincere love. I am very grateful. Many of them serve more than TIMA volunteers. After seeing people’s suffering, they learn to count their blessings and are willing to take part in activities of all Tzu Chi’s four missions and become certified Tzu Chi volunteers. They take part in medical outreaches, disaster surveys, as well as go on international disaster relief missions.
Indeed, there are many people suffering around the world. Tzu Chi has been helping people in suffering, which is their karmic retribution. Through this, we see how people are affected by karma and receive its consequences. Currently, we are also undergoing karmic retribution. Because we had created blessings in our past lives we know to give of ourselves with aspiration and also have people supporting us.
Being part of a family that is well blessed, a person who enjoys helping others and really wants to do good without any hindrance, and, meanwhile, is companied by many others with the same conviction is indeed the most blessed.
We should be grateful at all times. Not only be grateful to ourselves for our commitment, but also be grateful to those supporting us and accompanying us to do good. We have to be grateful to all these people.
To have the retribution of doing good deed in this life, we have to be grateful for creating the kind of affinitive in our past lives. Since we created this in the past and have the affinities now, we must know to count our blessings and cherish them.
We should emulate the Buddha and learn to be a living bodhisattva life after life. The Buddha told us that to attain Buddhahood, there is only one way, which is through the broad and straight Bodhisattva Path. According to Buddhist sutras, When there is a disaster, bodhisattvas also go through suffering.
This principle applies to Tzu Chi volunteers. Practicing it may face hardship and many difficulties. With the power of love, we are not afraid of any hardship. So, when living beings are in pain and suffering, as living bodhisattvas, we feel their pain and suffering too.
All in all, we should act out with our power of love. I am grateful to you for having the power of love and being fearless. Everyone, we should affirm our aspiration and reassert our vows once again. With grand aspiration and great vows, we will go to four corners of the world to give of ourselves, and nothing will stop us from doing so.
However, we have to know that we humans have been collectively creating bad karma and the world is suffering from drastic climate change. We should be sincerely pious and cautious and vow to be a living Bodhisattva who always willingly goes to places in suffering and gives aid.
This is truly creating blessings for all the people and bringing light to the world. I am grateful to Tzu Chi volunteers for having paved this broad path with love. We should pave the Path smooth and make it wide. Everyone, please be more mindful in doing this.
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