Thank you everyone for your efforts.
Just now, I saw how well-organized you were in taking apart and sorting your recyclable items and keeping everything orderly.
Seeing all this truly brings me much joy.
In fact, before I came here today, I visited our recycling stations in
Shigang and Dongshi in Taichung County and Zhuolan in Miaoli County.
After seeing these places my heart truly goes out to the volunteers there.
Although the recycling station in Shigang is more spacious than the other two, it is basically an outdoors area with only a simple structure to provide a little cover.
However, the spaces in Dongshi and Zhuolan are much small.
I especially feel for the volunteers at our recycling station in Zhuolan.
When I arrived there, it was very sunny.
The space was very small and they were in a building made of corrugated iron
That’s how the volunteers there work.
So, after visiting these places and coming to this recycling station in Houli, this place truly feels very spacious.
So, I hope that then you have time, you come here more often to help sort the recyclables keep the place clean.
That way, we can cherish resources and make our environment cleaner.
If we can do that, it will be the best.
I hope we can put more effort into caring for the Earth and work to help mitigate global warming by taking action to save energy and reduce carbon emissions.
At one of the recycling stations in Taichung yesterday, I saw them disassembling videotapes.
This is because videotapes have now fallen out of favor and people no longer use them.
So, three truckloads of videotapes were brought our station for recycling.
I saw our volunteers very carefully unscrewing each screw on cassettes for recycling.
Not only so all the screws need to be unscrewed form the cassettes, but the plastic casing well as the bits and pieces inside, including a thin piece of stainless steel and the reel of tape, all need to be separated.
There are indeed many components to take apart and sort for just one videotape.
It truly shows how even something as common as a videotape that people use for entertainment is made put together by so many components.
Yet, we won’t think of that when we’re using it.
If we’re mindful of the thing we use every day, we’ll see that to make metals, we need to mine, and to make plastic produces, we need to drill oil from the earth.
The refining process of the oil also creates a lot of pollution.
If we keep taking resources from the earth, these resources will run out one day.
That is why we must cherish this Earth of ours.
But how are we to cherish it?
You all still remember me saying that “Garbage can be turned into gold,” right? (Yes)
Tell me that follows that line.
“Gold can be turned into love, and this love can serve as a stream of purity that flows throughout the world.”
Very good.
This stream of purity that flows throughout the world refers to the wholesome programs produced by Da Ai TV.
As this year is the 20th year of Tzu Chi’s recycling efforts, we can reports about our recycling works on Da Ai News every day.
Why do we cover recycling so much?
These reports on recycling are done because we hope that the recycling work in Taiwan can be practiced by people (in the world) and everyone can care more about the Earth.
By doing so, we hope everyone’s heart and mind can be purified and their afflictions and delusion can be cleared away.
You may all think that it’s hard to be free of afflictions and delusion, but all it takes is to change our perspective.
For some people, they are aware of life’s impermanence as they often hear people speak of it.
And because of that, they indulge in momentary pleasure as they feel there is no point to earning money if they don’t spend it.
Indeed, we can spend the money.
But, how should we use it?
It depends on our perspective.
When our perspective toward life is askew, we’ll spend money on pursuing a comfortable life by wearing expensive clothing of well-known brands and matching them with expensive jewelry.
This is what many women pursue, apart from leading extravagant lives, etc.
All in all, these are the endless desires people can have.
As for men, it is about their careers as they constantly pursue, power, fame, status, etc.
And often have business dinners.
All these things they do can lead to afflictions.
So, how can we settle our minds to be at peace?
How can women take good care of their families?
All this depends on having the right perspective in life.
If we’ve learned the Buddha’s teachings, we’ll know what to do and what not to do.
For what we should do, we must work hard to achieve it.
For what we shouldn’t do, we must take care not to do it.
This is what the Buddha came to this world to teach us.
And, in order to guide us, the Buddha had to come up with different ways so that different so that different people could easily accept his teachings.
Despite that, many people still haven’t had the chance to come in contact with the Buddha’s teachings and when people’s minds go astray, what they do will bring much turmoil to society.
For example, nowadays, we see now people are encouraged to spend and how people constantly talk about new construction or development plans.
All this has led to the many industries we see in society today with mountains being excavated and forests being cleared for construction projects.
See how people use so many things in their daily living and keep buying so many things.
As new products keep being marketed, people keep buying new things to replace the old ones.
When you collect the things that people discard, you will discover how wasteful people are and how many things throw away.
This is because nowadays people use many disposable things and throw them away after one use.
However, we only have one Earth and our resources are limited.
Everyone, it’s time for us to work harder to cherish we have.
Otherwise we’ll have less and less resources to use in the future.
See how climate conditions have become so erratic.
Some places suffer from drought and cannot grow crops, while in other places, when crops are about to be harvested, torrential rains come and destroy everything.
So, to mitigate disasters, we must start with changing our perspective and work to cherish what we have.
Only when there are less disasters can people and the land be safe and well.
I can see that the people here in Houli, Taichung County are simple and kindhearted.
I hope you can all encourage one another to clean their recyclables before taking them out for recycling.
To take our recycling work to the next level, we need everyone to clean their recyclables.
It’d be best if every family could avoid buying things in disposable containers.
But if you can’t please empty the containers and rinse them clean before recycling them.
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