20131122 心靈道場‧賑濟災民Purifying Our Minds and Protecting the Environment
This Jing Si Hall in Xinzhu is our home. I’d seen it from afar when I was coming here. It is very beautiful. This construction of this place will be completed soon.
For that, we have the local government to thank. They know about Tzu Chi’s work in Xinzhu, so they gave us their full support to build our Jing Si Hall here. So, please cherish this new home you have.
It is not just our home, but also a spiritual cultivation ground for everyone. Learning that you’re listening to my Dharma talks every morning, I’m very happy.
Recently, I’ve spoken of a parable in the Lotus Sutra about a big house on fire. Seeing how his children in the burning house were oblivious to the danger they were in, the owner of the house called out to them: “Stop playing. Come on out quickly”.
The big house was deteriorating and was on fire. Isn’t this a metaphor to tell us that our world was very beautiful to begin with, but we humans, due to our desires, keep bringing harm to our world.
And the more we desire, the more harm we do. This is a vicious cycle. That’s why we need to take in the Dharma as it helps us see life’s principles clearly. Only when we understand life’s principles can our minds be purified. When our minds are purified, we’ll lead a much better life than when we indulge in extravagance.
People may think that the purpose of living is to enjoy a comfortable life. Having all the comforts they pursue, will people truly be happy? “No.”
So, leading an extravagant lifestyle won’t bring us happiness. But, if we learn the Dharma, we’ll be awakened and then we’ll be inspired to live simply and frugally. Such A lifestyle will be much more grounded and better for our family, society, and the world. This is the benefit of learning the Dharma.
When everyone’s minds are purified, our society will be peaceful and harmonious and then the world will be free of disasters. All this has to do with how we lead our lives.
So, I hope our Jing Si Hall can serve to purify people’s minds. This is the role of a spiritual cultivation ground. With a spiritual cultivation ground like this, we can provide education to people.
Indeed, education must start from a young age. When we teach children about life’s principles, they’ll be filial to their parents. When they’re filial, they’ll also do good.
This is how we should guide young children. If children and their parents can come here to attend our classes together, I’m sure they’ll become closer to each other. This is the work we should do and the responsibility of our Jing Si Hall here.
People around the world are one family. See wherever there are disasters, Tzu Chi volunteers will immediately go there to relieve people’s suffering and carry out relief work.
Take for example the disaster in the Philippines this time. What typhoon survivors need most is for someone like Tzu Chi volunteers to bring them comfort so that their minds can be put at ease. Our volunteers are also setting up temporary housing for them now. For that, I’m very grateful.
I’m grateful to our Tzu Chengs, commissions and other volunteers for taking on such a task. They bought the materials and set up everything by themselves.
“Altogether, around 200,000 parts need to be assembled. The holes are not nicely drilled.” “Really?” “No”
“After welding, the joints will turn black, so we must polish and paint them.”
“At first, I was not very good at it. Now, I’ve gradually got the hang of it. They say I’m a professional now.”
I’m very moved by these volunteers who are all here in Houli. Our office here is truly a spiritual cultivation ground. The people in Houli are very simple and friendly. So, I’m very happy and grateful that we can have an office here. And I see you’ve put into good use things that people threw away.
In Mandarin, the name “Houli sounds like a backward place. But in fact, it is a very beautiful and large place. That is also why we can have such a large office here as well as a recycling station for everyone to do recycling work at.
When you do recycling here, you share the Dharma you’ve learned with one another. So by coming here to do recycling, you get to exercise and listen to wholesome teachings. With that, your minds will be purified and you’ll let go of your afflictions, anger, ignorance, etc.
Having taken in wholesome teachings, you’ll go home with a joyful heart. So, you do recycling every day and are happy and free of afflictions every day. So, this is a cultivation ground for you to learn the Dharma as well as a place to train bodhisattvas.
Our office here seems very large, but it was actually very simply set up. Just now, I’d been wondering why you turned on so many lights. It turned out that the light comes from skylights. So, you’ve done your best to conserve energy.
For that, I’m very grateful I often remind everyone not to be wasteful. See how many things people have thrown away. As I walked around earlier, I was very moved to see how tidy and clean you’ve kept everything.
I often encourage people to clean their recyclables. If everyone can make it a habit to rinse their bottles, etc. before recycling them, the recyclables we collect will be clean.
Our work is not just about collecting recyclables, but we should also cherish water. So, you should encourage everyone to clean their recyclables.
If you can do that and your recyclables are indeed very clean, I’ll tell everyone about it. By “everyone”, I don’t mean the people just in Taiwan, but all around the world. You can be a role model for others.
This is not impossible, as long as you work hard. You can also tell your donating members about it. This is how we can spread the message by word of mouth. This is an ideal and what we can put into practice in life.
Doing recycling should be part of our life. I’m very grateful to our recycling volunteers here
首頁 