20131130真空妙有菩薩情 Enlightened Love for Others
As I continued my tour this time to certify volunteers and hold Year-end Blessings Ceremonies, unavoidably, my heart was also very much on the disaster situation in the Philippines.
So, every day, my heart is heavy with worry because of the disaster, but, I am also full of gratitude every day to find that Taiwan has so many generous, kindhearted people who have quickly responded by making generous contributions and actively appealing to people they know to donate. They do all this unconditionally. I am truly moved by this.
They know how to put money to use.
Tzu Chi volunteers, understanding the Dharma, know the reality of emptiness and what is truly real so they don’t get attached to worldly things. No matter how attached we are to our possessions, we will still need to leave this world empty-handed. But, does that mean we are empty of everything? No, when we die, we take our karma with us.
If you asked me, “What does karma look like?”I would tell you it is happening right now where people’s collective karma is manifesting. What is collective karma? It is when a natural disaster strikes and everyone is affected equally. It won’t spare your property just because you are rich or deliberately destroy your property because you are poor.
It does not work that way. When a disaster strikes, it strikes both the rich and poor equally. This is the collective nature of this karma. Just one natural disaster can wipe out people’s houses in an instant. Especially, now is the time of their crop harvest.
When the typhoon came, it destroyed everything on land.
So, I am very grateful to the superintendents, assistant superintendents, and doctors from Tzu Chi’s hospitals and out TIMA members from central Taiwan who made up our team of 50 to 60, which also included our documenting volunteers and our Da Ai TV reporters who went to Philippines to bear testimony to this disaster and document it for the history of humanity.
This morning, I heard Huizhen reporting on the disaster. She was in tears while reporting, as her heart if still with the survivors. She feels very deeply for their suffering. We can see what great suffering they are going through. So, we have to quickly go to help them.
Yet, providing aid in the immediate aftermath has been challenging because at first, no one knew of Tzu Chi. So every step was difficult to accomplish. Because the disaster areas are severely ravaged and the survivors are in pain and suffering. I asked our CEO of Tzu Chi Philippines: “Why don’t we apply our cash-for-work program from Marikina City to this disaster area? Also, implement it quickly so survivors won’t be sitting in a daze.
Let them quickly get back on their feet in the recovery work to uplift their spirits so that the city can be revitalized.” Our volunteers there were worried about how to organize so many participants. So, I told them: “First, remember that you are not there to hire workers. You are there to help them.
” Their daily local income is about 230 pesos, which is about NT$170 to NT$180. However, we mobilize them because we want to help them to recover. Our purpose is not to hire workers. So, we made a decision to give 500 pesos a day for salary. On the first day, about 600 people showed up to participate in our cash-for-work program.
On the second day, over 2,700 people came. On the third day, over 6,000 people came. After that, over 10,000 people came each day. So, after our program was rolled out, especially after we paid them their salary, street vendors began to show up on the streets to sell vegetables because the roads are cleared and reopened. I also heard from our news reporters.
When they were reporting, they encountered an 11-year-old boy with fluent English who helped translate for them. However, our doctors discovered that this boy has a very rare and dangerous heart condition. Our reporter spent some time with this boy. He took out his cell phone and showed it to this boy. He said to him: “This is my son.” His son is about the same age as this boy.
Very naturally, this boy took out a ball, a tiny little ball that was pretty dirty. He said: “Please give this ball to your son as my gift.” Such a gesture displays the pure heart of a child. This reporter was there to record the history of humanity. There, he saw such a reality of suffering. There, he encountered such a child who took out a call to give to this reporter’s own child. This ball may have been the child’s very prized possession.
When our reporter told his son in Taiwan about this, his son said, “Dad, did you give the boy anything?” In his son’s response, we see the pure heart of children. This child in Taiwan enjoys good fortune but can sympathize with this boy in Philippines who has such a hard life.
So, hearing that this boy gave him a gift, he wanted to give this boy something too. Their interaction is so pure and true. In this real-life situation of suffering, we are confronted with the reality of suffering in this world which involves people and their stories, following life’s laws and truths about life situations and truths about human nature.
So, in this disaster situation, we can encounter life truths and we have especially witnessed the open sincerity and genuine feeling that children have for one another. It is a beautiful human sentiment. Amidst this situation of suffering, there is the genuine love of children. When the Buddha started to preach on the Dharma, didn’t he start with the truths behind suffering?
At this time in the Philippines, a historic, catastrophic disaster has happened and it is showing us how our world is truly in danger and human beings’ welfare is under threat. It has already led to a situation of suffering. The people there are already experiencing such circumstances. In response, a group of people, Tzu Chi volunteers, have gone to join the people in suffering to bring aid and lessen their suffering.
This is what bodhisattvas do. Going there, our volunteers also endure difficult living conditions. Clean drinking water is hard to come by. They sleep on the floor, which becomes all wet when rain is blown inside at night. Yet, despite such hardships, they can still stay there and continue their relief work to help alleviate people’s suffering out of genuine compassion and love.
So, they go there in order to better understand people’s suffering and are brought face to face with the laws of life in suffering. But, at this time of devastation, there emerges such an interaction between two children. It really makes me feel that the feeling that bodhisattvas have for others is like these children’s love so clean and unconditional, asking nothing in return. Such enlightened love for others is truly beautiful.
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