20131027於生活中行六度 To Realize the Six Practices of the Bodhisattva
“Power of 135” is a way to spread the spirit of the Bamboo Bank era. Through understanding the Bamboo Bank era, we learn that Tzu Chi was started by accumulation of small pocket changes that led to this miracle of love. Today, we can hold free medical clinics or other community services of people’s love.
What we need now is to inspire each person’s love. A place that has love is a place that is blessed. Today, we have this mission to recruit Bodhisattvas through “Power 135” the convenience of donating $1, $3, or $5 a month, everyone can do good deeds. Most importantly, we want people to care about for their community.
We see our volunteers from Northern California U.S.A. Our volunteers are actively inspiring people to donate and do good. This is because in June of this year, we had our global board meeting Tzu Chi leaders from 22 countries returned to Taiwan. They inspired and motivated one other. I also encouraged them to actively inspire people’s love.
In order to bring hope to our world, we have to inspire love in people’s hearts first. In Northern California, volunteers talked about how to do this. They remembered what I said about the Four Great Vows, the spirit of the Four Immeasurables, and also the six paramitas. They said they will practice what they learned and inspire all the people around them.
So they started writing emails to people they know to share with them real-life stories about people who are suffering. They ask them if they would like to donate $1, $3, or $5 to help people. So, they came up with a program named “Power 135”, which encourages people to give a small monthly donation where people can designate how the money will be used, such as for education, dental clinic, or others. Even a dollar can be designated to where it goes. The same for $3 and $5. Through emails they were able to reach everyone they know.
They also discovered that if they speak to people and urge them to do good deeds, people will respond. With renewed conviction, they gave rise to the heart of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Then they made the now to inspire as many people as possible.
So, emulating the spirit of Tzu Chi’s Bamboo Bank era, they set out to go every business office to inspire and recruit donors. The volunteers said they originally thought carrying out the six paramitas was hard. But, after they started this program, they discovered that it is a very good way for them to practice the six paramitas. Their motivation stems from the Four Great Vows, which includes inspiring and helping all living beings. It’s not hard to inspire and recruit people, as long as we are determined to share good deeds with the people we know. Through the Internet, we can inspire people.
As these volunteers reach out to people, whether speaking to people they don’t know, people they know or people who reject them, they take it all as cultivation to rise above humiliation. They endured people’s rejection and continued to reach out to more people. When they meet people who respond to them and praise their efforts, they realize they’re being diligent in cultivation by reaching out.
As long as they are willing, there’s nothing they can’t accomplish. When people reject them and they can still take it, that’s practicing eliminating afflictions. So, through this, they can inspire people eliminate their afflictions, rise above humiliation, and be diligent in cultivation.
Through this program, the volunteers all feel that carrying out the Four Great Vows is not so hard, as long as they’re willing to practice the six paramitas, they can figure out all sorts of ways to inspire people to do good. So, we see that they’ve started inspiring more people to do good.
Seeing that these bodhisattvas are truly being mindful in giving of themselves, my mind is set a little bit at peace because every day I keep saying that time is running out. People’s values are so skewed. All people care about is enjoying life, comforts, and pleasures. How many people really take in the Dharma?
We need everyone to take in Dharma because collective problems require everyone’s collective efforts. If everyone can follow good teachings, do good, and live in a wholesome way, it will really make this world better. So, good conditions are a product of people’s actions. It comes from people doing good.
So, we really need everyone to spread the Dharma, for the teachings can’t spread themselves. It takes people sharing them for people to have the chance to encounter them. So, what’s needed is for people to share the Dharma with others and to inspire everyone to give, no matter the amount.
Back when Tzu Chi first started, people who were inspired to donate would propose to donate NT$15 a month instead of 50 cents daily. I told them, “What I want is for you to donate every day, because then, every day you’ll have the heart of helping others. What I care about is you having this daily wish. It’s not just about the donation. But, the half-dollar coin you donate, when combined with everyone’s donations, can be used to help many people.
That’s how we started, from daily 50 cents donations. Because I further asked them to donate by saving their grocery money, so before they left their house for the market, they’d first drop a coin into their bamboo bank.
So, at the market, they’d tell the food vender to give them slightly less because they needed to save up 50 cents. “What for? ” the vender would ask them. “What can be done with 50 cents?” They’d reply, “Charity. Our Master says we can help the needy by donating 50 cents every day.” The vender would reply: ”If just 50 cents can help people, I can donate too.”
That was the spirit of our earliest members.---every day they donated a coin and every day they spread the word, inspiring others to donate too. Now, Tzu Chi is in its 48th year. If all of us can have this same spirit and every day tell people we meet about Tzu Chi in hopes that everyone can participate in doing good, then as people do good, they will be less prone to do bad things.
In closing, we all have to have good thoughts and make good vows, and walk the Bodhisattva Path. This is not hard “Walking the Bodhisattva Path is actually so simple.” This is what our N. California volunteers said. They found out that practicing the six paramitas is actually not difficult. It’s actually simple to carry out the Four Great Vows. The spirit of the Four Immeasurables is within our daily life.
Yes, the Buddha’s teachings are for us to practice in our daily life. It is not difficult at all. So, as long as we are willing and mindful, our hearts can always abide in wisdom and we can walk the Bodhisattva Path. Everyone, this is possible if we are mindful.
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