20131214人間菩提 敲醒心靈儲聖財 To Open Up Inner Treasures
I’m truly grateful to Tzu Chi I’ve lost my car and other possessions I don’t know what to do.
Life is difficult. We’ve been eating porridge for days. One time, we had nothing to eat for the whole day and only drank water. No words can describe my happiness today. Because there are people who still care about us though we’re refugees.
There are toothbrushes, rice, noodles, etc., enough for my entire family. The whole distribution was full of order and respect, very interesting, and very good.
Now is Malaysia’s rainy season. Since the beginning of this month, it has been raining non-stop. It led to flooding which has spread to cover a large area, affecting four states. We also have Tzu Chi volunteers affected by the flooding, but they set aside their own affairs first and devoted themselves to the relief effort. Their selflessness is truly touching.
So, they quickly went to provide care and aid to the flood affecters, no matter if they are Tzu Chi’s donating members or not. Whenever there’s a disaster, Tzu Chi volunteers will quickly take action to provide aid to all those affected. Since the beginning of this month, they’ve been helping the flood affectees.
One of our Tzu Chi commissioners comforted the flood affectees by saying: “My home was flooded too, up to 5 meters” “But at least we still have a house left” “that we can clean up”
We need to be grateful. We’re better off than the Filipino survivors affected by Typhoon Haiyan. We still have a house and we can use these pots after cleaning them. Master wants us Malaysian Tzu Chi volunteers to inspire and recruit a lot of living bodhisattvas. We have to do this quickly because only when the force of good is bigger and stronger can we minimize the occurrence of disasters. But, time is running out.
Though she suffered from flooding, she can think in a positive way and actively inspire people to donate and do good. I truly admire her for this. This takes courage. It’s just like in the Philippines. While our volunteers bring aid to disaster survivors, they also tell everyone about the power of small donations to inspire the survivors to open their hearts and give.
As they do this, they become rich in heart and accrue spiritual riches which are assets without form stored in the bank of our heart. Though they’ve suffered such a major disaster which took all they had, yet as long as they have some coins on them, they will happily donate them. As the coins are dropped in, the clinking sound of the coins opens up the treasures in their hearts.
At our free clinic held at Tunga Central School yesterday, a person came running to us and pleaded for help because two villagers, while digging a well, accidentally fell into it and no one dared to go down to rescue them, including the firefighters, due to safety concerns, as there is hazardous gas inside the well.
But our volunteers, Chen Shin Chung, who is from Thailand has experience in the Construction field and know how to protect himself against hazardous gas. So he climbed down the well to rescue the two villagers. But, unfortunately, one of them showed no signs of life when brought out of the well.
The other one was rushed to our free clinic for treatment. Fortunately, our Dr. Lee Yi-Kung, the director of our Emergency Department from Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital, acted quickly to save his life.
We can see from the news that this young man has been saved. Such is the workings of karma. We happened to hold a free clinic there and encountered this situation. In this dangerous situation, our volunteers very bravely used their compassion and wisdom to save a person’s life. This is the true power of love acting quickly to save life.
For the past few days, our volunteers verified the name lists provided by the local government. We issued them a pick-up slip for the distribution and verified the size of their household which determines the amount of money they’ll receive. A household of one or two people will receive 8,000 pesos from us. A household of three to four will receive 12,000 pesos.
A household of five or more will receive 15,000 pesos. So, there are three types of payment vouchers. The cash is with the bank and the aid recipients can cash the payment vouchers at the bank’s booth at the distribution site with full cooperation from the bank and many of its staff. The bank especially made the effort to print payment vouchers in different amounts for us.
Indeed, we have to be very grateful for this. Last night, our volunteers went to the bank to express our gratitude to the bank employees for their help. Some of them and their families were also affected by the typhoon. Using the same guideline for disaster survivors, we gave them monetary aid to offer them our well-wishes. Also, there are about 100 Chinese businesspeople there who besides suffering from the typhoon were also robbed in the aftermath.
So, they’ve sustained great loss in this disaster. We also held a reception for them and other Chinese businesspeople to give them our care and to invite them to join and support our distribution. Today, we start our aid distribution I hope, over the next three days, all will go well for our distribution to finish this phase of disaster relief beautifully. That will bring a close to this phase.
We will then meet to plan carefully about mid- to long-term assistance. So, for our distribution for the next three days, let’s send them our sincere well-wishes. At the same time, I am grateful for the fundraising efforts of our Tzu Chi volunteers from 44 countries. Perhaps the number of countries will increase today.
I hope Tzu Chi volunteers worldwide can let more people know about and see the disaster in the Philippines so everyone can participate in this aid project. Everyone should open their hearts and have abundant love for others. Even a tiny contribution will make our hearts rich and help us develop blessings and virtue.
So, the blessed should help people in need. We also see that the people in need are also opening their hearts to give. Though in hardship, they experience joy. Though poor, they are rich in heart. So, whether we are rich or poor is up to us if we have a lot of money but can’t bear to part with it to help others, it’s the same as having no money.
Such spiritual poverty is truly a big pity. Those who are poor but rich in heart really deserve everyone’s well-wishes. In a word, whether we are rich or poor depends on our mentality. With hearts full of love, we have boundless riches.
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