20131215菩薩應觀四念處Realizations from Serving in Disaster-Stricken Tacloban
After the disaster, there is no work for us to earn a living. Tzu Chi gives us an opportunity for work and a chance to start anew. I’m so grateful.
I’m really glad that you are here to help us. Because we would not tough like clean up fast. Honestly, I’m really happy that you’re giving us that jobs to those people, so they would be helped to start over. You know ‘cause really most of us were left without anything.
Of course Tacloban City will rise again because Tacloban’s people are standing up from the disaster. I want everyone to say with me, “Go Tacloban!”
From the disaster in Tacloban, Philippines, we see the impermanence in life. Suddenly, everything changed and people’s lives went from heaven to hell just like that. Suddenly, they lost everything and their dearest ones were turned into bodies that gave off a stench as it decomposed.
Doesn’t this cause them to feel great misery and pain? In life, feelings cause us torment and the body is not something clean and immaculate.
When people’s hearts were in a state of utmost despair and distress, bodhisattvas arrived there to mobilize and uplift their spirits. So they can learn to open up their hearts to live in the present and face reality and get into constructive action. Then, they can rebuild their lives.
Seeing them pick themselves up to begin anew, I really feel happy for them and wish them well.
Yesterday, we saw their distribution. It was very heartwarming. A distribution was held at three locations. Our volunteers used an interactive activity to bring the aid recipients closer to one another, letting everyone feel like one family.
They also held a prayer to pray for our world to be free of disasters. Everyone, though of different faiths, prayed together with sincerity. I believe with such collective sincerity, the prayers truly reached all divine beings.
This is really living bodhisattvas helping fellow humans in suffering. We have to be very grateful. Actually, there are many people working to make our disaster aid possible. Besides our volunteers at the front line, there are other people supporting them.
For example, we can see live footage of our distribution in the Philippines due to the help of Mr. Anthoni Salim from Indonesia who provided us access to the Internet so that our Dai Ai TV reporters and our documenting volunteers can transmit back the latest information every day.
When the network capacity became insufficient, he increased the network capacity for us so that we’d have sufficient bandwidth to transmit live footage in clear resolution. I am very grateful for this.
I am also grateful for Mr. Francis Chau’s help. He remained in Manila to assist us. For every distribution, we turned to him to help in the transfer of such a huge amount of money from Taiwan to Manila and then next, to forward the funds in a safe and timely manner to the distribution site and then to distribute in a way that is orderly and smooth while protecting such a large sum of money for safe and accurate issuance.
We really have to thank the bank for setting up their service at the disaster area. When we distributed to survivors a payment voucher, the survivors could cash it at the bank’s service desk next to our distribution area. I am also very grateful for our transitional classroom which served the great function of being a temporary office for the bank.
Also, we were surrounded and protected by local police and military. These bank employees were very touched by our volunteers. They said that although it was the weekend, they were happy to spend it working like this.
So, all around us, there were people serving with love, not just at the front line but all round to give support and to help. There are many things to be grateful for.
To help with this aid distribution, we had over 80 Taiwan volunteers go to the Philippines as well as volunteers from Malaysia, Hong Kong and other countries. Besides our Tzu Chi volunteers, we also have TIMA volunteers. Besides providing free clinics, they had to quickly switch tasks and helped prepare for yesterday’s distribution after their free clinic.
We needed to prepare around 40 to 50 thousand gift packets, including a well-wish letter and a booklet, which needed to be folded and packaged. So, they helped with preparing the gift packet after their free clinic and did not get to rest until midnight. The next day, all our medical volunteers helped out at the distribution. I’m truly grateful for them.
This Philippines disaster has indeed allowed our volunteer bodhisattvas to gain tremendous insight and wisdom into the truths of life. Because, even though we’ve listened to the Dharma, we only hear it and have not truly realized these truths yet.
But because this relief effort took many weeks, a group of volunteers have been in the disaster area all this time. They’ve been there for over a month helping the disaster survivors and being with them. We also have other volunteers who rotated to go to the Philippines to help with our disaster aid for a period of a few days.
We also have other volunteers supporting our frontline volunteers by providing the needed supplies and working out all the logistics for aid, etc. So, they’ve been involved in the relief effort for many weeks nonstop.
For these living bodhisattvas, this disaster really let them gain deep insight into the truths of life. They witnessed the reality of suffering, its causes, and how suffering can be ended. They also really witness and realize that the body is not something clean and immaculate and feelings cause us torment.
They realize that thoughts come and go incessantly, and everything results from causes and conditions. So, why get so caught up in ourselves? Stop being so self-centric. In life, we need to quickly wake up to the truths in life for alarming disasters are already happening which we see.
So, going there to help, bodhisattvas can witness and realize the impermanence and suffering in life and can also bear witness to how people in hell-like suffering can be brought out from their misery to live in the present and accept reality and face their circumstances with hope. In just a few short weeks, we’ve seen this. The survivors are smiling now and are moving on and starting anew.
They all understand the power of small donations and are donating the coins they have, which through the good it does, will have never-ending impact. Yesterday, we also saw that many survivors are already serving as volunteers and guiding people to their place at the distribution. They also tell their fellow citizens about Tzu Chi’s love and good intentions.
This is truly moving. We saw that these local residents are also joining with all volunteers to support and benefit their fellow citizens. They are bodhisattvas. In this world, everyone can be a bodhisattva. We are truly so grateful and are very moved.
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