20140109終身學習常精進 Cleansing Our Minds Every Day
Time truly flies. As I tear off a page of the calendar every day, it becomes thinner and thinner. A Buddhist verse goes: “As each day passes, our life diminishes” With such awareness, we’ll be awakened to the latter half of the verse: “Like a fish in a shrinking pond,” “what joy is there?”
This is what we should always keep in mind. When we get old, should we retire? If you ask me, I’ll never retire. As long as I’m breathing, I won’t retire. If I retire, it means that I’m not breathing anymore. So, I’d like to encourage everyone to keep on learning and serving. In other words, we should keep working until our day has come.
As long as we have the will, we can continue to give of ourselves to serve others I am truly very grateful to our recycling and cleaning volunteers here today. Thanks to our cleaning volunteers, we can have such a clean gathering place here for everyone. One of our cleaning volunteers told me, “Master,” “we take turns to clean the place every day” “So, it’s always this clean every day,” “not just today, as you are here”
I believe her because as I walk around here these days, I find it very clean everywhere. So, I’m truly very grateful to our cleaning volunteers for maintaining such a clean place for everyone. Thank you very much I am also very touched to see how our recycling volunteers work to care for our Earth. As you serve as recycling or cleaning volunteers, you’re also cultivating your minds, which is what spiritual cultivation is all about.
By cultivating our minds, we can keep our inner fields pure and clean. Within every one of us, there’s an inner field. If we often bottle negative emotions inside and give rise to afflictions, garbage will build up in our hearts. Afflictions are the garbage in our hearts, and we need to clean it out every day. So, we must cultivate our minds to keep our inner fields pure and clean. By serving as recycling and cleaning volunteers, that’s what you’re doing already every day.
When our minds are pure and clean without any afflictions, we’ll see things clearly and know what the right things to do are. This is why we should cultivate ourselves. So, by serving as cleaning and recycling volunteers, you not only help to keep the environment clean, but also purify your hearts and minds.
In the past, I smoked, drank, chewed betel nuts and cursed all the time. As soon as I woke up, I started smoking, chewing betel nuts and drinking alcohol. But, since I joined Tzu Chi, I’ve changed a lot. After dedicating myself to Tzu Chi’s work, I have quit all my bad habits. I’m very grateful to Master for taking me in.
We heard Mr. Guo’s sharing. He used to indulge in drinking. When he got drunk, he’d become so violent that he had smashed several televisions and even tried to kill his wife with a knife. Later, his wife got him to help with Tzu Chi’s recycling work. By coming to our recycling station to work and with the support of our volunteers, he gradually changed his ways. He was very determined and had tried his best to quit drinking.
Some of his teeth are missing as he used to use them to open liquor bottles. When asked why he doesn’t get them fixed, he said the missing teeth serve as a reminder of how wayward he used to be so he won’t drink again. So, through doing recycling work, we’re not only protecting the environment, but most importantly, we’re also purifying our hearts and minds as we try to quit our bad habits.
Look at our recycling volunteers in China. Some of them are housewives who used to gamble all day without tending to their families. However, after they took part in recycling, Tzu Chi volunteers shared with them many wholesome values and cared for them genuinely, so they were inspired to quite gambling.
With the wholesome environment of Tzu Chi and the support of our volunteers, many have gradually quit their bad habits. Be it in Taiwan or other countries, we’ve heard many stories like this where people reformed after joining Tzu Chi. So, Tzu Chi is not only a group for spiritual cultivation, it is also a charity group dedicating itself to spreading wholesome values and inspiring people onto the correct path.
For that, I’m truly very grateful to everyone in this big gamily of Tzu Chi. Everyone, I’m truly very grateful to you for the many things you’ve done. Indeed, a thought we give rise to in an instant can set the course of our entire life. When a good thought arises in us, we must seize upon it and live it out. This is wisdom. Take for example our recycling volunteers here today.
You’ve been inspired to do recycling work, and till this day, you’re still doing it. In fact, we’ve been doing recycling work for over 20 years now. This is what it means to hold on to our aspiration and make it last forever. As I said, it takes just one thought to set the course of our life. Take myself for example. Back then, I told myself: “Instead of caring for my family only,” “I should work for people around the world”.
Because of that thought, there are now Tzu Chi volunteers across the world who, like me, have held on to their aspiration and have been giving me their full support and doing the things I want to do. So, when we give rise to a good thought, we can do many good deeds. But when an unwholesome thought arises in us, we might do bed deeds that will bring harm to our society, the environment, etc.
So, we must hold on to our aspiration and continue to do recycling so we can leave a clean Earth to our children. And to create a better world for our children, we must inspire everyone to give rise to wholesome thoughts.
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