20140128 普天之下是一家 A Time of Gratitude and Love
Thank you. Thank you, too. A clean house for the new year. Are you happy? Yes, I couldn’t have done it myself. It’s okay. We’re here to help.
Before the Chinese New Year, we see Tzu Chi members across Taiwan giving selflessly with love to help those in need clean up their homes no matter how dirty the houses were and how cold the weather was.
In Guanshan, see how supt. Poon and the hospital staff there deem the town as their home and the elderly as their parents. Whatever difficulties the elderly encounter, they’ll do everything they can to help them.
See, living in this world, we are all family. Why do we limit our love to our own family only? In fact, as long as we give rise to a kind thought of love, we’ll be able to embrace others like family.
I’m also very grateful to Supt. Chang at our hospital in yuli for taking such good care of the locals there. They often go to remote areas and the mountains to provide medical services. To thank our hospital volunteers for their hard work and support over the year, our hospital staff in Yuli collected acorns and mindfully made them into beautiful gifts.
With such a gift, they wished to show their gratitude to our volunteers. See, when we are grateful, we can best express our sincere love for others. Many hospital staff came to help make the gifts. They are truly like a big family in a warm little town.
We also see our hospital staff in Hualien went to an apartment building we built for the needy to help the residents there clean up and repaint their houses. They even helped to cut their hair. It was very heartwarming. Seeing that, I really feel that this is how people can truly help one another.
We also see our hospital in Taipei. To thank our volunteers, our supt., asst. supts., doctors and nurses personally made turnip cakes for them.
We’re making turnip cakes to wish our volunteers good luck in the new year.
They did so to thank our hospital volunteers for their selfless didecation throughout the year. Our volunteers also thanked our medical staff for safeguarding the health of people in their community. See, aren’t they all living bodhisattvas?
The reunion meal at our hospital in Taichung was also very heartwarming. See how Supt. Chien played a farmer to entertain everyone. To thank our hospital volunteers, they used the vegetables they grew to make dishes for the reunion meal. For example, they used sweet potato leaves they grew to make dumplings.
Thanks to our volunteers’ support, our hospital can become what it is today. In the coming years, we need your continued support.
See how they’re like a big family of living bodhisattvas who share a loving bond with one another. We also see our hospital in Dalin. The atmosphere there was very heartwarming, too. Every year, before the Chinese New year, hospital staff there will bring their family to help clean up our care recipients’ homes. No matter how dirty their houses may be, our staff will give them a new look.
We bring our staff and family here for them to see how others suffer. So, when we come here to serve, we learn how blessed we are.
When we give of our love to serve others, our world will be full of warmth. There is indeed much warmth in the world. This is not a metaphor. It is real. The world is really filled with warmth.
We also see children at our schools across Taiwan. In Hualien, see how young children from our kindergarten also took part in our recycling work.
And in Tainan, the students from our school there not only help to sweep streets in the community from time to time, before the Chinese New Year they even went from door to door to give out the New Year couplets and share with people what they can do to help protect our environment.
Of course, we’ve often heard students from our Tzu Chi University visiting people in need and bringing them care. All this is very good education as it will help to instill in children the fundamental principles of being a good person. The way our students give of themselves is truly admirable.
We also see students from our elementary and high schools and our college of technology in Hualien go to senior homes to interact with the elderly and help clean up their living environment. They’ve truly done a great job. This is part of our character education.
No matter how well students perform academically, if they don’t have good character, they’re not truly properly educated. Education is about instilling in children life’s principles and guiding them to give and serve, to respect their elders, to be filial to their parents, to do good, etc.
This is what we should teach children I’m very grateful to our schools. It’s important that we guide our children to do these things. Not only should children at our schools learn to do these things, but everyone in the world should. This is because for our world to enjoy true peace, we should start with purifying people’s minds through education.
All and all, the Chinese New Year is approaching. For those of us in Taiwan, we should be most grateful for the peace and safety we’ve enjoyed over the last few years. We should further welcome in the new year with a heart of vigilance and sincere piety.
Every day, in our dealings with people and matters, we should do so with gratitude, respect and love. This is what we should encourage everyone to do I’m grateful to our hospitals for safeguarding people’s health with love and to our schools for nurturing children and bringing hope to our society.
This is what we should continue to do in the coming year and also what I earnestly hope to see.
首頁 