20141018 談伊色變 知恩向善The Threat of Disease Outbreak
There is a Dengue Fever outbreak in China. In Guangdong Province although the authorities are disinfecting public areas to kill mosquitoes, new cases are still being reported every day. This outbreak is tied closely to our sanitation practices.
If we keep good sanitation practices in our daily life, such as keeping goods that we’ve used clean and recycling them instead of littering them which leaves them out in the open to get dirty and collect water, then there’d be no breeding ground for mosquitoes, which carry Dengue Fever.
What is even more worrying is the outbreak of Ebola from West Africa. This has been much on my mind recently because the time for annual certification is approaching and global volunteers will be be coming back to Taiwan.
In fact we have already taken steps to inform our volunteers in Africa not to travel for this year’s certification. We will mail their certification badges to South Africa. We have already taken the precaution to protect everyone.
However, we see that new Ebola cases are confirmed in Spain and even in the U.S. This spreading is due to the convenience of air transportation. The Ebola virus has an incubation period of up to three weeks. Patients who are infected carry the virus without their awareness until they have developed symptoms, such as a fever. By that time, it is too late.
They become infectious at the onset of fever. Anyone in contact with them will likely be infected. This is truly very worrying.
Epidemic like this Ebola outbreak is hard to prevent because we cannot see it to detect it. Also, transportation is too convenient now. Too many people are traveling. This makes disease prevention and control very difficult, just like trying to know what people are thinking.
Many things happen in conditions beyond our control. I have observed many cases that have thwarted all efforts at prevention or migration. Life is full of impermanence, with so much beyond control.
Let’s turn to heartwarming stories which can give us some comfort. We see a heartwarming story in the Philippines Tzu Chi volunteers there discover a boy with a hearing problem which gave him low self-esteem. So, they quickly provided him with a hearing aid. With the help of hearing aid, and his recovered his self-esteem.
He smiles now and can understand his teachers’ instruction. He can sing with other students and follows along with them. This boy is truly fortunes to have met caring Tzu Chi volunteers.
Also in the news, we saw a youth volunteers in Malaysia who have graduated held an event to thank their teachers and their parents especially their patents for nurturing them. It is very beautiful for them to repay their gratitude I often tell everyone to be grateful to their teachers and parents as well as to all the people in the world.
Although other people in the world may not seem to be related to us at all, we’re in fact connected to them which we’ll realize if we look deeper. Take cotton garments, for example. The fabric comes from raw material provided by Mother Nature. It takes workers to plant, harvest and process the cotton and turn it into yarns and fabric.
Through the work of farmers, manufacturers, retailers and others, garments are produced and brought to us to keep us warm. We should be grateful. Without the cotton farmers, there’d be no cotton clothes for us to wear.
We must also be grateful for our food. Farmers must labor for a long time to grows crops. For example, growing rice is a very labor intensive process, from planting to harvesting, then threshing, winnowing, and milling the rice. The rice then is brought to distributors. We need to be grateful to these people in trade.
Without their part in purchasing rice from farmers and distributing them to the markets, where would we get our food? The fact that we can have food to eat every day and have different foods to choose from is something to be grateful for. All food products in the store are brought to us by traders.
Since our society needs farmers, Laborers, merchants and scholars alike to function properly, we need to be grateful for everyone's contribution. Scholars refer to learned people who study a field of knowledge to gain profound understanding of it and pass on this knowledge to others. We must also be grateful to them for this.
So, we need to be grateful to each and everyone, not just our parents and teachers. We must have gratitude toward all people living on this planet with us for we are benefited by their contributions.
Given this, we should be all the more grateful to the many elderly recycling volunteers who work hard every day to protect our environment and keep or resources from being wasted. That’s why they do recycling. They do it out of a great and selfless sense of purpose so we truly must be grateful to them. There is so much to be grateful to them.
However, we have to show our gratitude through the way we treat all objects in daily life. At home or for our personal belongings, we should cherish the material goods that we have and recycle them after we are done using them. It shows our character and is a good virtue to have. Otherwise, the more we use, the more we throw away.
With garbage littered and left uncollected out in the open, it will become dirty and collect standing water leading to major sanitation problems. It’s not possible to rely on sanitation workers to clean up everything. This is why we have to be very grateful to Tzu Chi’s recycling volunteers.
If they stop doing recycling for a few days, I think the streets will be littered with garbage without a solution. All in all, people who work behind the scenes whom we don’t know about are the ones we should be grateful to.
In conclusions, we need to be grateful to so many people. I hope everyone will think more positively and be kind. Only when our hearts are filled with gratitude can we broaden our mind and horizons to love humanity and our Earth and bring peace to our society.
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