20141114人間菩提 ~ 淨心造福弭三災Cherishing Food and Counting Our Blessings
Looking around the world, we see either natural or manmade disasters. This is really very worrisome. See how extreme and erratic climate conditions have become. When it’s cold, it’s bitterly cold. When it’s hot, it’s unbearably hot. Seeing such imbalance climate conditions, we humans should really reflect upon ourselves.
We truly can’t wait any longer to purify people’s minds, but how? By inspiring goodness and compassion in people. See how many people are hungry. In our everyday life, if we can eat less, what we save can feed many hungry people. There is a large population in the world and a lot of people are very wasteful. If everyone is willing to eat less and donate what they save, the hungry in the world can be fed.
According to a study published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted per year worldwide. This is how much edible food we’ve wasted every year. Take fruits and vegetables for example. Before they are sold to customers, they’ve been screened and inspected---Unwanted parts will be chopped off first and less appealing leaves, stems, etc will also be removed so they can be cosmetically perfect and sold for better prices. This is wasting food.
To top it off, after purchasing them, people will again pick and throw away more parts they don’t want, which is truly very wasteful. And when we can’t finish our food, we throw it away. All this is truly very wasteful. When we waste food like this, we’re depleting our blessings. Instead of doing good to sow blessings, we exhaust our blessings every day. Without increasing our store of blessings for our future lives through giving of ourselves, we exhaust them by wasting our food.
There are many people suffering from hunger, yet we are so wasteful of our food. Aren’t we ignorant and pitiful? Those who are hungry do not choose to suffer like this. They can do nothing about it. By going through such hardship, they’re depleting their negative karma. But we have a choice, we can do good to sow blessings.
Look at Mozambique. This year, Mozambique received 120 tons of rice from Taiwan. In fact, Tzu Chi volunteers have been caring for the people in Maxaquence for over two years. Denise, our volunteer in Mozambique, and Tzu Chi volunteers from South Africa have also inspired many people there to volunteers with Tzu Chi. Our volunteers not only bring them material aid, but also inspire them to give with love. So, although they are materially poor, they’ve found their spiritual wealth within.
At the rice distribution last month, our volunteers encouraged everyone to save money in coin banks to help the needy. They also share with people about filial piety and doing good deeds. To show them how to do good with respect, our volunteers set an example by bowing to our aid recipients when handing rice to them. Our volunteers also taught children to show filial piety to their parents by guiding them to wash their mothers’ feet and offer them tea.
Having received our rice and the love and respect from her child, a mother said to our volunteers: “All the hardship I’ve been through is worth it”. Indeed, seeing how loving and respectful our volunteers were and how caring their children were, how could they not be happy? This was what they’d never experienced before.
Denise’s daughter was also there helping at the rice distribution. She encouraged everyone to donate money into coins banks, and she also performed sign language singing for everyone. She is truly very endearing. Indeed, when we have more than we need, we should share what we have with others. According, to a U.N. report, over 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger. If we don’t overeat or throw food away, that is actually a virtue and we won’t exhaust our blessings.
I’ve been encouraging everyone to eat 80% full. If everyone in the world can eat 80% full, what we save is more than enough to feed those 800 million hungry people. But can everyone do that? It’s easier said than done.
Sometimes I ask people, “Are you eating vegetarian?” They reply, “We try to, Master.” Then, I ask, “Why only try? Why not just go vegetarian for good?” They say, “We can’t. We have business dinners.” I say again, “But shouldn’t you do business with sincerity, honesty and good faith? It is really necessary to have business meals and waster a lot of food?” “We just can’t” they reply.
See, they can’t do it because they haven’t taken the Dharma to heart. In that case, how can they inspire love in others and purify people’s minds? So much for purifying people’s minds if we cannot curb our desires. Seeing how deluded and ignorant people in this impure world are, I can’t help but sigh. It is very worrying. So, we need to work harder.
Seeing how extreme climate conditions are and how natural and manmade disasters occur frequently. I hope every one of us can work harder with one heart to help purify people’s minds. We can’t wait anymore. We need to do it now.
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