20141115 膚慰疾苦 妙法淨心To Ease Suffering in Our World
The first teaching the Buddha gave in his first Dharma talk to the five people who became his first disciples was about the suffering in life. Truly, every day we witness the reality of suffering. There are so many hardships brought on by disasters due to Nature’s disequilibrium, be it floods, fires, storms, or earthquakes. We often see such disasters happening, creating much suffering in life.
In addition, there are many diseases. Even a tiny insect such as a mosquito can create mush disruption to society because it can carry infectious disease. The outbreak of such a disease as dengue fever creates public fear and concern. Suffering also comes in the form of long-term poverty. We see people who live in impoverished conditions. Winter is the hardest on them. Knowing this, Tzu Chi volunteers have braved the cold to go and visit them.
We saw how an elderly lady they visited held the volunteer’s hand tightly. The volunteer listened empathetically and comforted her with soothing words. Before visiting, the Tzu Chi volunteers already knew of this family’s circumstances and what to give them to fulfill their needs because they are on the name list for Tzu Chi’s upcoming winter distribution.
We sincerely hope that this love and care they receive can help ease their suffering a bit. This is the suffering going on in our world. We also see heartwarming news from the Philippines. For the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan Yolanda, Tzu Chi has been building them prefabricated houses. Besides building them houses, We are now doing landscaping to beautify the community .It is very heartwarming.
Volunteers from Manila have been helping with the housing project. The time,19 volunteers from Quezon City went to Palo to lead the locals in building the houses with Tzu Chi’s spirit and making the houses well-built. They help the locals in the livelihood program happily do the work.
We also see a very warm and touching story from Suzhou, China. There is a man in his 60s who suffers from polio. In 2004 , the China Disabled Persons’ Federation referred his case to Tzu Chi. Since then, Tzu Chi has been supporting him financially.
He now fully understands Tzu Chi work and the spirit of love, so he has asked Tzu Chi to stop his financial aid. Now only that, he went with Tzu Chi Volunteers to go on home visits and to share his story with others. Despite his disadvantaged life, he is able to turn his life around and become a volunteer to help others because he has received love that enables him to give of himself.
Tzu Chi plants a seed of goodness in his heart. His example warms the heart. Even more endearing is a seven-year-old boy from Malaysia, When he was five years old, He attended Tzu Chi Kindergarten. In the class, he watched a video about meat processing .He saw a video in the school, In the video, it showed that chicks were sent into a grinding machine where their meat was used to make burger patties. This video impacted him deeply
Since them , when he was five, he has refused to eat meat or to use any animal products. One time, when shopping with his mother in a department store, his mother saw a very pretty handbag just by looking at it, he knew the bag was made with real leather. He asked his mother not to purchase it because, it was costly and it was an animal product.
To make this bag, the animals must have had to suffer greatly. He told his mother, “it’s wrong to use this bag” ”I will make one for you” After he went home, he really made a bag for his mother. He pleaded with his mother to never purchase any animal products. He has turned vegetarian, and He also refuses to use any animal products.
After he learned about Tzu Chi Malaysia’s commitment to recruit at least one million bodhisattvas in Malaysia last year, he vowed to help in recruiting. Can you help Grandmaster to find good people? Yes, I will.
He has 34 donating members now, in his donation registry. He actively invites people to join Tzu Chi and be one of the one million good people. He usually begins by telling them a lot of reasons to join, such as how they can save many people in hardship. This child shows us that everyone has an innate Buddha nature.
We also see this spirit of a Buddha in Tzu Chi doctors. We saw a case of a teenager. Whose promising life was almost ruined in a car accident due to a very severe open fracture. When he came to Tzu Chi hospital, Asst. Supt. Chien and a team of doctors spent several months and a lot of effort to save his leg from being amputated.
They carefully and patiently cleaned the wound, repaired and secured the bone fragments into place and finally performed skin graft surgery to cover up the wound. The medical team spent a long period of several months with a lot of love to save this teenager’s leg. Having received so much love from the doctors, nurses and others who treated and cared for him, he has developed a liking for Jing Si Aphorisms and Da Ai TV.
Now, his leg is fully healed. He does not limp nor does he need a cane when walking. At the time of the accident, he was at a critical time preparing for the high school entrance exam. Not only was he able to get treated. in time for the exam, he even got into a good school without talking time off. This is Tzu Chi Holistic medical care, where we take complete care of patients’ Physical and mental wellbeing.
Books of Jing Si Aphorisms have been in circulation for 25 years. For the publication, I am very grateful for the help of Mr. Kao Hsin-Chiang who initiated this project by suggesting to our volunteer, Mr. Gary Ho, that what I say be collected and made into a book. That was after he met with me for several days. He felt that with just some organizing, my saying could be published.
He believed that it would be easy to make a collection of short sayings that are simple and clear into a book. He recommended Jing Yuan to select and edit the text for publication. I am really grateful for their help. Even to this day, we still often hear from people who, upon reading Jing Si Aphorisms, encountered an aphorism that awakened them.
I truly am very grateful. It took good causes and conditions to make this book. I have too many grateful thoughts to share and so much to be grateful for.
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