2014/12/01願結善緣遍沙界To Be Truly Blessed
Time flies by very fast. It is time for Tzu Chi’s Year-end Blessing Ceremonies. Staff from Tzu Chi’s missions are very mindful in making the hong-bao for this annual occasion. Look at Supt. Poon of Kuanshan Tzu Chi Hospital. After finishing his morning consultation, he used his lunch break to help make the hong-bao. He said that making the hong-bao is not easier than performing surgery.
All in all, making the hong-bao is something that is new to him. However, we also see Supt. Kao of Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital leading the hospital staff in making hong-bao for Mozambique.
I remember last year, when Tzu Chi volunteers from Mozambique returned to Taiwan, they brought with their very heavy coin banks, all filled with Mozambican 50-cent coins. I asked them how come they were all coins of 50 cents.
They replied that since Tzu Chi started with people saving 50 cents, they also wanted to start saving 50 cents. They also expressed that, for their Year-end Blessings Ceremony in Mozambique, they hope to receive hong-bao with the Mozambican coins instead of coins from Taiwan.
So, we took all these coins and counted them, which turned out to be over NT$1.000. I bought all these coins from them. This year, doctors and nurses from Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital mindfully glued these coins onto the hong-bao cards to make these special well-wish hong-baos for Mozambique. So, the hong-baos made by staff of our Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital and other Tzu Chi missions include the hong-baos for Mozambique.
There are also the rice grains contributed by Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital. Supt. Lai led the team of staff from various departments and the assistant superintendents to harvest the rice grains. This tradition started from the time of then-Supt. Lin because he wanted to form good affinities with global Tzu Chi volunteers.
He hoped that doctors of the hospital could personally plant rice and contribute the rice grains to form good affinities with global volunteers. Asst. Supt.
Chen says that every year they select only the full rice grains to contribute. In the selecting process, everyone needs to be very mindful because if they are distracted slightly, empty grains get included. Empty grains are hollow inside. What we aim to make are solid products. We hope the rice grains have substance inside. Just like our mind, we must have substance, which is the Dharma.
They plant rice every year and sun-dry the rice grains they harvested. Then, they screen for the best rice grains. For years, this has been how Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital form good affinities with global volunteers. We see them cultivate the rice very earnestly and often with comments like, “This is harder than performing surgery.”
However, their sincerity manifests into solid rice grains. When they receive the rice grains again, they complete the making of the hong-baos.
This is why I tell people to treasure these hong-baos every year. If people really treasure them and continue to collect them, in the future they will become heirlooms. Every year, I give out these hong-baos personally. They are made with the money from my book royalties. I have never spent a cent of those royalties.
All the money goes into making the hong-baos for this time of the year each year, when I can give these hong-bao as gifts to my disciples.
So, everyone, do not miss out on every year’s hong-bao. Treasure them and preserve them well.Truly, time goes by very quickly. The years pass one by one. Although people get together for the annual Year-end Blessings Ceremony and celebrate it joyfully, we must know that every year is actually 365 days to pass. To be safe and well every day is to be truly blessed.
We see that in Italy, two years ago, a major earthquake destroyed many homes and caused people a lot of suffering. At that time, Tzu Chi volunteers in Europe joined together and formed a multi-national task force to help the quake survivors in Italy. They continue to help even today.
This year, they are helping the survivors by delivering winter relief supplies with year-end well-wishes. Many of the survivors are still unemployed, so we have to distribute relief aid to help them.
For the past two years, Tzu Chi has formed a bond with the survivors based on honest love and care. Seeing smiles back on their faces and hearing them laugh again make us very happy. We do not ask for more. These are possible with the power of our love. All in all, when the world suffers from the impacts of climate change, it is all the more imperative that we give of ourselves with love.
We also see news of Tzu Chi volunteers from Singapore, Malaysia and Australia who united to hold a free clinic in Myanmar . we see them providing medical care to poor people living in remote areas without access to medical care. Though the volunteers are from different countries, they all share one common goal, which is to serve the people in need.
This is love. To provide timely help to alleviate people’s suffering and give them joy is truly not an easy thing to do. The power of love can accomplish this.
All in all, to be able to be safe and well every day, people’s hearts need to be in harmony. Only with love in their hearts can there be favorable climate and no disasters. Let us all pray with utmost piety and give of ourselves with upmost sincerity and with enlightened love. In the morning Dharma talk, I talked about good faith and integrity.
One of the requirements for being a Tzu Chi volunteer is to be sincere and upright. We do things in an honest way, properly. These are our core values. These are foundation for Tzu Chi volunteers as well as cultivators. We need to have faith in the Dharma and put it into practice, then we will attain peace of mind, be free of afflictions and eliminate negative karma.
To do this, we need to work on our hearts and bring it to harmony.
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