Lecturer: Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: 20130413—Being Spiritually Rich (心靈富有樂助人)
Date: April 13, 2013
Come in and eat. If you’re hungry, come here every day I’ll cook for you. There are many kindhearted people (who’ll pay for it). By contributing just a little bit, I can help the people in need I think 100 bowls can help a lot of people.
It’s so heartwarming. The people in Taiwan truly have a lot of kindness and love. By providing noodles and hot food to the people in need, (people truly make our society very beautiful).
We also saw another elderly woman. Though she’s already getting on in years, she still makes use of her time to do things that are meaningful. She’s very mindful in doing recycling work. She also serves as a crossing guard to help school
children cross the road safely. Though she’s in her old age, she cares for the environment and cares for the children. (What she does truly makes her endearing) (and makes hers a beautiful life)
We also saw a news report that is very worrisome. In Africa, the flash flooding in Kenya has lasted for almost a month now with the water not receding. Many people feel helpless and are experiencing great hardship. This is in Africa.
We often pay close attention to news in Africa as we have many Tzu Chi volunteers in South Africa. Though our volunteers in South Africa are poor, they still make the vow to help the people in need. With their efforts, they hope to (spread
love widely) so that people can receive “spiritual riches”
(In their country,) it’s difficult to eliminate poverty and (raise people’s standard of living). Yet, our volunteers are confident they can help people gain “spiritual riches” where people help one another.
With this, they are able to live a contented life. This is why I often talk about Tzu Chi’s four values of being content, grateful, understanding, and tolerant (If we can do this,) we can be very happy all the time because we are content and are always feeling grateful. We’re grateful that our society is peaceful and people are in harmony and can work with one another. So, we have to be grateful.
If we encounter situations or people that upset us, how should we deal with it? (Be understanding). Besides being understanding, what else? (Be tolerant). Yes, we need to use tolerance toward big situations and use understanding toward small matters. If we can so this, we’ll be able to live our life in peace and safety.
But, recently, we’ve been very worried about many crises, one of them being the mounting tension on the Korean Peninsula.
How to dissolve this crisis? Such violence and manmade crises are even more frightening than natural disasters.
Our volunteer from Jordan (Chen Chou-hwa) is in Taiwan now and two nights ago, he shared about the conditions in the Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.
Yesterday, we had a visitor who is a Taiwanese woman who married a Syrian man (and had moved to Syria). Last year, she and her son came to Taiwan (to visit relatives,) but her husband asked them to stay in Taiwan (because the situation in Syria was very unstable)
Yesterday, she visited us. Hearing her sharing, Syria, before the conflict, was very beautiful with historic buildings full of culture. Though life there is not as free, yet people were able to remain safe and well and were generally content
with the life they had. (But, with the outbreak of unrest,) (which then spread,) (the situation spun out of control).
The conflict has been ongoing for two years. Their beautiful architecture rich with history and culture is being destroyed every day. People have no home as they flee to escape the violence.
Many of the displaced people used to be rather well-off. But, just to safely escape and have the whole family safe is hard enough. What possessions could they have taken with them? Their suffering is truly great. Life is impermanent and the land we live on is fragile.
Given this, isn’t being safe and well already a blessing? If society is peaceful, people will be safe and well. This is the manmade crisis we can see. Another thing that worries us is the H7N9 bird flu outbreak.
Another case had been reported in China. But to date, there has been no case of human-to-human transmission. Even so, we must be vigilant and humble pious I often speak about solving problems from the source (which is to not breed animals for meat)
Then, wouldn’t everyone be safe from such viruses? (The karma we create by eating meat) is why there are wars. Because people like the taste of meat, (all kinds of animals lose their lives)
When there is an outbreak of some kind of disease among livestock, mass numbers of livestock are slaughtered, be it mad cow disease, hoof-and-mouth disease, etc.
When there was an outbreak of mad cow disease, cattle was also slaughtered on a massive scale. When it was hoof-and-mouth disease, pigs were also slaughtered in mass numbers. Now, chickens, ducks, and other poultry are facing this same fate.
Nanjing has now prohibited the trading of live poultry. There are some vendors who raise and sell chicks. Since they cannot sell the chicks for profit, they didn’t want to “waste” the chicken feed so they killed the chicks. They put the chicks in bags, closed the bags, and suffocated them inside.
More than 10,000 chicks have been killed. The Buddha said that the only way to eliminate wars (is to stop slaughtering animals). This means that if we stop killing animals, there won’t be wars and fighting in this world.
We also saw news of a 100-year-old at a senior home. Her secrets to longevity are eating vegetarian and being diligent. (Everyone, we have to emulate such a lifestyle). Eating vegetarian is good for our health. It also purifies both our body and mind.
(This centenarian says she) is happy every day, upholds her Buddhist faith, and helps others with joy. These are some of the secrets to a long life. These are things we can all learn to do
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