20160707戒慎防災‧聞法行願Preparing for Typhoon Nepartak and Walking the Bodhi Path Through Giving
With Super Typhoon Nepartak on its way to Taiwan, we must sincerely pray its strength weakens so damage and disaster can be minimized.
We all must be vigilant and sincerely pious. Please stay inside if you can and stay away from mountains and the sea. You will be safer this way. We must all remind each other to be on guard.
More importantly, we must gather up all cans, bottles and plastic, so they won’t be blown around, get into drains and gutters, and block them. As a precaution, please carefully check all doors and windows. Tzu Chi members around Taiwan must all prepare for this super typhoon, but please pay attention to safety. Also, utilities must be checked as well. Being prepared reduces disasters.
Apart from cautiously preparing for the storm, we should not let up our sincere piety, which is most important. Tzu Chi volunteers all around Taiwan have set up disaster relief coordination centers in our offices and branches. Everyone is preparing for this storm.
All our volunteers, including Tzu Cheng members, are mobilizing to make preparations to protect people all around Taiwan. I hope those residing in low-lying areas and other disaster-prone places can evacuate by themselves to safer places, so there won’t be any tragedies later. We must really be very careful.
All around the world, Tzu Chi volunteers have never ceased to give with love. In South Africa, our volunteers held winter aid distributions for those in need. See how orderly everyone was, including children. The locals were all very happy to receive our aid.
馬費費小學校長M.G.Baloyi：“I’m grateful to Tzu Chi volunteers for traveling here to bring us aid. The rice is very helpful to us.”
Listen to how the children sang a song to thank Tzu Chi! I hope that their lives can be changed as they become spiritually wealthy despite being materially poor. May their inner riches grow so they’ll give rise to more care, love, and gratitude to others! With sincerity, our volunteers have brought love to them and, having received such sincere love, the locals also sincerely expressed their gratitude in return.
We also see Jiangsu, China. On July 23, a tornado struck several towns, causing severe devastation there. The next day, a group of Tzu Chi volunteers gathered together and went to the disaster areas to bring comfort and relief to those affected.
They did so with great care, as they had to follow local regulations, even though they were there to offer help. So, they had to communicate with the local government and work closely with the hospital they went to serve. No matter what obstacles they encountered, they were so humble and modest and still gave of themselves with a big heart and genuine sincerity and love.
As first, the hospital didn’t want our volunteers to be there. But after our volunteers showed them the pictures of the work they’d done for people after the disaster, not only the hospital staff, but even police officers were moved. After they understood, they all hoped that our volunteers could do more for those affected.
All this was possible because our volunteers have been very polite and self-disciplined. That’s also why the hospital eventually allowed our volunteers to serve in the hospital. Tzu Chi volunteers are really living bodhisattvas who serve with both compassion and wisdom. They’re truly remarkable.
There is a school there that serves as a shelter for over 100 people. But the school is closed for summer, so no one is there to clean the restroom. Seeing how dirty the restroom was, our volunteers fetched water to clean it up.
One of our volunteers shared that when cleaning the restroom, she just thought of the feces as being mud. See how she was able to change her perspective! Indeed, in every Tzu Chi volunteer’s hearts lies the treasure of Dharma, and see how they’ve put it into good use. They treated the feces in the restroom like mud, and went on to clean up the smelly and filthy restroom like new. This is very touching indeed.
Such power of love always warms our hearts and brings us a lot of joy. Tzu Chi volunteers have truly taken the Dharma to heart. They take it in deeply and live it out by giving of themselves to serve others.
They give unconditionally and are even grateful to those they help. This is the principle that Tzu Chi volunteers live out. Every one of them walks the same path, which is the broad and straight Bodhi Path. As long as we follow the path with a simple heart, we’ll lead a wholesome and beautiful life.
In the world we live in now, all of us need to pave such a broad Bodhi Path in our hearts (and walk upon it.). This is the best way to display our deepest sincere piety within. At all times, we must harbor such sincere piety so it can resonate to all heavenly beings above. This is what we must work hard to do.
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