20160720 善念增長人間度 Inspiring More People to Serve as Living Bodhisattvas
When we’re safe and well, we need to count our blessings. Being born to this world, everyone is closely interconnected. So, we should always live with sincere piety and vigilant care. Apart from being grateful for the peace and safety we enjoy, we should take good care of our minds and always give rise to wholesome thoughts. At all times, we should look after our minds and never have a deviated thought. This is what we should be mindful of in our daily living.
We see that in the U.S., West Virginia was hit by severe flooding last month. The flood was among the worst in a century in some parts of the state. Although the affected areas are nine hours away by car from our Tzu Chi volunteers in New Jersey, our volunteers still went there to survey the damage and see how they could help.
A man they visited gestured with his hand to show our volunteers that the floodwater were even higher than he. When our volunteers first went there to survey the disaster, some locals wondered what a group of Chinese people were doing there and had doubts on our volunteers.
But after learning of what people needed, our volunteers went back home, prepared relief supplies, and traveled to West Virginia again. Before giving out aid to the locals, our volunteers sang and signed “God Bless America” for the locals, explained to them why Tzu Chi was there to help them, and read my letter to them to bring them comfort.
After that, our volunteers started distributing aid to them one by one. Having learned more about Tzu Chi, many were very touched.
Our volunteers’ love for them is not shallow, but very dep. So, they’ll forever remember that in this world, there are a group of living bodhisattvas who have inspired them to give with love and work together for the less fortunate. This is the way of living bodhisattvas.
Having relived people’s suffering, they also shared wholesome teachings with them. Our volunteers also introduced our coin banks to the locals and let them know they can also donate what they can every day to help the needy. Hearing that, many took our coin banks home. By encouraging them to give, our volunteers hope to nurture their goodness.
This is because they’ve been hit by the worst disaster in a century and realized that life is impermanent, and so, our volunteers hoped that they can start to give with love and sow blessings for themselves. Such is the working of karmic affinities. Because of the flooding, our volunteers went to them and shared wholesome values with them. They are truly living bodhisattvas.
In Taidong, Taiwan our local volunteers had toiled for days to help those affected by Typhoon Nepartak. Some of our volunteers were also affected by the typhoon, but they still went with our volunteers from other parts of Taiwan to help those affected. They are truly living bodhisattvas as they chose to help others before cleaning up their own homes.
Our volunteers from northern, central, southern, eastern Taiwan also took turns to go to Taidong and worked with our local volunteers to provide care and help to those affected. There was a man whose house was turned upside down by the typhoon. He wanted to clean it up, but could do little about it.
This would take one or two men many days to clean. But with everyone’s help, everyone was in order about an hour. Thank you, Tzu Chi for your love!
Indeed, one person is too weak and can only do so much. It’d be better to work with others to help clean up one house after another and one community after another. That day, our own house will also be cleaned up eventually. This is joint effort. Only when everyone works together can we do more work.
Seeing this, I’m truly very moved. So, we should work harder to recruit more living bodhisattvas. We should have more bodhisattvas friends. With more bodhisattvas, we can pool everyone’s goodness together which will dispel disasters. Even if a disaster strikes due to our collective negative karma, there’ll be more people working together to help those affected.
Such are the wholesome friends of bodhisattvas. We should join in doing good not just take care of ourselves. Never should we only think of ourselves; it’s best that we work to benefit others. We’re now looking at how to go about building permanent houses for those affected by Nepartak in Taidong.
We’ll also visit people to see whether we should give them medium- or long-term support. From now on, we’ll include them as our care recipients. In all, there are many disasters in the world, so we must inspire more people to serve as living bodhisattvas. This is what we should work hard to do.
We also see a tragic event--- Yesterday noon, a bus carrying tourists from Liaoning, China caught fire and killed all 26 people onboard when it was heading to the airport in Taoyuan. It is truly a terrible and heartbreaking tragedy. Tzu Chi volunteers quickly went to the site and with utmost sincerity prayed and chanted for the deceased.
As workers were doing what they had to do, our volunteers gathered there to chant for the dead. When the victims’ families come to Taiwan, I hope our volunteers can help to calm their hearts and help them go through this tragedy that is so hard to bear. Life is impermanent and filled with much suffering, so we should always give with love to benefit more people in the world.
All this depends on our mind. So, we should remain mindful at all times.
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