20170114提升愛心布清流Creating a Wholesome Force with the Power of Love
At the turn of New Year, as we are approaching the Chinese New Year, everything is filled with hope for future. Volunteers, we need to bring out our power of love. In a new year, we should have a clear aspiration to always harbor love and gratitude in our hearts all the time.
We need to be grateful for every passing moment and begin this year with vigilance and sincere piety, and form a good habit of harboring this mindset. So, I would like to share with you about adopting this mindset to form such a habit.
When our car stopped at the Jing Si Hall in Fengyuan this morning, I was amazed to see many young and adorable children there. Truly, when I arrived, I heard the children singing, “Eating vegetarian is most healthy. Eating vegetarian gives you a long life.” Hearing their well-wishes truly moves my heart. I’m very grateful.
I asked them, “Are you eating vegetarian?” These children are able to promote vegetarianism. They are able to eat vegetarian. I saw these children at the entrance promoting the benefits of being vegetarians, which even young children can understand, but grownups cannot do it. Can you believe that? (Yes)
Indeed, if we asked a young person, “Can you etvegetarian?” And he replied, “I can do it for one day.”Then I thought, “Just one day? Well, it’s better than none.” But, would it help? No, it wouldn’t. However, for him to be a vegetarian for a day, this is only to plant a seed in his mind.
Is it so hard to give up meat? What obstructs people form eating vegetarian? It’s their cravings, which are hard to curb. When people cannot curb their cravings for meat, they will continue to create negative karma.
Children are innocent and pure in heart, so they can go vegetarian. Yet, adults have formed meat-eating habits, so , it’s difficult for them to break the habit. I feel really sad about this. In this way people continue to create negative karma. We should know that (eating meat) exacerbates global warming and climate change. Don’t we sense the abnormality of the climate and ask why?
At our Taichung Jing Si Hall, I heard recycling volunteers sharing about how they recycle protective sleeves for guava. In the marketplace alone, the protective sleeves were discarded as waste. So, the volunteers collect, clean, and sort them. Every month, they recycle over 2,000 kg of them.
Think about it. It’s the same for the plastic bags, which are very light; they also recycle 2,000 kg to 3,000 kg per month.
If these recyclables are disposed of by burning, it will pollute the air. It’s no wonder that the Earth’s temperature is rising. If they are disposed of by burying underground, our earth will run out of space. In each month, Tzu Chi volunteers alone collect 2,000 kg of plastic bags, just in a month.
And those not collected by Tzu Chi volunteers, think about how many of them are not recycled? How much can our Earth take? It’s terrifying! Everyone, this damages the earth. Since the plastic wastes will not break down for a long time, how will we grow food crops from the land? So, we need to promote vegetarianism and not slack off in this effort.
We need to be a role model and let people to better understand the cause. It is not just for future generations, but also for ourselves when we are reborn to this world again. In this life, we must cultivate in order to have the chance to be reborn as a human to cultivate.
If we are reborn as humans, we will be living on this land again. How can we not protect it? So, we truly need to protect the land. It is my hope that through the Earth Ethical Eatng Day campaign everyone will adopt vegetarianism. People really need to awaken to the importance of vegetarianism.
Just now we saw our recycling volunteers coming to the front. I’m deeply moved. Look at our volunteer Jingyi. She is able to help several recycling volunteers to open their closed hearts. She is able to guide those who are afflicted in body and mind, and help them to get rid of their ignorance and afflictions.
This is going among people to help them without being affected by their situation, just like the lotus flower. This is the Dharma taught in the Lotus Sutra.
Volunteers, you come from Dengshi, Houil, Fengyuan, Shigang, and Shengang to attend this ceremony. I hope that all of you will be more active and mindful in talking about Tzu Chi to people. We should explain to people when something arises. Wherever we go and whoever we meet, we can talk about Tzu Chi. We should eat vegetarian all the time. This is what we need to do every day to purify people’s mind.
We need to be more mindful and more united because I’m also worried about that Pope Francis said in his New Year homily that societies are becoming cold. People’s love has been dwindling. Not only does the Pope feel this way, I also sense this as well.
At this time, we truly need to create and pool together a wholesome force and gather people’s love. Don’t let the Earth’s temperature keep rising nor let people be indifferent to one another. We need to work together to mitigate global warming and bring back empathy to humanity. So, we truly need to be mindful in doing this.
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