20170204慈心平等守理義Being Vigilant to Disasters and Harboring Sincere Piety
We need to be vigilant all the time. The global climate is becoming abnormal, and the earth is being damaged, which put our life in peril. See the footage of the flooding in Peru? Scenes of a building collapsing into a river did not just happen in Peru.
In fact, a similar disaster also happened in the Jhihben Hot Spring area in Taiwan. Mother Nature is truly powerful. We humans always arrogantly think that we can conquer nature. Is that so?
Scientists looked into the data of the past 100 years, from 1900 to 2009, to study the abnormality of climate change. They found that in the early 1900s, within each decade, less than a hundred natural disasters had happened. From 2000 to 2009, the number of natural disasters had increased to over 4,000.
Compared to nature, humans are insignificant, likes ants the Himalayas. We humans should not overestimate ourselves. There is no such thing as conquering Mother Nature. We should be humble. The force of nature is truly powerful. We should always bear this in mind.
Especially in South America, the drought there is really worring.
Many birds have disappeared due to the lack of water. Our livestock depends on water. When the lake dried up, they unfortunately died.
There are people who have lived by the lake for generations and had depended on it for livelihood. In the past decades, the big lake has been drying up and now the bottom of the lake is showing. The lake has completely dried up.
We used to hunt and fish for a living. Fish is our food. Now the fish is gone, because the lake has dried up.
Our man have gone to faraway places. We stay here to take care of our children. No jobs are available here.
With nothing to rely on for livelihood, people have left to find work. They have no choice.
Chile was recently struck by an earthquake. For the past year, Chile has experienced many natural disasters, such as flooding earthquake, storms, and wildfires. Seeing these, I truly worry for them.
Seeing humans suffering from disasters makes us feel helpless. With so many disasters around the world, how do we help disaster affectees? Many natural disasters frequent happen simultaneously around the world.
Life is full of impermanence. In Malaysia, a boat carrying tourists capsized. Many injured tourists do not speak the local language. When they were sent to the hospital, staff in the hospital could not speak Chinese. So, they turned to Tzu Chi volunteers for help. Our volunteers went to the hospital and interpret for them.
Since they are from China, they have difficulty communicating with the local doctors in the hospital. Our job is to calm them and interpret for the doctors.
This is what Tzu Chi volunteers in Malaysia are doing.
We also see an incident caused by a man with a disturbed mind. Yesterday, at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, a man, perhaps being lost in his religious extremism, attempted to attack people with his machete. This is really terrifying.
We should not be too extreme in our religious views, so we would not easily go astray. We must maintain a calm mind to purify people’s hearts and truly nurture a compassionate heart while serving to benefit others. This is our true life’s direction.
All in all, the power of love can transform people’s lives.
We see that in the Philippines, a very heartwarming event took place in Ormoc City. More than 8,000 people attended our Chinese New Year Blessing Ceremony in the Ormoc City Superdome.
The former and the present mayors used to be political rivals, but in the ceremony, they shook hands together and are now on friendly terms.
There were also Catholic sisters participating in our blessing ceremony.
It’s very touching to see their new year blessing ceremony. Attending the ceremony is like returning to the Tzu Chi family. When they came, the attendees brought plastic bottles to be recycled. They all have the concept of recycling.
The heartwarming event we see in the Philippines is the result of Tzu Chi’s aid. Due to abnormal climate, Typhoon Haiyan Yolanda struck the Philippines, which gave Tzu Chi the karmic affinity to provide disaster relief in Tacloban, to provide disaster relief in Tacloban, which was from the brink of being abandoned.
Tzu Chi provided aid to help people in the cities of Tacloban and Ormoc as well as Palo of Ormoc City. We helped disaster survivors recover from the disaster and rebuild their life.
So, many locals were grateful to Tzu Chi for the love and guidance. They were able to accept and practice Tzu Chi’s values and spirit, thereby transforming their lives, changing their indifferences towards others, and bringing them closer.
So, it is not difficult to purity people’s hearts, we just need to give of ourselves with the power of love. Because we’ve made vow to help all living beings, we need to give of ourselves with sincere piety.
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