20200419雨露滴水潤萬物Solve the Pandemic Problem by Eating a Vegetarian Diet
I’m Zhou Mu Jun; I’m 6 years old. I have been a vegetarian for 6 years, because even in my mommy’s tummy, I was a vegetarian. Cow’s milk is for baby cows, goat’s milk is for baby goats, I’m a vegetarian baby and I drink multigrain power drinks. Granny takes me to the market, and I see them butchering chickens. The chicken bleeds; I find it smelly and scary. I hope everyone can be a vegetarian.
Look at the children who call for help on behalf of animals, and ask people to spare animals’ lives. We also need to ask the heavens to have mercy on us, and ask for forgiveness, because the incorrect views of humans have indeed caused too much negative karma.
At this time, let us calm our minds and think about changing the direction of our lives. This is to greatly transform our lives and our desires. With such a transformation, we can live our life anew, afresh, and rectify all our past directions that were incorrect and polluted; let us correct them. Of the bad habitual tendencies we have, we are to promptly change our mindsets.
Several Tzu Chi volunteers have also undergone transformations by changing their restaurants to vegetarian ones. They told me, “Master, my business is about the same after I change my restaurant to vegetarian. My business is still good, with something extra.” “What is extra?” I asked, “The extra part is having a peace of mind.” He is earning his peace of mind. He no longer has to deal with animal blood, nor chopping and killing animals. He says he now earns something extra, which is a peace of mind. His business and life are still good.
All in all, when we transform our mindsets, our living environment will be safe, and we will feel at ease. I hope everyone can understand this. This pandemic is giving us a great lesson. This great lesson is for us to learn to go in a wholesome direction. So, this great lesson is to teach us to do good. I hope everyone will put this lesson into practice and start heading in the wholesome direction. Let everyone use their power of love to end this pandemic.
With our hands and hearts together, let us mitigate big disasters with our love.
Take my monastic disciples for example, they receive NT$1,000 allowance every month. Whenever there’s a fundraising event for disaster relief, they would take out their money and donate it, be it coins or their allowance money without reservation. After the Abode started a fundraising event, we see that the Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital also followed suit and held a fundraiser. Supt. Chien of the Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital said that due to social distancing rule, staff cannot gather at the hospital’s lobby, so he sent messages about the fundraising event via cell phone to invite staff to participate.
It’s the same with our Tzu Chi hospitals in Taipei and Dalin. Everyone pools their love together. It’s the same in Tzu Chi schools. After teachers told students about the fundraising event, students save up money in coin banks. They cut down on drinking a cup of coffee every day. The money saved is enough to help people. For a month’s budget, if they spend less of their daily budget, the total money saved will be sizable. This requires everyone to give of their love continually every day.
It’s just like rain. Rain can be pouring down or it can be like dews. Though we cannot see water droplets in the air, in the early morning of the next day, we can see dew droplets on tree forks, tree leaves, and grass blades. Overnight, dews form and accumulate into water droplets. This is how something small can accumulate into a large amount. Moisture accumulates into dews. This is truly marvelous. It’s invisible, but it has this power.
We should be like this. Each person’s heart is like invisible dew which can keep the land moist, nourish all the things on it, protect Earth, and sustain all life forms. So, lives on earth cannot survive without water; even dews can help keep the land moist. Isn’t this revealed in the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings?
The sutra says a falling dew drop can keep the dust of desire from being stirred up. Through the night, dew drops are formed and the land is kept moist as a result. When crop seeds get planted in the soil moistened by dews, they are able to grow and mature and people can harvest the crops. Like dew, our strength may be little, as long as we aspired, we can pool everyone’s small donations together which is a strength of heartwarming love.
Due to cravings for meat, humans are facing the coronavirus pandemic. People are wearing masks now, and this is happening around the world. As the whole world is impacted by the pandemic, what should we do to save it and mitigate the situation? People should curb desire and abstain from eating meat. People crave meat, and the outcome is the pandemic. So, please bear in mind and remember what I have said about respecting life and loving all beings as we love human beings.
We love people and wish for peace and safety, so we ought to cherish animals too. With a sincere and pious heart, we adopt a vegetarian diet; this helps eliminate disaster, ease and contain the pandemic, and eventually puts an end to it. This is the only way, and everyone should be united as one.
Faith is the mother of all merits and virtues. Only when we have faith in eating a vegetarian diet can we solve the pandemic problem. Eating a vegetarian diet is a sincere way to show our repentance. Other than being repentant and sincerely pious, there is no other way. We must all believe this.
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