20200920如常付出續造福Recycling: Overcoming Obstacles to Serve
When she first came here, we were all thinking about which task is it that she won’t risk wounding her hands? After we thought about it, we figured to have her tear up books into sheets. But even this task, you need to separate the colored pages from white ones. How do you tell them apart?
The colored pages are smoother to the touch. The white pages are a bit coarser.
In fact, to keep our sense organs of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body working properly for our whole lives is truly difficult. Take me for example. I can only see things in a certain range. From the corners of my eyes, I cannot tell who have come in or gone out. Nevertheless, I accept this happily. I am grateful for having sharp eyesight before I; it allowed me to clearly see everything.
Now, although I cannot see who has come in or gone out because I have yet to train my eyes to do this. Also, I only have limited view of things now. I accept this situation happily on the whole. Such is to keep our mind calm and accept it as normal. As long as we take the Dharma to heart, we are carrying out the Buddha’s teachings.
Now, we are able to walk well and have the affinity to go out to cultivate both blessings and wisdom. We should know that when people are not well, only they themselves know what it is like.
Luckily, in the past, when my eyes were better, I read and remembered. Or else, right now, I forget everything 10 minutes after reading it. Everyone gets old. Master says......People typically say I am old and useless. Don’t they? We all say that. But the Master is very compassionate. She says, don’t say being old and useless, being old, one can still be useful.
After getting old, one can be even more useful. This is what I truly believe. I won’t say I am old and useless. I really hope that I will be even more useful when I am old. Really! However you want, I will have you make great uses out of me. That’s a motivation that has been behind me.
All in all, our sense organs of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body will gradually deteriorate due to the law of nature. Doctors say that such deterioration due to aging is normal. It seems so unfair. Does being old always mean getting sick? Being old, do we have to accept all this? Several of my disciples are well over a hundred years old. They walk with their back straight and get things done fast.
One of them is a physician who still takes part in free clinics. Because he listened to me and put aside 50 years of his age in the Age Treasury, he is only 52 years old now. In a medical outreach, he went to visit our care recipients. One elderly lady was lying on bed and he sat down by her bedside and held her hand.
The grandma said that I am old. I am nearly 80 years old. He held her hand and said, grandma, guess how old I am? She said, you look about 60 or 70. He said, I am 100 next year, I will be 101. This was two years ago. When the grandma heard this, she held his hand tighter and set up from the bed.
He then said something to encourage her. When it was time to leave, the grandma got out of bed, walked him to the door, waved him goodbye, and saw our centenarian doctor leave. This was in the mountain.
All in all, having a healthy mindset is better than having functional sense organs of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. As long as we are healthy in mind and get rid of our afflictions, there is nothing in this world that can obstruct us.
Everyone, let us live life with a calm mind. With gratitude, we accept people’s care to us. With the mentality of nothing is impossible, we give of ourselves. Giving of ourselves brings value to our lives.
All in all, we can still do a lot of things. For example, in our daily life, we can still do recycling.
I started to go blind about five years ago. I could still see a crosswalk five years ago; I could see within 2 meters. The cause of my blindness, It’s medical name is Retinitis Pigmentosa. It is hereditary.
There are ways to help me get by and it’s just that everyday tasks get a lot harder. Like this, you see, I hold it out like this in my hand for the bus driver to see. The driver sees my sign and stops the bus. I only realized after I went blind that there are so many problems one would face. For example, two or three buses come at once, which one do I get on? Yep, so I need to figure out a way on my own. I approach the bus and ask what bud number is this?
When I cross the road, people come help me. There are many good-hearted people in society. Look at me, my body is fine; it’s just that my eyesight is bad. What can I do? So I thought about Brother Ho inviting me to join Tzu Chi. Tzu Chi Has a recycling program, and they need a lot of people as there are many things to be done.
Let me help you, cans go here.
Tin cans go here.
Tin cans, yes.
There is an aluminum can.
Aluminum can, I will get it.
I keep an eye on him; if he doesn‘t know where things are, I tell him.
I sort with one hand. They wear gloves on both hands; I wear glove on this one. This is my way of sorting things, I can‘t wear a glove on this hand because I rely on feeling the material to sort them out. You see, aluminum cans, PET bottles, tin cans, paper, cardboard. Hard plastic, soft plastic. Other plastics, that’s how we sort.
I identify the material by touching it. I tap it to see whether it is glass or tin, for jars made with a hard material. This is plastic. These three are plastic. These are paper, paper box. Plastic goes here, miscellaneous plastic.
When we visit recycling stations, many recycling stations have elderly volunteers in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s doing recycling. Many overcame their inner troubles by doing recycling. Tzu Chi volunteers happily do recycling. Everyone is full of gratitude. Such is our cultivation ground.
For those of us who are losing our eyesight slowly in our middle or old age, we should be grateful too. Be grateful that we have already seen a lot of things. When people say it is red, the color red surfaces in our mind. When people said long, short, dog, or cat, these images are all in our mind. So, we should be grateful for being able to see in the past.
We are doing things that healthy people do, so be grateful. Truly, we need to be grateful. If we want to do a lot of things, we have to tolerate a lot. Volunteers, we must bravely go out and serve, don’t let obstacles stop us.