20201102 調伏無明聚善念Taming Our Hearts and Collecting Kind Thoughts
There are places that are working at almost 100%. Rosario, Cardoba, Rio Negro, Neuquen, Mendoza.
We are going back into a strict lockdown, which has only one purpose: to ensure that our healthcare system does not collapse.
If we don’t act now our intensive care capacity will be overwhelmed, then we risk seeing the kind of conditions that other countries are currently seeing again. From Tuesday, November 3rd, midnight until the end of November, there will be a second lockdown in Austria.
When will this COVID-19 pandemic be over? Every day, we see the number of countries with confirmed cases continue to climb higher; now there are 224 countries and regions. Seeing this situation, I wonder, how is this happening to the world? All of a sudden, this baffling virus appeared without sound, and nothing has stopped it. Meanwhile, fires, floods, storms, and earthquakes, these imbalances of the four elements have been happening around the world, which truly makes my heart heavy. In the Philippines, both yesterday and today, there is a great typhoon causing devastation, and the people there suffer so! Millions of people have evacuated, panicking and scared, while feeling a lot of fear and facing hardships.
There is also Vietnam; in the past 2 months, several typhoons have made landfall. Government asked people to evacuate, and we reinforced our homes, but the wind was too strong; many roofs had collapsed, and trees all fell down. Back-to-back disaster in central Vietnam have affected the lives of more than 7 million people including just over 1 million people directly impacted.
Indeed now, whenever a disaster strikes, severity of the damage seems to be increasing. The impact of climate change shows that Nature is truly powerful.
Volunteers, we see that the world is full of suffering. Particularly, I just mentioned that the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic is escalating and the number of confirmed cases can mount up to more than tens of thousands within a day.
British Prime Minister has announced new one-month national lock down in England. This is bound to impact the nation’s economy and other activities because people have to stay home. From this, we know that many people in the world have stopped working and won’t get paid, which will cause huge impact. Tzu Chi volunteers around the world have started carrying out aid to help people in poverty or people going without food because of job loss. They will distribute aid to help families like these.
Every day, we receive reports like this, my heart truly goes out to those in need. Fortunately, Tzu Chi is there to help. In whichever country there are Tzu Chi volunteers, they’ll speedily get ready and carry out aid distributions. Since October, twice a month, local food bank provided around 12,000 lbs of free food each time. Also, we would distribute Jing Si instant rice and noodles sent by Master. Tzu Chi has helped many people out of work because of the pandemic.
Tzu Chi volunteers always use their wisdom to create blessings for others. They help people overcome their difficulties. There are many touching stories. With so many things happening around the world, this is truly worrying. Especially, the COVID-19 virus has become a disaster. It’s a pandemic. The situation has gone truly serious, and there are also social unrests. Such life is hard, people don’t know how to live their lives anymore. Seeing this, let us reflect; we should count and cherish our blessings; being safe and sound is a blessing itself. When people cannot calm their hearts, unrests arise.
With people already suffering hunger and poverty, if unrests happen in society, it’s very dangerous. Tension is also created in society. Thus, everyone, let us tame our hearts and minds. At this time, we need to tame our hearts even more. We need to quickly tame our hearts, eliminate our ignorance, self-reflect, and repent. What we need more is to be grateful, be grateful that we’re safe and well.
In the midst of unrests, let us use wisdom to tame the unrest in our hearts, and do so quickly. It’s very important to pray sincerely now and express it through our kindness, our kind thoughts, and our care to one another. This is how we truly self-reflect and repent. Self-reflect, repent, and always be grateful for being safe and well, these are the true ways to peace and safety. Time continues to pass. Please make good use of our time. Let us pray for peace and safety in our world and disasters be eliminated. To do this, we must aspire to do good and create more blessings.
Let us promote vegetarianism. People must eat a vegetarian diet. Let us bring out our Great Love and not eat meat. We must love people and also animals. This might be the one aspiration for us to make right now and carry it out. I give everyone my well-wishes. At this time, the way to apply the Dharma is always so simple. We just need to tame our hearts and give our power of love. This can be done in our daily life without difficulty. We just need to make up our minds and we can do it. We must do it. That’s right. We must eat a vegetarian diet. Everyone, please make the aspiration to do this. Thank you.
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