20240925善德法喜恆相傳Bringing People Together in Communities
I'm in good health. No need to worry! I want to show you that I can touch the floor!
Impressive.
Master, seeing that, are you pleased?
Yes! Very impressive.
I love to watch your talk. I miss Master very much. I look forward to your visit, every day!
On the morning of July 24, we put together a disaster emergency operations center. On the 25th, we received a call from the government agency just after 11am, requesting portable beds and partitions.
After the floodwater receded, Sister Meihua told us about her care recipient who lives alone and is in fragile health. The floodwater had reached her bed, yet she was unable to clean her home. This lady hoped we could help her clean her home. Hong Hongsheng and I went there first to get an idea on how to help and what we needed to do.
Hongsheng said he also has a care recipient from the assistive devices program. This lady lives with and cares for her bedridden father who's 90. So that day, we cleaned two homes of our care recipients, they were in neighboring villages. Both cleaning efforts were successful, and the care recipients were moved as they thanked Tzu Chi. Master always reminded us to go among people, to go into the communities, and to awaken through serving.
Indeed, volunteers are true living bodhisattvas. I often talk about true Dharma, which is for bodhisattvas to go among people and care for those in suffering. With a love that is genuine, you comfort those in suffering. I often say, you would go and give them love by hugging them and comforting them with words and body language. This is a heartwarming gesture that their hearts can feel.
When we say forming affinities with living beings, it is an affinity for bodhisattvas to encounter living beings. I always tell everyone that, as we learn from the Buddha, before attaining Buddhahood, let us form good affinities with people. Bodhisattva is the stage between living beings and Buddha.
Tzu Chi volunteers around the world are learning to be bodhisattvas. We learn on the Bodhisattva Path and we go among people. That way, we are able to see; we will see the suffering of the world, so we are to act with our power, our strength. On the Bodhisattva Path, we make trips back and forth to deliver living beings.
Let us take the love of a bodhisattva and the affinities with living beings, and bring them together. Bodhisattvas need affinities, and such affinities come from living beings in suffering. Without forming these affinities with living beings, a bodhisattva cannot attain Buddhahood.
Hence, when the Buddha came to the world, while being Prince Siddhartha, if he did not go among people, he would not have the karmic affinities for spiritual cultivation. So, when each Buddha comes to the world, it is at a time that is needed by living beings.
As you are walking the Bodhisattva Path, this affinity is necessary. You have already formed this affinity; it has been formed. I often use the analogy of a bunch of rice dumplings. If we have the knotted strings but no rice dumplings, there is nothing to be held. Thus, in learning to be a bodhisattva, having made a bundle of strings, the strings are for typing up the wrapped ingredients.
As bodhisattvas, we take bamboo leaves, whether it's one, two, or three leaves, and use our skills to wrap the ingredients together in bamboo leaves to make rice dumplings. People make the rice dumplings. Literally, bodhisattvas' affinities are the strings. The affinities of bodhisattvas lie with living beings in suffering.
The cultivation of bodhisattvas is to gather the ingredients. Without living beings, even if we have bamboo leaves, strings, and a bundle of strings, there's nothing inside the bamboo leaves. When we tie the string around the leaves, the pyramid shape will collapse. In making rice dumplings, we want each rice dumpling to be full and filled with good ingredients. This is what makes a bunch of rice dumplings.
A single bodhisattva cannot do much. We need a group of people. With a group of people, we'll be able to make many rice dumplings. So, we need people to get together. If you listen to my talks every day, when volunteers in Taiwan or from overseas come to see me, I would remind them to not keep their fingers apart. They ought to put their fingers together, join their hands, connect their thumbs, and bring this triangle above their mouth.
What Chinese world is this gesture? Unity. Volunteers are to work together with unity and harmony with love. Volunteers, we have four teams: unity, harmony, mutual love, and concerted effort. I've set up this volunteer system. As long as we follow this system and its spirit, Tzu Chi can be everlasting when we pass on the Bodhisattva spirit from generation to generation.
If possible, we are to pass on the spirit of kindness in our family. Say we want to spread the Dharma and, early in the morning, we go to the community to serve. Your family might wonder what you're busy with going out so early in the morning. They don't know what you're doing. You should let your family know what you're doing. What have you done and what have you seen, you ought to tell your family about it.
The cell phones that people have now are very useful. After you go home, you can share what you've done with your children, your daughter- and son-in-law. You also have grandchildren. They are your best audience. You can show them the videos. Then, people in your family, such as your children, daughter- and son-in-law, will understand what you're doing. They'll be inspired, and you can bring them to activities.
Sometimes, you bring your grandchild with you to activities. The child would follow their grandma or grandpa. You can bring the child on stage with you. The child will think: this is fun. The people around me all love me. It's heartwarming. Then, the child will love to go with grandma to activities.
All in all, there are many opportunities to inspire your family. You ought to seize them. In recruiting people to serve as living bodhisattvas, we are to spread the Dharma to people in our family as well as outside our family. Time passes by very quickly. I sincerely give you my blessings. What you do are all right things, and I praise you for it. You serve, and you talk about what you do. If every person does this, that's the right thing to do, and the right thing to say. Being in unity and harmony are the right things to do. I give you my blessings, thank you.
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