Life Wisdom: Fetching Water from Our Inner Water Wells
The number of the COVID-19 cases in Asia and Europe has now increased again, we must truly stay vigilant. Nevertheless, to have safety and peace relies on everyone to care for one another with love; when caring for others, we have to look after ourselves as well. When everyone has this mindset, and take precaution to care for ourselves and others, we can naturally be safe and well.
Volunteers, we should truly seize affinities with other people and cherish one another. Since I left Hualien, now, as I arrive at each place, have I seen or met with all the senior volunteers whom I want to see? Because I whole heartedly think about those senior volunteers who joined Tzu Chi more than 30, 40, or 50 years ago, how are they now? Are they in good health?
Sometimes, I would ask after some volunteers, “how come I haven’t seen them?” Some would reply, “Master, they are tied up with something else, so they can’t make it today.” I’d be relieved; as long as they are healthy, I am relieved. If someone tells me, “Master, this volunteer is of old age,” or something like that, my heart truly feels for them.
“I’ll talk about spending time with our very senior fellow volunteer Ms. Guo Shuzi, who passed away on Oct. 2. Her spirit of awakening ourselves to benefit others and her vow of walking the Bodhisattva Path is with us and guiding us at Liming New Village. It’ll be passed down to the future generations. It’ll be passed down to the future generations,” said Liao Wen-juan relawan Tzu Chi.
“How old was your mother?”
“82”
“She’s very senior.”
“She was commissioner No. 172.”
I keep telling myself to seize time. Now I feel very strongly that, “As the day passes, our life diminishes, like the fish in the pond swiftly losing water, what joy is there for us?” Yet, I’m joyous. That joy is not based on some occurrences or events; I’m truly joyous. I think back to 55 years ago, when I gave rise to an aspiration and called on people to donate 50 cents daily.
Fifty-cents can become great use. When a disaster strike somewhere in the world, we’d look at the map. If there are no Tzu Chi volunteers there, we’d look for affinity and into our connections, and see if someone there can work with us. If it is very far away, we look for people right away, with people and communication, we have strength. This is determination.
With determination, people can usually accomplish things as they will find affinities to make it happen. On the topic of finding affinities, recently, I’ve been talking about fireflies. In the world, on the map, where are the fireflies? If we look closely and see a spot of light of a firefly, we’ll ask this firefly to find more, to find a group of fireflies. If we see one firefly, we’ll ask it to find more, one more, two more, three more, five more; with kindhearted people, they can go together to assess the disaster situation.
Afterwards, the kindhearted ones who have interacted with the first firefly will also become fireflies and shine. They’ll bring more people who want to help, and naturally, there will be many to form a group, thus creating a group of living bodhisattvas. Now that I’m looking at everyone, I see the work of time. Some of you are very senior, and have known Tzu Chi for a long time. Your hearts have been happy ever since, and you have been devoted to giving of yourselves.
When we are happy and have no regrets, we’ll naturally invite other people to join us in doing the work. This is the work of Tzu Chi. We want our society to be safe and peaceful. Yet, we must remember to make this work long lasting. We continue to give of ourselves like a water well. We must fetch water from the water well to moisten the dry land.
The land has become dry because it lacks love. The inner fields in people’s hearts have dried up. However, inside everyone’s heart there is a water well. So, we need to quickly fetch water from the water well. With everyone working together, if we can fetch a large amount of water, we’ll be able to moisten the land and revitalize it. After seeds are sown, they will sprout, become saplings, and grow into trees. When the trees grow big, they will produce countless seeds.
Otherwise, if we only have seeds but the soil is not moist and wet, the seeds won’t germinate. So, we must not let the land go dry nor let our inner field go dry because in our heart there’s a water well. At any time, it can gush out water. As long as we fetch the water, the water well will gush out more water. If we don’t fetch the water, the water level in the well will remain as it is. The water well will not overflow just because we don’t fetch the water. It won’t do that.
But, if we fetch the water, no matter how much we take out, the water will keep on gushing out and filling up to that particular water level. So, we should fetch that water and provide it to people and form good affinities with living beings. This is called forming good affinities and creating blessings.
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