Life Wisdom: Practicing Love, Respect and Gratitude
Recently, daily international news is still mostly about the COVID-19 pandemic, floods, storms, wildfires, or riots and clashes caused by imbalance in people's minds. Many disasters have occurred in the world. Whenever I learn about such disasters, I always feel they are inconceivable. Yet, we can also see heartwarming stories. The pandemic is very serious right now, everyone is alarmed and worried, and the poor have become even poorer. Wherever there are people in need, our Tzu Chi volunteers will always find ways to bring them aid.
As they can't bear to see children in poor families suffer from hunger, they bring food and supplies to them so they won't go hungry. Our volunteers work together to pack relief supplies, move and carry them, and send them to those in need. Whenever I see footages about such stories, I always feel from the bottom of my heart that our volunteers truly are living bodhisattvas. I can't help but express my admiration and gratitude out loud.
Yet, there are a lot of poor people in this vast world. Can we bring aid to them all? We still do not have enough manpower. Yet, how can those around us join our rank if we do not call on them to do so? So, we must call on more people to join our relief efforts. With a call to help the needy, people of all religions will support this good cause by doing and giving what they can. And, by pooling their efforts and resources together, we can bring aid to the needy and relieve their suffering so they can regain their strength and get back on their feet. We must seize time to call on more people to give so we can bring aid to those in suffering by pooling everyone's strength together. New waves of COVID-19 that have occurred over the past few days are truly horrifying.
Yet, instead of being afraid, we should heighten our vigilance and harbor sincere piety within. The best way to end the pandemic is to practice preventive rules and self-discipline. The most important lesson from the pandemic is to go vegetarian and extend our love to all life. To enjoy good health, we must not kill animals for food or consume wild animals. We must not consume livestock, either.
Due to their heavy karma, they are born as animals and raised in an inhuman way before being killed, cooked, and consumed. We humans eat all kinds of animals through our mouth. If we eat meat, be it well done, raw, or somewhere in between, are we any different from carnivorous animals? So, we must calm our minds and think about how we humans treat animals, how they are raised for food, and where do they end up. Like us, they are living beings too. To satisfy our transient desire for meat, we humans consume animals and create bad karma. In all, the bad karma we've created collectively has brought about dramatic climate change, manmade disasters, and an unprecedented pandemic over the past century.
In all, we must awaken and treat everyone with love, respect, and gratitude. I often say that we must do so. We must be grateful that we are safe and well and that as we harbor right views and right thinking, we will neither be influenced by turmoil or ignorance in the world, nor give rise to ignorance and bring trouble upon ourselves.
This pandemic is truly teaching us crucial lessons. Now, we must tame our minds rather than let our desires run wild. Everyone, please take my words to heart. We must watch Da Ai TV as it always reports what is true and guides people to have right views. We must also watch its news programs to learn about what's happening around the world.
Now, we must know and understand what's happening in the world. Then, we must gain insights into them quickly so we can turn our knowledge into wisdom. I've been saying this over the past few days. When we learn true principles about the world, we must reflect on ourselves and live them out. Let us all be mindful at each moment.
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