Life Wisdom: Sharing Our Stories of Creating Blessings
In the world, when there are people in suffering, Tzu Chi volunteers would quickly send aid and give timely help. Serving as living bodhisattvas, Tzu Chi volunteers indeed give of themselves for the world. Life is impermanent, we should always be content; the most important is to create blessings.
All the blessings we create will be gained by us, which is that all the good deeds we have done can never be taken away by anyone, (because) all the blessings are created by ourselves. Trillions of blessings we have created in life will form into a seed which is full of wisdom and abundant blessings.
(If) the seed of wisdom and blessings is carefully planted and nurtured by us in this life, we can bring this seed with us to our next life; whenever we want to (do good), as we try our best to give our strength and do the things we want to do, we will naturally have the blessings to create blessings for the world.
Recently, I’ve been telling myself that I am the most blessed person in life. I remembered, after the 921 earthquake, we started to adopt schools to rebuild. Tzu Chi also built Great Love villages, be it temporary housings or permanent housings.
In the aftermath of the 921 earthquake or Typhoon Morakot, Tzu Chi volunteers created many blessings in the world; all the blessings were accumulated by volunteers who gave of themselves without asking for anything in return.
Since the 921 earthquake, we’ve helped build many projects, done what we can to serve, and helped nurture and educate numerous young talents. So, I keep on saying that we should do some calculations and present the statistics to Tzu Chi volunteers. For all the projects we’ve done, it is truly hard to calculate the exact numbers. In a word, the number is immeasurable.
In the sutras, the Buddha also talked about the concept of immeasurable. Time (can be) immeasurable. When one creates blessings in the world, it is also impossible to calculate. While creating blessings, we might accidentally create bad karma, this is also hard to calculate.
So, there is suffering in life, and many people live a life of hardship, yet many people live in luxury. Hence, we create our own blessings as well as our bad karma.
We saw schools one after another finished rebuilding. We can see how the land was cherished. On a big piece of land, in front of the hospital, or in the courtyard of the school, we have paved it with interlocking bricks. This is our effort to love the land; this way, the soil can breathe, and that’s how we cherish the land. Paving the land with interlocking bricks (is a very thoughtful consideration and it takes a lot of effort.)
Look at our volunteers passing one brick after another. With each interlocking brick, they create a land that can breathe, and it is paved evenly so people can walk safely on it. In the past, Tzu Chi volunteers have truly (created a lot of blessings).
For the past several decades, Tzu Chi volunteers have been creating blessings very steadily and solidly. That was how it was back then. It’s due to the affinity of the time back then. Though it exceeded my ability, Tzu Chi accomplished a lot and built a lot of facilities as well.
Where did I get the funding? From bits of donations which were from people with loving hearts, who had confidence in me and wanted to help me. After I said what I wanted to say, I had to follow through, but where would I get the manpower? So, many people came to help me, which was due to many affinities that were inconceivable and hard to describe. Hence, I’ve kept saying, the grand lesson is hard to talk about.
With such lesson at this time, let us recount the past, and analyze the data; let us calculate to see how Tzu Chi has served the world, and whether we have served Taiwan. In reality, Taiwan has always been the main focus of Tzu Chi’s work.
To Tzu Chi volunteers overseas, I urge them to use local resources for Tzu Chi’s work. They raise funds locally and mobilize local volunteers. (What we do is to facilitate the development of Tzu Chi there.) So, I want to say that I’m grateful that I have not lived my life in vain. I’m also grateful to Tzu Chi volunteers for following me so closely since Tzu Chi’s early days. No matter how far I have travelled, they all travelled with me. All I did was urge people to do good, and people all over emerged to help with the good cause and created blessings.
At any place, karmic affinities come together to accomplish Tzu Chi’s work. People responded to my call, and with their karmic affinities, we had great strength to do good.
Look at the Great Love villages we built for the earthquake affectees. They were built very thoughtfully for the affectees to live for three years. They used these three years’ time to rebuild their home. After they moved out, we collected those prefabricated houses and used them somewhere else. Some of them are still being used now. For the schools that Tzu Chi helps rebuild, we use those prefabricated houses as temporary classrooms for the students. There are many uses for those prefabricated houses.
Volunteers, we make practical use of people’s donations and will use those prefabricated houses for as long as possible. They’ve served many functions, housing affectees, helping students learn, and nurturing talents. All these are done by Tzu Chi, and we’ve done a lot.
There are so many things to be grateful for. (Using this opportunity, I want people to learn) the grand lessons. People don’t know how to talk about the past, so now I’m restarting it again.
Volunteers, for the path that you’ve helped me pave, recollect your memories and share your stories with others. Only stories (of good deeds) make our world beautiful. Make values out of our life.
Everyone, please seize the affinity to share with people your Tzu Chi stories and pass them on for a long time. Stories contain great values for our world.
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