At the 2000-01 Tzu Chi Overseas Youth Association Winter Leadership Conference, I gave a talk to the sixty overseas students attending the winter program. I made a few points that I hoped they would continue to probe after we had all returned home. I examined their meanings during a relief mission in Guizhou, and have, since returning to Cornell University in the United States, come to believe they will be the basis with which I will help plant the seeds of compassion here at home with the American people. The three topics I discussed that night have since become, more or less, three avenues in my life which I constantly explore for clues to my own destiny, my personal yuan.

The three words I have carried with me are: leadership, opportunity and suffering. To most people these are simply words. To me they mean more. To an appreciative heart, their meaningfulness transcends the boundaries of language, illuminating my life like a light bulb in a dark room. These words are like the footprints of the Buddha. From where I stand to where I wish to go, they are vessels of salvation which have helped me chart my course. With each word, I have the memory of a corresponding story. Here are my memories, and this is my story.

How We Get More than We Give
On Leadership


The Buddha said that all things in life are illusory and impermanent. Happiness, suffering, material and immaterial things are all void of real existence. So why then do we continue to make such great effort to help people who are lost in perpetual suffering? I believe the meaning of our mission to be this: the shoes we provide will eventually wear out, the blankets will cease to warm bodies, the medicines will all be applied, and the rice will all be eaten. However, feelings that people share cannot be measured. Compassion cannot be calculated.

Indeed our actions, whether compassionate or recklessly selfish, will have a timeless effect on our world. The Buddha forged a path for himself to follow according to what he believed was right. To our benefit, we have been able to follow in the light of his teaching. Everything starts with personal leadership. While our material donations will eventually be exhausted, we have experienced the exchange of feelings that will indefinitely effect the course of time. We are able to share our feelings of hope and commitment with our friends, and they in exchange, fill our lives with meaning and joy. Truly, what we do is so much larger than who we are.

How can we help people to grasp the lack of all but each other in today's global village? How does one begin planting the seeds of Tzu Chi in the minds of people who need them the most? These are all questions about leadership, which is to say they are questions every one of us should be asking ourselves. Leadership is more than just understanding what needs to be done. The Buddha's Eightfold Path suggests that everything begins with the correct view of knowing what's right. We must learn to lead ourselves before we can think of leading others. If I always remain cognizant of the endless suffering of others, in my heart, my mind, I know I will lead myself correctly. If I manage to change myself, I have already succeeded in changing one person.

Lessons from a Little Girl
On Opportunity


While in Hualien, I volunteered in the Heart Lotus Palliative Care Ward of Tzu Chi General Hospital. Not long after I started, I met an eleven-year-old girl who was in the final stage of her cancer. The first time I saw her, my heart felt heavy with sadness. I could not make sense of her situation. She could not sit comfortably, she could not stand comfortably, she could not play, eat or even sleep comfortably. Her life was an overflow of suffering.

The holiday celebrating the enlightenment of the Buddha found me in the hospital lobby setting up for the traditional giving of rice porridge, when one of the other volunteers came to me with the news that our little girl was gone. That morning I joined a sharing session held by one of the hospice staff who had been there for quite some time. I listened without speaking, as strangers who had become my friends shared their feelings about a little girl that we barely knew.

Suddenly, he turned to me and said, "Michael, how about your feelings?" My throat tightened and all I could say was, "Well, I don't really have anything to say." He looked intently into my eyes as if watching thoughts pass through my mind, and then said, "Well why don't you talk about why you feel upset." Again, to that I could not speak. I just sat there unable to make words. All I managed to get out was, "She died this morning?" "Yes," he replied, "About 1 am."

"You know," he continued, "she was unable to rest for so long, and last night she was finally able to find some relief, and then, suddenly, she was peaceful. And her face was like a little Buddha. Have you ever looked at the Buddha's face closely, Michael?" "Yes," I said as a tear rolled down a well-traveled line from the corner of my eye. "Well, let me tell you. If you look at the Buddha's face, you will notice his expression. The eyes seem as though they are closed, but they are ever so slightly open. And initially the mouth looks straight, but if you look closely, you can see a subtle smile."

"And?" I interjected.

"That's how her face looks now. It is a peaceful look. Can you guess why?" he asked. "I'll tell you," he continued before I could respond. "It's because she had no regrets. She left us peacefully."

"Of course she had no regrets," I said, surprised at myself for such a brash interjection. "She was only eleven. She never had time to do anything."

Immediately he turned to me. "I'm sorry, you are wrong," he said calmly. "Anyone can have regrets. It's not what you have, its not even so much what you do in life. The important thing is how you feel about it all. Get it?" "Yes," I said. "Good," he said with a smile. That was the last time we talked about her.

The room was hot. Lucid strands of white smoke frenzied to the ceiling and then draped overhead from coils of raging incense on the altar. A brilliant yellow tapestry covered the now empty container which used to house the spirit of a beautiful little girl. I had assembled in the halls of death many times before that day, but from that time on I felt different. I believe that was the moment I fully understood that giving of ourselves was the most neglected thing in contemporary life. When we are compassionate with others, we have nothing to regret and past regrets seem to fade little by little. However, compassion is perishable, like the blossoms of the lotus. The leaves open, and then wither and fall. Yet the seedpod remains, the essence of the plant remains and the plant will bloom again and again. Like the lotus, we have opportunities every day to show our compassion to others. If we miss the chance, it is truly irretrievable, as the petals of fate once again fall to the feet of time. It will never occur again with that person, situation or set of conditions. Yet every day, even every moment, the world re-opens with another opportunity. In our lives we are blessed with an abundance of opportunities to do positive things, good things that will largely benefit more than ourselves. So many opportunities are wasted when we think only of "me."

Lessons from a Puppy
On Suffering


After an address by Master Cheng Yen at the Youth Association conference, I recognized the familiar smile of Master Te Ming. We had first met at the October 2000 retreat in New Jersey, and I was heartened to see her again so far from home. During a brief conversation, I noted that I had a personal interest in the work she was doing across the Taiwan Straits in mainland China. The conversation soon developed into talk of joining the next relief mission to Guizhou. Barely one day passed before I found myself sitting at a table next to Master Cheng Yen and expressing my desire to join the mission. With a nod she smiled and softly said, "Good, if you have time, you may go." Thus it was that I found myself on a five-day Tzu Chi relief mission in Guizhou Province, China.

A growing sun delivered the dusty air from the morning chill as we snaked up the lean face of broken mountains that cleft the sky in uneven rhythm. As we crested the steepest eave, I could see horses grazing on flatlands in the distance. Just past, I was able to discern that our path bowed to meet a cluster of yellow earthen houses at the foot of another sparsely forested hill. Children with smiles and bright blue coats greeted us as we traversed the packed dirt lane to the first home. Here is when the memories in my mind once again met with the immediate. While we surveyed their living conditions, the family shared with us the ache of the last year's disparity.

While walking with the group, my mind was in its usual mode of sorting through images of the recent and the not so recent. I thought about the four weeks I had spent in Taiwan prior to joining this mission, and how I felt a lost part of me had come back again. I continued, pace by pace, orbiting houses and children while half of my consciousness faded to black watching memories pass through my mind like ants on bamboo.

Against the soft, flat black of my memory I saw the paltry face of a little puppy mangled and wronged by disease and hunger. The image still pulsed in my mind as it had been less than a few days since I had seen his diminutive limn dancing against the contrast of a vacant lot across from the Abode of Still Thoughts. Coming closer, my heart's smile faded. I realized this puppy was not dancing or playing, but hopping and dragging his little body against the ground to gain a moment's relief from his open infections. The team began to fill the square. I watched amazed as he met each of the entering students, alternating between wagging his tail and scraping his frame against the pavement. Even though his life had been filled with suffering, he was still happy to see people. He had no anger, no resentment towards the situation. He merely wished to escape this suffering. In doing this, he did not cause any other being to suffer. Instead, he brought happiness to his world and ours. This puppy made things clearer to the rest of us.

As I walked with the group in Guizhou, my mind floated back and forth, sorting through images of that morning as my camera's shutter clasped images of desiccated loam habitations and pasted them onto film. I remember thinking the whole time, "All life here seems nearing collapse, but no one is angry." I felt guilty as I recalled innumerable times in my life where I had been angry or frustrated with a situation that seemed without resolution. The character of these people humbled me.

Before the conversation shifted gears to discuss the previous day's relief, Master Te Ming pointed to the thatched ceiling perforated with holes from years of battering. With a tired look, the man who lived there just shrugged and said, "There's just nothing we can do." I followed Master Te Ming into the back of the house and looked at the small cot. "See how lucky you are?" she said. "The whole family sleeps here, three people."

No words came out of my mouth, something that was becoming a common phenomenon for me, though my college professors in the United States would probably have a hard time believing it. I just stood there alone as she exited the room, and I thought of the puppy again. Before we left the village, many of us had been given gifts. We came to give; we left receiving. Such poignant irony was inescapable. Why is it the more people have, the more miserable they are, or believe themselves to be? Those beings in our world that are truly without somehow seem to make more sense of it than the more fortunate. "There's really nothing we can do," kept turning in my mind like the grinding of the rice wheel in the back of their home. And then I thought to myself, "If only we could all deal with life's suffering with such poise." Perhaps our giving of things was not as valuable as our giving these people the opportunity to give to us. It was then I realized that true suffering begins when you are no longer able to give.

Conclusion
On Happiness


During our mission to Guizhou I felt so fortunate to be among truly caring people. I saw that ordinary people's lives can be mutually benefited, without the negative feelings of selfishness or pride. Because of just this situation, I often found myself pondering the question: "Who is really receiving the relief here?" What I did not know was that to give is to inevitably receive, which is to say, to give to others is also to give to oneself.

Having returned to the United States, I find my life is beginning to conform itself again to the schedules of a student. Time seems to move a bit quicker, and I continue to scrutinize my thoughts and feelings about a life in between here and there. I have realized that as a young foreigner living in Asia, you will never be fully accepted. After having synthesized so much of the Asian culture into my life, I will never again really consider myself a typical American either. It is in that great span that separates the two that I will search for meaning and common ground with which I will relate to others.

Periodically, perhaps in class or at home, my mind's eye will open to see the semblance of my short time in Tzu Chi. Forms of a girl wrestled to peace by life's manifest and of a puppy surviving within the scaffolding of life's senseless despair will enter my mind, and I will discover again that to help a single being is to save the world. I will see a mosaic of faces in my head talking with me, and my heart will resonate with compassion and be forever changed.