Thirty-five years as one day

Li Shih

In early April, Tzu Chi held a two-day retreat for foundation commissioners and volunteers in Hualien. Early in the morning, they marched in a procession that stretched for hundreds of meters, from the Still Thoughts Hall to the Abode of Still Thoughts, a distance of ten kilometers [6.2 miles].

"Have you heard that a senior commissioner who has been with Tzu Chi for thirty-five years is also in this procession?" While the people buzzed about it, Li Shih, the topic of the conversation, looked lighthearted and at ease. She walked with a steady gait, even though she is already seventy-seven years old.

"I completed the two-hour walk without taking any rest." Li told us that she is in the habit of reciting Buddhist sutras in the morning while circling and prostrating herself before the statue of the Buddha, so squatting and sitting cross-legged are not difficult for her at all. However, her eyesight has been gradually failing since an operation several years ago.

Still, Li never misses any chance to contribute to Tzu Chi. More than a year ago she had wanted to pitch in to help build the Great Love prefabricated houses for earthquake victims in central Taiwan, but someone told her that people over sixty-five would not be eligible for such strenuous work. She has regretted missing that chance ever since. This time the Hualien Tzu Chi Zone, which includes the Tzu Chi University, the Still Thoughts Hall and the Tzu Chi General Hospital, was to be paved with bricks, and she was not going to let this chance slip by.

"I used to think that visiting poor people who lived in remote mountain areas was a piece of cake for me. I admit I'm a bit older now, but I'm pretty sure delivering a few bricks won't get me." Li said that Tzu Chi has become an important part of her life. She has been working for the foundation for such a long time that she cannot imagine herself retiring from her volunteer work.

"How can you be so persistent in your volunteer work?" Li was often asked this question when she was making tea for guests at the Still Thoughts Bamboo Bungalow, and she always replied without the least hesitation, "To be able to contribute is a blessing." Sometimes if she was in the mood, she would tell the story of how she became a Tzu Chi member. It all started when she reported to Master Cheng Yen that there was a person who was in need of help.

At that time, the news was circulating in the markets around Hualien: a compassionate Buddhist dharma master who lived on the Farm (the old name for the site of the Abode of Still Thoughts) was establishing a charity organization to help people. At first, Li was quite skeptical about it. "Really? Could such a good person exist in this world?"

One day, she saw one of her son's classmates walking past her house. His clothes were in tatters. She put together a pack of old clothes for him to take home and told him to ask his mother to mend the clothes for him. She was surprised when the boy told her that that wouldn't be possible because his mother was blind.

Li found out that the boy's mother had glaucoma, but the family was too poor to afford an operation and hospitalization expenses, which would amount to more than NT$1,000 [then US$25]. She decided to report the case to the nun on the Farm.

"The Master was recycling cement bags when I visited the Farm," Li said with a sigh. "She could hardly feed herself, but she still insisted on doing relief work." Li felt that she could not just stand aside and watch, so she took a donation booklet home with her, planning to raise money herself.

She talked to every person she came across, whether she knew them or not. "Please make a donation and sign here. This is to help a poor woman who is desperately in need of an eye operation." But in several days she only managed to raise NT$550 [US$13.75].

"I caused the Master so much trouble!" The expenses for the mother's surgery added up to NT$6,000 [US$150] in the end, and the foundation had to make up the deficit. Every time Li thinks of this, she cannot help but feel guilty. "I owe Tzu Chi so much. I told myself that I'd work for the foundation for the rest of my life to make up for it."

Li saw with her own eyes the Master's firm determination to help others at all costs. Deeply touched, she decided to assist in promoting charity work.

Since then, thirty-five years have passed and she has never once wavered in her resolution. "Not long ago, a massive earthquake devastated El Salvador. When I visited a Tzu Chi member to collect her monthly donations, I told her about the situation in El Salvador and how Tzu Chi was distributing food and providing medical aid there. The member was so touched that she donated an additional NT$50,000 [US$1,700] to us."

Limitless vitality

Hu Yu-chu

Gray-headed Hu Yu-chu, called "Third Sister" by Tzu Chi people, always radiates energy and vitality whenever she talks about the foundation. "The reason I'm so devoted to Tzu Chi is that the donations I collect will really be used to help the needy."

It has been almost thirty years since Hu, now aged seventy-three, joined Tzu Chi in 1972. Just before the Chinese New Year, she accidentally fell and injured her spine when she was cleaning up around her house. She rested for a couple of months and then started going out to collect donations again.

Several days ago, she made a trip to Lesheng Sanatorium, an asylum for lepers, to visit old friends whom she had cared for before. "It really saddened me to hear that their buildings were going to be torn down."

In 1978, when Hu reported on the situation at the sanatorium, Tzu Chi started to provide help for residents there. "I went to visit the patients there and found that they really needed help, so I reported the situation to the Master. After she visited Lesheng, the Master decided to give them financial assistance so that the patients there could have better meals and their buildings could be repaired. Later, when the Master called for public help to build a hospital [in Hualien], the Lesheng patients requested that Tzu Chi stop giving them financial subsidies, and they even held a charity bazaar in the sanatorium, selling folded paper lotus flowers to help raise funds for the hospital."

In the beginning, Tzu Chi did not have as many commissioners as it does now. Therefore Hu and a few other Taipei commissioners had to visit all the Tzu Chi aid recipients who lived in the area between Suao, in northern Taiwan, and Miaoli, in central Taiwan. At first, they traveled by bus, but it was rather inconvenient because many poor people lived in remote areas which could not be easily reached by bus. Later, Hu learned to drive so that she could take volunteers around to visit the poor people.

After innumerable visits to the poor, Hu deeply feels that to give is certainly more blessed than to receive. Neither typhoons nor torrential rains can stand in her way of helping others.

"We once went to the Taipei Veterans General Hospital to visit a patient," remembered commissioner Ching Jang. "It was windy and the rain was pouring down. Visibility was very poor. Hu got out of the car to ask for directions. In an instant her clothes were all wet, as the water was up to her knees. After she got back into the car, I found that her lips had turned blue with cold, but she still concentrated on driving. Her dauntless spirit is really admirable--she is our best role model."

Thinking back on her boundless energy in the past, Hu said that she is no longer as vigorous as before. But her resolution to keep walking on the Path of the Bodhisattvas has never changed. She also highly praises the commissioners of the younger generation for their abilities and their willingness to contribute to society. They are just the right persons Tzu Chi needs to carry on its missions.

An expert in searching for people

Ching Chih

"The Master never gives us the cold shoulder just because we are old--she still loves us dearly." Ching Hsing, an eighty-two-year-old senior commissioner from Pingtung, talked about her experiences when she and several other Pingtung senior commissioners went to the disaster areas to cook for victims of the earthquake of September 21, 1999. "The food we prepared agreed with the victims' appetite. When we were leaving, the soldiers who were helping there even presented us with flowers and lined up to say good-bye to us."

Ching Hsing said that her team members are mostly old people and have to rely on their team leader, Hu Pao-chen, to drive them around. Even though they are no longer as healthy and energetic as before, they still carry out their volunteer work happily.

Ching Huang, head of the Pingtung fourth section, is not yet fifty, but she is already a senior commissioner. She was once the youngest commissioner in Pingtung. "At that time, whenever anything came up, the senior commissioners in Pingtung would take me along with them to handle anything that needed our care and attention. Now even though they are old, they still do their best to help. Every time we have an activity, these senior commissioners still cook for us." Their help and support save Ching Huang a lot of cares and worries. She says, "These senior commissioners really are my props and models."

Ching Huang mentioned that Ching Chih, the senior commissioner who led her into Tzu Chi, is an expert on searching for people. Ching Chih once spent more than a year looking for the family of an elderly woman whose story had been adapted into a televised play called "Missing" on the Tzu Chi TV channel. Having asked countless people and visited the courts several times for information, she finally located the family.

"That case was reported to the foundation by a Tzu Chi member," said 74-year-old Ching Chih, who is as compassionate as a bodhisattva. "The old woman was a street wanderer with no fixed abode. She had neither her national ID card nor her national health insurance card with her. I was worried about her situation. What would happen to her if she fell ill? Even the local authorities and the police were all at their wit's end."

"How could I possibly accomplish anything on my own?" Ching Chih continued modestly. "It all depended on everyone's help. It wasn't that I was any good at it. It really was the reputation of Tzu Chi which helped me find the old woman's family. I only needed to tell people that I was a Tzu Chi volunteer, and they would help me as much as they could."

Last month, Ching Chih arranged for a mental patient who had wandered on the streets for twelve years to move into a sanatorium. Before that, she even helped find his family. When she sent the wanderer to the sanatorium, it was already four-thirty in the afternoon. This was far past the hour for the sanatorium to admit patients. However, when the staff learned that the patient had been sent by Tzu Chi, they made an exception and accepted him. What's more, even the admission fees of more than NT$10,000 [US$330] were waived.

Maybe, as Ching Chih said, a person who does good deeds will receive help from other benevolent people. With this belief, she has grown more and more confident in what she is doing.

Enlightened by the sorrow, happiness,
separation and reunion in life

Lin Mei-lan

There is sorrow as well as joy on the Path of the Bodhisattvas. Doing good deeds doesn't mean that everything will go as you wish.

The Tzu Chi Taichung branch office has nearly become home for senior commissioner Lin Mei-lan. Devoted to the foundation, she spends a large portion of her time there carrying out her duties.

Years ago, her son died suddenly. It caused her so much pain that she almost collapsed. "If it weren't for Tzu Chi, I wouldn't have been able to carry on," Lin said.

"The first time I went to Hualien after I became a Tzu Chi member, a fire broke out in my house. The second time I went there, my son was killed in a car accident. I was devastated. I couldn't understand why heaven tested me with such trials."

Master Cheng Yen saw how sad Lin was. "In this world, the length of time we spend with a certain person is predestined," she said to her. "If your child is predestined to be with you for only such a brief time, then you should bravely accept it. You still have your own role to play on the stage of life." The Master even told Lin about her own brother's accidental death in the army.

"The Master told me to transform my selfish love--the love that we only give to close relatives--into Great Love. It was difficult, but I made it." Lin said that she felt like her heart was being stabbed by needles every time she thought about her son. But when she saw how hard the Master worked to help people in need, she decided to forget her own pain and do her best to help the Master. In the end, she even forgave the driver who caused her son's death.

Lin Mei-lan attributed her courage to stand up again after such an ordeal to her wholehearted admiration for the Master's selfless compassion. "She works not for herself, but for all living beings." Touched by the Master's spirit, she decided that she would work for Tzu Chi for the rest of her life.

Lin still remembers that Ching Lien, a senior commissioner, gave her the fabric to make a commissioner's uniform as a present when she first joined Tzu Chi. "Ching Lien was like a mother preparing her daughter's trousseau," said Lin. "I am happy to be a member of this big family, and I feel honored to be able to wear the uniform."

In the twenty years since she joined Tzu Chi, Lin has been involved in countless relief efforts. After witnessing so much sorrow, happiness, separation and reunion in life, she has come to realize how impermanent life is. She reminds herself that there are still many things waiting for her to do and that she needs to quicken her pace. "Life has no meaning unless you are needed by others."

Since the earthquake of September 21, 1999, Tzu Chi people in central Taiwan have never ceased to provide help and care for survivors. Lin has been doing her best to help. Recently, along with other Tzu Chi commissioners in central Taiwan, she started planning a large-scale charity bazaar to raise funds for Project Hope, the Tzu Chi plan to rebuild schools damaged or destroyed by the earthquake.

The path gets wider as we go on our journey

Ching Yang

A volunteer at the Tzu Chi General Hospital, an Yi Te Mother, a member of the Tzu Chi Choir, a promoter of bone marrow donation, a community volunteer, and the section head of the Peitou area, Ching Yang, who is in her early sixties, constantly changes her roles to meet the needs of the foundation. She certainly is a versatile and multifunctional commissioner.

"I used to cry a lot," said Ching Yang. "I cried because I felt my husband wasn't good enough to me. I cried because I didn't get along well with my mother-in-law. I would call friends every day to complain about my situation. But after I joined Tzu Chi, all my worries were gone. I realized that I had spun a cocoon and was silly enough to stir up all those troubles for myself."

After solving her problems, Ching Yang wanted to help others. She stood up and shared her experiences with others in meetings. The story of her spiritual rebirth has helped attract more volunteers into Tzu Chi.

"There was a woman who found out that her husband was having a love affair. She dared not tell anyone about it because she was afraid of losing face. However, she approached me after a Tzu Chi tea party and told me her story. I invited her to join Tzu Chi and do charity work with us. Now she is no longer bothered by her husband's previous infidelity. He has also returned to her side." Ching Yang said she felt as if she were a doctor who had cured a patient--the joy was really inexpressible.

Ching Yang is also quite good at training newcomers. Lin Ya-mai, who has benefited a lot from Ching Yang's guidance and is now the leader of a team in Peitou in charge of organizing Tzu Chi activities, said, "When I first began to visit our care recipients along with Ching Yang and other commissioners, she asked me to drive. She also entrusted me with the money to be given to the poor families. All this gave me a great sense of participation."

To this day, Ching Yang is still using this method to train community volunteers. "I found it most effective," she said. "The most important thing for a leader to do is to win his or her team members' hearts. Once the team members find that their leader really values their talents, they will perform to the best of their abilities."

It has been nearly four years since Tzu Chi started promoting community volunteer work. Through these few years, Ching Yang learned that if you want to accomplish anything, you need the help of people. "Cooperation and unity are the foremost things in a group."

She usually first picks out an experienced person from the team to be the team leader, and then she chooses two or three people to be deputies. "If the persons I choose are doing well, we applaud their performance; if not, we show our concern and consideration for them. I care for my team members, but I don't worry about them. By and by, they will become capable leaders and grow and improve quickly."

For example, Ching Yang let the organizing team have full power to plan a children's art competition in the Tzu Chi Kuantu office. The result was that not only the children in the community came, but their parents also enthusiastically joined their children. More than five hundred people contributed to a lively day in the office. In this way the commissioners felt a sense of achievement, and the combination of community culture and Tzu Chi culture became a characteristic of the local community.

"Walking on the Path of Tzu Chi, I feel as if I were in a race like the one in the story of 'The Hare and the Tortoise.' I hope I'm like the tortoise. Even though it walks slowly, it still wins the race because it doesn't doze off." Ching Yang expects herself to keep learning with an open mind. She believes the road will get wider and wider if she keeps on walking diligently.

There are quite a few senior commissioners who, like Ching Yang, are wholeheartedly devoted to Tzu Chi. "As long as the Master does not think that we are too old to do things for Tzu Chi, we will continue to follow in her footsteps," some of the older senior commissioners said. "If we are able to do more, we will. Otherwise, we will concentrate on one thing at a time."