With Project Hope reaching its completion, Master Cheng Yen assigned me a new job: producing a television show called "Sighting the Images of the Bodhisattvas" for Tzu Chi TV and writing related books. The new job allows me to introduce Tzu Chi members and to walk into lives that are encompassed by the Tzu Chi missions.

I recall that the Taiwanese edition of CommonWealth Magazine published a survey last November on Taiwanese beauty. Master Cheng Yen was ranked as the most beautiful person in Taiwan because her Great Love has surpassed what we normally see as "beauty." Tzu Chi members were placed second. The survey indicated that Tzu Chi members were selfless people who could not be identified individually.

This example clearly shows the general impression of Tzu Chi as a group, not as individuals. This may be a compliment to the Tzu Chi organization, but the individuals who have contributed greatly to this group will be forgotten one day whereas the legacy of the group will remain.

I want to clearly illustrate the similarities and differences among Tzu Chi members. This means identifying those blurred faces in the pictures. By doing so, other Tzu Chi members of the same generation will come to know them, younger Tzu Chi members will inherit their good qualities, and I will be able to introduce those respectable Tzu Chi volunteers to the general public.

Our first encounter

I first met Li Feng-shih on January 24, 2001 when Tzu Chi members from around the world returned to the Abode of Still Thoughts in Hualien to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The quiet, solemn Abode suddenly bustled with chatting and singing.

A group of people sat around a stone table beneath the huge breadfruit tree in the front yard as they listened to Master Te Tzu, Master Cheng Yen's top disciple, talking about the past. She talked about the time when Master Cheng Yen and her disciples built a brick house. Without any experience, they simply had to learn the craft while they worked. For example, they did not know that they should not use their bare hands to mix cement with water. Once the cement dried off, it made their hands bleed.

Master Te Tzu talked about it as though all the hardship and difficulties had become happiness. One volunteer listened very attentively and smiled at the master's words. He seemed to have a better unspoken consensus with the master than the rest of us.

I was attracted by his smile and took this picture. I did not know that the old gentleman was Li Feng-shih, leader of the Tzu Cheng Faith Corps northern Taiwan division.

The Tzu Cheng Faith Corps

Tzu Cheng Faith Corps members are the male guardians of Tzu Chi. The northern Taiwan division currently has close to four thousand members. Each member continuously tries to excel himself and takes up one challenge after another. The major challenge for the past two years has been the construction of the schools under Project Hope.

Among the fifty earthquake-damaged schools that Tzu Chi helped to rebuild, the northern division undertook the task of landscaping and laying down interlocking paving bricks for thirty-one schools. The entire construction of the last school, the Chungshan Children's Experimental School, was carried out by Tzu Cheng members.

Li Feng-shih has been selling auto parts most of his life. He never guessed that he would be the one to lead other Tzu Cheng members to a new task like building schools. Tzu Chi changed him, just like Tzu Chi changed other people.

One man against all

On February 14, 2001, I visited Chichi Junior High School. The school buildings were almost completed, and the outer walls were to be given a pebble dash finish. Tzu Cheng members had just arrived at the school and were working on the revetments and the drainage system. I saw Li standing quite far away, talking on his cell phone among piles of soil and moldboards scattered around on the ground.

The campus looked rather untidy and muddy. It was like a piece of artwork that was going through chaos and pain before its finalization. After the construction company had finished their work, Tzu Cheng members would take over to clean up the campus and add the final touches here and there until the new campus was really completed.

Standing tall among the rubble, Li was using his cell phone to direct the members who were landscaping at each school. He was calm, poised and confident. No difficulties could trouble him.

After getting involved with Project Hope, Li had basically lived on the construction sites. There was a three-month period when he never went home. Sometimes he went back to Taipei for meetings, but he never went back to his own home. The reason was simply that he had turned the love for his family into a love for all the children in the disaster areas. He once said, "I want to turn the Project Hope schools into works of art."

Because there were too many schools to look after, he had to shuttle between schools every day. On the average, his car had to travel more than a hundred kilometers [62 miles] each day! He spent all his time demanding the best quality and the highest efficiency in the construction work. He also spent time conferring with school staff members or neighborhood residents to solve problems. If they asked him to move trees or clean ditches, he and other Tzu Cheng members did so in order to build a good relationship with the communities.

Hard-working Tzu Cheng members sometimes had to work past midnight before they could rest. They got soaked in dirt and sweat almost every day. Twice a week these people got together to sing Tzu Chi songs, study the Master's teachings, and discuss their problems and find ways to solve them.

Tzu Cheng members used every donation carefully and thus saved lots of money. For instance, they cut the cost of the canopies at the Hsukuang Junior High School activity center by half; they saved a million dollars with the revetments at Nantou Elementary School; they saved a hundred dollars for every square meter of wall that they finished...

Now the fifty schools of Project Hope have become beautiful art masterpieces emerging from earth. The schools, like caterpillars metamorphosed into beautiful butterflies, were built with the sweat and blood of so many Tzu Chi members.

Serving instead of leading

Chou Cheng-hsiung and Chen Cheng-li, two northern Taiwan division deputy chiefs who have known Li for a long time, mentioned that Li is quite attentive to details. He uses every event to cultivate himself.

Both of them observed that Li, who used to be very shy and nervous, became more poised and mature after helping to build the dormitory at the Abode and engaging in disaster relief after the September 21 earthquake. Li, who used to be very quiet, can now talk non-stop for at least an hour and bring Master Cheng Yen's teachings into their discussions about their jobs. Li is like both an older brother and a father to them. He may be a little impatient when he wants things done fast, but he still treats people fairly.

Li Ming-chung has been driving Li Feng-shih around various construction sites for two years. To him, Li is a righteous man. He said that Li has very sharp eyes. He can tell immediately when something is not done right. When the interlocking paving bricks at one school were not laid down very accurately, Li talked to the Tzu Cheng members who were in charge. The bricks were taken apart and laid again three times before the pavement was finally perfect.

Eric Yao, general manager of Tzu Chi TV and also a famous architect, really admired Li's leadership. He recalled that when he and Li were planning the dormitory at the Abode, Master Cheng Yen told them that she wanted everyone to be involved in the construction. Anyone who was interested should be allowed to participate. Both Yao and Li were rather surprised to hear that, because professionals were needed to build a house. Why was the Master allowing amateurs to do the work? However, they did not ask the Master. Li asked Yao how to build a house, and Yao drew out each and every step.

When Li was quite clear about the process, he divided his members according to their abilities so they all would have the chance to help build the dormitory. Even those who had no experience could also carry building materials or wash things. In the end, everyone's skill was brought out and each person found suitable work. Li really showed how to lead others.

Yao also mentioned that Li was an excellent example of "serving instead of leading." Li cares for the members and their families as well. If they have any problems, Li will try to solve them. Yao said that at the year-end celebration every year, he was always touched to see Li bowing to every member to express his gratitude.

It is always hard to lead volunteers, because they come to help out of their own will. There is no rule about who manages whom and who will be managed by whom. Nevertheless, Li sets a very good example for others because he is able to guide his four thousand members well.

Affiliation with Tzu Chi

In order to film Li for the Tzu Chi TV program, "Seeing the Images of the Bodhisattvas," the production team and I went to his house. The first floor was an auto parts store; the second floor contained several small bedrooms; on the third floor were a spacious living room, dining room and kitchen. A small Buddhist shrine was on the fourth floor.

After dinner, I asked Li and his wife, Jung-tzu, to show us their old photos. The oldest was a group photo of Li and his classmates when they graduated from elementary school. When I saw that photo of this country boy, I realized that Li too has lived through many years.

Li was born in Ankung, Taipei County, in 1943. His grandfather produced tea leaves for a living and was one of the very few certified tea tasters in Taiwan.

Li's father was a successful businessman, but he died young from malaria while he was in China on a business trip. The family's financial situation suddenly became difficult, so Li quit his schooling after elementary school and went to work in a car repair shop. Gradually he built up his own car repair and auto parts business.

Each photo allowed me to see Li's growth and experiences. Most of the photos were related to Tzu Chi, so I asked him to tell me how he came to join the foundation.

He told me he used to love to make business deals. He could be so busy answering phone calls all day that he did not have time to eat. Those days were quite stressful for him. His only relaxation was to go hiking with friends or go to hot spring spas with his family during the weekends.

His wife joined Tzu Chi in 1984, but whenever she asked him to visit the Abode of Still Thoughts, he was never interested in doing it.

In 1987, Li finally went to the Abode to attend a seven-day retreat. He felt happy to be there and was excited to see everything. He noticed that all the other retreatants were clean-shaven. He was the only one with a mustache. The more he looked at himself in the mirror, the more he disliked it, so that night he shaved off his mustache, which he had had for over ten years.

In the same year, Li and his wife were certified as Tzu Chi commissioners. In 1990 the Tzu Cheng Faith Corps was established, and in 1992 Li and 545 other male volunteers were certified as the first group of Tzu Cheng members.

Li felt that since he was an ordinary person, he of course had negative emotions whenever he ran into troubles. But after he joined Tzu Chi, he learned to transform his emotions instead of being bogged down by them. If he had disputes with other people, he would be the first to apologize.

He recalled that not long after he joined Tzu Chi, he had a dispute with a customer at his store. That was the first day the government ordered the business sector to add a sales tax to the goods they sold, but the customer thought that Li was raising the price purposely to make more money. They couldn't solve their dispute, so Li put the item back and refused to sell it to the customer.

As soon as the customer had angrily left, Li regretted what he had done. He did not need to sell the item, but he did not need to offend a customer either. When his mindset changed, his fate changed as well. That afternoon, the same customer returned with a smile. He apologized and Li reduced the price on the item, so both of them were very happy.

Among those old photos were several colorful shots of Li hiking in the mountains. He once wanted to climb one hundred mountains in Taiwan, and he had indeed climbed twenty-eight. Since he joined Tzu Chi, however, he has not climbed any new mountains, but he continues to lead Tzu Cheng members in overcoming "mountains" of difficulties.

It is hard to estimate how many members of the northern Taiwan division participated in Project Hope. They have also participated in rescue missions, such as after a gas explosion in Panchiao, Taipei County, a China Airlines plane crash, and several typhoons.

Filling out the spaces

Li pointed out that those who have joined Tzu Chi take the "small love" that they give to their families and expand it to Great Love for all living beings. They are all psychologically prepared at all times. When they receive the call, they voluntarily join the rescue mission.

Let it be floods or mudslides, Tzu Cheng members immediately go to the disaster areas to do their jobs, no matter where it is around the province. And they move very fast. Take the northern Taiwan division as an example: after a message is sent out from Tzu Cheng headquarters, two thousand people can be mobilized in two hours from Keelung in the north to Hsinchu in the south.

After Typhoon Nari, the Tzu Chi TV station in Taipei was flooded and more than twenty thousand videotapes were soaked in floodwater in a basement storage room. Northern division Tzu Cheng members immediately transported those videotapes to a Tzu Chi office in Kuantu, where Tzu Chi members from around Taiwan assembled to clean them up.

Just as they were beginning to clean them, however, another typhoon came. The Tzu Cheng members decided to surround the Kuantu office with sandbags to prevent floodwater from damaging the videotapes again. It was estimated that they needed thirty thousand sandbags, but they had no sand, bags, or vehicles that could transport them.

They made that decision at two o'clock in the afternoon. Li grasped the whole situation and found out where they could buy sandbags and get vehicles to transport them. They sent out faxes at four o'clock to mobilize the members, and by five o'clock people started reporting in.

Two thousand people reported in that day, and at six in the evening they started filling the bags. The job was completed at two the next morning. In less than one night, thirty thousand sandbags were ready.

People are often curious as to how Tzu Cheng members are mobilized. Li always tells them that it is not because of him or any single person that Tzu Cheng members and all Tzu Chi members can be mobilized with such powerful strength. He emphasizes that Tzu Chi is a charity group where everyone is a volunteer. They join Tzu Chi because they agree with the Tzu Chi spirit and Master Cheng Yen's ideology. They will always fill out the empty spaces automatically.

Li said that he thinks beforehand if a certain thing can be done, how it should be done, and what to do if something goes wrong. If something is wrong, they change their tactics; if they have done it correctly, they simply march forward.

The image of his back

After days of interviews, the last photo I took of Li was his back.

After we had finished interviewing residents of the first Great Love village in Nantou, central Taiwan, our job was finished. Liao, the lighting assistant, was ready to put the light away, but I felt that this scene seemed to carry a certain message.

I asked Liao to keep the light out, and I asked Li to walk a few steps so I could take his photo. Li, being a nice man, started walking in the dark.

The light on Li's back made his white hair extremely bright. His shadow was as long as his height. The way he walked was completely different from what I normally knew: his hands were behind his back, and he slouched and lowered his head. It made him look like a philosopher deep in thought. He slowly walked on the interlocking paving bricks into the dark. The scene reminded me of a conversation between a disciple and Master Cheng Yen:

The disciple affirmed, "Master, I'll follow you in every life."

The Master replied, "Ok! If I go to hell, will you come with me?"

I know Li would answer positively if the Master asked him that. No matter where the disaster is, Tzu Chi members will be there, and we will see the images of the bodhisattvas there.