At the ceremony held at Chichi Secondary School, this old commissioner sat next to government ministers and other important guests. She shoveled the sand swiftly and easily. She looked very special and appealing. When I took the picture of the people who were shoveling the sand, I purposely made her the focus of the shot. I wondered who this old woman was.

I later found out that she was Wang Yueh-kuei, Master Cheng Yen's mother, or "Master's Mom" as people call her. She wears commissioner ID number 56.

A childlike heart

Following is an excerpt from the earliest report on Mrs. Wang in an article from the Tzu Chi Monthly, No. 203, published in September 1983.

"Mrs. Wang is perhaps the happiest about Tzu Chi's achievements in human salvation and the Master's superb religious mission. Like other Tzu Chi commissioners, she has a child-like heart, and she has devotion, humility, enthusiasm, and energy as well.

"Whenever the Tzu Chi Foundation is mentioned in the news, Mrs. Wang's neighbors are always so proud that their hometown, Fengyuan in central Taiwan, can claim such a great person as Master Cheng Yen. Mrs. Wang is also very happy to have a daughter who is doing compassionate deeds for Buddhism and for all living beings. But at the same time, she also regrets having once forbidden Master Cheng Yen from becoming a nun some twenty years ago--because she loved her too much to let her go--and thus caused the Master much hardship on her way to becoming a nun.

"Tears rolled down her face as Mrs. Wang recalled the past events. She is more than 60 years old, but her open-mindedness and her accurate perception of things allow her to maintain a child-like heart. When you talk to her, you discover that she is very kind and pure and thus has lots of tears."

This article vividly described what Mrs. Wang was like when she was 67 years old. Born in 1916, she is now 88 years old. To many people, 20 years bring many changes to one's life, but Mrs. Wang is still open-minded and pure, just as the article had described her. Time has not slowed her steps on the Path of the Bodhisattvas. Instead, it has been creating more blessings for her.

Idleness is the most painful thing

On November 26, 2000, the Tzu Chi Malaysia branch organized a group of 95 members to visit the foundation headquarters in Hualien and the Project Hope schools rebuilt in central Taiwan. They chose to visit Fengtung Secondary School because transportation there was more convenient. When we arrived at the school, 30 or so local Fengyuan Tzu Chi members were already waiting at the school gate. I suddenly noticed Mrs. Wang among them.

When the Malaysian members met the Fengyuan members, their eyes sparkled and their words of gratitude sounded like a touching piece of music.

Yeh Shu-mei, the first Tzu Chi member in Malaysia, went onto the stage to make a report. Then Mrs. Wang also went up to the stage. She first apologized for not having received any formal education and for only being able to speak Taiwanese. She spoke to those Malaysian members in her usual simple manner.

"I am from Fengyuan. When I heard that you were visiting our town, I made the effort to come and greet you so you could also see me. The money that you worked so hard to raise overseas has all been used well. Look at this magnificent school!"

Joy filled her heart, and she covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed. Her happy and embarrassed expression made old Mrs. Wang look much younger at that moment.

I have often heard that Mrs. Wang is extremely zealous. For the past twenty years or so, she has never slacked off in collecting donations from foundation members. If a member is not home, she returns two or three times, even with a smile on her face, just to collect $100 (US$3). She was once sick and had to receive IV injections at home. When she heard that someone wanted to make a donation, she immediately removed the needle from her arm and left home to collect the donation. Because of this, some close Tzu Chi friends have nicknamed her "Money Mom."

Mrs. Wang is full of the Tzu Chi spirit and talks constantly about the foundation. Master Cheng Yen wants to help so many people and do so many things, so Mrs. Wang always wants to help raise more money.

Vibrant life energy

On the morning of August 30, 2001, the students of Shihkang Elementary School gathered before the Shihkang town library before moving to their new campus.

Tzu Chi volunteers from central Taiwan formed two lines at the new school gate to welcome the students and the guests. One of the most enthusiastic guests was Mrs. Wang. She was also invited to make a speech.

If you had closed your eyes and listened to her talking, you wouldn't have believed that Mrs. Wang was very old. Her voice was forceful and she spoke clearly. Her down-to-earth way of expression easily brought out a response from the audience. Furthermore, she had a good memory. When she was expressing her gratitude, she was able to name each person from Shihkang for what he or she had done to support Tzu Chi. Even I wouldn't have been able to do that.

Mrs. Wang has not only been a guest or a speaker at groundbreaking ceremonies and opening ceremonies. After the earthquake of September 21, 1999, she journeyed every day within the disaster areas and worked hard with other volunteers under the hot sun. Master Cheng Yen didn't like to see her old mother enduring the hot sun, and she asked her to go home and rest. However, Mrs. Wang just replied that she was willing to do what she was doing and happy to receive the results (a favorite Tzu Chi slogan). She never lags behind other people in doing charity work. She really does her duty as a Tzu Chi commissioner.

It is quite extraordinary for someone close to 90 years old to have such vibrant life energy, but it is not so surprising. She is like all other Tzu Chi people: the more they give, the more they gain; the more they give, the happier they are; and the more they do, the healthier and younger they become.

Mrs. Wang once heard that an uncle of commissioner Chang Yun-lan, who was Master Cheng Yen's friend before she became a nun, was hospitalized in the Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital for prostate cancer. She said she had to visit him.

There was a problem: she didn't even know his name or the ward number in which he was staying. Although the nurses were quite helpful, it was still hard to find this person without knowing his name. Nevertheless, it was not a problem for Mrs. Wang. She went and looked in each ward, and she finally found him--Mr. Chan.

Mrs. Wang said happily, "If your heart is there, you will be able to complete it. If you are attentive, you will find it!"

Mrs. Wang told Mr. Chan that she was Master Cheng Yen's mother. She hoped that he would listen to the doctor's instructions and that he wouldn't slack off with his treatments. If he was lazy, he wouldn't be able to recover completely.

When Mrs. Wang found out that Mr. Chan was 75 years old, she encouraged him by saying that he was still young and that he could recover quickly if he did not worry too much. As long as he was healthy, he could go anywhere he wanted and no one could stop him.

This incident demonstrated to me that Mrs. Wang looked dearly upon friendship and that she finished her work no matter what.

That precious photograph

On March 16, 2002, Master Cheng Yen went to inspect the Tzu Chi Tantzu construction site in central Taiwan. Before listening to the reports from the architects, she first visited her mother's new home.

Mrs. Wang used to live in Fengyuan, but the Master felt that the city had too many cars and too much air pollution, and she hoped her mother could move to Tantzu instead. Therefore, last February Mrs. Wang moved to a new home on a mountainside with her son and daughter-in-law.

There were tables and an upholstered rattan bench, all marked by passing time. This old furniture had been used in the Abode of Still Thoughts for more than thirty years. Mrs. Wang likes to sit in the huge armchair in which the Master used to sit and talk to visitors.

Mrs. Wang always shakes hands or hugs Tzu Chi people who come to visit her from Taiwan or abroad, but she is rather conservative in expressing her affection to Master Cheng Yen. The Master still calls Mrs. Wang, "Mom," but Mrs. Wang calls the Master, "Master."

Chu Yi-te, a Tzu Chi volunteer, once told me that many Tzu Chi volunteers liked the Master's mother very much and liked to joke with her. He once asked Mrs. Wang whether she wanted to hold the Master's hand. She replied that she had hardly ever held the Master's hands since she was little. Chu then told her that he would create an opportunity for her to hold the Master's hand. Mrs. Wang simply replied, "No way!"

Chu laughed as he talked about this and continued: "There's a photo in her living room of her standing outside the door and the Master inside the door, and they are looking at each other. Master's Mom really treasures this picture a lot!"

After the Master and the others had left, I took a look at this picture on the wall. Mrs. Wang noticed it and told me enthusiastically that the picture had been taken at the main door of the Tzu Chi Taichung branch office. Someone was standing next to her, but she trimmed the picture so that only she and the Master were in the picture.

I asked Mrs. Wang curiously, "What were you and the Master talking about in the picture?"

An old woman is sometimes like a young girl. She laughed and covered her mouth with her hand and said, "It was nothing! The Master asked me whether I had brought a sweater with me because it was cold. I told her that I had and that she need not worry about it."

I asked her to hold the picture for me while I took a picture of her. Through the camera lens, she appeared both happy and embarrassed. It reminded me of the scene when the Master had just arrived to see her.

Mrs. Wang was delighted that the Master had come to see her new home, but she complained with knitted brows that she preferred Fengyuan. However, she always listened to what the Master said!

"If the Master tells me to go somewhere, I will, even if it means going to Afghanistan to help the needy!"

That was the first time that I had seen Mrs. Wang acting like a darling child before her own daughter. I had to write it down.

Sweetness comes at the end

Mrs. Wang was born in Taoyuan in northern Taiwan in 1916. The times were difficult in Taiwan. When she was six she had to pasture cattle, and she wove straw hats in her spare time. She could weave three hundred hats in one month, which would bring her NT$3.50 (US$0.08). If she wove the hats better, she could take in NT$5.

When she was seven, she begged her father to let her go to school. However, her father made a living by pushing coal carts, and he didn't have money to send her to school. Instead, he decided to send her to a rich family to raise as their foster daughter.

The family sold their young girl, who liked to study, to a rich family for NT$200 (US$5). However, they didn't know that instead of going to school, their young daughter would be treated like a slave. She slept with the chickens and looked after her foster father's children. She also had to gather firewood in the mountains. The foster father beat her so often that her head had many bumps.

As Mrs. Wang was talking about this, she would often stop every few sentences, wave both hands, and say, "I won't talk about it anymore!" She seemed to be trying to erase the horrible memories. But after a short while, she would continue, "It's okay. Although I was beaten, I still lived to be this old!"

Her eyes turned red and she said, "As the saying goes, 'No pain, no gain.' I'm very happy now. I suffered a lot when I was little, but so many people are nice to me now. I'm so grateful, I'm so grateful!"

For some people, painful memories from their childhood can turn into wounds they carry for the rest of their lives, but the suffering that Mrs. Wang had endured disciplined her and gave her a strong zeal for life. It has guided her through many tsunamis in life.

After she had stayed more than a year with her foster parents, her natural parents finally learned about her mistreatment and they brought her back home. Although her home was poor, at least she could live peacefully then.

The money earned from making straw hats was not very good. With her mother's help, Mrs. Wang learned to sew and embroider to help supplement the family's income. When she turned sixteen years old, she went with neighbors to work in a factory.

When she was twenty, she was married to Wang Tien-sung, who was seven years older than her and whose family was only moderately well off. Because of Mrs. Wang's poor health, she suffered several miscarriages. After much discussion, the couple asked Wang's older brother if they could adopt his newborn daughter, Chin-yun.

Chin-yun, born in 1937, later became Master Cheng Yen.

Mrs. Wang had a very old photo album that she never showed to other people. After my constant urging, she finally told her daughter-in-law to bring it out.

One photograph was taken in a studio. It showed a young woman who was dressed like a man and a young girl in a Japanese kimono standing before an oil painting backdrop of a beach. The two people were Mrs. Wang and the Master sixty years ago.

In the picture, Mrs. Wang looked heroic and straightforward. Chin-yun looked rather calm, poised, and smart. She seemed to possess qualities no other children had.

When Chin-yun was six years old, Mrs. Wang finally had her first child, a boy. Later, Mrs. Wang had a total of four boys and two girls, including Chin-yun.

When Chin-yun was young, she always observed quietly and listened attentively. When she was five years old, she had measles and a fever that reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), but she still lay in bed quietly without crying. No matter how impatient Mrs. Wang was at the moment, she could always calm down when she faced her daughter.

Wang Tien-sung had a bad temper, but he would never let it out on Chin-yun. When she started going to school, he would carry her on his back to school. She only walked when she came home from school with other students.

Tien-sung was a laborer at the time and could only provide sweet potatoes and some simple dishes for meals. Mrs. Wang also had to work by gathering firewood. It was fortunate that Chin-yun was mature enough that she could follow her grandmother and Mrs. Wang in doing housework and looking after her siblings.

I sensed that Mrs. Wang has a special feeling whenever she talks about the Master. It is a feeling of love for a daughter and respect for a Buddhist nun. It is also a feeling of submission and awe for someone who is wise, benevolent, and courageous. It certainly includes pride and happiness for being a great person's mother!

Rewriting a family's fate

In 1946, a friend of the family who owned a theater planned to retire and he wanted Wang to buy the theater from him.

After Wang took over the theater, the whole family moved to Fengyuan. Business improved, and Wang took over seven other theaters in other cities.

Mrs. Wang said that Chin-yun was like her father: both of them easily trusted people around them. When the young girl worked at the theater, she simply took the money the employees had received from the customers and put it into the drawer without even carefully looking at it.

Nevertheless, the theater business ate away at Tien-sung's health. In 1960, he suddenly died from a stroke. He was only fifty-one years old.

The pillar of the family had suddenly fallen! The lives of Mrs. Wang and her children were rewritten forever. Chin-yun, who had been very close to her mother, suddenly decided to leave home to become a nun. All the other children were young and needed Mrs. Wang. Being illiterate and not knowing much about business, she had to shoulder life's burdens by herself.

When Chin-yun became a nun, Mrs. Wang lost a dear daughter and a good assistant in business and life. However, the vast majority of the suffering people in Taiwan gained a compassionate, real-life bodhisattva.

The Tzu Chi Foundation was established in 1966 in tiny Puming Temple, behind a police station in Chiamin Village, eastern Taiwan. The place was really small. The nuns manufactured goods to make their living, did their daily business, and distributed relief items to the poor. They also held a Buddhist ceremony on the twenty-fourth day of every month in the lunar calendar. The ceremony always drew lots of participants.

In 1967, Mrs. Wang bought a parcel of farmland, 1.49 hectares located next to Puming Temple, for NT$295,000 (US$7,400) so that the Master could build an abode. The Tzu Chi that we know today started there.

Because of this, Mrs. Wang is the mother of both Master Cheng Yen and Tzu Chi.

A four-member team

On March 17, 2002, I went with two other volunteers, Chen Jui-tun and Lin Ju-fen, to visit Mrs. Wang.

When we entered Mrs. Wang's living room, she was talking on the phone. We could hear that she was very upset. Then she started crying and she wiped her face with a handkerchief. When we listened carefully, we found out that the father of a Tzu Chi commissioner close to Mrs. Wang had fallen ill and had been taken to the hospital, but Mrs. Wang was angry that she hadnt been notified. If we hadn't seen this with our own eyes, we wouldn't have believed that Mrs. Wang felt so deeply for her friends.

Then I recalled what other people had said about Mrs. Wang. Chen Li-fei, who frequently drives Mrs. Wang around, told me that she is a perfectionist--she won't stop until something is perfect. When her kidneys were affected with a virus in 1997, it caused extreme pain at night. However, she still went to collect donations despite the pain. She even donated the money she had saved for her funeral to Tzu Chi.

Chang Yun-lan, who has known Mrs. Wang for seventeen years, said that the Master's Mom is quite punctual in attending meetings at the Tzu Chi Taichung branch office. Thus, other commissioners don't dare to slack off.

Three other friends later visited Mrs. Wang: Huang Chen-mei, Liao Ping-nan, and his wife, Tsai Yu-hsiu. Huang was a frequent customer at Mrs. Wang's theater and a close friend. Liao used to own a beauty parlor that Mrs. Wang frequently visited to have her hair trimmed and washed. After Mrs. Wang joined Tzu Chi, she also brought these good friends into Tzu Chi.

In the early days, Mrs. Wang, Huang, Liao, and another volunteer, Kan Wen-cheng, formed a four-member team to collect donations and to visit the needy. Each time, two motorcycles would carry the four of them to collect donations and to deliver goods to needy people. No matter where they had to go, the four of them would be able to complete their jobs.

Huang feels that Mrs. Wang is more capable than a man. The four of them had to work in the daytime, so they usually did their volunteer work on the weekends. If Mrs. Wang left the house, they would follow her. During those days, the four of them were quite straight and honest, so they never thought of bringing food when they left for their duties. If they were hungry, they simply found a food stand by the street and ate. If they went to remote places and couldn't find any food stands or restaurants, they would have to endure the hunger.

Huang recalled a time some thirty years ago when she had gone to the Abode of Still Thoughts with Mrs. Wang. Master Cheng Yen and her disciples wouldn't accept any offerings from lay people. Instead, they worked in the fields to raise their own food. Still, they had problems feeding themselves. Mrs. Wang loved the Master very much, so she would bring bags of rice to the Abode. She would first take the rice secretly to the kitchen and then visit the Master.

Mrs. Wang recalled, "As soon as the Master found out what I was doing, she told us to set aside the amount that we lay people wanted to eat at the Abode and to take the rest home!"

Mrs. Wang is heartbroken whenever she recalls this event. She said that the Abode was once damaged by a typhoon but that the Master still refused to accept money from her to repair it.

It was very daring of Mrs. Wang to take goods secretly to the Abode. Several times, she took a taxi filled with daily commodities on bumpy country roads.

When Mrs. Wang started bringing goods to the Abode, she took the bus because it was cheaper. When the bus ran into fallen rocks and the passengers needed to transfer to other buses to reach their destinations, they would help her unload the commodities. Sometimes more than one bus would be needed to carry the goods. If so, she would inform all the bus drivers to stop at one specific place without a bus stop sign and to place the commodities in a store there. She would then try to bring them to the Abode.

Mom is also Dad

Wang Ching-pin is Mrs. Wang's youngest son. When asked about how he felt about his mother, he pondered for a while and replied, "It's hard to describe my mom. People say that a mother can shoulder the duties of a father, but I say my mom is indeed my father."

Mrs. Wang is used to doing business, so she has a man's manners in her way of doing things. Ching-pin felt that his oldest sister, the Master, who had raised him since he was a child, was more like a mother to him. Whenever his parents became angry over something he did, the Master would say to them that she should be punished instead and would kneel down for a long time as her punishment.

Ching-pin said that after his father died and his sister left home to become a nun, his mother was often cheated because she was illiterate. Later, the theater business changed hands and the family owed other people lots of money. However, Mrs. Wang never told these things to the children because she hoped they could grow up in a good family.

Ching-pin said that when times were bad, his mother would go to the streets to sell soap. She often fainted because of her bad stomach, but the children never even knew about that. He remembered that there was a long period of time when he hadn't gone to the market with his mother. One day, he had rice porridge with nothing but salt. From that, he realized that the family was in a very bad situation. However, his mother still remained strong.

There was a long period of time when Mrs. Wang had to learn and ask for help from other people. She was rejected by many as well. But finally she repaid all the debts.

Jui-hung was married to Ching-pin in 1975. She feels that her mother-in-law is strict, reasonable, righteous, and clear about who does right or wrong. Mrs. Wang is in charge of everything in the house. An older Taiwanese like Mrs. Wang never talks openly about her love to the younger generation. However, if everyone in the family pays attention to the things she does, they can come to know her true feelings.

Jui-hung also admires her mother-in-law's memory and excellent mental arithmetic skills. With these, Mrs. Wang knows who donates how much money to the foundation each month and the total amount that the person has donated.

Mrs. Wang never received any formal education, but she can read newspapers and point out other people's mistakes in using words. However, she is not good at writing--she can only write her name. I asked her how she had learned to write her name, and she raised her voice in reply: "In the past, I always asked other commissioners to sign in for me when I went to meetings. But then the Master said that my attendance couldn't be counted because other people had signed my name! So all my attendance was wasted! I had to learn to write my name."

Ching-pin said that her mother lives a very simple life and follows the beauty of Chinese tradition. What touches him the most is that his mother donates every hard-earned penny to Tzu Chi. He will surely follow her footsteps in support of Tzu Chi and the family.

A compassionate mind

Besides the Master and Ching-pin, Mrs. Wang has four other children: Ching-chih, whom she adopted, Ching-feng, Ching-yuan, and Chin-chu. However, the death of Ching-feng hurt Mrs. Wang's heart the most deeply.

Ching-feng had meningitis when he was a child, so he should have been excused from his military duty. But in the end, he was still drafted to serve in the military. After just one month and four days, the military reported that he had died from his illness.

When Mrs. Wang saw the corpse, she discovered that Ching-feng's skull was fractured and his arms and spinal cord were broken. It was obviously manslaughter! The people from her village wanted to rent a bus and accompany her to the military to demand justice.

Mrs. Wang phoned the Master and cried for a long time. The Master told her that a dead man could not be brought back to life and asked her to be strong. She also told her to just accept the military's explanation. A person would die anyway--a man could just as well die from choking as from being beaten to death.

Mrs. Wang still remembers clearly that the Master's logic and rational remarks calmed her down. The Master said to her, "Stop pursuing how he died. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the person who killed him. If he were executed, his parents would also be heartbroken. We must do unto others what we want others to do unto us." Therefore, Mrs. Wang asked the village people to go home, and Ching-pin stayed with her to take care of funeral arrangements.

The event happened thirty-two years ago, but Mrs. Wang still cries whenever she recalls it. Nevertheless, she always tells others whose friends or loved ones have been killed about her own experience and about being forgiving and looking into the future. They must not punish themselves for the mistakes of others and they should always do the right thing.

No matter how you look at this event, you have to admit that Mrs. Wang and the Master have true wisdom and broad compassion.

An extraordinary woman

On April 14, 2002, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Tzu Chi Taichung complex was officially held. When I saw so many people rejoicing at the event, I recalled it was Mrs. Wang who had given the most for the construction of the building complex.

On April 6, a week earlier, a short speech given by Mrs. Wang to hundreds of visiting Tzu Chi medical volunteers and commissioner-trainees had raised NT$150,000 (US$4,300) for cement. Raising money to purchase cement has now become her favorite activity. Indeed, she does her best whenever she is needed for any Tzu Chi mission.

I remember that Mrs. Wang once made a speech to several younger Tzu Chi members under some trees. It was like a mother reminding a group of young children about things to be aware of.

When I was about to leave the complex, I went to say good-bye to her. I found her immediately, laughing happily with one hand covering her mouth.

At that moment, I saw the Master's resemblance in her: the Master always covers her mouth whenever she laughs heartily. I remember the Master once talked about filial piety: "Ancient sages regarded filial piety as the root of all things, the Buddhist sutras regard filial piety as a precept, and all good deeds start from filial piety. People must respect and treat their parents as living buddhas. They should also expand their temporary love for their parents to a kind of eternal pure love to cover all their parents from their previous lives."

Before the Master joined the sangha, she was known as the "filial girl" of Fengyuan. After she became a nun, she expanded her love of her mother to all other beings.

Because of Mrs. Wang's special status as the Master's mother, I constantly reminded myself during the interview that I had to observe her as a senior Tzu Chi commissioner from an ordinary angle.

Even so, I still see a very extraordinary woman and a compassionate bodhisattva who relieves people from their suffering.