She is short and slim, her hair is gray, and her eyes half-blind with cataracts. She cannot drive or speak English. But this 85-year-old woman motivated a group of elite high-tech workers in Silicon Valley to do charity.

Lin Wan Hsiu-chin, eighty-six years old, lives in San Jose, California. People call her "Amah" ("Grandma," a polite way of addressing elderly Taiwanese women). She has lived in the United States for some twenty years. Regardless of her poor heart condition, she always flies to Taiwan whenever Tzu Chi needs her.

It takes her more than twenty hours to fly to Taiwan and then back to the States. During the time on board, she chants "Amitabha" and counts her Buddhist beads because that makes time pass more quickly.

However, the last time she returned to Taiwan, Amah was not as vigorous as before. She felt much more tired. "Exhausted as I was, a few moments of good rest was enough to revive my energy. It was not that difficult to survive a flight of more than ten hours." It made people's hearts ache to hear such words, but Amah laughed and said, "I've used my body for more than eighty years and it has always served me well. I should be grateful."

Amah has seven children. All of them know very well her devotion to Tzu Chi. Although they do not want her to shuttle back and forth between Taiwan and America, they are not hard-hearted enough to stop her.

Riches to rags

Amah was born in Hsintien, northern Taiwan, in 1917. The beloved daughter of a successful tea merchant, she grew up being tenderly doted on in a very comfortable environment. After she got married, she went with her husband and her oldest brother to northeast China on business.

However, the civil war between the Nationalist Army and the Chinese Communist forces broke out. To flee from the fighting, Amah and her family decided to move back to Taiwan. Several times during the journey, she had to beg food from local farmers to feed her children. It was hard for people to believe that the daughter of a rich family could suddenly become a miserable beggar. Facing the abrupt change in her fortunes, she did not complain; she just bore her fate with perseverance and submission.

Things did not change for the better after Amah and her family came back to Taiwan. The goods they had purchased in mainland China were stolen. Then their good friend absconded with a loan for which they had served as guarantor, nearly causing their house to be confiscated by the government. It was a difficult task to repay the debt. Optimistic by nature, Amah did not complain.

Misfortunes never come alone. When she and her family were about to clear the debt, a fire that broke out in a neighbor's house spread to their home. Soon afterwards, their contingency fund was stolen. The pressure of raising three boys and four girls weighed heavily on Amah and her husband.

For the sake of her children, she raised chickens and grew vegetables, and even went to the market to barter with the peddlers. She also opened a small shop selling stationery and tea. Through all kinds of hardship, she brought up her seven children.

One morning when she was fifty-three years old, Amah returned home with her husband after getting some outdoor exercise. He said he wanted to take a nap--no one could have known that he would never wake up. Amah used to be strong, but this time she was not able to bear the blow. She cried all day long.

To shift her attention from the pain of losing her husband, her daughter encouraged her to do social work. So Amah began to serve in orphanages and help feed disabled children. Six years later, she went to the National Taiwan University Hospital to fold gauze and make cotton-tipped applicator sticks. It was not until 1977, when she was persuaded by her children to move to the United States, that she ended her volunteer work in Taiwan.

"Barbarian"

In 1984, when Amah returned to Taiwan for a visit, some friends invited her to Hualien. She thought they would take her to the famous marble canyons in Taroko Gorge, but instead they took her to the Abode of Still Thoughts, the home of Master Cheng Yen. That year, Tzu Chi was building its first general hospital and was greatly in need of people's help and support.

Amah and her friends spent the night at the Abode. Master Cheng Yen asked her whether she could help promote the Tzu Chi charity missions in the United States. "I'm such a 'barbarian,'" she answered. "How can I help promote Tzu Chi on U.S. soil?"

According to Taiwanese tradition, an auspicious day must be selected to hold a wedding, a funeral, or a festival. But Amah never followed that tradition when she organized her daughters' weddings or when she arranged for her husband's bones to be collected from his grave (a local custom). Her unconventional behavior incurred criticism from her relatives and friends, and some of them even called her "barbarian."

After hearing what Amah said, Master Cheng Yen replied, "I like the way you do it." Amah felt great to be understood and approved--what the Master said made a formidable impression on her.

The Master gave Amah two donation rosters (to record the names of donors and the amounts of money they donate)--one for raising money for the poor, the other for the hospital. She also gave her the phone number of Li Ching-nien, the first U.S. Tzu Chi commissioner, who lived in California.

After Amah returned to the States, the first thing she did was contact Ching-nien. One weekend, Ching-nien and her husband came to visit Amah. They had a wonderful conversation. At the age of sixty-seven, Amah decided to solicit contributions to help build the Tzu Chi hospital.

Amah's first project

In order to introduce Tzu Chi to Chinese people in America, Amah started to organize tea parties. The first one was held in a church. Amah, Ching-nien, and some other guests all gave speeches. As plain as the presentation was, it attracted nearly seventy people. Amah felt very happy about the outcome.

The second tea party was held in a park where there were chairs, slides, and swings for people to sit on. Because it was a Sunday, the park was filled with people.

The setting of the party was simple, but the atmosphere was joyful and warm. A pair of scrolls hung on the trees read, "A field of blessings awaits cultivation by all benevolent people in the world; ten thousand lotus hearts of compassion create the world of Tzu Chi." Paper lotus flowers swayed gently in the wind.

Amah recalls that every time she organized a Tzu Chi tea party, she always tossed and turned at night because she worried that only a few people would show up. But when the number of people exceeded what she had expected, she would become too excited to fall asleep!

In 1987, Amah returned to the Abode of Still Thoughts to participate in a Buddhist retreat. At the Abode, she learned that the nuns there practiced the conviction of "No work, no meal." Touched by their ascetic spirit, Amah decided to follow their example, and she made a vow: "I will not eat anything on any day when I do not do anything for Tzu Chi." She also asked Master Cheng Yen to accept her as a disciple. The Master gave her the Buddhist name Tzu Fan ("paragon of compassion"). Thus she became the second Tzu Chi commissioner in the United States.

What Amah did afterwards proved that she was indeed worthy of the name the Master had given her. She was an excellent example for the Tzu Chi volunteers in northern California. Her sons and daughters lived in different cities in the United States. Whenever she visited them, she always introduced Tzu Chi to the local people. Today, the number of Tzu Chi members in northern California has reached nearly 10,000.

In 1989, a Taiwanese student studying in the United States fell into a coma because of lupus. Upon hearing the news, the student's father hurried to his side. They did not have any friends or relatives in the country, so the father had no idea what to do. When Amah and her friends heard about their situation, they brought breakfast to them every day and tried to cheer them up.

A month later the son passed away, having accumulated a huge medical bill of several hundred thousand dollars. In addition to placing ads in the newspapers to solicit donations, Amah helped apply for social welfare. If it weren't for her, it would have been difficult to resolve the family's predicament.

That was the story of Amah's first project. Every time she recalls the case, she always feels sad. "The boy came to America to study, but the result was that his father returned to Taiwan with his ashes..." she sighed.

Amah accompanied the sad father to the airport. On the way, she could not stop thinking about how impermanent life was.

In the same year, a tremendous earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hit San Francisco. "Help the victims as much as you can," instructed Master Cheng Yen. "If you don't have enough money, we will remit it to you from Taiwan." Under the Master's directions, Amah and several other Tzu Chi volunteers who lived near the epicenter worked with City Team, a relief organization in San Jose, to render help to the victims.

The earthquake made many roads impassable, and Amah was forced to make several detours to reach the disaster areas. Despite the dreadful scenes of devastation, Amah insisted on going to the hardest-hit areas to survey the conditions.

By soliciting contributions in the newspapers, Amah raised more than US$2,000 and household commodities that filled twenty cars. She sent all the money and supplies to City Team, which then distributed them to victims.

Amah said that at that time she was still unable to comprehend the principles that overseas Tzu Chi people had to abide by: "Be self-reliant and obtain whatever you need from local sources," and "Raise donations locally and spend the money locally." She only knew she should make the best of whatever donations she had raised.

After the earthquake, northern California was struck by other natural disasters. From participating in the relief efforts, Amah came to a better understanding of the Tzu Chi principles for relief work. She also realized that she should clean, fold, and sort out the clothes donated by people before distributing them to victims.

Precious Tzu Chi publications

Many people wonder how Amah, who cannot speak English or drive a car, can attract so many people in high-tech Silicon Valley to join Tzu Chi.

Tzu Chi volunteer Kuo Hua said that thirteen years ago, when she first met Amah, the old volunteer kept telling her about Tzu Chi, about the hospital it was building, and about Master Cheng Yen. Although Hua did not quite understand Amah's Taiwanese dialect, she knew Amah was talking about "something great."

Therefore, she and three other volunteers began to help Amah collect monthly donations from her members. They had never seen the Master, so they could only memorize the Tzu Chi stories Amah told them and then relate them to the members.

Kuo Hua said many of the Tzu Chi members at that time were poor Taiwanese students studying in the States. In order to follow in the footsteps of Master Cheng Yen, who asked her early followers to save fifty cents in bamboo piggy banks every day, she and several other volunteers cut slits in peanut butter cans and gave them to the members. "It's all right if you don't have money," they told the members. "You can still help others as long as you have the will to do so. You can do charity by putting a little small change in the can every day." In this painstaking way, they managed to raise enough money to buy ten sickbeds for the Hualien Tzu Chi General Hospital.

When she first came to the United States, Li Ching-nien used to send the Tzu Chi Monthly magazine to Amah every month. "I'd lend the magazines to one member at a time and then take them back and lend them to another," said Amah. When her children came to see her, they also took turns reading the magazine.

Liu Wei-cheng, one of Amah's members, revealed that he knew nothing of the compassionate intentions behind the Master's decision to deliver aid to mainland China until he read the magazine Amah lent him.

Another member, Chen Chun-shan, remembered that once she received a Tzu Chi newspaper which had passed through many hands. When it came to her, she found that it had been published two years before. "The newspaper was dirty with oil and rice stains." Everything was difficult at the start. With the help of these dog-eared publications and by word of mouth, Tzu Chi volunteers were able to launch the Tzu Chi missions in northern California.

All of Amah's members respect her because she is mindful of her duties and dependable. Similarly, Amah treats them like her own children and grandchildren.

"Amah cannot speak English, but she is the most popular volunteer at nursing homes," said Liu Wei-cheng. "The elderly patients like to embrace her and call her 'mama.'" Kuo Hua said that when delivering relief items to victims, Amah always reminded them, "Tzu Chi doesn't just give. We offer good things and care for the needy with sincerity. Be sure to make the most of every penny that people have donated."

Through her words and actions, high-tech workers in Silicon Valley saw how special Tzu Chi was, and thus they all learned to do charity with a professional attitude.

Amah's wisdom

Amah is always vigorous and busy in America, and she never looks tired. She returned to the Abode in 1997 and stayed there for a short period of time. In the beginning, there was nothing she could do because most of the work there required heavy manual labor. She was eighty-one years old then. Even sorting vegetables was too hard a job for her, let alone doing hard labor. Furthermore, she was half-blind with cataracts, so the only thing she could do was sit on a chair and wrap up candles made by the nuns. But she often felt tired after sitting for a while.

After learning of Amah's situation, the Master asked her to chat with elderly patients at the Tzu Chi General Hospital. With this assignment, Amah regained her vigor.

Wise and friendly, she is always a positive influence on others. Once she went with several Tzu Chi Hospital volunteers to visit an old aboriginal woman who could only speak her own dialect and Japanese [the Japanese ruled the island from 1895 to 1945]. The volunteers and the old woman looked at one another, not knowing how to communicate. But Amah, who was standing to one side, suddenly started to sing a Japanese song and dance. She had learned the song and dance when she was a five-year-old kindergartner.

Her childlike dancing made everyone in the room laugh. The aboriginal woman started to sing along and clap time with her hands as if she had found a bosom friend.

Although her children keep asking her to live with them, Amah insists on living in a senior citizens apartment. Living alone, she can do morning and evening prayers without having to worry that she might disturb other people. During the day, when she has nothing to do, she also likes to stay at home and chant Buddhist sutras. Her life is carefree and unencumbered.

Amah not only has wisdom--she is also thoughtful and considerate. When her children invite her to go out for a meal, she never turns them down, even though she is tired from doing charity work. "In this way, I can keep my children from worrying about me," she explains.

She never complains when she falls ill; instead she always tells others that she is feeling "chipper." "Old people shouldn't whine and whimper and cause their family to worry about them."

She hopes to donate her body for medical research after she passes away. If her family opposes her wish, she will not insist, but she still hopes that her body can be cremated and the ashes spread on the ocean with Tzu Chi members chanting "Amitabha" for her. In this way, even though she is dead, her ashes can still be nutrients for the fish.

Amah said she was already sixty-seven years old when she joined Tzu Chi. Eighteen years have passed in a flash. Looking back on the road she has walked, she feels happy and blessed that she can serve others and do things for society.

*Amah passed away on March 6, 2003.