"Wang Shou-jung and his wife, Yu-chen, are two senior Tzu Chi volunteers who have helped sow the seeds of Tzu Chi in Yunlin and Chiayi [central Taiwan]. Wang's parents, Tien-ting and Yu-nu, were the earliest Tzu Chi commissioners in Taitung [eastern Taiwan]. They both worked in education before they retired; one of them was a principal, and the other a teacher. Yu-chen is also an elementary school principal."

I looked at the couple before me. They shared a lot of similarities in their looks and in the way they carried themselves. Competent, confident, kind, and easy-going--these were the qualities I saw in them.

It was a pleasant experience talking to Yu-chen because she was good at grasping key points and expressing herself. You could feel her excellence and sincerity after talking to her for only a short time.

Born in Hsinkang, Chiayi, Yu-chen is 45 years old. A graduate of Taitung Teachers' College, she married Shou-jung in 1979. After serving at two other elementary schools, she is now the principal of Putzu Elementary.

Shou-jung, 49, graduated from the Taipei College of Technology [now the National Taipei University of Technology] and is an employee of Chunghwa Telecom Company. Working with his wife, he has spread the Tzu Chi spirit of Great Love to many people.

After I told Yu-chen of my intention to interview her and her husband, she said to me, "Actually, you should interview my mother-in-law first, because she was the one who introduced us all to Tzu Chi."

Yu-chen's mother-in-law, Yu-nu, is the most senior Tzu Chi volunteer in Taitung. Born in 1928, she is also one of the few Tzu Chi volunteers who saw what Master Cheng Yen was like before she shaved her head and became a nun. Because of her influence, her husband, son, and daughter-in-law all became Tzu Chi volunteers.

The first step

This is how the story began. More than 40 years ago, Yu-nu, a devout Buddhist, often visited a Buddhist club in Taitung to listen to lectures about Buddhism. One of the dharma masters who delivered speeches there was called Master Hsiu Tao. The master had a female lay disciple by her side whom she would sometimes ask to give talks about Buddhism. Yu-nu was very interested in the disciple, who wore two long braids, because she had heard that the disciple had run away from her home to become a nun and had gone to many places and experienced many things.

Ten years later in 1971, Yu-nu's good friend, Li Shih, came to her home to see her. Without saying anything, Li took out a roster and placed it on the table. When Yu-nu asked her what it was, Li told her that it was a roster used to record sums of donations for a Buddhist nun called Master Cheng Yen who had committed herself to helping the sick and the poor in Hualien, eastern Taiwan.

Yu-nu thought it was a good thing to help the needy, so she decided to pitch in to help the Buddhist nun raise money. It was hard for her to take the first step, however. Although she was already 40 years old then and had been a teacher for many years, she was shy by nature and found it very hard to ask others to make donations.

"I was timid. Every day I took my donation roster with me to the school where I taught, but I just couldn't open my mouth to talk to my colleagues about it. Back then, nobody knew about Tzu Chi." She knew she must find a way to bring up the subject. Because she knew the school principal quite well, she decided to start with him. One day during recess, she went to him and said, "What do you think about learning from the Boy Scouts and doing a good deed every day? We can each donate a dollar a day to help those who are too poor to see doctors." Unexpectedly, the principal responded with enthusiasm, "Sure!"

The "Sure!" greatly bolstered Yu-nu's courage. She went to other coworkers to solicit contributions. Most of them agreed to sign up for the good cause. Every month on payday, they would give her NT$30 [US$0.75]. From then on, Yu-nu also began to introduce Tzu Chi to students' parents.

Several months later, she and Li Shih went to Hualien to visit the Abode of Still Thoughts, where Master Cheng Yen lived. Upon arrival, she saw several nuns working under the hot sun. Li told her that the one wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and threshing beans was Master Cheng Yen. Yu-nu walked closer to that nun and found to her surprise that the Master, covered in perspiration, was the female lay disciple with two long braids whom she had met many years ago at the Buddhist club in Taitung!

After she went back to Taitung, Yu-nu started visiting the poor to find more people that Tzu Chi could help. She would mail the information she collected back to Hualien, and then after three or four days Master Cheng Yen would come to Taitung to call on the new care recipients herself. There was a room in Yu-nu's home especially prepared for the Master, who always stayed there whenever she went to Taitung.

Wang Tien-ting

Yu-nu's enthusiasm about Tzu Chi made Tien-ting, her husband, curious about the foundation. He couldn't understand why his wife was so fascinated by Tzu Chi, so whenever Master Cheng Yen came to Taitung to visit care recipients, he also tagged along in order to learn more about the foundation.

One time, the volunteers who accompanied the Master when she visited care recipients in Taitung were all elderly women. Whenever these elderly women saw used bottles on the ground, they would pick them up and wrap them in their clothes [they picked up the bottles not only because they wanted to keep the environment clean but also because the bottles could be sold to raise money for the needy]. Tien-ting, who was a school principal, thought to himself: we education workers have always taught our children to do good things, yet we only talk about it instead of really doing it. But look at these Tzu Chi volunteers. They actually perform good deeds in their daily lives!

Another time, he saw how compassionate the Master was. A care recipient who had heart problems asked the Master whether she had an expensive heart medicine called "Save Your Heart." Although the Master said that she didn't, she did not forget about the matter. Several days later, a disciple of the Master's happened to go to Hualien to give the Master, who also suffered from angina pectoris, this kind of medicine. The Master immediately sent the medicine to Tien-ting and asked him to deliver it to the care recipient.

Tien-ting was touched. "The Master needed the medicine herself, but instead of taking it, she sent it to the aid recipient. Wasn't that really something?"

Inspired by the Great Love he saw in the Master, Tien-ting became her follower. On the day he became a Tzu Chi commissioner, the Master said to him, "Since you are a school principal, you will be the head of the Taitung area and take care of all matters related to Tzu Chi in the area."

He put all of his energy to work for Tzu Chi. Utilizing his administrative experience as a school principal, he divided the Tzu Chi commissioners in Taitung into groups in charge of publicity, activities, free clinics, evaluations, general services, accounting, etc. Good at organizing, he greatly helped in promoting Tzu Chi in Taitung.

Typhoon Nora

Two years after Tien-ting became a Tzu Chi volunteer, he and Yu-nu participated in Typhoon Nora relief operations.

Typhoon Nora, which smashed into Taiwan on October 9, 1973, was the most severe natural disaster to hit Taitung in nearly three decades. Tien-ting was responsible for going to the disaster area to ascertain the extent of the damage and to find out the number of victims in need of help. Based on his findings, Tzu Chi decided to help more than 580 families, totaling over 2,000 victims.

The relief distributions were held on December 25 and 26. Tien-ting made a list of the families to receive help from Tzu Chi and then asked teachers at his school to write down on postcards the number of people in each family and the relief supplies and money each family could receive. Then the cards were sent to the families. On the days the distributions were to be held, he hired a bus to pick up those who had received the cards and to take them to Chungcheng Hall, the distribution site.

That was the first time Tzu Chi conducted a large-scale relief operation. Tzu Chi volunteers learned a lot from the experience. Making good use of what they learned, they were later able to carry out relief work and to mobilize volunteers more efficiently whenever a disaster occurred.

Today, people often praise Tzu Chi for its efficiency and mobilization power. But many still do not know that as early as 30 years ago, when the foundation was still small and had few resources available, Tzu Chi volunteers were already using their wisdom and compassion to give timely help to suffering people.

The younger generation

Following in the footsteps of his parents, Tien-ting and Yu-nu, Shou-jung also joined Tzu Chi.

He started to work for Tzu Chi in 1979. At that time, he had just moved from Taitung, where his parents live, to Chiayi to work for Chunghwa Telecom Company. As soon as he moved there, the Master asked him to visit the poor and to carry out charity work for Tzu Chi in Chiayi and Yunlin. "The Master assigned such important work to me not because I was competent, but because she trusted my parents," Shou-jung said.

He still remembers the first care recipient he visited. Along with the Master, he went to the home of an aged man who lived by himself. Although back then there were no Tzu Chi volunteers in Yunlin and Chiayi, the Tzu Chi headquarters in Hualien had been taking care of the old man for some time. The Master explained the whole situation to him and showed him how to give care and help. From the way the Master interacted with the old man, Shou-jung learned that in addition to being humble and selfless, he should be grateful to care recipients for the chance they give him to help them and thus earn spiritual merits.

One time the Master asked him to go to measure the height, arm length, and waist of each care recipient in Yunlin and Chiayi. Although he did not know why, he did as requested and then mailed all the measurements back to Hualien. Just before Chinese New Year, the Abode of Still Thoughts sent Shou-jung a lot of relief items to be delivered to the care recipients. Each family got three large packages containing food, cleaning supplies, and clothes. When the care recipients tried on the clothes they got, they found that the clothes fit perfectly. Even the style and design suited the age of each care recipient.

Shou-jung was very moved. The Master did not know the care recipients personally, but she did not just send any clothes to them. She asked volunteers to take the aid recipients’ measurements and then found the most suitable clothes for them. It showed how thoughtful and considerate the Master was.

When Shou-jung first began to work for Tzu Chi, he and his wife, Yu-chen, were the only volunteers carrying out regular visits to care recipients. In those early years, the two of them had to go everywhere--from the mountains to the seaside--to deliver relief supplies. But they did not think that it was hard work; instead, they felt they learned a lot from it. They drew many life lessons from their visits to aid recipients. Yu-chen remembered that one winter it was bitterly cold. Shou-jung rode a motorcycle to visit some poor people who lived by the sea. When he got back home, his face was all red because of the cold wind. "I immediately prepared some hot food for him. Then I saw him grab the ginger and garlic slices from the table and put them all in his mouth. He said that we could not waste any food at all. Just on that same day, he had visited a care recipient who used to be a wealthy businessman but who now lived on NT$10 [US$0.25] a day.

At that time, Shou-jung was only 27 years old, right in the prime of his life. On his days off from work, he would go out on his motorcycle at 7:00 a.m. to call on the needy, and he would not get home again until 8 or 9:00 p.m. His record was 250 kilometers in a day [a great distance in a small island like Taiwan].

Yu-chen said that when they first got married, she often went out with Shou-jung to visit care recipients, each riding a motorcycle loaded with relief supplies. But after their two daughters were brought into the world, she began to participate less in Tzu Chi activities to spend more time with their children.

She believes that what she is best at is talking about Tzu Chi and Master Cheng Yen to people at her school and in the community. But she would never put off her work at school to do things for Tzu Chi. "The Master said we should never neglect our duties. We should each perform our roles well before we spread the Tzu Chi spirit to our families, workplaces, and communities."

Shou-jung observed that Yu-chen has done some very good community work. "For instance, she organized a women's reading club and a chorus in Tapu Village, and she even persuaded the village head to promote environmental protection and to lead the villagers to do recycling. Sometimes what she does influences a whole community."

Since Shou-jung and Yu-chen started working for Tzu Chi more than 20 years ago, the number of Tzu Chi people in Chiayi has expanded to 195 commissioners and 220 Tzu Cheng Faith Corps members. The couple's efforts are certainly praiseworthy and cannot be neglected. Walking together on the Path of the Bodhisattvas, they support and encourage each other to do good. What an admirable couple they are!

A family of bodhisattvas

On May 3, 2002, Shou-jung and Yu-chen went back to Taitung to visit their parents. I also went there to meet them. Their daughters, Ling-yi and Jen-chun, were also with us.

Although Shou-jung is only 49, he has decided that he will retire in two years from his job at Chunghwa Telecom and move back to Taitung to take care of his parents. "I want to spend more time with my parents after my retirement. My father is 80 years old, and my mother is 76. There is no more time to waste. I don't want to have any regrets in my life."

I asked Shou-jung to talk about the impressions he had of his father when he was a child, and he answered with a laugh, "When I was in elementary school, my father was the principal of another school and he often brought exam papers from his school to test me. Aside from paying close attention to my academic performance, he also emphasized the importance of living an orderly life. Everything had to be put in its specific place. He often said that if a blackout were to ever occur, we should be able to find whatever we needed without any problem."

Every time Ling-yi and Jen-chun come back to Taitung to visit their grandparents, they always worship the Buddha with their grandmother by prostrating themselves before the statue of the Holy One. Ling-yi said to me, "Grandma taught us that making prostrations to the Buddha is not the only way to show our respect to him. By keeping our rooms clean and tidy and living a good life, we are also paying homage to the Buddha."

Ling-yi and Jen-chun are both university students, and they are smart, sweet, and independent. It is easy to see the good influences their parents and grandparents have had on them. Sometimes when Shou-jung goes out to visit care recipients, he also takes them with him. Ling-yi said her father is good at interacting with care recipients. "Father often pats the care recipients on their shoulders to bridge the distance between them. The poor people are originally timid and shy, but they always laugh in the end." Because Shou-jung is often occupied with volunteer work, he seldom takes his family out for pleasure. But Ling-yi and Jen-chun do not complain. "Everyone defines pleasure differently. I think visiting the needy is also a pleasurable thing," said Ling-yi.

Looking at the Wang family, from the older generation to the younger generation, I suddenly thought of what Master Cheng Yen once said: "Those who have love in their hearts and put their kind thoughts into action are true bodhisattvas."

Right in front of me was a whole family of bodhisattvas!