Tzu Chi was founded on the basis of one sentence: "Be committed to Buddhism and all living beings." If you ask me who has had the most influence on me, I will say it was my dharma master.

--Master Cheng Yen

The above sentence was quoted during a significant meeting that took place in 1963 at the Huiri Lecture Hall in Taipei. The purpose of the meeting was to prepare for the precept-granting ceremony which was to be held in February of the same year at Linji Temple in Taipei. Male and female novices would flock to the temple for a 32-day novitiate in order to become full-fledged members of the Buddhist congregation.

A young female novice who had recently shaved off her own hair [this is usually done by one's dharma master] arrived in Taipei the day before the ceremony. She first went to Linji Temple to register for the ceremony, and then she went to the Huiri Lecture Hall. It was there that she first met Master Yin Shun.

Master Yin Shun, popularly called "the Mentor," recalled that he was living in the Huiri Lecture Hall at the time when a nun named Hui Yin first brought the female novice to meet him. They exchanged greetings, and then the young novice went to the bookstore to buy the complete collection of books by Master Tai Xu. Hui Yin told Master Yin Shun that the novice had come to Taipei from Hualien especially to receive her Buddhist precepts in order to become a nun. She continued to explain that before departing from Hualien, the young novice had first shaved off her hair by herself, without formally taking refuge with a Buddhist master. Therefore, it would be impossible for her to attend the ceremony, since all novices were required to have dharma masters. When someone had tried to explain to the novice that she could simply ask any master present at the Linji Temple to accept her as a disciple, she had refused. She did not want to find a mentor so hastily, and so she decided to buy a collection of Master Tai Xu's books and return to Hualien.

However, after she had bought the collection, it started to rain heavily and she couldn't leave. While she was waiting for the downpour to stop, she told Hui Yin that she would very much like to take refugee with the old master, although actually he rarely accepted disciples.

At this point in his story, Master Yin Shun laughed. "I wasn't good at talking, and I didn't know why she had chosen me, but I agreed anyway. I then gave her a Buddhist name, Cheng Yen, and I told her to return to Linji Temple immediately because the registration for the novitiate would be closing very soon."

Master Cheng Yen recalled the same scenario, adding that after she had knelt down to take refugee with Master Yin Shun, the old master had told her that their meeting was a rare chance for both of them. He couldn't talk to her much because the registration time was drawing to a close. But then he told Cheng Yen to bear one phrase in mind: "Be committed to Buddhism and all living beings." "I was shocked," recalled Master Cheng Yen. "It took my master less than a second to utter this short phrase, and yet I have spent the last four decades doing my best to uphold it!"

The Mentor, who had been sitting in a quiet room at the Abode of Still Thoughts throughout the interview, remembered why he had accepted Master Cheng Yen as a disciple: "She had bought the collection of Master Tai Xu's books, so I agreed to accept her. Master Tai Xu wasn't my master, but I still regard him as my teacher. Anyway, worldly events are sometimes beyond our comprehension. None of us can explain the incredible conditions that may directly or indirectly change our lives."

Master Cheng Yen recalled why she had bought the collection. "I had heard that if anyone could read Master Tai Xu's books, it would be like reading the pure essence of the Buddha's philosophy."

So it was to be that a collection of books was the mystical link that connected three generations of teachers and disciples over two different centuries. What an incredible chance!

In 1966, the Mentor was hired to teach at the Chinese Culture College. In the same year, Master Cheng Yen established the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation in eastern Taiwan.

While the Mentor was teaching the Buddha's wisdom at the college as the first-ever Buddhist monk-professor in Taiwan, his disciple, Master Cheng Yen, started her Tzu Chi Foundation with a base of 30 housewives. They helped the poor and the sick, woke up the Great Love in people's hearts, and attracted growing numbers to join the new charity foundation.

Master Cheng Yen once said that her master was devoted in his quest to promote Mahayana Buddhism. Master Yin Shun emphasized not only the principles of Buddhism, but also the importance of putting them into practice. That was the flowing spring that nourished Master Cheng Yen's charitable deeds.

That rainstorm, the collection of books, the Buddhist name, and the old master's succinct instruction--these would combine to create a stream of compassion that would flow throughout the entire Tzu Chi world.　

.......................................................................................................................................

The Origin of Tzu Chi
Compiled by the editorial department

Master Yin Shun was 58 years old and Master Cheng Yen was 26 when they first met at Huiri Lecture Hall. The Mentor's first impression of Master Cheng Yen was that she was skinny, petite, and introverted. After listening to Hui Yin's explanation, the Mentor understood better the background of the novice who had shaved her own head. As he would recall: "She was determined to leave home and become a nun, but she wasn't aware of the rule and so she traveled to Taipei alone. She didn't come to the lecture hall to meet me, but rather to buy Master Tai Xu's books. That was something rare, so I had a good feeling about her from the onset and therefore decided to help her."

When Master Cheng Yen took refuge with Master Yin Shun, she took to heart the instruction that he so easily gave her. "My master wanted me to be committed to Buddhism and all living beings in order to raise the quality of Buddhism. When I first heard his words, I felt completely overwhelmed as Buddhism was not very popular in mainstream society in Taiwan at that time. It was indeed a very difficult mission and a heavy responsibility."

At that time, people regarded Buddhism as being similar to Taoism, little more than superstitious attempts to cultivate supernatural powers. Followers mainly concerned themselves with avoiding bad luck and selfishly gaining personal merit without regard for anyone else. However, Master Cheng Yen believed that the responsibility of Buddhism was to meet the needs of society. The religion would be of no help to anyone if it ignored major social concerns or became abstruse and esoteric. Therefore, the Master focused her thoughts on how she could promote Buddhism in a way that would make it truly popular among the public.

The chance appeared in 1966. The Master had been a nun for three years and was carrying out her spiritual cultivation with five disciples in a tiny wooden hut behind Puming Temple in Hualien. The Mentor was hired to teach at the Chinese Culture College near Taipei, and he wanted Master Cheng Yen to move to Miaoyun Lanruo, a Buddhist school he had set up in Chiayi, southern Taiwan.

Master Cheng Yen recalled the event. "The place where my disciples and I were staying was very crude, and we had no income whatsoever. My kind master wanted us to move to Miaoyun Lanruo because there was a piece of farmland where we could plant crops."

However, a group of housewives did not want Master Cheng Yen to move away from Hualien. They wrote a petition to Master Yin Shun, asking him to postpone the transfer for three years.

As fate would have it, around that time three Catholic nuns came to visit Master Cheng Yen. They shared a wonderful conversation about life and religion, and Master Cheng Yen gained a vital insight. The three nuns agreed that Buddhism was to be held in very high regard and recognized that there were far more Buddhists than Christians in Asia. However, they also pointed out that Buddhists, especially those in Hualien, were not organized in such a way as to help other people.

"I was overwhelmed by the impact of the conversation that I had with those three Catholic nuns. I couldn't eat my lunch. I kept thinking about what I should do to turn the intangible Buddhist spirit into a tangible one."

What sprang forth from this inspirational conversation was the initial idea of Tzu Chi. The Master started to formulate a plan and told her disciples, "Now I want to try something new. If it is successful, I won't leave Hualien..."

The Master decided to set up the Tzu Chi Foundation to help the poor and the sick. The mission started with the 30 housewives who had petitioned to Master Yin Shun.

Support for spirit and action

In an interview with Tzu Chi TV in February 2003, the Mentor recalled his reaction when he heard Master Cheng Yen's initial plan to build a hospital. "Establishing a charity foundation and building a hospital were great deeds, since they would make people respect Buddhism, I highly praised Master Cheng Yen. However, she was still so young, like a little kid, and it wouldn't be easy for her to shoulder such a heavy load. Her goal was enormous and it wasn't going to be easy to make it happen. I believed that it would be better not to start at all than to fail halfway. I told her this before she started her mission in the hope that she would think it through clearly instead of acting on impulse."

Although the Mentor was concerned about Master Cheng Yen, he still showed his support with concrete action.

Tzu Chi had no office in Taipei in the early days, so each month it used the Mentor's Huiri Lecture Hall as a distribution point from which to help needy families. It was held at this same location for 18 years, from 1973 to 1991. Following the construction of the Hualien Tzu Chi Medical Center in 1979, the Mentor continued to show his solid support and encouragement. He often provided monetary donations that he had received as either birthday presents or as offerings from disciples or other people. The Mentor was always the first to respond to Tzu Chi's relief work with donations or public appeals, such as those for the September 21 earthquake relief work, the candlelight vigil following the September 11 suicide attacks in the United States, and the most recent relief work helping tsunami survivors in South Asia. He hoped that if he himself set a good example, his followers would follow suit.

Kind reminder and wise expectation

After the Mentor turned 94, he started spending more time at the Abode of Still Thoughts, where Master Cheng Yen lives. Master Cheng Yen could therefore visit him more easily.

On December 7, 2001, Master Cheng Yen went to the third floor to visit her old mentor. The Abode was preparing 800,000 red envelopes for the attendees of the year-end ceremonies [the Master often gives each of her disciples a red envelope with a little present inside at the end of every year as a token of her appreciation]. Master Cheng Yen and her old master chatted away while folding the red envelopes. Master Yin Shun spoke about Xiashi, his hometown in China: "Xiashi, on the northern bank of the Qiantang River near the East China Sea, produced a lot of salt; even the drinking water was salty. Local people also raised silkworms."

As the hours passed, they sat together and continued to fold red envelopes. Master Ming Sheng handed one more red envelope to the Mentor, but he didn't fold it. He looked at Master Cheng Yen and said, "Take a break, take a break." But Master Cheng Yen kept on folding red envelopes, saying that folding them was a form of exercise and people had to exercise to keep healthy.

She continued, "Master, you should improve your health. When you're better, I'll go to China with you." Master Ming Sheng replied, "We'll all go together."

The Mentor chuckled and sighed. He was fully aware that Master Cheng Yen was always occupied with a heavy workload, and he always reminded her to take care of her health and not to overwork herself. He himself was able to live so long because he was never nervous about anything and instead just focused on doing the best he could. If Master Cheng Yen felt upset over the death of a senior Tzu Chi commissioner, the Mentor reminded her to look beyond it. When Master Cheng Yen lost weight because of her worries over the Tzu Chi missions, he told her to take care of herself in order to do her work better.

The Mentor expected that the altruistic missions undertaken by Tzu Chi would continue forever and manifest the core value of compassion that Buddhism so highly emphasizes.

He also reminded all Tzu Chi people to compassionately engage in charitable activities without taking their own interest into consideration. It would be rather selfish to do good deeds only in the hope of cultivating merits and blessings for oneself. One had to keep oneself pure both physically and psychologically and focus on removing all worries, as well as refrain from committing wrong deeds. One needed to diligently cultivate one's wisdom by abiding by the precepts, concentrating one's attention, and developing one's wisdom, in that order.

　
###

Let's rewind time and go back 42 years to find ourselves once again in the Huiri Lecture Hall.

Master Yin Shun walked from the main hall to the female disciples' dormitory. Master Hui Zhang recalled that the Mentor hardly ever came to their dormitory--it was they who went to attend classes in the lecture hall. When Master Hui Zhang opened the door, she saw the Mentor smiling and guessed something wonderful had happened. The venerable master sat down and told the nuns that he had accepted a new disciple in a very simple manner. They later learned that it was Master Cheng Yen.

The Mentor has always thought of this event as an incredible chance meeting in his life. As for Master Cheng Yen, she has continued to grab at every moment in order to uphold her mentor's original expectation. "Be committed to Buddhism and all living beings" is and continues to be Master Cheng Yen's lifetime goal. It is also the firm foundation on which Tzu Chi continues to grow.

The dharma lineage, the teachings handed down from master to disciple, will continue to strengthen throughout time.