Eighteen years ago, Liu Ji-yu was a successful, wealthy Taiwanese businessman living overseas in Malaysia. However, when he joined Tzu Chi, his interests changed dramatically. He gradually invested more and more of his time as a volunteer, and in 2001 he closed down his last business and turned the factory in Malacca into a Tzu Chi childcare center and free clinic. From then on, the thunderous clamoring of factory machinery was transformed into the laughter of children and the grateful murmurs of patients. Liu has worked as a full-time volunteer ever since. In contrast with his earlier life of extravagance, his current life is simple and frugal, yet complete.

"Leading this simple life, I never have any problems when I travel to a tough disaster area." His secret solution to remaining unencumbered lies in staying simple--having a simple mind and a simple goal. No wonder the path of his life has become broader and more interesting as a result.

With a speaker strapped to his back and a microphone clasped in his hand, Liu Ji-yu (劉濟雨) wiped his brow from the scorching heat of the sun, but he smiled as he spoke to the audience. The day was April 10, 2006, the day that the Tzu Chi Great Love Village in Sri Lanka was officially opened. Wearing a crisp, light-blue shirt with the Tzu Chi logo emblazoned on his dark-blue tie, he was both proud and well prepared for the grand opening.

Liu is CEO of both the Tzu Chi Singapore and Tzu Chi Malacca branches, but his responsibilities span a far broader field. On December 29, 2004, four days after the deadly South Asian tsunami, he traveled to Singapore's Changi Airport to meet up with a Tzu Chi medical team who were journeying from Taiwan. Together they swiftly continued on to Sri Lanka in order to set up and carry out free clinics for tsunami survivors. Thereafter, Liu began, among other things, evaluating disaster areas, discussing relief plans, participating in Sri Lankan governmental meetings, as well as contacting volunteers from Malacca and Singapore for follow-up support. As a consequence, he has become a noted figure within the field of Tzu Chi's relief work in Sri Lanka.

He talks cheerfully and humorously while organizing a relief plan. Fully committed to the Tzu Chi cause, he divides his energies evenly over a wide range of tasks. One minute he can be seen examining the results of a construction project with committee members, and the next moment he is organizing volunteer coordination in order to safely facilitate a variety of events. He walks with a steady, firm stride, yet not too hastily. Sometimes he stops and rolls up his sleeves, eager to join in with the hard work, even though he is soon sweating all over.

He seems busy and involved with his work, yet his mind always remains untainted and at ease.　

"Why can't the pictures show the true extent of this stunning story?" Liu liked photography, so with his outgoing personality he decided that he himself would photograph needy families.　

Liu was once an entrepreneur in the garment exporting business. Following in the footsteps of many other Taiwanese businesspeople who set up businesses in Southeast Asia, Liu established his own business in Malacca, Malaysia, in 1988.

His garment factory gradually got on track, and the steady increase of in-coming orders allowed him to remain as the company's president. In his spare time, he attended social engagements, played golf, or took pictures with his variety of expensive cameras.

"At that time I felt that as I had worked hard for my business, I should enjoy the money I earned. Otherwise, I might as well die!"

In 1992, his wife, Jian Shu-xia (簡淑霞), returned to Taiwan to visit her relatives. She saw the Tzu Chi Companion, a bi-weekly newspaper, in a beauty parlor. She was so touched by stories of Tzu Chi volunteers kindly helping the needy that she donated US$900 the following day. This money was sufficient to pay for two beds in the Hualien Tzu Chi Medical Center.

On returning to Malaysia, Jian joined the local Tzu Chi volunteer group, and she felt a great desire to become more involved after visiting needy families. The employees in the factory also responded to her appeal and donated a portion of their salaries to Tzu Chi every month. Some even volunteered in their spare time.

Jian asked her husband if he would like to join, but he assertively replied, "I don't mind if you serve as a volunteer for Tzu Chi, but don't dare ask me to do so on my weekends--o way!"

There were a lot of sick and poor people in Malaysia, and volunteers often noticed that a large number of patients were physically handicapped or bedridden for lengthy periods of time. The volunteers would take photographs of the people they visited for case evaluation. Liu was a good photographer, and he often saw his wife bringing home these photographs and filing them carefully away. After he listened to her descriptions of her visits, he felt that the photographs didn't adequately convey the shocking stories of the patients. Being a curious and outgoing person, Liu decided to follow his wife and serve as a photographer.

During those home visits, Liu often witnessed scenes of great suffering. His compassion was aroused, and he began to write moving captions to accompany the photographs. He first began by writing a caption for each photo; but then he decided to expand on this, and he wrote a longer article with richer content for several photographs:

"Considering the terrible living conditions of the Chen family, the volunteers decided to clean up their house. The youngest boy of the family, who was deaf and mute, wanted to go out to buy light refreshments for the volunteers as a token of his appreciation, but the volunteers asked him not to. The boy even went to his room to get a bottle of cough syrup for Mei-jen, a female volunteer, when he heard her coughing.... It was evening before everyone had finally finished cleaning up the house. The new mattress was covered with a fresh bed sheet and cover. The whole house was far cleaner."

Liu said that at times he would find himself moved to tears at the situations he was describing. As he became more interested in Tzu Chi efforts, he went a step further and began writing posters with felt markers. He bought a lot of paper and markers and greatly enjoyed creating the posters in his office. His table was soon littered with piles of paper and markers, and when other people came in, he had to quickly sweep them away as he felt embarrassed about working in such a messy environment.　

Reveling in the relative success and power which he had accumulated in his business at such a young age, Liu spoke with Master Cheng Yen and quickly found out that his thoughts were insignificantly trivial.　

Seeing her husband so devoted to recording the stories of needy families, Jian encouraged him to garner a deeper understanding of Tzu Chi by visiting the Abode of Still Thoughts, the foundation headquarters in Hualien, Taiwan. Liu was shocked when he discovered some of the details of the trip. "Get up at 3:50 for morning prayers for ten days in a row! Come on, you must be joking! I don't go to bed until midnight, so how can I get up at 3:50?"

"An entrepreneur isn't considered successful if he can't even commit himself to something meaningful for just ten days of every year." Jian's words impelled Liu to action, and he invited 20 or so friends to the Abode in November 1993.

When the group first arrived at Hualien and attended Master Chen Yen's daily lecture, Liu would often raise his hand to ask questions. The Master's pleasant, patient, and kind attitude won his respect.

"I thought that I was so young and promising with my successful business, but then I realized that except for the money I had, I was insignificantly small," said Liu. With this understanding, he asked to become the Master's disciple. The Master kindly granted his request by nodding her head. And that was it.

Liu asked with surprise, "Master, isn't there some kind of ceremony?"

"I don't hold any tangible ceremony," she replied, and her answer shed light on her philosophy of pragmatism, which in turn further strengthened Liu's understanding. "If a person only goes through the ceremony without putting his mind to it, it's like having registered for a course but not attending the class. The Master's method is very practical to me," said Liu.

After returning to Malaysia, Liu became more actively involved with Tzu Chi efforts, and he allocated a meeting room in his factory to store relief goods for the monthly distributions to the poor. After some time, he noticed that the factory was filled with relief goods for needy families, and that new space was needed to organize work on environmental protection and childcare classes. Therefore, with permission from the Master, he started constructing a new Tzu Chi office next to his factory.

When Liu showed the Master the plans for the construction, she asked him, "Do you know why the new office can be built?"

"Master, if the new office isn't built, there won't be enough space and the Tzu Chi missions can't expand," replied Liu.

"No, it's because you are simple," she said.

Liu says now that although he had only been a member of Tzu Chi for two years, his will continued to strengthen and he was always thinking of ways in which to practice the Master's teaching of "Pay back the nation you reside in with what you can raise locally." The phrase, "Because you are simple," was a very meaningful statement to Liu and he constantly reminds himself of it--a person's future will become broader only if he can maintain a simple mind.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the new Still Thoughts Hall was held in February 1996. The new building, occupying over 35,600 square feet, was officially opened in May 1997.　

With only ten percent of my business, I still had a lot of worries. Now I spend 90 percent of my time doing Tzu Chi work, but I have no worries at all.　

After the construction of the Still Thoughts Hall, Liu continued to work with other volunteers in carrying out charity work around Malacca, even as far as eastern Malaysia. He was always busy arranging home visits, taking care of vagrants, and even dealing with the dead bodies of homeless people.

However, having to shuttle back and forth between his factory and the Tzu Chi office every day was beginning to cause a conflict in his mind: "In the factory, I ordered other people to work, but in Tzu Chi, I did the work voluntarily. I was stern in the factory but warm in Tzu Chi, and that was very contradictory."

It was the high season for clothing exports, and business was so good that it scared him. "Every factory was filled to capacity, and it had reached the extent that we couldn't take in any new orders, but I just couldn't bring myself to ignore them. Some goods were supposed to come out four months later, but I knew that I wouldn't have been able to meet the deadline."

With nowhere to turn, Liu was panic-stricken and exhausted. "Every morning when I went to the office, I always felt like I was going to the gallows," Liu recalled. "I was terrified of having to face customers who would demand delivery of their goods."

Under this mounting pressure, Liu finally comprehended the full extent of his stressful lifestyle, and with this came the realization that he didn't need to make a lot of money--he only needed enough to get by on. Whether business was good or not, it was still a torture to him anyway. He realized that he just wanted to close it down. At that time, he vowed that as long as the final batch of goods could be quickly exported, even if he lost money, he would donate his factory and its adjacent compound to Tzu Chi.

At that time, the 1997 Asian financial crisis was devastating Asian countries, and the Malay currency had been devalued. Unexpectedly, Liu not only did not lose any money on the whole deal, but he actually made a little. "The crisis was somehow turned into an opportunity," said Liu.

After the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001, which seriously affected his business, Liu decided to scale down his business and to pay more attention to the Tzu Chi missions. This in turn gave him something to think about: "With only ten percent of my business, I still had a lot of worries. Now I spend 90 percent of my time doing Tzu Chi work, but I have no worries at all. How odd!"

He realized that his business demanded a high return, but his Tzu Chi work did not. He was continuously happy with the Tzu Chi work despite the fact that he was often tired physically.

At the end of 2001, Liu donated his entire factory to Tzu Chi, and it was agreed that it would be turned into a compound for a free clinic center, a Still Thoughts bookstore, a social education center, a childcare room, storage rooms, etc. This allowed him to realize his dream of fully incorporating Tzu Chi into his working life.

His decision to close the factory received no complaints from the factory workers; instead, many of them agreed with his decision and even pitched in to help. "Our first Tzu Chi commissioner was originally employed as the factory accountant, and the first Tzu Cheng Faith Corps member was originally a driver. Now he drives a recycling truck."

Never hesitate to help a dying person. Don't stop to think about whether you are able to do it. If you think too much, you won't accomplish anything.　

On a beautiful, clear afternoon in Singapore, white clouds hover over the clean city streets. Vehicles come and go in an orderly fashion. The automatic traffic monitoring system keeps the traffic running smoothly. On entering a traffic-restricted section of the city, the transponder installed on the car's windshield reacts to a street sensor, and a fee is automatically deducted.

Singapore, with an area of 648 square kilometers (250 sq mi), is extremely advanced in many fields, and chaos is ultimately contained. It seems that Singapore has always been a place ahead of its time, with its people living in rich, comfortable, almost futuristic conditions.

Nevertheless, the vibrant city still has a dark underside. Liu remembered that on one occasion a hospital employee phoned the Singapore Tzu Chi branch, saying that one of their AIDS patients was close to running out of funds to pay for his medicine. Within a few days he would no longer have sufficient money to cover the costs, and therefore the hospital was trying to solicit help on his behalf. If Tzu Chi had refused, then this patient would surely have met a tragic, and painful, end. Therefore, from that point on, the Tzu Chi Singapore branch started to help AIDS patients.

The Tzu Chi Singapore branch also subsidizes patients requiring dialysis. Because dialysis is very costly in Singapore, a patient who has to undergo the treatment for the rest of his life yet cannot receive financial help must transfer to private institutes that are cheaper. However if the patient runs out of money, help from Tzu Chi can be most opportune. Liu understands that when he himself gets old or sick, he will also need help from other people, and he recognizes that this is a vital service for Tzu Chi to provide.

Another focus of the Singapore branch is international medical aid.

Noventhree, a young boy from Batam Island, Indonesia, suffered from gigantiform cementoma, and the Pan siblings from Singapore had a rarely seen degenerative neural disorder. The Tzu Chi Singapore branch arranged for all of them to be sent to Hualien Tzu Chi Medical Center in 2004 for treatment. Since then, local hospitals in Singapore have often contacted Tzu Chi for help.

Liu now travels between Malaysia and Singapore to help the needy without worrying about whether the branch offices are financially capable. "Never hesitate to help a dying person. Worry about the funding later. If you think too much, you won't accomplish anything."

On the day we interviewed him, Liu was planning to take to the streets to raise money for survivors of the South Asian tsunami. Later in the day, he would visit a kindergarten to facilitate a program which would implement spiritual growth within children's education. A few days before, two people in Singapore had committed suicide by jumping off buildings. These events had deeply affected Liu and clearly demonstrated to him that there was a hidden darkness within modern society. He sensed that this might come from a lack of spiritual education. "People may not be lacking in material goods nowadays, but they are spiritually poor. I feel that in addition to charity and medical help, Tzu Chi should also focus on helping people to develop their spirituality."　

Prepare thoroughly before an activity begins. If you get deeply involved, you will have confidence. With confidence, you can think out a good plan. With a good plan, everything will go well.　

The deadly South Asian tsunami occurred at the end of December 2004, when Liu was spending the Christmas season with his daughters in the U.S. When he received a call from Tzu Chi headquarters in Taiwan about the disaster, he said with confidence, "Volunteers in Singapore and Malaysia will devote themselves to the relief work there."

A few days later, he went to Hambantota, Sri Lanka, to participate in the coordination of the emergency relief work and reconstruction work. It was the first time that the government had had to face such an enormous natural disaster, and local officials felt helpless because all of the residential records had been washed away, so they didn't know where to start. An enormous number of both local and international rescue teams suddenly arrived and rushed in. Tzu Chi volunteers also faced a lot of difficulties. Nevertheless, they carried out free clinics, distributed relief goods, and built shelters as well as a whole Great Love Village. Liu said that timing was an essential element of rescue work. They had to be effective and fast in dealing with all of the problems which arose.

Liu added that when they arrived at the disaster areas, they didn't just hand out emergency supplies. They also provided survivors with spiritual support, so that the seed of Great Love could grow outwards and form a cycle of Great Love, from one survivor to the next.

Liu felt that the Sri Lankan volunteers were so willing to help their own people because they possessed such simple personalities and because they were so easily content with what they had. Liu understood that it was this giving nature that other people needed to learn from them. "Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country, so even after the colossal damage of the tsunami, the survivors were still smiling. Although the survivors were in need of continuous assistance, the local volunteers were there to help them, fully aware of their responsibilities, knowing that only they could provide the highest level of care."

After the rescue work came to an end, Liu received confirmation from the government that the Tzu Chi medical station in Hambantota was to be converted into a Tzu Chi office.

During the reconstruction work, Liu was frequently seen taking a hands-on approach with a variety of tasks, sometimes pushing wheelbarrows filled with sand, or nailing a picture of the Buddha to a wall in the main hall, or standing on a stool to put up a poster....

Wearing a handkerchief around his neck to sop up some of the perspiration caused by his strenuous efforts, Liu set himself as an example from which others can derive inspiration. He said, "Prepare thoroughly before an activity begins. If you get deeply involved, you will have confidence. With confidence, you can think out a good plan. With a good plan, everything will go well."　

The way to do things wisely: look at the important thing, listen to the important thing, speak of the important thing, and do the important thing.　

Liu has been traveling in and out of Sri Lanka for over a year, and his longest stay there has been just over a month. However, he never complains. I notice that on this day of our final interview he carries some luggage with him, because later in the evening he will again travel to Changi Airport and board a plane to Sri Lanka.

In the cafeteria that we go to for dinner, he places some vegetables on a plate of white rice. That simple meal is his supper. "Now that I lead a simpler existence, I never have any problems acclimatizing to tough situations in disaster areas."

Now Liu and Jian are both full-time volunteers, and they don't spend too much time together. Just before the opening of the Great Love Village in Sri Lanka, Jian came here for the first time, but she simply worked quietly alongside the other volunteers.

Master Cheng Yen once praised their situation: "Everyone under heaven is one family, so why bother to know where the other is? No matter how far apart they are, there is no distance between them because they have love. This couple have the same thoughts, goals, and level of devotion. They devote themselves to charity work with dedicated zeal which stems from taking the Buddha's compassion as their own and their Master's commitment as their own."

Liu and his wife now shuttle between Singapore, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. In Malaysia alone, the farthest Tzu Chi office is a two-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur. With Singapore and Sri Lanka added to the list, Liu's continuous traveling lifestyle is simply unimaginable. He jokes, "Now my wife and I don't have time to argue because we don't get together that often!"

"Look at the important thing, listen to the important thing, speak of the important thing, and do the important thing," are Liu's words of wisdom when handling Tzu Chi matters. "When I had my business, I wasn't very busy because the general manager and the factory director helped me out. But after I joined Tzu Chi, I had to get myself involved in many things. Therefore, I have to schedule my time and utilize my resources properly."

When asked if he has ever felt overwhelmed by having to face insurmountable difficulties, Liu replied, "Nope. I simply grab every chance to do whatever I have to. Up until now, I just try to let things flow naturally."

The sun never slacks off in its duty to radiate light and warmth to us all on Earth. Similarly, Liu is a force of nature in himself. He always does the best he can to fulfill his duty of helping the needy wherever they are.