Blind since soon after birth, young Shi Ying-ting used to fantasize that he could see. Congenital glaucoma robbed him of his sight, but not his will to lead a productive life. He has gone beyond complaining about his innate condition, and he has walked out of his confinement into the waiting world.

On stage, he performs with the music in perfect harmony, just like his sighted peers beside him. He is taking firm and confident strides toward a destination as a singer.

The occasional successes he has gained after overcoming repeated challenges and frequent failures tell him that, aside from the absence of figurative images, his world is the same as that of his seeing counterparts. Likewise, when he goes out to help others, he experiences the same joy and satisfaction. Through giving, he "sees" that this world is bright and beautiful.

Shi Ying-ting (施映廷) walked briskly alone on the winding path on the hilly campus of the Chinese Culture University with his walking stick in hand. He proceeded down a few steps and past a few class buildings, and he finally rounded a corner to reach the front gate of the university. There he rendezvoused with his fellow Tzu Chi Collegiate Association (TCCA) members before the group headed out for the task at hand.

"We're going to the Tianmu Elementary School for its parent/child gathering," said the TCCA leader. "Is everybody ready?" They had been practicing for this occasion for several days and they were eager for the outing. They were going to perform some Tzu Chi songs with singing and sign language. [At most Tzu Chi activities, there are performances of songs accompanied with graceful sign language movements.]

The song went, "Be content, grateful, understanding, and inclusive...," and the TCCA college kids sang together in harmony. Onstage, Ying-ting and his partners signed the songs for the children and parents in the audience, who playfully sang and signed along.

Only his closed eyes and walking stick alerted people to his disability. Ying-ting, 5'9" and slender, adroitly but carefully felt his way with his cane. He inclined slightly forward as if to better hear his surroundings to find out where he was located.　

Making a scene and blaming others would not change the fact that he can't see. So he chooses to accept this fact and put his energy to productive use.　

"How adorable!" people exclaimed when they saw the bundled Ying-ting, not yet a month old. Such language could not clear away the ominous feeling that his parents had about their new son. His right eye, though shiny and bright, somehow seemed to be a smidge bigger than his left, and it often had some pus.

When Ying-ting was one month old, his father took him to a clinic and was told, "It's glaucoma. Get him to a large hospital." They operated on the little baby. The prognosis for the surgery for congenital glaucoma depends heavily on whether the eyes get adequate and proper care after the surgery. It is essential that eye drops are administered regularly. "It was like a war trying to put the eye drops in," recalls Ying-ting's father. The baby would throw a fit and even two adults had a hard time keeping him still enough to dispense the medication. With repeated failures, they missed the critical window of opportunity to nurse the hurting eyes, and the nerves in his eyes atrophied. His eyes could not even sense any light!

His parents kept hoping for a better doctor, an unearthly blessing, or a better alternative treatment--miracles that never happened. They kept hoping until Ying-ting reached his second year of junior high school. Over a decade of prayers, tears, anguish, and wishes was no match for cruel reality.

"Let it be. I take it as it comes, good or bad," Ying-ting often says. Frequent, sudden onsets of severe pain from elevated eye pressures were debilitating. When he was little, he used to get in bed, pull the comforter over his head, and press his hands tightly over his eyes, hoping to ameliorate the sudden attack, to wish it away. Occasionally, foreign objects like a corner of the comforter would accidentally get into his eye, making things even worse.

When he got older and learned to massage some acupressure points around his eyes, he finally got some temporary relief of the excruciating pain. Consequently, he became more relaxed as he learned to embrace the adversity and suffering and view them as tests from Heaven.

"We really struggled with people's curious remarks and stares when we took him out as a child," his parents recall. "Those words hurt a lot. They were outright cruel for a child so young." Ying-ting himself has been stronger than his parents thought. He has never thrown a tantrum about his condition. It is useless crying over spilled milk. Making a scene and blaming others will not change the fact that he cannot see. So he chooses to accept this fact and put his energy to productive use.　

I am no musical prodigy as some of you may think. I only work harder, practice over and over, and face endless challenges head-on.　

Up through senior high, Ying-ting attended schools exclusively for the visually impaired where students are offered training in skills for everyday living plus a whole complement of courses that one would find at a "normal" school, e.g., Chinese, history, music, and fine arts. His teacher noticed his sharp sensitivity to musical notes. "Ying-ting, do you want to learn to play piano?" he asked. Little did the teacher know how profoundly this question would change Ying-ting's life, tightly interlocking his life with music.

He had started taking piano lessons when he was still in second grade. Initially, he did so perfunctorily, just to please his parents and his teachers. A year went by. One day his music teacher played a few keys on the piano, single keys first, then some chords. Every time, Ying-ting quickly identified all the tones that the teacher had played. Nobody else in the class could do that. This sense of achievement brought out his love for music.

Conventional wisdom has it that without sight, the blind tend to possess very sensitive hearing and therefore can become accomplished musicians or vocalists. Ying-ting disagrees. "I am no musical prodigy as some of you may think. I only work harder, practice over and over again, and face endless challenges head-on."

Before he can play any piece, he needs to transcribe the score into Braille as someone reads to him from the printed music sheet. He spends countless hours working the Braillewriter for this purpose alone. And that, though laborious, is not the most challenging part. He has to be ambidextrous and have a sharp memory. With his left hand reading the score in Braille, his right hand plays what he reads--very slowly. Slowly repeating and memorizing the score, he plugs along until he is all the way through the piece. Then he swaps hands and repeats the process. Only after he has memorized the entire piece can he begin to play with both hands.

Trying to hit the exact keys also used to cause him much grief and frustration. The only way he knew how to get it right was to try again and again until he was too mentally numb to feel frustrated and thus could continue to practice.　

If possible, I want to help others. I thought I was supposed to be helping and caring for 'grandma.' But I got much more from her than I was able to give her.　

Ying-ting heeds advice from his music teacher's mother, Xu Yue-ji (徐月姬), more than from anybody else. Ying-ting studied singing in high school, and on weekends he frequently went to his teacher's home to practice. He was a student with lots of questions, and he wanted answers to feed his insatiable musical appetite. Yue-ji noticed and appreciated Ying-ting's strong desire to excel. "He is blind. However, his mind, far from being blind, can see clearly where he wants to go, and he works hard toward his goal."

A teenager having growth spurts, Ying-ting would suddenly grow taller without gaining any weight, making him appear even slimmer. When he went to his teacher's home for lessons, Yue-ji would cook a few delicious dishes for him to make sure that he was adequately nourished to sustain his growth. Yue-ji is also a Tzu Chi commissioner. As such, she knows how to treat Ying-ting with motherly love and a bodhisattva's wisdom.

"He won't take other people's kindness for granted, and he always shows his gratitude when someone is nice to him," Yue-ji said. One day, Ying-ting had a lesson at school about massage, a common course in schools for the blind. He went straight to Yue-ji's home after school and asked, "Mama Yue-ji, are you tired? I can massage your aching muscles."

In July of each year, prospective students in Taiwan take the highly competitive unified college entrance exams. Music was still Ying-ting's first love, so he chose departments of music as his targets for admission. Unfortunately, he did not win an admission slot on his first attempt. This severely depressed him, and he became withdrawn and quiet. His parents and Yue-ji gave him much love and encouragement. "He said that he would sit for the exams again and again, year after year, until he got into a college," said his parents who fully supported his plan and determination. After carefully surveying the competition and analyzing available slots in the various musical departments, Ying-ting and his parents decided that in order to maximize his chances of getting in, he should attempt to gain admission as a vocalist and not as a pianist or a flutist, his two strongest suits. So he jumped into the field of vocal music with both feet.

During Ying-ting's period of depression after failing the entrance exams, Yue-ji introduced him to Tzu Chi's Great Love TV to soothe him and to prepare for his second try at the entrance exams. Listening to the Great Love news reports, he was astonished to learn about the many benevolent deeds--like disaster relief, free clinics for the indigent, and visiting the elderly--that Tzu Chi members were doing. He was awed that a group could be so selfless and caring. "One day if I can, I want to help others, too," he vowed.

On his second try at the entrance exams, he was accepted into the department of music at the Chinese Culture University (CCU). To provide a conduit for college students to participate in Tzu Chi's good deeds, most colleges in Taiwan have a chapter of the Tzu Chi Collegiate Association (TCCA) that is usually adopted by a group of Tzu Chi commissioners (called "Yi-de mothers") who care for and counsel the students in that chapter.

Yue-ji just happened to be a Yi-de mother for the TCCA at CCU. She quickly got an application form for Ying-ting to join the TCCA, and she urged him to attend the welcoming reception for the new TCCA members. Being an obliging young man, especially to Yue-ji, he went. Little did he know that he had just opened the door into Tzu Chi, the organization that would link him to a world of touching examples of human interactions.

Once he had joined the TCCA, he never missed any of their activities, be it a training camp, a gathering for recycling, or visiting the elderly. "Whatever he does, he sticks with it for the long haul. I admire him for his persistence," remarked Chen Ji-yuan, a fellow TCCA member.

"Wow, you've started contributing to environmental preservation at such a young age!" "I'm so happy your group comes to see us old folks. You're good kids." Through praise like this, Ying-tin experienced first-hand the joy of volunteering and helping. He felt cheerful and confident.

One time, his TCCA group went to visit the residents at a nursing home. One of the "grandmas" there asked for Ying-ting by name because she wanted to chat with him. "What happened to your eyes? Do they inconvenience you much?" she asked. Even though he has answered similar questions no less than a hundred times since childhood, he patiently talked to the old woman about his situation. After a few sessions, she would seek him out during the youth group's visit and, before he left for the day, she would give him some food to take back to school. Her kindness surprised veteran caregivers at the nursing home. "I've never seen her being so nice to visiting kids. She treats him like her own grandson." For that, Ying-ting is grateful, "I thought I was supposed to be helping and caring for 'grandma.' But I got much more from her than I was able to give her."

Through volunteering and giving back to society, Ying-ting learned to "see" the beauty of the world.　

Except for images, my world is not much different from yours. I don't need or want any privileges. I can do anything if I put my mind to it.　

To get home after a TCCA activity one day, Ying-ting had to take a bus and then transfer to the mass transit system. Some members of the group offered to escort him home, but he gently declined their kind offer. He would do whatever needed doing by himself, without asking for help. "If I need to rely on others for such routine tasks, then I would really be different," he explained.

Taking care of himself had always been an integral part of his pre-college schooling. Things like getting dressed, keeping his surroundings clean, caring for his personal hygiene, and getting around were among the many things that he had to learn to do himself. And it is no different now. Being independent has become second nature to him.

In the schools for the visually impaired that he attended, faculty and staff tried to teach kids the virtue of independence and the endless possibilities for people with disabilities, many of whom have reached great heights in their chosen careers; e.g., Helen Keller, Beethoven, and Zheng Feng-xi. Zheng was born in Taiwan with severely deformed legs in a society ignorant of--in fact cruel to--the unique needs of those with disabilities. Against all odds Zheng went on to study law, and he wrote a book that was adapted for a movie and a TV series that touched many lives.

To this day, Ying-ting still feels, "Except for images, my world is not much different from yours. I don't need or want any privileges. I can do anything if I put my mind to it."

He has a keen sense of direction for navigation. In a new place, all he needs is for someone to walk him around one time, and then he can be on his own. Zhou Yu-jing, a fellow TCCA member at CCU, said of Ying-ting, "At the beginning of each semester, the various clubs on campus set up booths to recruit new members. It was a loud and hectic place with many booths and many people. He was able to locate our booth without any problems." When there is nobody to show him around, then he does plenty of homework ahead of time and asks questions to familiarize himself with the place. He does not seek help from others easily.

"It stands to reason that you can't do things well," people frequently say to him. He does not like this kind of comment and he wishes that he could change people's perceptions about him. It is not uncommon for people, trying to be considerate, to do things for him before he even has had an opportunity to do them himself.

In one TCCA meeting, the attendees decided that for a certain future activity all participating members should get on stage to sing and sign a song. After the meeting, a fellow member said to Ying-ting, "It's okay, you don't have to get on stage." This remark really perplexed Ying-ting. "Everyone is supposed to perform. Why on earth is it okay that I don't? What makes him think that I won't pass muster before I even have a chance to try?"

For this performance, he asked a partner to teach him the hand gestures and body movements. They divided the song into pieces and he practiced assiduously. He practiced in every spare moment that he had. "Even after I got in bed, I thought and practiced until I fell asleep." Their effort paid off. His on-stage performance was impeccable. He proved himself capable, and nobody would ask him to skip another performance again.

He likes to take on the responsibility for a task. If he makes it, he proves himself. If he fails, he keeps practicing and trying until he can do it. "Nothing is impossible. It's only a matter of whether you really want to do it."

"The stars are still sparkling,
The moon still wordless.
The tender light comes from wishes,
Compassion is the home of Great Love..."

Ying-ting went to Hualien for a camp for TCCA members in 2005. In its closing ceremony, as the vocalist, he sang Sprinkle the World with Love and dedicated the song to Master Cheng Yen. The Master urged him to bring his sweet voice and songs to more people.

When asked what he would like to do, Ying-ting, who just turned 20, replied, "Go back to Tzu Chi to record songs. I can't see, but I can convey to my audience by way of my songs the goodness, beauty, and truth of the world that I have sensed." In addition, he wishes to continue as a Tzu Chi volunteer so he "can attend to all three aspects of cultivation: body, mind, and soul."

When he was a little boy, he dreamed of the possibility of seeing the world. What would it be like to be able to see? As he grows older, this fantasy has apparently lost its luster. But I could not resist the temptation to ask him, "If you could, what price would you be willing to pay to regain your eyesight?" He scratched his head and thought for a moment, and then said, "It wouldn't be free? Then I don't want it, thank you very much. I'm doing fine as it is."

For Ying-ting, it would be a more colorful life and a sweeter song for him to use his own will and determination to compensate for his bodily deficiencies. He stands ready to face the tests of life.