The invisible yellow ribbon of Tzu Chi welcomes home every wanderer and embraces every repentant heart

On July 10, 1995, I returned to the Abode of Still Thoughts. The nun who received me told me a newcomer from Taipei would also stay the night, and asked me to take care of her. The nun ushered this lady into my room. Having disposed of her baggage, the newcomer introduced herself by saying, "I'm a prostitute." Her words caught me completely off guard!

"I'm a drug addict," she continued, "and I've tried to kill four people." I was taken aback by her incredible revelations. She didn't look like this kind of person at all.

"I've been behind bars dozens of times." I wondered what other words would come out of her mouth to jolt me.

"Have you ever seen anyone worse than me?" I looked closely at the humble smile of this tall, stout girl clad in the gray lay garb as I said, "The things you tell me are in the past, aren't they? You're not a bad person at all, now. See, you smile just like a bodhisattva."

She rolled her sleeves up to show me her arms. Her right arm was heavily scarred from cigarette burns. I flinched when I saw that no part of her left arm, from her wrist to upper arm, was left untouched by the scars of dozens of knife wounds.

She continued with a soft smile, as if it were somebody else's story, as if it were long ago. "I've attempted suicide over thirty times by cutting my wrist. I cut the main artery five times. The doctors sewed up these wounds."

Touching her heavily scarred wrist, I said, "You must have suffered a lot."

"Fortunately, as you said, everything is past. I regard these scars as the 'scars of discipline.' I have to repent. I must follow in the Buddha's footsteps. Even though my sins and crimes are reprehensible, I think if I whole-heartedly repent, I will eventually be absolved."

Hsiao-lien ("Little Lotus") was a happy child. Her father was a general manager in an electronics company and her beautiful mother was a responsible full-time housekeeper. She had one brother and two sisters.

When Hsiao-lien was in the first grade, her parents divorced and her grandmother temporarily took care of the four children. Six months after the divorce, Hsiao-lien's father re-married, so the children went to live with their father and stepmother. Unfortunately, these four little children were at an annoying age and their stepmother was not a patient person. As a result, there were frequent conflicts between the children and their stepmother. At one point, the verbal and physical abuse from Hsiao-lien's setpmother got so bad that Hsiao-lien walked the 10 kilometers from her father's home in Ching-Mei to her grandmother's home in Ta-Lung-Keng! She carried her smallest sister on her back while holding the hands of her other sister and brother.

Trying to Find Herself

As a junior high school student, Hsiao-lien expressed her protest by sniffing glue. She learned to sniff glue from a detailed newspaper article about a young girl arrested for this addiction. When Hsiao-lien's father discovered the glue sniffing, he took her to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall to have a talk with her. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he pleaded with her and asked her what he could do for her. Hsiao-lien, immersed in hatred, obstinately said nothing.

Three months before her junior high school graduation, Hsiao-lien ran away from home with her senior high school boyfriend. When she returned, her outraged father reprimanded her, saying, "You're like a call-girl, a prostitute!" Although she knew these were merely words of anger, she was deeply hurt. How could her father, whom she loved so much, say such words? The following day, she bought a newspaper, looking for call girl advertisements. Without saying good-bye to her father and with only a change of clothes, Hsiao-lien left home.

Self-Betrayal

At the innocent age of fourteen, Hsiao-lien went to work at a brothel in Tanshui. Disgust, anguish and low self-esteem during her six months as a prostitute in Sanchung drove Hsiao-lien to drug use and attempted suicide. Eventually, she ran away to work in a factory and in a cafeteria. However, before long, she was hanging around with other juvenile delinquents in the Hsi-Men-Ting district of Taipei.

Now, the focus for Hsiao-lien's young life was fighting, making trouble, taking drugs and attempting suicide. In the fearless competition to be recognized as the toughest and the most callous of the young street girls, she took drugs and inflicted cigarette burns on her hands and arms. These were the scars she showed me at our first meeting. Sometimes, under the influence of drugs, Hsiao-lien would impulsively strip and run wildly through the streets. She said she could still hear people saying,"Look at that crazy, naked girl streaking down the street."

At 18, Hsiao-lien got into an argument with the proprietress at a seedy hotel on Linsen North Road. Failing to reach an agreement, she reached for the knife in her handbag. Hsiao-lien's knife slashed down the corner of the proprietress' left eye, going through her nose and ending just above the right lip. The proprietress was near death when she arrived at the hospital. She needed more than one hundred stitches. Hsiao-lien was sentenced to seven months in adult prison.

After her release, she became friends with another homeless, delinquent young man. They dressed in beautiful clothes, stayed in high-class hotels, and ate at expensive restaurants. They supported their extravagant lifestyle by cheating and swindling. Their young lives darkened as they began taking heroin. Hsiao-lien said that the way they covered the cost of their NT$20,000 (US$800) per day habit was by cheating in gambling.

A Turning Point

One morning after Hsiao-lien, her boyfriend, and other juvenile delinquents had been playing mahjong continuously for several days in Panchiao, her boyfriend asked her to buy breakfast. She went around the corner to get soybean milk and bread. As the boss' wife gave her the order, she said, "Miss, you look like you've suffered a lot. I would like to give you 'Still Thoughts' by Dharma Master Cheng Yen. I hope it helps you."

Hsiao-lien mindlessly took the book. She even began to read it. For six months she resisted the contents of the book. Its words were contrary to her reality; the darkness in her depths was incapable of perceiving the light in the book. In doubt and skepticism, she crossed out words and made comments like: "Who do you think you are? You think you can fool me! Only ghosts could be tricked! Only a ghost would believe you!"

"I doubted it, I denied it," said Hsiao-lien, "but as time went on, I pondered that book and often studied it, without knowing why. I grew to love it."

Eventually, this book did influence her thoughts and behavior. She bought Dharma Master Cheng Yen's other works, and studied them closely.

Overpowered

Hsiao-lien cried when she read, "It is hard to be born as a human." Her self-hatred had caused her to slash her wrist, overdose on sleeping pills and inhale toxic gases, trying to kill herself. "I considered Dharma Master Cheng Yen as my big sister. Eventually, even beyond my own wildest expectations, I decided to stop taking drugs."

In order to kick her habit, she went to a friend's home in the mountains of Central Taiwan. Regardless of the intensity of the withdrawal pains, she forced herself to stay in bed for days. Finally, after two weeks, she was off heroin.

Then Hsiao-lien tried to help her boyfriend kick the drug habit. However, he quit for a short time, only to relapse. She told him the story of Tzu Chi. In order to help him, she told him to chant the holy name of Buddha. But he yelled at her, calling her mad. Finally, in great disappointment, she had to leave him.

After this trauma, Hsiao-lien committed herself to follow "Still Thoughts." To save herself from living in darkness, she joyfully accepted a job washing dishes in a restaurant. Her NT$20,000 monthly salary was what she used to spend daily on heroin!

Hsiao-lien often read in "Tzu Chi Monthly" and "Tzu Chi Companion" how Tzu Chi commissioners assist the elderly by cleaning their houses or bathing them. She longed to emulate the commissioners' kindness, but she did not know how to get started. She read Dharma Master Cheng Yen's words: "Of the eight ways of cultivating blessings, healing people is ranked as the most effective one." Since she was not a doctor or a nurse, she wondered how she could fulfill her wish to heal the sick. Then she realized she could also work in a hospice for the elderly! In her excitement, she easily found a job as a nurse in a hospice.

Rebirth

Caring for the elderly, she had to bathe and feed them, draw out their sputum, and clean their excrement. In the beginning, Hsiao-lien found this work disgusting. Once, she even hit a patient. "I hit him once, but I immediately regretted what I had done. Tzu Chi brothers and sisters would never do such a thing. I knew I must emulate them and not make this mistake again."

After this incident, Hsiao-lien cared for the elderly with uncompromising care, patience and love. She said with a smile, "I treat the elderly as I would Dharma Master's own father and mother."

At work, Hsiao-lien did not conceal her past. Whenever she told her story, she also said how sorry she was. The owner was very satisfied with her work. Some people there accepted her and sympathized with her, but a group of people worried that she might repeat her past wrongdoings. They expressed their concern to the owner and Hsiao-lien was forced to quit.

Despite her past, and even though people did not believe in her, Hsiao-lien was determined not to be engulfed again by the sea of suffering. She wanted to continue to repent and grow the seeds of blessings. Hsiao-lien became a nurse in another hospice for the elderly, earning NT$1,700 a day. She kept NT$700 dollars for her daily expenses, and donated NT$1,000 to Tzu Chi. "I often thought of the Master, who so willingly donates her life for the suffering. For a person who had so frequently attempted suicide why couldn't I give of myself, too?"

Introducing Tzu Chi to Patients

The owner of this hospice for the elderly, where Hsiao-lien worked for two years, was a Tzu Chi member. One day, commissioner Sister Shen came to the hospice to gather donations. She observed how Hsiao-lien carefully changed a diaper for an elderly person and decided to introduce Tzu Chi to her.

"Tzu Chi! I always send money there!"

"That's great! We're sisters in the same family." From then on, Hsiao-lien handed her donations to Sister Shen, who in turn told her more about Tzu Chi. After Hsiao-lien told her story to the hospice owner and Sister Shen, these two Tzu Chi members encouraged and accepted her.

However, Hsiao-lien would have to quit her job again. Her roommate slandered her by telling their landlord that she was taking drugs. In a rage, Hsiao-lien picked up a knife that was on the table and stabbed her roommate. Hsiao-lien observed, "I had followed the path of Buddha for only six months and it was still very difficult for me to control my bad temper. I deeply regretted what I did, but it was too late."

Hsiao-lien apologized to her roommate and accepted her sentence in court. She went to prison for six months. Her attitude toward this sentence was dramatically different from that of her last imprisonment. She took along Tzu Chi publications as reading material and Master Cheng Yen's picture, regretting that she had to "accompany" her. She repaid the Master's mercy by introducing Tzu Chi to other inmates. Some laughed at her, considering her superstitious; others were deeply moved. "This is the last time I allow myself to be imprisoned," Hsiao-lien told those willing to listen. "We must cultivate as much cultivate as much patience and temperance as we can. We must do all we can do to plant the seeds of blessings and virtues. We must chant the name of Buddha as often as possible. It's because we don't possess blessings and good nature that we're in such a miserable place. Nevertheless, Buddha is merciful. No matter who we are, so long as we're determined and repentant and willing to do good deeds for people, we will surely attain enlightenment, and did Buddha."

Grasping Every Chance to Plant the Seeds of Blessings

On July 8, 1995, Hsiao-lien was released. She called Sister Shen, who told her of the bone marrow drive at the Taipei Railway Station. Upon hearing this, she went there directly for blood-testing.

On the night I met Hsiao-Lien, I asked her why she wanted to come to the Abode of Still Thoughts. She replied, "Actually, I've thought about this for a long time. It's 'Still Thoughts' that saved me; it's Master that saved me; it's Tzu Chi that saved me. I come here with a heart full of gratitude." I looked at her, immensely touched. She continued, "As long as there's even the smallest chance to plant the seeds of blessings, I will never let it pass. I have to plant the seed and cultivate it myself; nobody can do it for me. If a person possesses abundant blessings, they can't be transferred to me. You can't even try to steal blessings."

Hsiao-lien's story celebrates her rebirth. She fulfilled her long-held wish to come to the Abode of Still Thoughts. "Nobody looks down on me here. I'm very grateful for everybody's kind acceptance of me. At 28, it isn't too late for me to do some good."

Her story reminds me of an English song which tells a moving story. A prisoner, about to be released from prison, doesn't know whether his family and friends will forgive and accept him. He writes his girlfriend a letter, saying that if she wants to accept him, she should tie a yellow ribbon on the tree by her house as a sign. If he sees the yellow ribbon, he will return to start his new life. If there is no yellow ribbon, he will not go back. Finally, as he approaches his hometown, he sees that the tree had a hundred bright yellow ribbons dancing in the wind. Thrilled, he gets out of the car to be greeted with the warm, welcoming embraces of his grilfriend, family, friends, and neighbors.

With an invisible yellow ribbon, Tzu Chi people also welcome every wanderer and embrace every repentant heart.

Hsiao-lien, you are the brave, pure lotus growing out of the swamp. Your sufferings and tribulations were the fertile soil which nurtured and cultivated your profound spirit and fortitude. After enduring turbulent storm and darkness, your light will surely glow. Hsiao-lien, Tzu Chi welcomes you with hundreds of yellow ribbons dancing through the sky. Can you see them?

Epilogue

Hsiao-lien, I knew you for only three months. Why did you leave so soon? Why? When I went back to Taipei at the end of October, Sister Chiu told me the news of your death. I refused to believe what I had just heard, and insisted it had to be a mistake. You were only 29. Yet Sister Chiu said firmly that it was true. I immediately thought it was suicide due to depression, but Sister Chiu said that you died of a heart attack.

I know that several days before your death you shaved your head to demonstrate your resolve to become a nun. You expressed your willingness to work in Hualien. You asked me to help you find out what the qualifications for a nursing assistant at Tzu Chi Hospital were and how you could arrange for housing. I can't help but wonder: if I had settled you in Hualien sooner, would you possibly have escaped this early death?

Hsiao-lien, rest in peace! The Master praised you as a "woman of goodness." When I tearfully reported to her your death, the Master said, "She has already sown the seed of enlightenment. It will bud, grow and thrive in her next life."

Blessings to you, Hsiao-lien. Come back soon. I am waiting for you at Tzu-Chi! The people of Tzu Chi are waiting for you.

A Woman of Goodness

The following are excerpts from the letters Hsiao-lien wrote during the last three months of her life.

I weigh a little over eighty kilos. I tire easily when working. Maybe it's because I damaged my liver by taking so many drugs! The reason I've changed is that I've found someone who's willing to devote her life to help other suffering people. Why can't a person like me, who has so often attempted suicide, also offer her life and body to helping the suffering?

I earn money hoping to help the Master sustain members of the Tzu Chi family. I hope to help fulfill the Master's great vow to alleviate universal suffering.

My body, which used to be addicted to heroin, often plays tricks on me. My bones always feel so sore and unbearably painful. When this happens, I think of myself as Dharma Master Cheng Yen in order to overcome the pain.

Even when I only have one bowl of rice to eat and a place to sleep, I feel grateful because I work to earn money to help the suffering. To save even more money, I've stopped buying new clothes. Sometimes people who see me wearing the same old clothes offer me their old clothing or other things. For this I'm also grateful.

Working as a nurse for the elderly not only enables me to get more blessings, but also provides me with a chance to repent for my sinful, criminal past. I'm able to do something good for those whom I previously hurt. It also gives me an opportunity to work closely with good people. Though it's a tough, excruciating job, I endure it. As a result, even the stench of excrement is the smell of Dharma, enlightening and illuminating.

Since I was first given "Still Thoughts," I have gradually transformed myself into a follower of "Still Thoughts." If someone suffers, I suffer; if someone is hungry, I'm hungry; if someone shivers with cold, I shiver, too. I've become merciful and compassionate, rather than being bitter and cruel like I was before.

If I should again stray onto the path of evil for hundreds of years because of the thousands of sins and crimes I committed in the past, I won't forget my vow to the Master. I have vowed to be a person who willfully and joyously saves people; and, if I cannot be born as a human, I hope that I can be a spirit who willfully and joyously helps people.

I can now be described as "the salted fish who has made a 180 degree turn." I've handed over my life to become the porridge for others. In the past, I was on one of the three Malevolent Paths. I was the slimy salted fish turning tricks for my male clients. I was their morsel of pleasure. But, now I'm a Tzu Chi member. I've transformed my self-image into one of nutritious porridge for the malnourished. The salted fish has turned around! How marvelous! How magical!

Maybe I can be a Tzu Chi commissioner! If the film of my story is completed, I'll make many copies. I can introduce Tzu Chi to people by showing them the video of my life. Those who appreciate my deeds and respect the Master's Great Compassion should be glad to become Tzu Chi members! Then, I too would be entitled to wear the Tzu Chi blue garb. How wonderful this would be!