Is a parent-child relation a debt owed from a previous life, or a sweet appointment to be fulfilled? To Lai Liang-yu, the answer lies not in her words or her feelings, but in her experience of growing up.

Parents are living buddhas at home, but I had never done anything for my parents, nor had I understood their parental love for their children, because my father worked as a junk collector. I felt it was disgraceful.

Ignoring My Dad

When I was in grade school, I was overly sensitive and suspicious due to my inferiority complex. If my schoolmates wanted to visit my home, I would stop them. When they asked which line of work my father was in, I would simply reply: "Oh, he is a businessman." It made me sick to hear a collector call on the street: "Any empty bottles for sale? Any scrap copper or iron for sale?" I didn't want to be associated with my father, who had such a menial job.

I resented my father because he worked with dirty, ugly stuff all day long, and I frequently had to help sort through that stuff after school. I hated growing up in such a family. I hated that I couldn't dress nicely like my classmates and concentrate on my homework after school. Father never blamed me for my cold, bitter mood. He always tolerated me, thinking that I was too young to understand.

Being misled by the concept that a person's value was judged by his profession, I made the most serious mistake in my life when I was in third grade. One day, with my box lunch and snacks that my parents had prepared for me, I went on a school outing. I was in a great mood and everything was perfect. I never expected that my father would go to the same spot to collect junk...

Seeing him beckoning to me from afar and coming toward me with a smile, I was dumbfounded. I wondered why he wanted to humiliate me in front of my teacher and schoolmates. What I had tried very hard to hide for ten years would come to light. So I angrily turned my head away, hoping to deny the relationship between my father and me for the moment.

Father loved me so much that he stopped when he saw what I was doing. He didn't dare to approach me or call me any more. He only turned around and left. I was sorry the moment he left, because I also wanted to shake off my sense of inferiority and love him as much as I could.

Afterwards, my reserved, gentle father never mentioned the incident. But my mother told me sadly that my father had asked her in tears: "What's wrong with my job? What's wrong with doing an honest job to raise one's children?" I regretted it very much, but due to my pride, I didn't apologize to my father.

Begging for Forgiveness

As I grew up, I began to understand why my father, who started to drive a pickup truck when he was fifteen, worked extremely hard and took only two days off per year. Garbage collection might not be a great job, but my father always did it with a serious, responsible attitude. Because of his sincerity, integrity, trust and honesty, no matter how other people looked down on him because of his job, he still worked hard without regret.

I began to realize that a person who could cherish waste materials and handle them so carefully must have a soft, broad heart. That was why he could always tolerate a daughter's rudeness, rebellion and hurt.

However, no matter how close I was later to my father, I couldn't gather enough courage to express my regret and contrition for that incident. My wish wasn't fulfilled until I joined Tzu Chi.

In September 1995, Sister Lee Mei-ching, a Tzu Chi commissioner, told me that "One who knows how to beautify the face must also know how to beautify the heart." Thus encouraged, I joined the big family of Tzu Chi and visited the Abode of Still Thoughts with my father.

There were entertaining programs performed by Tzu Chi commissioners. A play entitled "Do You Have Empty Bottles for Sale?" was so inspiring. It was about a junk collector who adopted an abandoned baby girl. The man treated her as if she was his real daughter. He provided her with a carefree life and a good education. When the girl made her debut in show business, she hardened her heart and dissociated herself from her father, fearing that his lowly status might hinder her career.

I was shocked at that scene, and I was ashamed that I had had the same attitude toward my father years ago. The plot of the play was exactly my own story and revealed my own faults. Disregarding my distorted, tearful face and the amazed stares of people sitting around us, I knelt down beside my father and held his hands, begging him to forgive me for the way I had treated him years ago. My kind father hurriedly pulled me up so that other people wouldn't point their fingers at me. He said: "Silly girl! Let bygones be bygones. You are always my darling daughter."

For my whole life I shall always be grateful to my father for his tolerance and accommodation. This experience gave me even more courage to express my love to my parents more often, and to spread that love to all those who need it.

Healing Great Love

In 1993, after being certified as a Tzu Chi commissioner, I went to the Ilan Reformatory to give guidance to young men who had been led astray. The memory of seventeen-year-old Ta-yin has remained vivid in my mind to this day.

In the beginning, Ta-yin was reluctant to interact with any Tzu Chi people, but one day he surprised me by telling the story hidden deep in his heart. His mother, who wasn't legally married to his father, left home after he was born. His father, busy making money to support the family, didn't have enough patience to listen to what he said or to understand him. This lasted for quite a long time, and finally his empty heart could only be consoled by sensual entertainment.

Ta-yin hung out with a group of hoodlums. He was spellbound by video games, and he finally became addicted to drugs and started to steal. His father, upset and angry, frequently beat him. One day as Ta-yin's grandmother tried to protect him from a beating, his father accidentally blinded her right eye. In an uncontrollable rage, he tied Ta-yin up and pulled out all his fingernails. The pain was of course unbearable. Ta-yin thought that since his father treated him so cruelly, he would do something even worse to break his father's heart.

Ta-yin thought that his heart had been sealed and couldn't be moved by anything. But the tender, soft voices of Tzu Chi sisters made him feel warm and loved. He found that life could still be bright and meaningful. One day before a Chinese festival, a Tzu Chi mother's warm hugs moved him to tears, because it was the first time in his seventeen years of age that he had experienced what a mother's love was like.

"The great love in the world has a miraculous healing power," said Ta-yin. Thinking back, he was grateful that he had the chance to enter the reformatory. He no longer hated those who had turned him in to the police. Having gotten to know Tzu Chi people, he had a new chance to think about the future directions of his life. In the future, he will kick drugs and stop stealing. Furthermore, he will try the best he can to help and love others, so that he won't waste his life!