Why did they donate their works? Chu Ming laughed, "Because it is valuable!" Hsi Sung was enlightened: "I don't worry about any gain or loss!" Wang Hsia-chun replied, "It is the achievement of every person!" Lin Chi-feng said modestly, "I only know how to draw." But in fact, the real reason is: they all identify themselves with what Tzu Chi does.

Chu Ming: Creating With a Quick Knife

By Feng Yen-chu

During the "Embrace the World With Love," auction, there appeared a very extraordinary piece of work-a bronze statue depicting more than 10,000 buddhas of various sizes. The statue, weighing 350 kilograms [770 lb] took Chu Ming, one of the most famous sculptors in Taiwan, more than a month to finish.

So why was Chu so willing to donate a work that took him so much time and energy to create?

He first said with a smile, "Because it is so valuable!" [The statue was auctioned off for US$120,000.] Then he said seriously that it was because he identified himself with Tzu Chi's ideals. For the last thirty-two years, Tzu Chi has done so much for the world. Now he had a chance to contribute his strength.

When I walked into his home in a Taipei suburb, it was like walking into a small museum: inside and outside, everywhere I looked were his creations. "Tai Chi," a wooden statue of a man practicing tai chi, had established his reputation.

To him, life and art are inseparable. Art cannot be learned; it must be obtained through self-revelation. How? "Find yourself, and bring yourself back," he said.

When an art student starts learning, he naturally absorbs other people's styles. But then when he wants to do something of his own, he realizes that his head is full of other people's creations! It is like a person using both hands to grab other people's goods, but having no third hand to pick up his personal stuff. Thus, any creation from this person is soulless, no matter how beautiful it may look. An artist must throw away other people's creations and rediscover himself to make his works come to life.

Chu feels that any person needs to invest his whole life in training himself. He may not understand something at first, but at least he will not linger at the same spot. Chu meditates every evening before going to bed, pondering questions about nature, life or art, until he arrives at his answers. Chu likes to "think," and asking and answering questions is his personal way of spiritual formation.

On the door of his workroom he wrote, "Just do it, and you will get it." It means that his creativity is based on his "Speedy Knife." "Start working with your knife before you think, so that your creation can be truly yours." If you stop to think, you will only end up imitating other artists. Chu said, "Do it. That's right, just do it!"

Chu said that the great artist Yuyu Yang, who recently passed away, was the one who brought him into modern sculpture. "Without Yuyu Yang, there wouldn't be a Chu Ming today."

Yang adored nature, and advocated the concept of combining the heavens and the human world as one inseparable being. Thus, Chu learns from heaven and earth. One of his distinctive features is that he uses various kinds of materials to make his works more creative. With all his experience, there is nothing that he cannot use.

"You don't just do each little thing you learn. You must plant the seed of art in your heart and make it live." Governing one's life with art is like a monk or nun learning Buddha's teachings: one must carry out spiritual formation in daily life, so that the mind is not distracted and the heart is pure. Then, everywhere is a training ground for spiritual formation.

I asked him when he will stop sculpting. He thought for a while and then said with a smile, "I guess I'll work until I'm too old to move." He follows a secluded lifestyle of spiritual formation, learning from nature and being true to himself.

Hsi Sung: Contemplation Through Drawing

By Weng Yu-min

When you face a black-and-white drawing of the Great Compassion Bodhisattva by Hsi Sung, you naturally lay your worries and distractions down between the lines and the white spaces in the drawing. When the artist's mother succumbed to an illness ten years ago, he realized the inescapable agony of any human being-aging, illness and death. Therefore, drawing pictures of the Great Compassion Bodhisattva helped him to begin healing his pain and grief.

At that time, he needed a lot of courage to go to the hospital to visit his mother, like jumping into an ice-cold swimming pool in the winter. Watching his mother being kept alive by tubes and a respirator, he felt he was close to death too. Even his blood pressure went up as he watched the monitor displaying his mother's condition. He had never had any previous experience in looking after someone near death He never realized that it was such a horrible thing to watch a close relative so near death.

One day in the ICU ward, Hsi opened the yellow curtain and looked out the window at Taipei's east district. The streets below were still busy, and youngsters were still laughing and talking happily. However, his mother and other patients were still struggling on the verge of death. He felt that he was watching two totally different worlds. He almost wanted to open the window and shout to the people below, "Do you know that there are such terrible things here? Do you know that?"

His mother's death was a great shock to him, and he felt he needed to express his shock. His mother was a traditional woman, but she lived in the new age. She always put other people ahead of herself, so he could not really turn his mother's love into ashes. Therefore, while his mother was still sick, he started to draw pictures of the Great Compassion Bodhisattva. Some time after she passed away, he decided to cooperate with the Hsiung Shih Gallery and exhibit his drawings for three years. He exhibited one picture a month. If he sold it, he donated the money to needy children. He felt that this was like the love a mother gives to her child.

People normally think that it is necessary to have a tranquil mind to draw a picture of a bodhisattva, but it was the opposite for him. He used drawing to solve the problems in his mind. His mother's death not only brought him pain, but also the reality of human agony. But he did not use the traditional Buddhist methods of meditating or listening to sutras to get rid of his pain and perplexity. Instead,he used drawing.

The death of a close relative is often a compassionate revelation of the impermanence of life. Years after his mother passed away, his studies of Buddhism gradually helped him realize a deeper meaning of death. He said, "The Buddha was enlightened because he faced suffering and impermanence. If a person does not understand suffering, aging and death, it will be hard for him to study Buddhism. I came to realize this after my mother's death."

Drawing Kuan Yin also allowed Hsi Sung to build up a good relationship with Tzu Chi. When he heard from a friend that Tzu Chi planned to hold an auction for the Disabled Children's Rehabilitation Center, he very generously donated a drawing of "Kuan Yin Holding a Lotus Flower."

Wang Hsia-chun: Mixing Gratitude and Sincerity into Crystal

By Huang Hsiu-hua

When Wang Hsia-chun met Master Cheng Yen seven years ago, he immediately realized that he and Tzu Chi would have a very special relationship.

Indeed. About five years later, a group of Tzu Chi members went to him to ask about using glass for the main hall of the Still Thoughts Hall. Later, when Tzu Chi was planning its thirtieth anniversary in 1996, Sister Tzu Yin and some others had the idea of creating crystal statues modeled after the three statues at the Abode of Still Thoughts. They again thought of Wang. Now, these three statues have been finished and are on display at the Taipei branch office.

Looking back at his artistic development, Wang recalls that his first love was actually movies. He was a dreamer when he was young, and he felt that movies could help him create his dreams. However, his expectations for himself were too high, so his dreams could not match reality. After some setbacks, he felt empty, so he decided to work with glass, because it was something more concrete.

Wang considers all the setbacks in the production of glass as opportunities for spiritual formation. "I once thought of why I wanted to use glass. It not only used up a lot of my strength and time, but sometimes I even got burnt or cut and my work often failed. If I didn't expect that I would be able to create something, I couldn't carry on."

He considers gratitude to be the force behind his creativity. He constantly reminds himself of Master Cheng Yen's saying: "Respecting others is dignifying yourself." If he can be grateful for other people's accomplishments, then he himself will be able to keep on creating, especially statues of the Buddha. The work is difficult, but he also gains much joy.

I asked him whether he ever ran into any bottlenecks to his creativity. He replied that he had worked in other fields, like movies, commercials and magazines. He had gained a lot of wonderful experience from them and had accumulated many ideas for his work. Because he also emphasizes gratitude and sincerity, he is able to freely express himself in his work.

How does he involve gratitude in his work? He explained it with his creation, "Mountain." Normally, a mountain doesn't mean much to anyone, but when an artist puts his feelings into the work and senses its existence and what it represents, he can transform it from something cold into something living. Then anyone can sense the majesty and reliability of the mountain, and can even discover more wisdom, peace and life. That is a realm for spiritual formation.

Sincerity is also something that Wang wants to express. The three statues at the Taipei branch were major tests for him. He indicated that a statue like those required more than thirty steps, and fourteen days were needed to gradually reduce the heat in the furnace. He could not reduce the time required. If he were "insincere" and "betrayed" the glass, he would suffer the consequence of failure.

In creating these three statues, Wang and his colleagues made many experiments. The entire company even had vegetarian meals for one month and they hosted a Tzu Chi tea party. Their care and gratitude were thus infused into the statues, so that they came out looking so dignified and compassionate.