The following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Master Cheng Yen on July 12, 1998

Ladies and Gentlemen, Amitabha!

It's really very hot outside, but we gather together here with happiness. It proves the Chinese saying that we feel cool when we keep tranquility in our minds. Although we come from different places, we have only one purposeo understand and care for the work of Tzu Chi.

It is hard to build a hospital

Every day I feel grateful that so many people give their care and support to Tzu Chi. A few minutes ago, a couple of Tzu Chi members stood here speaking to you about their own experiences with Tzu Chi. I couldn't help recalling how they gave generously without asking for anything in return.

For instance, Chen Nai-yu opened a cram school many years ago. He had more than 2,000 students. He had to teach twelve hours every day, seven days a week. It was a hard job, but he made a lot of money. The first time he visited Tzu Chi Hospital, he was shocked. He touched the wall of the hospital and said regretfully to our commissioner, Sister Ya-mei, "I came here too late. None of the cement, sand, nails, or bricks in this wall was donated by me. I didn't do anything."

I always say one should not wait to do good deeds. Mr. Chen has complied with what I have said. When he heard that Tzu Chi was going to build a medical service network in areas that lacked hospitals, he started to donate NT$200,000 [around US$5,800] each month. At that time, that was a lot of money. Because he was too busy to come here to the Abode, he worked very hard to make money to help me.

Two or three years later, he had an ache in his foot. He went to Tzu Chi Hospital for an examination. While he was in the hospital, he also had the doctor check out an ulcer on his tongue, which had been there for some time. To his dismay, he learned that he had cancer. It was such a coincidence that he had an ache in his foot. Otherwise, he wouldn't have found the cancer on his tongue in time. I could see how nervous he was when he came to the hospital for treatment, so I said to him, "Give your body to the doctors and your heart to the Buddha." He had wisdom, accepted my words, and started to make arrangements for the operation.

I am most grateful to our surgeons. They made detailed plans for the operation. They cut some muscle from Mr. Chen's instep to patch his tongue and some muscle from his thigh to patch the instep. It was amazing. I wondered why the doctors didn't use the muscle on the thigh to patch the tongue. They explained that the texture of the muscle in his instep was closer to that of the tongue.

After the operation, we couldn't hear anything wrong with his speech. Once I asked him whether he had any problem tasting anything. He said he had no trouble at all. Such a combination of medicine and technologysn't it wonderful?

Surely it was a hard job to build Tzu Chi Hospital. When I think back on it now, it really seems so unthinkable because at the beginning I had neither money nor people. How daring I was! As a matter of fact, behind that bravado, there was a true strength. What strength was it? The answer is love. It was the strength of love that pushed me forward. At that time, there were few medical resources in Hualien. Small clinics could do nothing to cure patients who had serious or difficult diseases.

I have always felt that all lives are equally precious. Why then were all the medical resources concentrated in western Taiwan? Why was there such an insufficiency in the east? Wasn't it unfair? Unable to bear the fact that people's lives in the east were so unprotected, I decided to build a high quality general hospital so that we could save lives.

At that time, nobody would believe me except Dr. Tseng, who was then the deputy director in charge of administration at the National Taiwan University Hospital and is now the director of Tzu Chi Hospital. He was not afraid that I had no money and no people. He never worried that I would not make it. From the first blueprint, he always stood by my side. I always say that I am grateful to him.

We have saved many lives

Half a month after the hospital opened, we provided a free clinic for the public. I remember that a fifteen-year-old girl had a motorcycle accident. She was in a coma when she arrived at the emergency room. At that time, many medical instruments had not arrived yet, but the operation had to be conducted right away since her pupils were already dilated and she was about to die. Without diagnostic tools and working almost entirely from his experience, our surgeon operated to remove a blood clot in her brain. Before that time, there had been no neurosurgeons in Hualien. All such operations had to be done in other big cities in Taiwan. Tzu Chi Hospital was the first in Hualien to provide brain operations. I was very nervous.

The following day I rushed to the hospital to see how it had gone. The surgeon told me the operation had gone very smoothly. He took me to the ICU, where the girl was already awake. I praised the surgeon for his skill. "Dr. Tsai, you are very good indeed. Even without a tomography scanner, you could spot the exact position of the bleeding and you operated on it accordingly." Dr. Tsai, who is a Christian, replied humbly, "Master, it was not I that was good. It was the Buddha who guided my hand to find the exact position of the bleeding." Although it was a hard job to build the hospital, I have never regretted it because we have saved many precious lives. Today the hospital is twelve years old. We have the most up-to-date equipment, just like the hospitals in Taipei have. What's more, our doctors have great love.

Mr. Chen told us that he had his tongue examined in a hospital in the western part of Taiwan. The surgeon there told him that it had to be cut off completely. In Tzu Chi Hospital, the surgeon said to him, "A part of your tongue must be cut out. But I will patch it with muscle from your instep, and I will cut some muscle from your thigh to patch your instep. After the operation, you will have to do rehabilitation to adapt…" He told Mr. Chen everything in detail. That is love and true care. When I saw Mr. Chen standing on the stage recalling the whole incident, I felt very much consoled and joyful.

Another time, a young man had a fight with someone in a local restaurant in Meilun, and one of his arms was cut off with a samurai sword. A friend took him to Tzu Chi Hospital. When the surgeon asked where the arm was, his friend said it had been thrown into a wastebasket in the restaurant. The surgeon told him to fetch it and return as soon as possible. His friend rushed back to the restaurant to get the arm, and after sterilization it was reconnected.

I heard about this incident and saw the news reports, so I went to the hospital to see that young man. I asked him how he was. He said he was fine and he was grateful to Tzu Chi Hospital for saving his arm. I held his fingers and asked, "Is the connection all right? Do your fingers have any feeling?" He said yes, and he showed me by moving the fingers.

When I think that our hospital has saved so many valuable lives, I feel very happy and forget about all the hard work in building the hospital.

A good son

The next speaker was Sister Wei Hsin-chuan. Her whole family is known for their filial piety. Her mother was good to her grandmother, so she and her siblings are good to their mother. I've never seen anyone more respectful to a mother than her brother.

The first time I met her mother, I was in the Tzu Chi Taipei branch office. She and her sisters, brother and sister-in-law took their mother there in a wheelchair. Actually the mother had Alzheimer's disease and had difficulty speaking, but they would talk to her just like before.

"You wanted to see me," I said to her. "Now you have seen me. Are you happy?" Her face broadened into a grin. Her children all shouted joyfully, "Mother is smiling." Just a smile could bring so much joy to the family. I was really touched. What a wonderful family!

Sister Wei said to me, "Master, our mother had a hard time when she was young. Whenever she wanted to attend a party, she had to borrow a dress and jewelry from someone else. She liked to dress up beautifully, but she couldn't afford it. I made a wish as a child that when I grew up, I would make a lot of money to buy beautiful clothes and jewelry for my mother."

She continued to explain that she had indeed made a lot of money and was able to buy the most beautiful clothes and jewelry for her mother, but her mother could no longer wear them. She would like to donate the money to Tzu Chi in her mother's name. As she said so, she took out a check and gave it to me. I took a look at the figure and returned it to her. I asked her whether she had written the wrong figure. She said, "No, it's correct. It's the money I had set aside to buy jewelry for my mother."

How touched I was! It was more than NT$40 million (around US$1.2 million) that she wanted to donate to Tzu Chi for construction funds!

I accepted the check and said to the mother, "Look, your daughter used your name to donate all the money with which she originally intended to buy jewelry for you. The money will be used to build a hospital. Are you happy?" The woman laughed heartily. Hearing this, all of her children cried and smiled. They said, "Mother is laughing. She knows what we're talking about." Such a picture is the most beautiful one in the world.

Sister Wei's brother is the only son in the family. He runs one of the largest air conditioner companies in Taiwan. Although he is the boss of the company, each day after he comes home, he takes care of his mother. He feeds her, bathes her, and changes her diapers. It takes more than two hours to feed her each meal. Although she has been sick for many years, he keeps her body very clean, without any odor.

Judging from Mr. Wei's case, we can see that there is nothing in the world that cannot be done. Who says a busy man has no time to look after his family and be kind to his parents? Mr. Wei runs a successful business and at the same time he takes good care of his mother. In this society, not many people would believe that a man like him could be this way. But I have seen it myself not only at the Tzu Chi Taipei branch, but also in his daily conduct.

Mr. Wei is a specialist in the air conditioning business. He went to the construction site of the Tzu Chi Hospital in Talin to serve as a volunteer. Each time I went to the site, he would give me some advice about the installation of the air conditioning at the hospital. I always think how wonderful it would be if every family could be like the Weishildren respecting their parents and brothers and sisters loving each other.

In the Tzu Chi world, every blade of grass, every tree, every brick, and every tile has been built by the public with love. Now Tzu Chi Hospital is still working toward its goal to save people every minute and every second. The Tzu Chi Hospital in Talin will be completed soon. Following that will be the Tzu Chi medical service network in Taichung and Taipei. We need continuous support from all of you.