The power of love can calm an uneasy heart, bring peace and harmony to society, and even eliminate the disasters in this world.

Ladies and gentlemen, Amitabha!

The days have really flown by. It will soon be Chinese New Year.

I always tell our overseas Tzu Chi members: "The ground under your feet and the sky over your head belong to a foreign country. No matter where you go, you have to give first. Only when you love others, will others love you."

Therefore, wherever you live, you have to remember one thing: you must obtain your resources locally and put them to use locally. If a disaster happens in your host country or in a neighboring country, you should go there right away. Take the love of Tzu Chi and its concept of relief and cooperate with local people to evaluate the needs of the disaster victims and to offer relief. Last year alone, there were Tzu Chi relief projects in as many as thirty countries.

In February and March of last year, a big flood in Peru destroyed many homes and damaged crops. Hundreds of thousands of people became homeless. The request for help came to our headquarters in Taiwan just as we were holding a seminar for Tzu Chi members from all over the world. Commissioners from the United States told me that there were very few Tzu Chi members in South America. They asked me whether I would allow them to do the relief work in Peru.

"Peru is very far away," I said.
They replied, "It is much closer from the United States."
"How much closer?"
"It takes a little more than ten hours to get there."
"By car?"
"No, by plane."
"That's not close."
"At least much closer than from Taiwan."

That was true. From Taiwan, it takes over thirty hours by plane. It really is much closer to go there from the United States than from here. Therefore, I decided to let them do the job.

When the fact-finding team went to Peru in May 1998, they found that medicine and food were the items needed the most. They went back to the States to purchase food and other needed supplies, and in August they held relief distributions and free clinics in Peru. At this time, they found the people lacked the means to rebuild their homes and that their tents were worn out, so our members decided to have new houses built for them. By late November, the houses were completed. The people were very happy. They said they had never lived in such beautiful houses before. In fact, they had never dreamed they would ever again have houses to live in.

How beautiful were those houses? They were very simple. They had corrugated roofs and the walls were made of clay bricks without any cement. Each house cost only about US$250, yet in the eyes of these people they were very beautiful.

When I saw the photographs and heard the reports of the US commissioners, I felt very sad, though I admired the Peruvians for being so easily contented. They could be happy living in such simple houses. Many people in Taiwan are not contented even though their houses are much better.

In October last year, a strong hurricane hit Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and El Salvador, damaging most of the infrastructure in those countries. It is estimated that it will take more than forty years to bring those countries back to their original level of development. Tzu Chi members from the United States arrived there eleven days after the disaster. By that time, over seven thousand bodies had been recovered and more than twelve thousand people were still missing in Honduras alone.

Since Honduras was still in a state of panic and the country was poor, they could not disinfect the affected areas right away. When Tzu Chi people asked for sprayers, local people brought out two, but one of them was useless and the other one was very old and worn. They said, "These are the only ones we can find in the capital." You can see how poor that country is. Therefore I asked Tzu Chi members in the States to immediately purchase equipment and start disinfection right away in order to avoid epidemics.

In Taiwan, people tend to throw out used things when they get new ones, even when the used items are still in good condition. However, in the Dominican Republic, many people live on garbage. Whenever a garbage truck reaches the dump, people, young and old, swarm up to them, trying to find something to eat.

Those were the scenes Tzu Chi members observed during their trip. What enormous calamities people face in this world!

Ever since the May 1998 riots in Indonesia, wrecked buildings and signs of fire damage are everywhere. Many overseas Chinese and Taiwanese businessmen do not dare go back to work. Factories and stores are still closed. The Asian financial crisis has caused the economy to go from bad to worse. Unemployment rates are soaring, making people even poorer and society even more chaotic.

About four years ago, several Taiwanese businessmen brought the Tzu Chi spirit to Indonesia by sponsoring free monthly clinics and distributions of medicine. I always think that if they could invite more overseas Chinese and Taiwanese businessmen to join them, not only would the poor in Indonesia benefit, but it would also help rebuild the stability of their society.

Last year Huang I-tsung, an overseas Chinese entrepreneur in Indonesia, came to Hualien with his son to participate in our Still Thoughts Camp. They were very positive about my idea and started on their plan as soon as they returned to Indonesia.

During a recent distribution there, there were seventy-eight Tzu Chi members from Taiwan, Australia, Malaysia and the United States, plus more than three hundred local volunteers. Within three short days, they distributed fifty thousand packages of food to the poor in Indonesia.

While the distribution was going on, news came of new riots. I was very much worried because our Tzu Chi members were divided into twenty teams, with each team responsible for several thousand families. Would the distributions get out of control? What if something happened? I did not stop worrying until they phoned to tell me that they were safe.

Although Tzu Chi is headquartered in Taiwan, we spread our love to every place in the world. Take the recent distributions in Indonesia. We combined the love of overseas Chinese and Taiwanese businessmen in Indonesia and used their resources and strength to help the poor in that country. The Taiwanese Tzu Chi members brought only their love and experience in organizing relief distributions.

Many of the volunteers that went from Taiwan to Indonesia for this relief mission were entrepreneurs. Why did we invite them to join us? We had two purposes. First of all, we wanted them to realize how difficult it is to do business in an unstable society, so that they would appreciate the peace and stability in Taiwan. Secondly, we wanted to show entrepreneurs in Indonesia how Taiwanese people can offer their services to society, in the hope that they would do the same and thus bring peace and harmony back to Indonesia.

A few days ago, the one hundredth donated body was dissected in an anatomy class at the Tzu Chi College of Medicine. This kind of pathological anatomy work is essential for medical research. Those who decided to donate their bodies for this purpose did a great deed. It is also admirable that their families agreed to such donations while mourning the loss of their loved ones.

Only a day after that class, a young soldier stationed in Hualien had a car accident that resulted in his becoming brain-dead. Since he had signed an organ donation agreement, his parents fulfilled his wishes and donated all his organs, including his corneas, kidney, liver and bones. Nearly twenty patients in Tzu Chi Hospital benefited.

The power of love can calm an uneasy heart and make society more peaceful. I hope the New Year will be a year of peace. However, in order to ask for peace, we must first have peaceful, pure hearts--hearts of love. If everyone has a loving heart, disasters in this world will cease.

I wish all of you good luck at the beginning of the New Year.