"She is very beautiful: oval face, clear skin, and a beautiful head of long, black, wavy hair shining above her shoulders. When she smiles, two cute dimples appear on her clean cheeks, giving an impression of innocence." Yu-ying Ching, a famous female writer thus described Sister Li Yi-hui in her book, Master of Love and Mercy: Cheng Yen.

As the third daughter of the famous "Grandpa Li" of the Tzu Chi Foundation [see our Spring 1999 issue], Yi-hui regards doing Tzu Chi work as the best gift she can give to her parents. During the past decade, she has planned and helped in many successful fund-raising activities and charity programs for Tzu Chi. She has many roles to play in the foundation, such as commissioner, honorary board member, Yi Te Association "mother," etc. However, she has only one goal--to assist Master Cheng Yen in helping the poor and educating the rich. She herself was one of the rich that was educated by the Master.

Heart of compassion

Actually, when Yi-hui's parents and sister, Chia-ying, joined Tzu Chi fifteen years ago, she did not think she had to follow in their footsteps and become a member herself. Urged by her sister, Yi-hui had regularly donated to Tzu Chi for years. But every time her parents and sister invited her to go to Tzu Chi activities, she would refuse on the pretext of having no time.

"Fifteen years ago, the major job of the Tzu chi commissioners was collecting money to help the poor and build the Tzu Chi Hospital. I didn't think that that sort of thing was worth my while." Besides, the navy blue commissioner's uniform was too drab for her.

One time, her sister-in-law asked Yi-hui to go with her to Taroko National Park near Hualien. "Hualien? Sure!" Yi-hui was tired of her parents' and sister's attempts to persuade her to visit the Abode of Still Thoughts, the birthplace of Tzu Chi in Hualien. She decided to take this opportunity to visit the Abode and get her parents and sister to stop nagging her once and for all.

Things did not turn out the way she expected. As soon as they arrived at the Abode, Yi-hui was attracted by its small sanctuary. Different from most Taiwanese temples, which were gaudy and vulgar, the main sanctuary looked so elegant and comfortable. "Master Cheng Yen has pretty good taste," she thought. Though she did not see the Master that time, the Abode made a good impression on her.

One day, Chia-ying invited Yi-hui to meet Master Cheng Yen in Taipei. "I cried when I first saw her," said Yi-hui. "Even I myself didn't understand my behavior. Perhaps it was because the Master brought out my instinctive sense of sympathy and compassion." She admired the wisdom that the Master showed when answering visitors' questions.

Besides the Master, there were two other people that strengthened her resolution to walk on the Path of Tzu Chi--her husband, Chen Kuan-po, and their babysitter.

At that time Yi-hui was a housewife, but she often dreamed of having her own business. One night while Kuan-po was reading the newspaper, she kept asking him to give her financial support. Kuan-po grew tired of the disturbance. "What do you want to go into business for, prestige or money? If it's for money, I don't think there will be any. So do you want to make a big name for yourself?"

"Not at all!" she answered.

"That's it, then. Since you don't want prestige or money, why don't you work for Tzu Chi with your sister?" Kuan-po hit the nail on the head. At that time, he was not a member of Tzu Chi, but he agreed with the Master's ideas of doing good deeds. Yi-hui believed that there must be some profound meaning to joining the foundation. She decided to learn more about it.

One day she and Chia-ying were riding the train to Hualien when she suddenly heard a familiar voice from the front seat. She found that the speaker was Mrs. Lin, her son's former babysitter, who had gone with Yi-hui that first time to visit the Abode of Still Thoughts. From her navy blue uniform, it was apparent that the babysitter had become a Tzu Chi commissioner. "I ought to be ashamed," Yi-hui told herself. "We got in touch with Tzu Chi at the same time, but she's already a commissioner while I'm still a beginner. There's absolutely no excuse for me to be idle!" This trip was a turning point in Yi-hui's life. After she returned to Taipei, she applied to become a commissioner and took the training courses. In 1989, she was finally certified as a Tzu Chi commissioner.

Mission impossible

As an intelligent, educated person, Yi-hui could not tolerate the inefficiency and illogic of other Tzu Chi commissioners. But Chia-ying responded to her complaints wisely: "That's why we need you." From then on, Yi-hui tried to think of ways to propagate the Master's ideas more effectively. From 1989 to 1991, in cooperation with the King Car Education Foundation, she produced the "Reserve a Pure Land on Earth" series of activities, which included fund-raising bazaars, lectures and music concerts. She was successful in extending the Master's ideals to the public through the mass media. At the same time she learned a lot about mass media management, which was very useful to her when she later helped to found the Tzu Chi cable television station.

In 1991, central China suffered the greatest floods of the century. The Master instructed the Tzu Chi Foundation to extend a helping hand to fellow Chinese on the mainland, despite over forty years of political estrangement. Among the six members of the inspection team selected by the Master, Yi-hui was the only female. She was also the first Tzu Chi commissioner to represent the organization to the mainland.

This was the first formal contact between Tzu Chi and the Chinese government. During hard negotiations, the inspection team kept the Master's instructions in mind: "You are to beg the government to allow us to help the flood victims, so you must be patient and humble." In the end, the team was finally granted permission to inspect the damage in the disaster areas.

"As we walked through one village, we were stopped by a vast expanse of yellow water. Part of the village was under 180 cm [6 ft] of water." Yi-hui also saw a school that had collapsed, leaving only the doorframes of the classrooms still standing above the water. It was August, and schools in Taiwan were just about to open. What would the students do here? Thinking of the wretched conditions that children in China were forced to endure, she could not help shedding tears. "I finally knew where 'Hell in the Human World' was: wherever disaster happens."

In order to raise funds for flood victims, Yi-hui was frequently asked to share what she had seen on the mainland with other Tzu Chi members. "I used to be afraid of speaking in public. As soon as I held a microphone in my hand, I would begin to tremble." She always spoke off the top of her head and quickly finished.

One night, Yi-hui dreamt that Master Cheng Yen told her that she was hungry. She rushed into the kitchen and prepared some cheesecake, but the Master came to her and said again, "I'm really hungry!" Yi-hui was haunted by the strange dream after she woke up. At last, she got the idea. "The dream meant that the Master is in great pain as long as people still suffer from starvation. If I really love the Master, I should do for the victims what I did for her in my dream." The dream told her that she had no time to be weak. She had to take every opportunity to let more people know about the miserable conditions of disaster victims and to collect more donations.

One time, Yi-hui was invited to make a speech at an important Tzu Chi meeting in Taipei. For fear that she might be too nervous, she showed slides during her speech. Unfortunately, she saw more and more people standing up and leaving in the dark. Desperate as she was, she still tried to finish her speech. Later, she went to apologize to the director. "Dear Sister Luo, I am so sorry that I messed things up." "No, I have to thank you, Sister Yi-hui. Your speech was so touching that many people went straight home and came back with their donations." Since then, Yi-hui has become more and more confident of speaking in public and can even act as emcee for Tzu Chi activities.

"The Master makes her followers challenge themselves. As long as you are willing, you can improve yourself at any time. The more you do, the more you gain." In the past decade, Yi-hui has tried so many roles that she never played before she entered Tzu Chi. "These trials were originally like 'Mission Impossible' for me. But now I realize that nothing is impossible in Tzu Chi."

Using her wisdom

Before Yi-hui entered Tzu Chi, her three children were the center of her life. They went to the Taipei American School, and Yi-hui was a member of the school's parents' association. She had eleven good friends in the association, most of whom were wives of successful entrepreneurs. They took turns holding lunch or dinner parties once a month at the most luxurious restaurants in Taipei. After Yi-hui entered Tzu Chi, she thought, "These friends are all capable women, so they can really help the Master." She invited commissioners to talk about Tzu Chi at their dinners. As more and more friends participated in the group, they named it the "Friends of Tzu Chi Association," and they began to hold activities and to go with the commissioners to serve the poor.

In 1994, Yi-hui, Chia-ying and the Friends of Tzu Chi Association held a charity auction named "Embrace the World with Love" to raise funds for the construction of the Tzu Chi Hospital in Talin and the Disabled Children's Rehabilitation Center in Taipei. When Yi-hui recalled the activity, from collecting donated items to the auction itself, tears welled up in her eyes.

"So many touching things happened during that activity." Yi-hui still remembered that one day when she was checking donated items stored in a jewelry store, she saw a figure in a raincoat standing outside. She assumed that the man must have come to donate items, because the customers were all rich people who would by no means wear common raincoats. She hastily opened the door and said, "Are you here to donate your jewelry? Please come in!" The man answered, "Yes, I came from Taoyuan." He took off his raincoat and took out a small gold ring. "My mother said that this is her wedding ring. Is it acceptable?" Yi-hui was touched that the man had come from miles away in the heavy rain to donate the ring for his mother. She told him excitedly, "This gold ring is more valuable than any diamond one."

A lady who worked for a department store also came to make a donation. She said that she had nothing except for a necklace and a ring her husband gave her when they were married. Yi-hui also accepted the donation, regardless of its low value.

"Everyone, poor or rich, has the right to contribute their love to society," said Yi-hui. "What I experienced at the auction was the warmth of human beings. I was so grateful to every donor and buyer."

However, some people have criticized the Friends of Tzu Chi Association as a club reserved only for rich women. Yi-hui explained that nobody showed off their social status in the association and that they, like everybody else, wanted to do good deeds. As one of the leading figures of the association, she is extremely careful that activities not be used to show off personal wealth. "I am also afraid of making the Master lose face," she laughed.

Love every child with a mother's love

The Master always teaches Tzu Chi people to love all children with a mother's love and to educate their own with the wisdom of the bodhisattvas. When Yi-hui first entered Tzu Chi, she could not understand this. "I was a mother, so I knew what a mother's love was. But I had no idea about the wisdom of bodhisattvas."

In 1990, the Master assigned Yi-hui to be an Yi Te Association "mother" and to advise students at the Tzu Chi Junior College of Nursing. "How can I take good care of other children when I can't take good care of my own?" she wondered. At that time, her daughter was hostile to her. They had been engaged in a cold war for a long time. However, since the Master had asked, she had no choice but to take the assignment.

"If a mirror is too close to your face, you can't see your reflection clearly," Yi-hui said. "Since my daughter was my closest relative, I used to speak directly to her without considering her personal feelings." In a mother's mind, her sons or daughters are forever little babies who know nothing and need to be looked after all the time. But teenagers think of themselves as adults. They do not want so much attention. Yi-hui found that the students of the Tzu Chi nursing college were more intimate with her than with their own parents because she respected them and treated them as adults. She also became aware that her daughter was an individual, not someone she could possess, and so she tried to adjust her attitude toward her daughter. When she wanted to correct her daughter's errors, she would talk to her politely as if she were a student at the nursing college. As a result, they began to get along much better with each other. Her daughter now takes her as a friend and confidant.

In 1995, when Yi-hui had had four years of experience counseling nursing students, the Master entrusted nine graduate students of the Tzu Chi Graduate School of Medicine to her care. At first, she felt she was not qualified to play the role of "mother" for nine doctors, but then she remembered the meaning of the Yi Te mothers: "The Master did not want us to guide them with any medical theories, but to instill in their minds the Tzu Chi spirit of contentment, gratitude, understanding and accommodation." She courageously accepted the responsibility.

The first day she met with her nine students, she found that one of her "sons," the vice superintendent of Hualien Provincial Hospital, was even three years older than she. "What a job!" she thought. "Anyway, sincerity is my strategy." Every time they met, once or twice a month, she tried to see what they needed and to help solve their problems.

The day before Mother's Day, Yi-hui got a phone call from this old "son." "Mom, will you come to Hualien on Sunday? I want to treat you to a meal." She felt so warm at that moment. Even now, he still calls her from time to time and asks for her suggestions when he has difficulties.

Another "son" was having problems with his colleagues. She listened to him attentively and suggested ways to deal with these problems. She also taught him that all difficulties were lessons for self-cultivation and that he should be grateful for them. Many years later, she got a phone call from him. "Mom, I'm fine now because I view everything in the world with a positive attitude. I'm grateful for every test in my life." Hearing his words, Yi-hui knew that she had not failed the Master's trust. "Thanks to the Master, I've had so many chances to learn about the wisdom of the bodhisattvas."

The Master's teachings

Last year, Yi-hui went to the United States to see her son. Sitting on the bus and looking at the monotonous scenery outside the window, she suddenly felt grateful to the Master for continually inspiring her through the past decade.

Yi-hui used to look down upon people inferior to her, but the Master taught her to respect every human being and creature. She has learned to look on the bright side of things and appreciate every person's strong points.

The Master told her that it was nothing to be proud of if she got something done by herself, but that she could truly be considered a capable person if she could gather a group of people to complete something together. She knew that the Master was teaching her the importance of teamwork and helping others to achieve their success.

Now Yi-hui is a volunteer at the Tzu Chi television station. Getting up at six o'clock every morning and going to bed late, she spends most of her time doing Tzu Chi work. Eleven years of personal growth have made her what she is today, modest and sympathetic. She is indeed a practitioner of Master Cheng Yen's teachings.