With a joyful heart, we welcome the new year.
If we keep a joyful heart, we will be joyful every day and being joyful, every day will be a blessed day.
Actually, all of us are together creating blessings for our world.
Here in Zhanghua County---whenever I hear of Zhanghua's Fangyuan Township, I'd think back to thirty years ago when I used to travel in these parts.
Back then, going from Fangyuan (to other townships)made for a long trip.
But now, traveling from Fangyuan to our office in
With developments in transportation, it is now a much more convenient and smooth trip.
Now, it is a very easy trip to make.
Indeed, in these past few decades, we in
Why do we now have such good circumstances?
We need to be grateful to one another and be grateful for the prosperity that industrial development has brought these recent decades.
We should be grateful for everyone's hard work that made it all possible.
We should also be grateful for Tzu Chi's growth these past four decades.
Tzu Chi members started from(just a handful)and grew to tens, hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands.
The seed of love kept multiplying.
Starting with just one seed, that seed produced countless seeds.
These countless seeds all came from one original seed.
Everyone, I hope all of us can be like that one seed that can produce innumerable seeds.
I hope that all of us can truly have the conviction ad vow to be that seed that produces countless more seeds by inviting more people to join us in or work and serve as a bodhisattva.
If we can do that, our
If our society is peaceful and harmonious, there will be safety and security for our family.
When our family is well we are fortunate and blessed.
So, the prosperity of our society depends not just on the land and the climate which are important factors but also depends on our actions to sow blessings.
Look at Mr. Xie from Fangyuan.
Our recycling volunteers invited him to join Tzu Chi's work.
After understanding Tzu Chi's mission his entire family got involved in Tzu Chi Mr. Xie not only offered up around 2.5 acres of his land originally used for growing peanuts, so it could be turned into Tzu Chi's recycling station.
He also joined the volunteer work.
His son, daughter-in-law, and several other members of his family are all now certified Tzu Chi members like him.
His wife is as well.
He really is a seed.
Because he has let his land become a recycling station, many more people( are now involved in the work)
Mr. Xie is really friendly and nice.
When people come, he is very warm welcoming them and inviting them to come in to drink a cup of tea and take a break.
When other volunteers need to leave (and the work is not yet finished,)
Mr. Xie would finish up the work for them and wrap everything up. He and his wife are always quietly taking care of a lot of things.
The next day, before people start arriving, he'd already be here working.
He is really very dedicated.
He contributes a lot to this recycling station.
He's like a fulltime staff here.
If not for the efforts of Mr. Xie and his wife, our recycling station wouldn't be able to function as it does now.
Now in Fangyuan, over 50 people who started to as our recycling volunteer have become our certified Tzu Chi member be it a Tzu Cheng or commissioner.
(So, this land has produced many bodhisattvas)
I'm truly grateful about that.
The more I do, the happier I am.
The volunteers are all very nice to us.
So, the more I do, the happier I am.
Every morning, the first thing I want to do is come to the recycling station.
The Buddha came to this world to teach us that the world we live in is full of impermanence and suffering.
Besides the suffering of birth, aging, illness, and death, there are natural and man-made disasters.
Everyone, in learning Buddhism, we must learn to help people in suffering.
Let me ask you one thing:
Can we gain blessings just by praying for it?
Can we?
No
How can we gain blessings?
By helping others (thus sowing blessings)
Just like when we want to eat rice, we need to first plant and grow the rice so that we can have rice to harvest.
So, we need to be grateful to the rice farmers for the rice we get to eat.
After we have the rice, do we need to cook it?
Yes, we need to cook it.
We have to cook it before we can eat it.
Therefore, we need to be grateful that we have rice to cook so that we won't go hungry.
But does just cooking the rice alone make us full?
What do we need to do?
We need to eat it, right?
Will you be full if other people eat the rice for you?
No. (The meaning is clearer and clearer, right?)
That's right, we should know that it's our body that is hungry.
So, in order for us to be full, we need to eat the rice ourselves.
(Just because we pray piously to the Buddha)doesn't mean that our hunger can go away without us eating anything.
That's impossible.
So, everyone, (to enjoy blessings.) we need to create blessings and cherish them
Doing recycling makes our surrounding area much cleaner.
Plus, the recyclables can be reused, so we don't use up so many natural resources.
I would like to treat Tzu Chi's recycling station as my home.
Working in the recycling station made me realize deeply that we really need to count and cherish our blessings.
(This is how we can give)
(We can see this in our recycling volunteers)
They cherish their blessings.
Even though fewer companies are now accepting our recyclables.
However, (we should still do recycling)for the good of our community.
If we do not go out and collect recyclables, garbage will pile up quickly in our communities.
So, we must continue to promote recycling work.
Furthermore, our recycling stations also serve as an educational place.
Teachers often bring their students there to learn about environmental protection.
What we need to teach people now is to cherish the goods they have and to not buy a lot of things.
We need to take this opportunity to teach people about this concept.
If we keep on spending, then we would empty our savings as well as the nation's treasury.
So, we should continue to be frugal and cherish what we already have.
That's the spirit of the recycling volunteer.
重播 週一到週五
09:48 11:45 15:15 23:00
重播 週六
07:45 11:45 15:18 23:00
重播 週日
02:45 07:45 11:45 23:00
人間菩薩福地生
廣聚愛心惜資源
環保教育幼培植
惜福造福利群生
2008/11/30
Regards, Jenny
Today's Jing Si Aphorisms: Grateful, our hearts would be touched and moved. Moved, we would be inspired to take action.
今日靜思語:有感恩就有感動,有感動就有一股推動的力量
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