| The
Buddhist Tzu Chi Merit Association |
 |
| (Translated by Douglas Shaw) |
|
In 1966, Master Cheng Yen went to a hospital
to visit a disciple's father. She saw a pool of blood on the hospital
floor. When she asked what had happened, she learned that an aboriginal
woman had just had a miscarriage, but because she could not afford
the NT$8,000 [US$200] security deposit, she had been carried away
by her family, no one knew where. The Master was bitterly upset
by the plight of that woman and all poor people.
Some time later, three Catholic nuns from Haihsing
Middle School in Hualien came to visit the Master. They remarked
that Buddhism had not concretely offered anything to humanity,
such as schools or hospitals. Their words touched the Master and
strengthened her resolve to form a community of five hundred people
who would do this-worldly work with an other-worldly spirit. It
became a belief in the respect for life of Kuan Yin, the bodhisattva
with a thousand eyes to see the suffering in the world and a thousand
hands to reach out and help. This belief took root in the Master's
heart, and she decided to bring the strength of many people together
in order to help the needy.
In 1966, a miniature model of this great organization-the
Buddhist Overcome Hardship Tzu Chi Merit Association-was organized
with the commitment of four disciples and thirty followers. At
the beginning, the four disciples and two old people each made
a pair of baby shoes each day. Selling them for NT$4 [US$0.10]
a pair, they made $24 a day, about $720 a month. Meanwhile, as
the thirty followers went about their normal daily routines, they
each took out fifty cents a day from their shopping money and
saved it to help the needy.
Saving fifty cents a day from one's grocery
money to save the world doesn't seem like much, but the compassion,
wisdom and real strength that those few coins contained was beyond
belief.
As time passed, many people asked Master Cheng
Yen to accept them as her disciples. In order to recruit sincere
members for her new association, the Master made two basic conditions:
those who wanted to become her disciples had to become members
of the Tzu Chi Merit Association, and they had to sincerely participate
in the association's work of helping the needy.
