Upon learning of her selection as one of the world’s 100 most influential figures by Time magazine this year, Dharma Master Cheng Yen (證嚴法師), founder of Taiwan’s largest charity — the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation — said on Thursday that the honor was not hers alone, but rather a recognition of the tens of millions of Tzu Chi volunteers who have worked hard to help people in need over the past 45 years.
In its article, Time lauded the Buddhist nun as a well-grounded, no-nonsense head of a non-profit humanitarian organization with divisions in 50 countries and nearly 10 million supporters and volunteers.
Cheng Yen said that as Taiwan does not have any precious minerals, it should cultivate selfless love as its most treasured asset.
She said she also feels sad and anxious.
“I feel sad because many people often fail to tell right from wrong. I feel anxious because there are too many disasters and I’m afraid we cannot come to the rescue in time,” she added.
Tzu Chi spokesman Her Rey-sheng (何日生) said Time’s selection of Cheng Yen was closely related to Tzu Chi’s active relief efforts in the wake of Japan’s recent multiple disasters nd the international recognition such work gained the group
He said Time noticed that when many countries were evacuating their citizens from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami-stricken zones, Tzu Chi volunteers rushed to the hardest-hit areas to deliver relief goods and look after survivors.
“The first bowls of hot curry rice offered to many Japanese quake and tsunami victims were prepared by Tzu Chi volunteers,” he said.
More importantly, Tzu Chi has been engaged in philanthropic work in more than 70 countries around the world for decades, he said.
When a Time photographer visited the Tzu Chi headquarters in Hualien last week to take Cheng Yen’s picture, she was busy testing a Tzu Chi volunteer-invented a stove to be used in Japan’s disaster zones.
Her said Cheng Yen was concentrating on the job at hand so hard that she forgot the presence of a camera beside her, which led the photographer to observe that “she is really concerned about other people every minute of her life.”
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