Message from the Editor:

• Citation: Vol. 36 No. 2
• Publication year: 2014
• Author: Naghmeh Bashar, Executive Editor

Message from the Editor:

Naghmeh Bashar, Executive Editor

How Far Can a Penny a Day Take Us?

Transient though life may be, one's contributions will live on; as love knows no boundaries, its spirit will always remain. (Jing Si Aphorisms by Shih Cheng Yen).

During the Chinese New Year, I traveled to Taiwan. As part of my sightseeing tour, I visited the Pu Ming Temple in Hualien County that Master Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun, helped grow, imrpove and advance. The temple was located on acres and acres of land where the volunteers both room and board, but also where they grow their own food. During this New Year, they fed up to 3,500 visitors — the indigent and those with no family to take them in during the holiday. This is a far cry from the early days in the mid-1960s when Master Cheng Yen started her journey in Hualien.

At that time, she was extremely poor and only had 30 housewife followers who listened to her teachings. Their small temple scarcely survived by its few volunteers who grew their own vegetables, sewed baby shoes, made concrete sacks into smaller animal feed bags, and knitted sweaters. Many came to her needing help; but she had no funds with which to help them, and felt defeated for not being able to better help humanity. The temple's other branch in the bigger city decided to close the doors in Hualien, as it was unable to survive. The housewives were very upset and wanted to do something to save their small temple.

In order to better help humanity and to save the temple, Master Cheng Yen realized an organization was necessary along with better means to raise more funds. In 1966, she founded the Buddist Compassion ReliefTzu Chi Foundation with its motto of "instructing the rich and saving the poor." She requested the housewives help sell one extra...