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In daily life, when we are surrounded by a clean environment with a neat and tidy layout, we will naturally feel joyful; it is spiritually uplifting. Hence, if we are able to keep the environment clean anytime and anywhere, we will feel happy for having made the effort.
In our society nowadays, it is quite common to see people appealing for environmental protection. It is everyone’s duty to protect and care for the environment. We will have clean surroundings if everyone plays their part. Yet, many people are too selfish and lazy to do their bit. They don't want to tax their bodies and prefer to enjoy life. Thus, not only are they unwilling to clear their own trash, they are also creating more trash each day.
Where does trash come from? It is created by wasteful habits as people do not cherish resources. Everything serves its purpose in life. If we readily replace used items with new ones, the older items will lose their value even if we do not throw them away.
People nowadays are spoiled with excessive material goods. They are used to throwing things away and replacing them with new ones, and the discarded items become trash as a result.
There are also some who find it difficult to throw their old items away even after they have bought new ones. Their old belongings will accumulate and eventually become useless trash as well. When this happens, they are as good as living in a rubbish dump. This is the undesirable consequence of clinging to material goods and blindly following the trend. Not only does that pollute the environment, but it also does not feed the soul.
We must look after our minds well and bring forth our love to love all people and things. We should make full use of every item we own and not simply throw it away while it still usable. Only by doing so are we truly cherishing our blessings by not wasting resources!
Living in this world, we must first keep our heart and mind clean and pure, and manifest this inner purity through actions. Besides caring for our heart and mind, we must also cherish our surroundings and take care not to cause damage to Mother Nature. It starts from us taking care of our minds and then taking actions to protect and care for the environment.
Besides our own surrounding environment, we have to think about others—do we only want our home to be clean and dump our trash to others? The rubbish trucks are filled with waste each day, and we have no idea where the trash is sent to. The landfills are piled up one after another. If everyone can cut down on the amount of trash they produce, we can reduce landfill issues.
It all starts from ourselves."
When Tzu Chi Taiwan was going to build a school, the authorities wanted to provide us with a piece of land. It was over 200 acres and located on the hillside of a lake with very scenic views. The area was indeed a good place to build a school. However, I could not bear to destroy the precious virgin forest land, because many trees would have to be chopped off, and we would have to level the land and do land reclamation before building the school. Although that big tract of land was available to me, I decided to exercise self-restraint out of love for the environment—environmental protection should be given priority. As there is not much virgin forest land left in Taiwan, it is necessary to protect the natural ecosystems so that more people can enjoy a clean, natural environment. Thus, I eventually gave up the offer.
This is an example of making decisions based on conscience. We must not make use of a piece of land just because it is readily available to us, without considering the resulting adverse impact on the environment. When we want to do something, we should not only think of others and ourselves, but also be mindful of protecting the land and keeping our environment clean.
Although building a school is important, it is even more important to conserve the land and environment. If we fail to take this into consideration, our acts of promoting our Four Missions will become destructive.
We should start from purifying our minds every day, and then translate our inner purity into actions and behaviour. Hence, we must diligently cleanse our minds at all times. If we are able to clean up our surrounding every day, we will not have to spend a lot of time on spring cleaning at the end of each year. As the Zen saying goes, “Clean the mirror of our mind every moment, and do not let dust settle on it.”
Extracted from “Sheng Huo De Zhi Hui”《生活的智慧》
Translated by the Tzu Chi Singapore translation team
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