Why Am I Here?

This post is the text of a speech translated from Chinese to English that I gave during my “gap year” to volunteer in Taiwan after high school and before college in 2001-2002. I was 18 when I was wrote this, and I am now 30 years old. Looking back, time has truly flown by, as I had expected. 

I am 18 years old, and I just graduated from high school. Last year, I applied and was accepted into MIT, and I have deferred it for a year to volunteer with Tzu Chi. My current plans are to study for four years of college, four years of medical school, six years of surgical residency. Eventually, 14 years later, I will probably be 33 years old. I know that time will fly, that my life will go by quickly. I also do not know when I will die. Will I die tomorrow or the next month or the year after? I have no way to predict that. I feel that, amidst life's impermanence, since I do not know when I will die, I must first do what I need to do.

When I was in the tenth grade, around age 16, I decided to defer college for a year (a so-called "gap year"), because at that time I did not know whether in the future I would have the opportunity to come to Taiwan Tzu Chi, to follow Master Cheng Yen and to learn from so many Tzu Chi volunteers. I felt that there was a need to spend a year to volunteer with Tzu Chi full-time. (By the way, deferring college for a year is the choice of about 7% of all American high school graduates and the choice of the majority of college students in the UK.)

I feel that this decision was quite simple because I feel this is what I need to do. So I am very fortunate. In coming to Tzu Chi, I feel that I have found a purpose in life.

Since I was small, I was both anxiously and enthusiastically in search of answering some questions on how to best use the time that I have in my life: "What will I do with my life? What do I need to do? What should I do? What is the meaning and purpose of my life?"

This was particularly so during the weekends or holidays, or playing basketball, or playing the cello, or whatever activity after activity that fills the lives of high school students, I would ask: What does this have to do with the purpose of my life? Am I doing what I should be doing? I would feel that, among unlimited decisions and options and choices, what should I do and what path and what direction should I take? What kind of person should I become? I would think: If I do not know the basic direction of where I am going, then how could I make any decisions about how to get there, how to live?

I remember vividly when I was in the seventh grade at age 13. I read an English version of Still Thoughts (now re-branded as Jing Si Aphorisms). One saying said something to the effect of, "If you do not know what you are going to paint, a stroke here, a stroke there, in the end your painting will be a mess and it won’t be pretty." Even though I do not know how I will die or when I will die, when I die I wish to leave behind a beautiful painting. And to do that, I need to properly plan my life.

More importantly, when I read Still Thoughts at age 13, cover to cover in one sitting, the main message stood out to me very loudly and very simply: The purpose of life is to benefit others. In one day, this book had answered a year of my desperate questioning on my life’s purpose. 

I remember that someone asked Master Cheng Yen: When she first started doing Tzu Chi, did she ever imagine that Tzu Chi would become this large? I think the Master never thought about that. Master’s response, however, was something as follows: In my life, I have only done one thing. The only plan that I have made was to benefit living beings, help those who need help. Master Cheng Yen’s courage to help others, her tenacity, and her confidence and faith – are very moving to me.

Some have asked me in the past: Why are you in Tzu Chi? I would then respond, Why is Master Cheng Yen doing Tzu Chi? I hope that I would do Tzu Chi for the same reason that the Master is doing Tzu Chi – or any other activity for that matter. I would like to offer my entire life to others and use every minute and every second for their benefit.

Actually, in the US, it is very easy to do so-called "volunteer work" – and there are many organizations that have service opportunities, volunteer organizations. But Tzu Chi and every organization is different. It is the spirit and the values of Tzu Chi that I wish to learn. When I see Master Cheng Yen, she uses her every second to benefit others. When I see volunteers doing Tzu Chi all around the world, whether they are in Thailand or Taiwan, Jordan or Japan, South Africa or Southern California, I am so moved. Tzu Chi volunteers are the best model for me to learn from at this time. From their bodies and their actions, I can learn how to be a person and how to live. This is therefore the first thing in life that I must do. Everything else is a second priority. 

How to Enter Someone's Mind

A previous version of this essay was published in Tzu Chi USA Journal.

"To speak is to enter someone's mind," once said, I believe, by Robert Thurman, eloquent speaker and eminent Buddhist scholar-practitioner in America. Indeed, there is something profoundly sacred and ethical about entering someone else's mind other than one's own. It prevents the listening person from thinking their own thoughts and instead their own thoughts are pushed aside with the speaker's words.

Perhaps it is the way that my own mind works, but people's words often stick in my head—good words, bad words, neutral words. Words that don't mean anything. Words that inspire me or depress me. They literally stick and without my wielding, they float to my mind at random times of the day, like they are haunting me, and I hear their voice. Perhaps, it is for this reason that I appreciate my moments of solitude, in the company of my own mind. I can finally hear myself loudly and clearly. There are no interruptive, intrusive thoughts of others.

As the Buddha often said to his followers, "Say good words, do good deeds, think good thoughts; this is the teaching of the Buddha." Such a simple yet essential teaching! If one gets right speech alone, one will have one out of three down. When looking into ancient scriptural texts including those pertaining to vows of a bodhisattva, it is no surprise that there are numerous elaborations and explanations on speech:

gentle, not harsh

truthful, not false

calming, not agitating

relevant, not gossip

concerted and concise, not idle

Gentle, not harsh; calming, not agitating
My mother and I often talk about the way in which we talk. My mother's voice is deep and others tell me that it sounds like she is scolding others; in fact she is just excited, passionate, and opinionated. But, as one classmate suggested to me, it is amazing what raising one's voice to be a pitch higher and a tad slower and gentler can do for those with low-pitched voices, and the opposite for high-pitched voices. The sound of one's voice becomes much more soothing, more gentle.

I remember one time when I visited a friend's house for the first time -- they are, I note, Indian-Americans, Sindhi to be exact -- and on the first day there, I thought the family members were having a terrible fight. People screaming up and down stairs. Loud voices. Scolding. Loud sighs. This continued to the second day. Third day. And finally on the fourth day, I realized that in fact there was no fight occurring at all; it was simply the way in which they were speaking. It is true that there is something cultural about the way we speak -- and it may be that certain cultures are accustomed to speaking more loudly than others. Nevertheless, it also means that there are many opportunities for misunderstanding, especially when a person of one culture is on the receiving end of another person's culture.

And it's not only about the way the voice sounds, but also the choice of words that one uses. For example, when I first met a friend who happened to be Indian, he would often use the word "Fine." It was a "Fine" that in the US usually means "Fine! (I got it -- get off my back -- fine!)" It was in that context that I thought, incorrectly, that he used the word "Fine" when he was annoyed or frustrated. But it was only until I visited India for the first time in 2007 and I spent three full months in Ahmedabad with other English-speaking Indians that I realized that their use of "Fine" was equivalent to our use of "Okay". At that point I realized again, what we say can be totally misinterpreted by others. Hence, both the speaker and the listener have a responsibility -- the speaker to be more careful and the listener to not take things so seriously in case there is a misunderstanding. This is also a teaching from Master Cheng Yen in her Still Thoughts Aphorisms (Jing Si Aphorisms).

I'll be extending this post in coming days on the other features of a bodhisattva's way of speech. Stay tuned.