By Huang Xiao-zhe and Cai Yu-xuan
Translated by Wu Hsiao-ting
Photos by Huang Xiao-zhe
During this year’s Chinese New Year holiday, my family and I, like many others, visited Luermen Shengmu Temple in Tainan, southern Taiwan. This famous temple is dedicated mainly to the worship of the sea goddess Mazu and boasts many devotees. People from all over throng to the temple during traditional Chinese festivals and holidays to pray for peace, safety, and blessings.
The temple draws the largest crowds during the Lunar New Year holiday, logging an average of more than 100,000 visits per day. With approval from the board of the temple, Tzu Chi volunteers set up and run a cluster of booths on the temple grounds every year during this time to promote environmental protection and share aphorisms by Dharma Master Cheng Yen. A rotating group of volunteers staff the booths for five days in a row. Other volunteers weave through the crowds on the temple grounds, picking up garbage or going through bags of trash to salvage recyclable items. What others see as worthless garbage is treasure to these volunteers. The more refuse they can save from ending up in a landfill or incinerator, the better. What matters to them most is not the money earned from recycling, but a cleaner and healthier Earth.
Though they could be celebrating the Lunar New Year holiday on their own, these volunteers willingly give up their precious personal time to come to the temple and sort through garbage. Their spirit of service is truly admirable. A volunteer said of their recycling efforts, “Though our actions make us tired, we feel a solid sense of fulfillment when we’re done.” Maybe recycling at the temple is for these volunteers the best way to celebrate a new year.
Another way to obtain blessings
Because of the recent COVID-19 outbreak, many devotees who visited the temple during this year’s New Year holiday wore face masks to protect themselves. Having taken this precautionary measure, they burned incense and prayed piously to deities worshiped in the temple to bestow blessings on themselves and their family.
In one area of the temple, people stood in line to crawl under a palanquin housing a statue of Mazu. In addition to being a show of respect, this traditional ritual is believed to bring good fortune and protection from the ravages of illness or other misfortunes. While devotees took turns going under the palanquin, I saw a Tzu Chi volunteer working off to one side picking out reusable items from a large trash can. Watching people seek blessings by crawling under the palanquin and the volunteer salvage garbage, I remember Master Cheng Yen saying, “By reclaiming reusable resources, our recycling volunteers benefit not just the environment but humanity as well. Through their eco-friendly efforts, they are doing good and creating blessings for themselves.”
Fun games that promote environmental protection
The temple is huge. As we strolled around, we came to a square with an area which seemed like a magnet for children. It turned out that Tzu Chi volunteers had set up a series of games there for children to play. There was, for example, “Eco-Friendly Golf,” which was played using recycled hollow paper cylinders, cardboard, and ping pong balls. Holding a bamboo pole, a player tried to push a ping pong ball into a hole. If they succeeded, they could go on to play the next game. These games were designed to educate participants about a healthy diet, the benefits of plant-based eating, how to conserve water, etc., and to encourage them to carry reusable food containers and utensils when they are eating out to reduce the amount of garbage they produce. Volunteer Wu Li-heng (吳麗姮) turned dry knowledge and information into entertainment by creating these games. The activities allowed kids to acquire knowledge in a fun way, which helps strengthen learning and build enduring memories.
Wu not only invented the games herself, but she was on-site helping visitors to understand the games. She believed that this was a great opportunity for her to interact with children and adults at the temple and promote worthy causes among them. She wants to make environmental protection and a healthy lifestyle a part of everyone’s life. She said she would keep participating in this meaningful event for years to come.
Persist at the right things
Volunteer Zhou Shu-ru (周淑茹), who lives near the temple, was the one who initiated Tzu Chi’s recycling efforts there. One year, she noticed a surge in the amount of garbage at the temple after the Lantern Festival, so she started salvaging recyclables. It wasn’t long before other volunteers joined her and began helping. In 2010, she and another volunteer, Huang Hui-zhu (黃惠珠), began inviting their fellow volunteers to visit the temple during the Chinese New Year holiday to collect garbage and reclaim reusable resources. They have made it an annual tradition since then.
Zhou said that it hasn’t always been smooth sailing over the years. They need a certain number of volunteers to help at the event, but Chinese New Year is a time for family reunions and many volunteers have to take part in family activities. She also worries about volunteers’ safety as they travel back and forth to the temple, and that she is not a good enough event coordinator and organizer. For all those reasons combined, she used to feel very heavy at heart as Lunar New Year approached. The idea of canceling the event even crossed her mind.
One time when she was feeling particularly down, she prayed to the bodhisattvas for help. Then she happened to open a copy of Jing Si Aphorisms, a collection of short sayings from Master Cheng Yen, and she ran across this sentence: “No matter what field you are in, the only way for you to make it is to stick to your post and strive forward industriously.” Those words were a timely reminder for her to stick to the path she had chosen. She decided right then to stop thinking about canceling the event and to forge ahead instead.
When it comes to the right thing, one should just do it. Zhou has persevered, her commitment unshaken. Unlike in the early years, she now has a team of volunteers at her side to help her organize the event. Whether it is designing games, setting up the venue, promoting environmental protection, or transporting collected recyclable items, there are volunteers in charge of each category of work. For that, Zhou is most happy and grateful.
