Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation

This Sunday, March 20, the foundation will hold a global prayer and raise love for the people of Japan. It is asking its members and people around the world to come together to pray that the Japanese can be delivered as early as possible from the hardships they are going through and that everyone will reduce their material desires, live a disciplined life and protect the planet.

The Da Ai television station will broadcast the special program of prayer and raise love on Sunday at 9.00 p.m. Taiwan time. It is part of the effort by the foundation to deliver both spiritual and material help to the people of Japan. As of March 18, it had held prayer and raise love events in 29 countries around the world. It has prepared for delivery to Japan 17,000 eco-friendly blankets, 10,000 shawls, 50 tones of instant rice that can be made using cold or hot water, 9,000 eating bowls and 100 boxes of nuts. On March 16, volunteers from the Tokyo branch drove 130 kilometers, a journey of three hours, to the town of Oarai in Ibraraki prefecture, to deliver 2,000 hot meals of curried rice, rice flour and miso soup to the town’s residents.

In addition to this material aid, the members of Tzu Chi have been praying every day for the people in the disaster region and calling for the goodness of everyone in the world to come together to relieve their suffering. The foundation’s hospitals, university, college of technology and schools have been writing messages of blessings on the leaves of bodhi trees, as an expression of sincerity and respect.

The foundation has invited all visitors to the Jing Si Hall in Hualien, both Taiwanese and foreign, to pray together before their visit. On March 18, a 14-member delegation came from the social welfare department of the Kaohsiung city government, led by its chief Chen Qingzhang; they joined Tzu Chi staff and volunteers in visiting poor families to show their concern and singing a song, with the words “with a sincere heart, praying for a world without disasters, for everyone to live in peace and free from hardship, in the hope that good will shall spread around the world and the world be full of love and concern’.

On eight o’clock on the morning of March 18, Ye Zhenzhang, headmaster of the Nanzhen Primary School in Changhwa county, led all the 400 faculty and students in praying for the Japanese victims of the disaster. “We thank the Tzu Chi volunteers for unlocking the good will of the students and praying from the victims,” he said. The prayer meeting to be televised on the evening of March 20 will invite Tzu Chi people around the world to pray together. It will include a performance by a choir from the Shanlin village in Kaohsiung county, built by the foundation for the victims of Typhoon Morakot in August 2009. The meeting will invite everyone around the world to join the members of Tzu Chi in prayer, to cleanse the hearts of man and pray for a society in harmony and a world without disasters.