She listened to me intently with her big eyes shining bright and her smiling face beaming.

It’s been over ten years, but I still clearly remember the tight hug Arbar gave me that evening when I was leaving Bam, Iran.

"As inhabitants of the Earth, we are nourished and sustained by Mother Earth who provides us our food and all the resources for life. If she is healthy and well, we will be healthy and well. Our fates are intertwined."    — Dharma Master Cheng Yen

The 2016 Tzu Chi Great Love Charity Fair was held in a field next to Pasir Ris MRT on 23rd and 24th January 2016.  The atmosphere was festive, warm and full of goodwill and love. There was beauty, truth and goodness everywhere.

I traveled with a Tzu Chi delegation to Turkey in October 2015 to distribute aid to Syrian refugees in that country. I felt intensely their agony and helplessness as I saw up close and personal how they struggled to survive in a foreign land.

I had just returned to Taiwan before the trip from a relief mission to Nepal. A strong earthquake there in April 2015 had devastated the nation. Although there were similarities between Syrian refugees in Turkey and quake victims in Nepal, there were also significant differences.

The six people in her own family lived with close to 20 such fellow Burmese. They all lived on one salary, the 900 ringgits that her husband brought home every month. Refugees had to pay their own way at public hospitals, so she cried when she saw the referrals again in my hand. After learning her story, I asked myself: If I were in her place, would I do the same thing? Would I take an unknown countryman home because he or she was sick on the roadside? I didn’t have an answer......

“I’m grateful to my parents for always treating me as a normal person,” said Lee Bing-hong, the first blind lawyer in Taiwan. He added that his parents’ attitude allowed him to cultivate an unflinching spirit of perseverance in overcoming challenges and difficulties, without using his handicap as an excuse.

The aid recipients were very warm to us. When my accent betrayed me, an old woman asked and discovered my Taiwanese roots. That knowledge prompted her to take my hand and blurt out a series of sentences that I did not understand. I turned to a local volunteer beside me, my eyes asking for help. Understanding my helplessness, the volunteer said, “She was asking you if you’re cold and if you’re doing okay here.”

“I’m not cold, and I’m doing well. Are you cold?” I asked back. The old woman just pointed at her cotton-padded jacket, lightly patted my face and smiled, revealing a partially toothless mouth.

Sign language is a significant part of Tzu Chi’s humanistic culture. I started to learn sign language in Tzu Chi since 2012. My initial intention of joining the class was to spend my free time doing something meaningful and relaxing.

So how did sign language start in Tzu Chi?

"Our society has become focused on the consumer, with a myriad of products manufactured to suit every palate and taste. This feeds on the underlying human traits of greed, ego, and ignorance. Our lifestyle is in strict contradiction to the Dharma, which focuses on the Middle Path (a path of moderation) and the taming of our desires."