Buddhist Organization Works for a Better World

By Kevin Davis

The Tzu Chi Foundation, a Buddhist compassion relief organization with an office at Irving Street and 30th Avenue in the Sunset District, is headquartered in Taiwan.

Tzu Chi members conduct emergency relief efforts worldwide as well as local individual and local community service. It differs from many religious service organizations in that the public's donations go straight to relief, never administration costs or overhead.

Volunteers Shireley and Judd Leong discussed Tzu Chi, its activities and history on a recent morning. They stress Buddhism is not emphasized while serving the poor.

"We don't try to convert and we're not building pagodas," Leong said. "We don't have a nun or monk here. We pray, but prayer is secondary." The Leongs serve as commissioners at the Sunset branch office, volunteers who commit more time than others. Shireley, who left Taiwan in 1965 was introduced to Tzu Chi and its main text, "Still Thoughts," by a friend. She and some friends organized the San Francisco branch of Tzu Chi, first in a donated office space in Chinatown and then moving to the Sunset District in 1995.

The organization's founder, Dharma Master Cheng Yen, supported their effort but warned them that the group's Taiwan-based headquarters would not contribute towards buying real estate. But one volunteer wrote a single check for the Sunset District space and is being reimbursed in full, one month at a time. Utilities, like electricity and water, are paid from a monthly sidewalk sale of goods donated by friendly neighbors. The sales net about $300 each month. In Tzu Chi, the public is forbidden from donating to the group's overhead, so income must result from community service, according to Yen.

Leong listed all the emergency, individual giving and community service that flows from the 30th and Irving office. When flooding occurred in the Clear Lake area five years ago, volunteers distributed food to 800 people and chose 50 families to give $200 each. They raised the money for this effort by advertising Tzu Chi in the Chinese World Journal and Ching Dao newspapers.

San Francisco Tzu Chi members contributed to disaster relief and built block houses for those left homeless following an earthquake in El Salvador by selling donated goods at the Oakland Chinatown Street Festival. Members of the group find out what people need, buy it and deliver it themselves, avoiding the middle-man.

"We talked to the government. They said give us money, we'll build the houses," Leong said. "We said no, give us land, we'll build the houses. Our motto is, 'We do direct and we respect.'" Uniquely, all volunteers pay their own air fare to disaster areas and hotel accommodations out-of-pocket.

After the Sept. 11 bombing in Manhattan, members of the San Francisco Tzu Chi office walked the streets of the Financial District carrying big cardboard boxes, appealing for donations. They collected $15,000 in two days.

"People were stuffing $20 bills in the box," Judd said. Part of the money supported a Tzu Chi booth set up at the Family Assistance Center in New York, manned by members of the Long Island and New Jersey Tzu Chi offices. The Sunset branch also paid $1,000 to the parents of a recent UC Berkeley graduate who perished in the World Trade Center and an equal amount to several people who lost a spouse in the disaster, and are financially assisting the guardians of children left orphaned when two sisters died in the disaster.

Examples of long-term individual giving by the Sunset District Tzu Chi branch abound: $300 per month to a woman whose husband died shortly after moving to the city from mainland China, enough money to support her until she found employment and could provide for her children; paying hospital bills and rent for a woman with cancer and no health insurance during her rehabilitation.

Many forms of community service flow from the Irving Street office. The members work with Head Start in Oakland to help low-income families, recently dispersing to children 1,000 high-quality backpacks bought wholesale from Sogos at 23rd and Irving. In winter they select 50 families at Christmas and bestow them with blankets, towels, canned food, Top Ramen soup, clothes and household goods, like toothpaste.

A Tzu Chi member and registered nurse visits inmates in the city jails and conducts study groups with them using the "Still Thoughts" text. Soon, they are going to donate 1,000 children's versions of the book to the Chinatown Children's Development Center library.

At the Irving Street office a Yun Chi exercise dance class is conducted from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Sundays, as well as a children's class in "Still Thoughts" and a class in Cantonese.

Every year volunteers hold a health fair at the East Oakland mall staffed by doctors who donate their time. In November, a blood drive and free flu shots are planned and in December Tzu Chi members will distribute sleeping bags and vests to the homeless. They also plan to have a once-a-month health clinic at the Sunset office up and running.

The Tzu Chi Compassion relief foundation was founded in 1966 in Hualien on the eastern coast of Taiwan, by Yen, a Buddhist nun. She asked housewives to save 50 cents of their grocery shopping money every week and donate it to the nuns for supplies to make children's shoes. Yen felt that Buddhism should not just consist of self-discipline, but also community service. She was influenced by a visit from Catholic nuns who told her about their tradition of helping the needy.

Yen criticized medical professionals as too impersonal and motivated by profit so she next built a nursing school which stressed the philosophy of treating patients as one would their own family. As the organization grew, it next started a bone marrow collection and donation center which is today the third largest in the world and the largest worldwide not government supported.

Tzu Chi began its tradition of international emergency relief 10 years ago when it came to the aid of people left homeless by a flood in mainland China.

Today Tzu Chi has offices in 32 countries (everywhere except in mainland China where charity originating outside its borders, especially from Taiwan, is regarded suspiciously, although Tzu Chi members live in Peking and Shanghai. and 47 offices in the U.S., with four million members worldwide.

The Sunset District branch office of Tzu Chi is located at 2901 Irving St. There is a vegetarian lunch and meeting every Saturday at 10 a.m.