Compiled and Translated by the Jing Si Abode Translation Team

Note: The earthquake in Sichuan occurred on May 12, 2008. Five days after the earthquake hit, at the Morning Volunteer Assembly, Dharma Master Cheng Yen gave a talk onTzu Chi'said efforts in China in which she stressed the importance of and the needfor soothing the survivors, to help them overcome the trauma of the disaster, so that they can rebuild their lives in the future.

Time ticks away with every passing second. Those who are rescuing the earthquake victims are fighting against time. Indeed, as long as there's a slight hope, we need to put inone hundred percent effort in the disaster relief. The "golden hour" for rescuing survivors is 72 hours. However, we've seen that life can be very resilient.

I saw a new report on our Da Ai TVwhere rescue workers successfully saved two children from the rubble 80 hours after the earthquake.When one of the childrenwas rescued, she crawled out by herself and limped toward the ambulance. When someone asked her, "Are you all right?" she smiled and said, "I'm all right." Lookat such resilience. It is truly very moving.As for the other child who was rescued, although his voice was very weak,nevertheless, he was alive.

I also saw a news report of survivors sufferingpsychological trauma. Even rescuers are feeling similar psychologicalstress.This reminds us of Taiwan's 921 earthquake in 1999. There were many young soldiers in Nantoucarrying dead bodies or saving people whose limbs had to be amputated. They were traumatized by their experience. So, our Tzu Chi volunteers went to their camps to comfort them.

[For the earthquake in China,] we already have two teams of volunteers inthe disaster area. And yesterday at the disaster area, they have begun backup support work of providing water and hot food. Yesterday afternoon our volunteer Mr. Luo phoned us and said that when the earthquake survivors received the bowl of hot noodles from us,they were so happy. They said it warmed their hearts so much as they had not eaten a hot meal for several days. Everyone was very touched. Besides providing them food to keep their strength up, our most important task is to help them heal from the psychological trauma.

Mr. Luo also said that they saw severalsurvivors who were wailing in grief and pain. Our volunteers went to comfort them. Later, they encouraged them to join us in helping other survivors[by helping to prepare hot food]. As they did this, their altruistic love for others was inspired. They were no longer "victims" but people helping others. With this change in mentality, they began to smile again. This is a way of healing psychologically. This is what we need to do there, to give care and help people to heal psychologically.

The most important thing now is to help calm and soothe the survivors' hearts, so they can begin to heal psychologically and recover from this disaster. Only then can they begin to take steps to rebuild their lives. This is very important. Hence, there is still a long way to go and there is much to do for the recovery effort.

Source:
This article is excerpted and compiled from Master's speech on the
Morning Volunteer Assembly May 17, 2008.