Master says: Do anything for your family, the society, and yourself. Create your own life. You can do anything. Don't wait for others to give you a more beautiful life.

Participating in the reconstruction of a sister's yard taught me many things about these words. The sister's house is surrounded by trees halfway up a mountain, with rows of bungalows in front and behind it. Outside is a vegetable garden. Residents in her area go out to work at sunrise and return at sunset after a busy day, when they climb up the neighborhood's stone steps in a happy, carefree way. The only imperfection was the garbage that had long collected beside the garden and in the sewers, and the shabby hut that took up half the space in the small yard. After a discussion, the sister and I decided to put Master's teachings into practice by completely changing the surroundings.

For economic reasons, we did much of the heavy work ourselves-transporting cement, sand, lime, and bricks from the foothills, tearing down the hut, mixing cement, filtering sand, and carrying bucketfuls of building material. For the vegetable garden, we did the watering, soil loosening, fertilizing, weeding, and transplanting. Afterwards, some fellow initiates joined in the work. Despite our busy work load, cheerful talk and laughter pervaded the yard. The few non-initiates who were hired to help were affected by this joyful atmosphere and persevered in their work from dawn to dusk, even when there was an electricity and water outage, and despite the shortage of tools and materials.

Next