On Friday, June 23, Golden Year 3 (2006), the Hong Kong Center hosted an activity at the Kwai Fong Community Auditorium in the eastern Kowloon Island to promote the vegetarian diet. The event was entitled, “A Beautiful Life Begins with a Vegetarian Diet”. The purpose was to appeal to the people to change to a compassionate lifestyle as soon as possible.

The Kwai Fong community is a heavily populated old industrial district, where there are many large industry companies and many primary and high schools. In consideration of the local cultural environment, fellow initiates decorated the auditorium, creating an exhibition gallery dedicated to promoting a vegetarian diet. The first poster in the auditorium was a huge photo of Master in which She turns Her head to look at sentient beings. Other posters addressed “Why people have to be vegetarian?”, “How to Be Healthy while Eating a Vegetarian Diet?” and the list of vegetarian elite. There were also posters that contained pictures showing the inhumane ways animals are raised and the brutal ways that they are slaughtered, which have a great impact on human hearts. These posters rich in content and extremely attractive turned out to be very effective. There was a large television in the center of the auditorium that continuously played “One World… of peace through Music” and “The Real Heroes”. All the visitors liked these programs very much.

The activity formally began at three o’clock in the afternoon. Just as the fellow initiates anticipated, most of the first visitors were the seniors who had received the Alternative Living flyers and entrance tickets a few days earlier. They came to the event full of expectation. Most of these seniors are the cooks for their families. Some of them are already vegetarian. The activity confirmed for them that their choice of vegetarian diet was correct, thus making these senior faces, marked with the experiences of many hardships over the years, reveal a smile. The second group of visitors was mostly after-school students and off-duty working people. They just got the flyers on their way home. Among the third group were some families who heard about the event from their neighbors. They came specifically to taste the vegetarian food.

To organize this event, the initiates reviewed the experiences from the last two activities and made many improvements for this one. For example, in addition to the original information materials, we also added an information table listing the resources for vegetarian food ingredients and the posters displaying the non-humanitarian way of animal raising and the brutal ways they were killed for meat; there was an on-site demonstration on how to cook vegetarian food; we gave short presentations to the visitors to explain why one should be vegetarian; and we introduced various nutritional facts during the vegetarian food tasting.

We also made full use of the stage and musical instruments in the auditorium to give the visitors a joyful performance program. The talented initiates prepared violin, piano and harmonica performances; also an improvisational group danced to show the guests their artistic talents as well as their inner and outer beauty. Our enthusiastic performance aroused the interest of some of the audience and several of them took part in the performance.

The guests greatly acknowledged that we had done a good thing for the community through this event. Tasting the delicious vegetarian food in such an auspicious and harmonious atmosphere, they experienced a beautiful feeling about the vegetarian diet. A few middle-aged women sincerely said to us, “Thank you for doing this.” Many guests asked for sample booklets, News magazines and our Center’s contact cards. They said they would contact us later to learn more of Master’s teachings. It is worth mentioning that since we promoted the vegetarian diet in the past several months, more and more people have come to the Hong Kong Center and registered to learn the Convenient Method of meditation and the cooperation among our Quan Yin initiates has also become more and more harmonious.

This activity was fully supported by all Hong Kong initiates. Many people put down their own work and participated in this event. It was difficult to accurately estimate the total number of guests before the event. Although we prepared a large amount of delicious vegetarian food, everyone was still worried that there might not be enough. However, it turned out to be just right. Even those appearing after eight o’clock in the evening to taste the vegetarian food were satisfied. All this unspoken understanding and harmony was due to Master’s great blessing and merciful grace. The Hong Kong initiates have deeply experienced Master’s omnipresent power.

This joyful activity concluded perfectly. Everyone was very happy. The initiates learned many lessons during the work for this event. Many thanks to Master for letting us have this opportunity for spiritual growth. Hong Kong initiates will continue to promote the Alternative Living campaign.