Summarized By Supreme Master Ching Hai News Reporter Shuan Pu, Taipei, Formosa

A Friendly Marketplace

In order to prepare food for six to seven hundred workers and one hundred fellow initiates, a sister responsible for buying groceries had to get up very early in the morning and drive more than forty kilometers to shop for vegetables and fruits at a country fair market.

Initially, the sister was a stranger to local folks and could not communicate with them because of the language barriers. It was really time consuming and exhausting to rush back and forth among the vendors' stands in the market to asked the price and to check out the quality of the commodities. One day, preoccupied with the thought of having to make six to seven hundred lunch boxes before nine o'clock, she tried to communicate with vendors by using hand signals and a little bit of English. Surprisingly enough, they could understand each other tacitly. In addition, they used a calculator to bargain for prices without even needing any language. Thanks to Master who helped run everything! With just punches of the calculator keys, they agreed on sale prices quickly and happily. Thus the sister easily purchased reasonably priced high quality vegetables and fruits.

Tacit Communication

There was a Cambodian-American-Thai currency exchange station at that country fair market. The owner of the station knew a little bit of English. The sister asked him to teach her the pronunciation of the word "tomorrow" in Cambodian. Immediately after learning that word, she went to the vendor's stand from which she had made purchases several times before. She pointed to several kinds of vegetables and said, "Shi-Ah, Shi-Ah", (sound of the word "tomorrow" in Cambodian), then she displayed the required amounts to the owner of the stand by using the calculator. Through heaven's help she was able to communicate with the sister tacitly. Next morning, she had prepared each kind of vegetable in the required amounts for the sister, thus saving her a lot of time. The vendor owner is also diligently learning Chinese, so they are getting more and more acquainted with each other. Because of this the sister mentioned to the vendor about our association and introduced to her the head of our family - Supreme Master Ching Hai. She was also invited to attend the grand opening ceremony of Raising Center. Invited and able to participate in this opening ceremony, she was very happy.

Sisters who frequently make purchases from that country fair market made the following remarks: "Cambodian people are very pure and kind in nature. After we had decided to buy from one vendor, the other vendors, seeing that vendor was very busy, would come to help us pack the vegetables on their own initiatives. They would help load vegetables onto our truck with smiles on their faces. Sometimes we made a purchase from a vendor but discovered that the quantities and selections were not enough, so the vendor would then lead us to other vendors and help us to select vegetables and fruits. They helped us to select beautiful and fresh ones, frankly telling us which of them were tender and fresh and which of them were not." Interacting with them, we truly experienced what Master said about "the kindness of the Cambodian people".

A Handful Of Coriander Once the sisters had finished shopping, they had other duties to do, so they loaded the vegetables into the truck in a hurry and drove back immediately, without taking with them several handfuls of coriander that they had purchased. The sisters remembered the coriander only after they had arrived at the Center. At that time a note came from the front gate: "There is a merchant who brought back the coriander you had forgotten." Just for several handfuls of coriander, worth only one Taiwanese Yuan per handful, that merchant left his stand, caught a "motorbike-taxi", and chased the sisters all the way to the Center, forty-five kilometers away! The merchant told the gate guard by using hand signals that he would like to give the coriander to the sisters in person, so his mind could rest. His honesty and pureness amply reflected the kindhearted nature of those folks in the Buddhhist's kingdom. Interacting with them we realized what Master has taught: "Being honest to yourself is being honest to everyone."