SHARE
Dharma Master Cheng Yen responds to questions and comments from visitors, volunteers, staff, and disciples.
Seeing Patients as Family and Giving with Great Love
Question: I am a physician by profession. Master, how can I be an excellent doctor who gives with love?
Answer: When you view patients as your family, you will naturally give with love. The most valuable thing in life is love; someone who can love others and be loved is the most blessed. However, if we want to be loved, we must first give our own love. Tzu Chi Hospital’s doctors are very well respected because they first serve with love to care for patients. It is a doctor’s duty to take care of patients, and to give with love is to put in extra effort on top of our responsibilities.
Learning Medicine with the Goal of Saving People
Question: Many medical students choose their field of study and place to work based on the benefits from the work, thus creating conflict.
Answer: People who study medicine should have the goal of saving people. If their objective is attaining benefits, they are only medically certified. This is a very unfortunate life. Only by diligently moving toward the goal of saving people can one’s life be grounded and peaceful. On the other hand, fighting for benefits will only cause more and more suffering.
Hearing People’s Suffering and Going to Save Them
Question: I always hoped to do my best to lessen a patient’s pain when I am taking care of them in the hospital. In the future, I will need to take care of seven to eight patients at a time. Becoming frustrated or even getting angry will be inevitable. How can I maintain a harmonious and compassionate mindset at work?
Answer: When you are at work, you must think, “I am a bodhisattva in white, like Guanyin Bodhisattva. With loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, I hear others’ cries of suffering and seek to help them.” In this way, you can quickly give rise to compassion.
Excerpts from Illuminations: Words of Insight from Dharma Master Cheng Yen, Volume 1 compiled by the Jing Si Sangha Editorial Team (Jing Si Publications, 2022).
