A Taiwan-based Buddhist charity attempts to take the founding nun's message of compassion global

HUALIEN, Taiwan (AP) — When a 7.4-magnitude earthquake ripped through Taiwan in April, it took about 30 minutes for the region’s most ubiquitous charity to set up an emergency response center.

Tzu Chi, an international Buddhist organization led by an 87-year-old nun, the Venerable Cheng Yen, and her followers, sprang into action. They prepared hot meals and assembled necessities for survivors and rescue teams, from drinking water and energy drinks to blankets, beds and tents.

The nuns reside in the Jing Si Abode in Hualien, the quake’s epicenter on the island's east coast. It is also the spiritual home of the global organization, which is supported by millions of members across 67 countries, including the United States.

In 1966, Cheng Yen — touched by lack of access to basic health care in the beautiful yet economically underdeveloped region — started Tzu Chi, inviting local housewives to save 50 Taiwanese cents each month.

Today, the charitable foundation organizes relief operations globally. In Taiwan, it runs hospitals, a medical school and its own cable television channel. During the COVID-19 pandemic, amid a nationwide scramble to get people immunized on the island of 23 million, the foundation used its members' influence across health care and other business sectors to buy 5 million vaccines.

Within Taiwan, Tzu Chi is known for its earthquake relief efforts. Globally, it has built a network of movers and shakers whose work ranges from disaster relief and building schools, houses of worship, homes and hospitals, to refugee resettlement and feeding the hungry. The organization has had a significant presence in the U.S. since 1989 with programs in 80 locations run by paid staff and about half a million volunteers.

They ran relief operations after Sept. 11, 2001, and during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. More recently, they were on hand to support survivors and families of a 2022 mass shooting in the predominantly Asian city of Monterey Park in Southern California. They donated $1.5 million to relief efforts after the 2023 Maui fires in Hawaii that claimed more than 100 lives.

Stephen Huang, executive director of Tzu Chi’s global volunteers based in Southern California, became Cheng Yen’s disciple 35 years ago, during a time of personal grief — days after his older brother’s sudden demise. Huang understands why those unfamiliar with Tzu Chi might wonder how a petite, soft-spoken nun functioning in a patriarchal society and who rarely leaves her humble abode in Hualien could have built this global organization.

“She is an ordinary person who does extraordinary things,” he said. “The heart behind all the work she has done over the last 60 years can be described in one word: compassion.”

The organization exists because of its fundraising. Much of its work is dependent on its commissioners, members who have undergone extensive training and who raise funds monthly. There is no minimum amount required, but members must raise money from at least 40 people while also making donations themselves.

“The more the better, there’s no minimum or upper limit," said Cheng Mei-yue, a schoolteacher and Tzu-Chi commissioner in Taipei.

This model helps fund Tzu Chi’s work in Taiwan and abroad. Its most recent annual report from 2022 shows that Tzu Chi raised 5.6 billion New Taiwan Dollars ($175 million) through fundraising efforts, which made up 61% of its budget.

Still, the organization has not been immune to scrutiny or scandal. Public criticism over lack of transparency spurred leaders to post Tzu Chi’s annual reports and financials online. The organization has also raised eyebrows for recruiting well-heeled commissioners, and for the sheer number of resources at its disposal to advance its causes.

In 2005, the organization’s attempt to rezone and develop land designated for environmental conservation in Taipei’s picturesque Neihu district was met with public outrage. Tzu Chi relented in 2015 after a decade-long administrative battle with local residents and environmentalists who led the charge to preserve the land.

Tzu-Chi CEO Po-wen Yen — the former head of the United Microelectronics Corporation, a major semi-conductor manufacturer in Taiwan — is well aware of the criticism about the organization’s wealth. He came on board as CEO right after the Neihu scandal, vowing to be more open with the public.

“You can say that all the resources we gathered is to help to the fullest extent possible when disaster strikes,” he said, adding that their budget also funds other global chapters.

While the nonprofit is supported by wealthy benefactors, he said, most of the members still belong to the middle class.

The organization straddles a fine line between an aid organization and a Buddhist sect that has forged its own religious identity under Cheng Yen’s leadership.

Julia Huang, professor of anthropology at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan, traced the evolution of Tzu Chi from a grassroots initiative to global nonprofit in her book, “Charisma and Compassion.” She says Cheng Yen’s teaching emphasizes walking the path of Bodhisattva, a compassionate person who postpones their own enlightenment to save suffering beings.

Tzu Chi’s humanitarian aid efforts are inextricable from the faith, said Joe Hwang, the organization’s head of volunteer affairs — though it's a departure from traditional Buddhism, which espouses a retreat from the world.

Religion, he said, is a way to guide people toward good and equip them to help others. “That’s what I think engaged Buddhism is, that we are engaged in this world.”

Tzu Chi is also unique in the way it “sanctifies secular fields,” Julia Huang said. Buddhist symbols can be found in their hospitals. The hospital in Hualien has a giant mosaic of the Buddha caring for a sick monk.

“In Tzu Chi, the hospital itself is an embodiment of Buddhist canon,” she said.

Cheng Yen also supports the donation of bodies to medicine, teaching devotees that human beings do not own their bodies after they die. The nun draws from stories, including one where the Buddha is said to have given his body to a starving tigress unable to feed her cubs.

And yet, Tzu Chi has volunteers from all major religions. The superintendent of its hospital in Hualien is a devout Christian. The organization has funded the construction of churches in Haiti, Ecuador and Mexico, and mosques in Indonesia, which has the largest population of Muslims of any country in the world.

“Although we start from Buddhism, that doesn’t limit who we help,” CEO Yen said.

Tzu Chi is currently constructing schools and homes in Mozambique; helping with resettlement of Syrian refugees in Turkey; building Indonesia’s largest university; training Ukrainian refugees in Poland to do relief work; and constructing homes in Bodhgaya in India, the town where the Buddha attained enlightenment.

Stephen Huang says the nun even spent thousands of dollars to repair an antique Quran. He said the largest number of Tzu Chi’s projects are in China, with an emphasis on promoting vegetarianism and building schools, housing and water wells in arid regions.

In 2010, Tzu Chi became the first overseas religious nonprofit to get permission to set up an office in China, where it identifies as a charity rather than as a religious group. Julia Huang said members in China do “walk on eggshells” to maintain a presence in that country, where the government requires each religion to be loyal to the Communist Party and its policies. To that end, Tzu Chi has had to rethink how they refer to sacred rituals such as tea ceremonies and remain apolitical, she said.

While the organization has struggled to make a dent in countries where political stability is an issue — such as Afghanistan, Nepal and parts of South America — it has seen success in other countries from Indonesia and Mozambique.

Franky Widjaja heads the Indonesia chapter with 2.3 million members, of whom 85% are Indonesian and Muslim. He has had a close master-devotee relationship with Cheng Yen since 1998, when his father introduced him to the nun. He has been involved in disaster relief efforts since and has overseen the construction of schools and hospitals in and around Jakarta. Widjaja says Cheng Yen compares the organization’s structure to the thousand arms of Guanyin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy and compassion.

“She says if 500 of you go out to help, that’s 1,000 hands,” he said. “When you believe in that purpose and you walk the talk, you will see the impact for yourself.”

In Mozambique, Dino Foi and his wife Denise Tsai run a $70-million project to build 3,000 homes and 23 schools in the region that was ravaged by Cyclone Idai in 2019. Tsai, who is Taiwanese, met and married Foi when he was a student in Taipei. The couple leads Tzu Chi’s Mozambique chapter, conducting a wide range of programs including hot meals, care for older adults, teen pregnancy prevention, child nutrition, vocational training and English language classes.

“We started small, we continue small, but we believe the future will be bright,” Tsai said.

At the heart of Tzu Chi’s work is the belief in karma and reincarnation. Buddhists believe that each intentional action — good or bad — gives rise to karma, and that a person’s rebirth depends on their thoughts and actions in prior lives.

Stephen Huang says he has not only found his purpose in Tzu Chi's mission to help people, but has also witnessed the positive effects of good karma.

When the earthquake struck Hualien in April, members from as far away as Mexico City said they wanted to raise money to help those affected halfway across the world. Displaced Syrian refugees — who are rebuilding their lives and have no money or resources for themselves — also offered assistance.

“We are all connected by compassion,” Huang said. “That’s the power of love.”

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Bharath reported from Los Angeles.

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