The Tzu Chi School of Buddhism has already been established. Some people may ask, “How can you say that there is a Tzu Chi School?” In truth, the goal of our school of Buddhism is to work “for Buddha’s teaching, for sentient beings.
For example, there was a group from Hong Kong who came early one morning to visit the Abode.
I spoke with them. Among them was a Buddhist scholar who said he had been a Buddhist practitioner for a long time, and he had also read the teachings about humanistic Buddhism by my teacher, Venerable Yin Shun. He felt that humanistic Buddhism was a great thing, but he was uncertain about what it was and how to engage in it.
I said, “You know the Buddha Dharma, but you have only knowledge; you do not have a path. Without a path, then there is no road open to you. Without a road open to you, then there is no way for you to move forward. If all we have is knowledge, then we have yet to step onto the path. ‘The sutras are a path; this path is a road to walk on.’ Teaching the sutra is teaching the principles, and the principles are the path. Teaching the Buddha Dharma and the principles sounds wonderful, but if we do not know where the door to the path is, how can we even begin to pave the path?”
Tzu Chi has been paving this path for over forty years. We are constantly paving; we pave the path wherever we go. We need a path to take us from the state of unenlightened beings to the state of bodhisattvas. Only by passing through the state of bodhisattvas can we reach the state of buddhahood. We open the path by walking it. Wherever we open and pave the path, that is where we go. We are the pavers of this path.