Start-up of
Spiritual Consulting Groups

I might be a stranger to you, but please
trust me with peace of mind.
When you are traumatized in body and spirit,
I will give you a hand just in time and accompany
you as you go through your ordeal.

Members of The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association engage in disaster relief work, hoping that they will be able to use their professional knowledge to help victims to recover in body, mind and spirit, and accompany them as they go through their ordeal or crisis. Upon discussing the start-up of nation-wide spiritual consulting groups in Formosa, local contact persons stressed the need for training in professional know-how and skills, and recommended a fellow initiate, who has more than twenty-years of clinical therapy experience, to be in charge of training the group members.

These spiritual consulting groups are supposed to function after catastrophes, using their professional knowledge and skills to render timely help to victims who are traumatized in body and mind, and give them the mental self-reliance to relieve their physical and mental stress over time. Making use of empathy techniques, they will try to invoke sympathetic exchanges between themselves and victims, so that they can further understand each other's feelings. This process involves unreserved listening, wholehearted acceptance, and complete renunciation of one's self, so as to acknowledge a catastrophe's impact on victims in terms of actions, speech and thought.

After the initial stage, the spiritual consulting group will not use professional counseling and psychological consultation or introductory analysis. But, depending on the needs of the victims, we might still choose to refer them to professional counseling organizations or social welfare consultation units, so that they can obtain further help. From various Centers in Formosa, we have selected a number of fellow initiates to be members of the spiritual consulting group. They observe the five precepts and a pure vegetarian diet, and know more about the meaning of life after following Master to practice spiritually. Touched and enlightened by Master's personal education and inspiration, these initiates have gladly followed Master in participating in relief work around the world. As proven by their past experiences, many of our fellow initiates, after being tempered by Master, have been reborn, becoming stronger both within and without, and able to fully use their potential to accomplish tasks that they have never attempted before. All of these volunteer initiates continually bear in mind Master's teachings, and are willing to try thinking and acting nobly.

On the day of their spiritual therapy training seminar, over three hundred fellow initiates from all over Formosa gathered in the Rainbow Garden of Hsihu Center, and listened and practiced seriously. There had been some concern that the initiates might be shy during the seminar, but everyone managed to act candidly, coordinating their pure and outspoken speech with their body language. They were very clear about what they should do and what the taboos were. The course was conducted in a joyous atmosphere, yet it received the undivided attention of all. During the role playing session in the last forty minutes, fellow initiates were so immersed in using what they had learned that those playing victims and comforters both cried loudly, as they seriously and unreservedly conducted a dialogue with life. Even the course instructor, sister Yang, was moved! This group of fellow initiates was permeated with inner bliss, and played their roles with their best effort.

Formosa! We are ready! Charged with Master's loving power, we offer our utmost sincerity in striving hand in hand with everyone to create a bright future.

Note: The course instructor, sister Yang, has been the Supervisor and Chief Secretary of probation work for the International Lifeline, (a suicide prevention organization), hostess of counseling programs on several radio stations, the recipient of many years of clinical therapy and skills training, and a researcher in professional planning. She has also been a consultant for in-service training programs, college students and social organizations, a lecturer on selected topics and a member of the R.O.C. Red Cross.

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