Special Reports
USA Today
Hollywood Heroes Award
Reported by Entertainment Team, Los Angeles, California, USA (Originally in English)
On May 17, Golden Year 3 (2006), USA Today, a newspaper that reaches millions worldwide, held its first annual USA Today Hollywood Hero Award gala at the Beverly Hills Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. Supreme Master Ching Hai was invited as a special guest of the event; however, due to Her busy schedule, She was unable to attend. Nevertheless, Master Ching Hai sent Her congratulations to Ms. Bethune, as well as best wishes to the children through the representatives who attended on Her behalf.
The preface of this award gala is to honor an entertainment personality in the Hollywood community who has highlighted his or her career with ongoing philanthropic work with a non-profit organization and has considerably enriched the quality of life of others. The first annual Hollywood Heroes Award this year was bestowed upon Zina Bethune for her work with mentally and physically disabled children. Her project, aptly named Infinite Dreams, teaches physically challenged children that they can transcend their physical and mental limitations through dance and the art forms. Infinite Dreams has been a recipient of many awards including the U.N.’s “M嶮aille d’Excellence.”
Ms. Bethune herself had experienced serious physical disabilities including dysplastic hips, scoliosis and lymphoedema. She had undergone nine surgeries, some of which were experimental in nature, and relied on her previous dance training with George Balanchine to teach herself to walk and dance again. Due to her own personal experiences, Ms. Bethune has dedicated her energy and resources to bring the performing arts to children with disabilities, and to teach them the courage to overcome their own physical limitations.
Supreme Master Ching Hai once said during a question and answer session regarding artists, “Musicians and artists are half saints who came from a very high level of consciousness. They want to serve the world in beauty and to beautify the world.”
Thus, we can see the saintly nature in Ms. Bethune through her love of dance and the arts, and the dedication and sacrifice in helping children with disabilities to overcome their own physical shortcomings and immerse themselves in the saintly arts.
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The physically challenged children of Infinite Dreams who did several performances for the evening's guests |
“The art of dance can really transcend all the physical and stereotypical limitations,” said Ms. Bethune, artistic director of Bethune Theatredanse and Infinite Dreams. “After all, the spirit isn’t disabled. Dance is not how far a child can reach their legs or arms. It is the creation, the sharing and the partaking that is the beauty. We don’t ask, ‘How much can you move?’ We say, ‘Come dance with us.’”
One little boy during the show shared, “They told me I couldn’t walk, but they never said I couldn’t dance.” These statements clearly show how God truly works wonders within us all. As Ms. Bethune had stated that our soul isn’t disabled, this physical body really is nothing more than a shell.
Regarding the nature of our physical body, Supreme Master Ching Hai once shared during the European lecture tour in Budapest, Hungary, “According to spiritual experience, we are not only this physical being, but we are a multifold being. We are great, great, greater than we could imagine ourselves to be. The deeper we go into the mysterious universal atmosphere, the more we can find out about ourselves: that we exist in many different levels of consciousness at the same time as we exist here and now on this physical planet.
We can visit heaven during our free time and then return to this physical body to fulfill our existence. Then we will know that we are not the physical body; we are truly God's children. It is not because we know that, but it's just the feeling inside, the merging together with the Universal Power, the Universal Oneness, that we will become a different being, a true being, a heavenly being on this planet. Then we will have nothing else but joy and happiness, even while living in this world.” (Please refer to News #107 “Master Says”)
More than just attending to the limitations
of the physical body, Master Ching Hai has dedicated Her life in selfless
and compassionate service to meet the needs of our whole being –
physical, intellectual and spiritual. For over twenty years, She has
traveled the world to share the message of love and enlightenment through
timely humanitarian assistance and the Quan Yin Method of meditation.
Without accepting any donation or financial contribution, She supports
Her work – humanitarian and spiritual – through Her own
artistic creations such as painting, fashion and jewelry design, and
composer, just to name a few. Indeed, Master Ching Hai is an exemplary
model of a True Living Saint. 
