Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Venerable Master, Dharma Masters, and Good Advisors:  
My name is Yang Li-jun, and I would like to tell you a story that my daughter's friend shared with her.

During her time management class, the professor placed a bottle on the table. He then took out a fist-sized marble that could just squeeze past the opening of the container. When the professor placed the rock into the container, he asked his students, "Is the bottle full now?"

"Yes," the students answered simultaneously.

"Really?" the professor asked with a smile on his face. He then took out a bag of pebbles from under the table and poured them into the bottle. After shaking the container a bit, he poured more in. He then asked his students, "Tell me, is the bottle full now?" His students didn't dare to answer too quickly this time.  

Finally, one student hesitantly responded in a faint voice, "Maybe it's not completely full." "Very good!" the professor commented and took out another bag of sand and slowly poured it into the bottle. After he was finished, he asked his students again, "Tell me, is the bottle full now?"  

Everyone answered confidently, "It's not full." This time, all the students had learned their lesson. "Excellent!" The professor complimented the students. After the compliments, the professor then took a large glass of water from under the table and poured it into the bottle that seemed already full of a marble, pebbles, and sand. The professor asked the student in all earnestness, "What important lesson have we learned from the above?"

After a period of silence, a student who thought himself intelligent answered, "No matter how busy we are and how busy our schedule is, if pressed, we are able to do more." The student was pleased with himself, thinking, "This is a time management course after all."

The professor nodded and smiled at this answer, "Not a bad answer, but this is not the key message that I was trying to relate to you."  

At this point, the professor purposely stopped and looked everyone in the eyes and said, "The most important message that I want you to know is that if you don't put the large marble into the bottle, you may never have a chance to put it in again."   

Have any of you thought about the marbles in your life? Is it to have an enduring relationship with the one you love? Is it your religious belief? Education? Dreams? Goals worth striving for? Being role models for young people? Preserving some worth-while memories for the next generation? In other words, we are all great at filling our container with small pebbles, sand, and water; however, we always neglect that large marble that is our lifelong dream!

After I heard the story, I thought, "On a larger scale, this is about planning your life well. On a smaller scale, this is applicable in every interaction." With regard to cultivation, I have drifted along for the last several years so that I have lost my focus. Pebble, sand, pebble, pebble, marble.... It looks as if I should do some re-planning before I hit the road!

There's still some time, so I'll talk about some incidents at the bookstore that left a deep impression with me. In the last few years, Taiwan has published and is selling a lot of Buddhist storybooks for children that are rich with pictorial illustrations. Currently, there are about twenty in circulation, such as The Life of the Buddha, Liberating Life, The Buddha's Teachings fr his Disciples, A Simple Explanation of the Buddha Speaks the Amitabha Sutra, The Story of the Great Master, the Sixth Patriarch, and so on.

Once an Argentinian laywoman purchased A Simple Explanation of the Buddha Speaks the Amitabha Sutra. She didn't understand Chinese but as she flipped through the book she happily told me, "Such beautiful illustrations. My family and friends will enjoy the stories just by looking at the pictures."

During the Chinese New Year, many laypeople from San Francisco and San Jose selected many illustrated storybooks. One customer who had made a purchase said, "The kids like it." He picked out more than a dozen books, saying that these were the best gifts for children. Since kids don't have too many opportunities to read Chinese, these allow them to learn about the Buddhadharma and practice Chinese (with the help of phonetics). They're terrific!"

One day, a Westerner came wanting to purchase images of the three sages. He had lived and taught English in Taipei for more than twelve years, He was fairly fluent in conversational Chinese, but had some difficulty reading Chinese. He had studied the Buddhadharma for many years and wanted to find a good teacher with whom to undertake monastic training. He took refuge with several good masters, including the Venerable Master at Banqiao, Taipei, in 1993. He said that he really respects and admires the Venerable Master. He had been to the City of 10,000 Buddhas once, but the Venerable Master Hua had already entered the stillness by then (I told him that the Venerable Master is present everywhere). He really likes the Venerable Master's teachings and wondered if I could help him with learning more about Buddhism.

He helps to translate at another temple. He found the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association's simple explanations of Sutras in English immensely helpful. He believes that the publications of these books are of terrific help to Westerners in learning the Buddhadharma. I introduced some new books to him, which he took away with a smile on his face .