"To save the world, we must begin by transforming human hearts," says Venerable Master Cheng Yen, the Taiwanese Buddhist nun. Now in her seventies, Master Cheng Yen, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, is one of the world's most admirable yet largely unrecognized women. At age twenty-nine she established the Tzu Chi Foundation, an organization committed to compassion and relief that now numbers ten million members in more than forty countries.
From its first project giving medical assistance to an impoverished grandmother in 1966 to the building of the Hualien Tzu Chi General Hospital in the wilderness of eastern Taiwan in the 1980s, from rebuilding communities after natural disasters around the world to establishing the world's fifth-largest bone marrow registry, the Tzu Chi Foundation has grown exponentially. This organization spreads its message of harmony and humility by assisting the needy and challenging the rich to lead by example.
Challenges, published to commemorate the Venerable Master's lifetime of accomplishments, details her extraordinary vision, her tenacity in the face of numerous hurdles, and the life-changing lessons she and her followers have learned over the years.