What to read after A Steady Heart and Steady Practice (過關-實心.實做.好人生)?

Dharma Master Cheng Yen once said, “Time is the most precious thing in life. Every day, month, or year spent in peace is a thing of joy. At the new year, many people express that they have made it through another year, as if the new year is a key threshold in life. People place importance on this time, but in fact, we should be mindful of our lives every second. This is because life is impermanent. In the span of a second, life can end. This is why we say, ‘In every second, every hour, and every day, we should be mindful and present and strive to live a good life.’”

A Steady Heart and Steady Practice: Stories for Living a Good Life is a book of one hundred stories about the nature of the mind as told by Master Cheng Yen. Some of the stories in this book are from the Buddha’s time, while others describe instances from the lives of Tzu Chi volunteers. These stories are intended to help us learn to develop a “steady heart” that does not allow time to pass in vain, as well as a “steady practice” of the Bodhisattva Path. With these tools, we can lead a pure, “good life.”

證嚴上人曾說：「人生最寶貴者是生命，日子能在一天、一個月、一年中平安地過去，當然是令人非常歡喜的事。許多人都說過年是『過年關』，其實我們應該抱著『過秒關』的心態，因為人生無常，生命一秒鐘過不了就消失了，所以秒秒過關、時時過關、日日過關！」

《過關——實心．實做．好人生》一書裡，有著一百則上人所說的「心」的本質和故事，從這些佛世或現代發生在慈濟人周邊的故事，我們學習到：發揮不空過的「實心」，腳踏菩薩道的「實做」，我們就可以擁有純淨、純質的「好人生」。