Dear brothers and sisters,

Once in awhile I write a trà đàm in English, to offer you guys and gals an opportunity to read English. We need to encourage each other to be good in English, because it is necessary for the good speed of Vietnam development.

What are we doing here in life?

This philosophical question is as old as the human race. As soon as human knew how to reflect upon him/herself, s/he started asking: Who am I? What am I doing here in this place?

And that is what we all are doing today, millions of years later: Who am I? What I am doing here?

That is a philosophical question, but not reserved only for professional philosophers. It is a question that everyone of us asks, at one time or another. Well, human is a philosophical creature. I am not sure any other creature on earch has such a deep fundamental question about itself.

Isn’t it wonderful that human has such an unfathomable question about him/herself! I think that is the special knowledge God gives the human race. Remember, in the Bible, when creating anything – light, darkness, sky, ground, sea, land, birds, fish, all kinds of animals on the land and in the waters, God simply said a short phrase, say, “Let there be light”, then there was light.

But when making human, God really labored much more: God “took the dust of the ground to form a man” – probably mixing the dust with water to make a paste, and forming the paste into a man statue. Then God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7).

God could have said, “Let there be man,” then a man had appeared. But no, God wanted to do some special work to create human. Especially, God breathed “the breath of life” into the human’s nose, and human became living. The breath of life that gives life to each of us is the breath of God, the Spririt of God flowing in us and giving us life.

That shows how special and wonderful we are.

Buddhism doesn’t go into “the beginning” in such a manner, because the Buhhist cosmo has no beginning, no end (vô thủy, vô chung). The cosmos and everything in it, including human, simply exist in a circle of time that has no beginning and no end.

Buddhism focusses more on the current state of living, on the now-and-here, of the human as well as all other creatures in the cosmos.

By the way, Now-Here = Nowhere. Focusing on the now-and-here also means focusing on nowhere. Isn’t it fascinating! That is truly the non-grasping (vô chấp, không bám) of the Buddhists: Though we focus on living now-and-here, we don’t grasp onto the now-and-here, so that is truly living nowhere. And because we live nowhere, we live everywhere in the cosmos – like a bird, it stands everywhere, but not grasping on (stuck to) anywhere, so it has the enire sky to live – the ultimate liberty of a free heart. That is what the Buddists call “absolute freedom” (Tự do tuyệt đối).

Anyway, back to the main subject. God creates human as a special breed of creature, and of course God has the idea that human, compared to other creatures, lives a little differently.

What difference?

God wants the humans to love one another. That is really the only one thing God wants us to do.

God teaches us several other things – don’t kill, don’t lie, don’t covet neighbor’s wife or properties – but these commanments truly serve to support the ultimate commanment: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:39).

Friends, how simple and wonderful that is! We live to love our neighbors as ourself. That is our purpose of living. That is the answer to our philosophical question: What am I doing here in this place?

God does not need us to save the world, to be hero of the cosmos, to help God conquer the world, to eliminate the bad guys…

God simply wants us to love each other as we love ourself.

How simple and wonderful that is!

And it makes perfect sense: All of us humans are God’s children. We all are brothers and sisters, we all are children of God. God wants all his children to love one another, to live in harmony, and peace, and happiness together, and forever.

That is the simple wish of a parent. We parents wish the same thing for all our children.

Nothing so difficult to understand. Just a simple wish of a parent for all his/her children to live together in happiness.

My friends, that is our ultimate answer: The purpose of our life is to love all our brothers and sisters as we love ourself.

Why?

Because that is what our Ultimate Parent, our Creator, wishes, for our own happiness.

Wish us all living with love.

With compassion,

Hoanh

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