Dear Brothers and Sisters,
You win some, you lose some.
You win a university exam, you lose a girl friend, you win a ticket to a concert, you lose the exam to be a medical expert…
Winning and losing is the most facinating story of the human life.
First of all, is there such a thing called losing or winning?
You fail to reach your goal, you call that “losing,” because you feel failing is bad, but are you sure such failing is bad? Say, you failed the entrance exam to medical school and, because of that, you started law school. Twenty-five years later, you are known as the best litigation attorney of the country. Had you won the medical entrance exam, do you think you would have been the best physician in the country? Not sure, right?
So, you fail to open one door, and thanks to that, you open another door, which turns out to be the best door for you.
Or, your girl friend kicked you out, so you had another girl friend, who has turned out to be the best mother for your children.
The Christians say, “God closes one door because S/He has opened another door for you.”
Whether that was God, or your luck, the obvious truth through our experience is that: “There is no such thing as winning or losing, success or failure. When some thing happens, it is merely something that happens. Its real meaning may only surface many years later.”
Do you know the story Old Man Tai lost his horse in The Eastern Zhou Countries? (Truyện Tái ông thất mã trong Đông Châu Liệt Quốc)?
Old Tai owned a precious horse. One day the horse ran away and disappeared. His neighbors heard the news and came to offer their condolences. Old Tai said, “In the bad, there is good. Who knows? Maybe losing my horse will be a good thing for me.”
Sure enough, a few months later, the horse returned home, leading a herd of wild horses. When the neighbors heard the news, they immediately came to congratulate the old man on having many horses. The old man said: “Maybe having a lot of horses is a bad thing.”
The old man’s son loved riding horses. He had so many horses that he rode them all day, and fell off his horse and broke his leg. The neighbors rushed in to express their condolences. The old man calmly said: “Please don’t worry about me. My child fell and broke his leg. Although it’s bad, maybe thanks to this misfortune, he will be blessed.”
A year later, the Huns sent troops to invade China. Young men in the border areas had to join the army to fight the Hun invaders and many died in battle. Because the old man’s son was crippled, he was exempted from military service and could stay at home to live with his family.
In Yin there is Yang root, in Yang there is Yin root. Âm trung hữu Dương căn, Dương trung hữu Âm căn. In bad luck there is good luck, in good luck there is bad luck.
This alternating nature of events tells us that there is no such thing as winning or losing, good luck or bad luck. Events constantly change their nature over time. Events are simply events, not really good or bad. Water running is water running, not really good or bad.
In addition, in Bhuddist philosophy, everything is temporal and illusory – everything comes and goes. Winning and losing come and go like the waves of the sea. Waves come and waves go constantly and instantly. Nothing really exists by itself – they are only fashing images of a larger whole, which is our true and original nature: empty and calm (rỗng lặng) – empty of grasping onto events, and calm from such emptiness.
Regardless of what winning or losing is, we don’t grasp onto them, they don’t really exist in our mind, they have no meaning and don’t bother us, so that our mind is free of all grasping and all bothering.
And so, the mind is calm, and free.
Wish you all be calm and free.
With compassion,
Hoành
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