Dear Brothers and Sisters,

People love formulas. There are formulas for everything under the sun.

A formula is a clear and systematic method of doing something. Say, you learn to write your first sentence in English: “I love you.” The formula for the sentence is: 1) Subject “I” comes first. 2) Verb “love” comes second, standing next to the subject. 3) Object “you” comes last, standing next to the verb. That is the writing formula you will use for the rest of your life.

(Note: If you are a girl learning English from a foreign guy, or vice versa, chances are the first sentence he teaches you is exactly that: “I love you.” Real life. Not my imagination 🙂 )

Formulas help us learn how to do many things in life, from cooking, to singing, piano playing, martial arts, lawyering, doctoring… So, of course, we need formulas and we LOVE formulas… Oh lah lah… lah lah… The sun is rising… the sun is coming on the green foliage… lah lah…

But that is where the problem is. Formula is only for the novice, white belt. The more you grow in the art, the further you walk away from formula. Say, formula “I love you” for white belt. A little more well versed in English, you will see “Love you” for “I love you”, or “Love you I” in some poems, or “Love you I do”, or “You I love”, or “You I do love”…

Now the problem is really complicated, you see? What are those crazy formulas for just one simple sentence “I love you”?

My answer is: I don’t think we can call the other crazy ways of writing “formula,” because they are not formula – they are just the feelings of the writer: How to write the sentence in such a way that, in the context of the whole writing, has good sound, good melody, good rhythm, and can convey the specific feelings that the writer wants the reader to feel.

This is no formula. This is feeling and art.

But most people love formula and hate art, because they only want to learn the easy thing. Art is too difficult and mysterious for them, seemingly set aside for a few elites only.

And that is the problem of living.

My friend, living is an art – the greatest art of them all.

But many people reduce this greatest art down to a bunch of white-belt formulas, such as giving money to the poor, going to church, respecting 3 Jewels – Buddha Dharma Sangha, tolerating insults, fasting…

Nothing is wrong with these formulas. But they are just for white belt. The more experienced folks often deviate from these formulas in one way or another, depending on the situation and their feeling at the time.

Life is an art. Life is not a bunch of formulas. You may do many things different from, and even opposite, a formula you have learned, depending on circumstances.

And no one can teach you the art. You have to be your own teacher in art.

The art is, as in Buddhist teaching on living (which very few Buddhists understand): “You can HAVE every way of doing something that you heart can see. Just do not ATTACH (ie, glue) yourself to any one way. Then you are enlightened, and free.”

My oft repeated example: The bird may stand everywhere, but does not glue herself to anywhere, therefore she may have the entire sky to live in, and is free.

Don’t attach yourself to any place, and you will be Enlightened. Ưng vô sở trụ nhi sanh kỳ tâm. (Diamond Sutra).

Living is an art. Not a bunch of formulas. And you are the artist, who will do many wonders with many subtle movements.

That is Enlightened – Giác ngộ. And Free/Liberated – Tự do/Giải thoát.

When I say the art of living, I mean “The art of living here and now,” for yourself and your happiness. I am not talking about religion, or Heaven and Hell, or Nirvana beyond death.

Though Buddhism is known as a religion, it is truly the world’s top scientific and logical philosophy on living here and now, on earth.

We are learning how to live best, not how to be religious.

Wish you all be Enlightened, and Free, and successful, however you define success.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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