Dear Brothers and Sisters,

What is learning? How do we learn?

Most people think that you learn by listening to what your teacher says, understand it, and keep it in your memory. Probably this way of learning is true to almost everything we learn, but that is only the outward appearance of learning. Inside, in our head and our heart, true learning is a process of thinking, of questioning, of reflecting on what we see, hear, smell and touch outside.

Say, the first time you see a racoon, you immediately have a series of questions: What animal is this? What do they call it? Where is it from? Where is its normal habitat? What does it do? What does it eat? Is it gentle or mean? Will it jump up and attack me if I get close? Does it carry diseases that it may pass on to human?…

Such kind of question is your reflection upon the image of the animal that you are meeting. And that reflection is learning.

You haven’t got any answer, but don’t worry about the answers. Reflection is mainly questioning, and questioning is 90% of learning. Answering is the 10% left.

Questioning is important because questions are the road to knowledge – if you have questions, eventually you will have the answers. If you don’t have any question, no answer will ever come.

Most people learn by memorizing the answers from their teachers or books, that is called “hoc từ chương” in Vietnamese. They really don’t think and don’t reflect; they simply memorize. Yes, you may memorize a song to sing it, and may have some small bits of knowledge from the song, but I have never heard anyone compare memorizing a song with “the process of learning.”

Learning requires a lot of questioning. I remember the first definition of “philosopher” that I learned was from Prof. Nguyễn Văn Trung at Đại Học Văn Khoa (Faculty of Letters, Sài Gòn University, now University of Social Sciences and Humanities – HCMC). He wrote in his philosophy textbook, quoting some ancient philosopher: “Philosopher is a person looking at life through the eyes of a baby.”

Philo means love, sophy from sophia means knowledge. Philosopher means the one who loves knowledge, the lover of knowledge.

So, people who love knowledge look at life through the eyes of a baby, full of wonder – Wow! What is this one? And that one? What does it do? I want to touch it, hold it in my hand. Oh, it makes a ringing sound. And it has something flashing many colors. My eyes feel good when I see it… Of course, baby doesn’t think clearly like that, but we can imagine such kind of wonder going in the baby subconsciousness.

Do you often have questions when you see something?

A pair of birds pecking around on the sidewalk. What do you think? What kind of bird are they? Are they a couple? Do they stay together for life like us humans? What are they pecking at? Tiny food morsels? Or they just want to drum the pavement for fun? Oh, this guy seems to drop something from his peck at the feet of the girl? How do we know which one is guy and which one is gal? Do they actually share food like that? Or am I just imagining things? Do they understand love? And loyalty? Are love and loyalty built-in parts of animal’s nature? Or those are things that we humans have to learn from our moral lessons? How did the humans come up with the fist moral lesson ever? Who taught them? Or they just discovered them by some kind of accident? Or they learned from the Gods?…

If you often question like that, you are a lover of knowledge.

That is why we can learn from everyone and everything.

You can look at a baby and start wondering with a slew of questions, or at a river and start thinking, or at a peddler and start asking your heart…

When the student is ready, he immediately finds the teacher – because teachers are everywhere around him.

Indeed, when the student is ready, he immediately knows that he has only one true teacher, who is himself.

My friends, learning is simply letting your mind wonder at everything, so that you can see all the wonders of the world in everything, from the human heart out to the universe of animals running on the land, birds gliding through the sky, fish swimming under the sea, and mountains, and rivers, and flowers, and moons, and stars… The entire universe is the reflecting board for you to throw your questions at and bounces back to you the wonderful morsels of deep knowledge.

And that is true learning, my dear.

Wish that everyone of us is a good student and good teacher at the same time.

With compassion,

Hoành

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