Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Each person has an aura – an appearance, a look, an “air” – that says something about us, such as “this is a sweet lady”, “this man looks mean”, “this women is untrustworthy”… We Vietnamese call it “tướng” – tướng hiền lành (aura of gentleness), tướng làm quan (aura of a future general)…

Aura is used today as daily word describing our personal appearance, but it has its source in antiquity, say, in paintings of a saint with a circle of light around his/her head.
In popular pseudoscience of the East, aura is a field of spiritual energy covering a person’s entire body, showing the person’s state of health and spiritual side.

I am not into the pseudoscience. I use the term “aura” as the daily word “appearance, look, air” and the Vietnamese word “tướng.”

In any event, aura says something about you and, the most important thing is, it is true. If you have lived long enough, you would have enough experience of meeting a person the first time, seeing his air (tướng), and immediate getting some sense about him, and later it turns out that your sense is correct.

What does that mean for us?

It means, our self has a way of telling the world about ourself, without us doing anything about it. It is natural and automatic. Whether we want it or not, our aura shows. And aura tells the truth about us – sweet, honest, cheating, trustworthy, deceitful, conniving, graceful…

A police investigator usually can spot a thief in the crowd, just from the thief’s “suspicious look.” That is aura.

So, what does that mean to our going about throughout the day?

Aura is real and tells the truth about us, so the best way to appear to the world as, say, honest is to have honesty in your heart. If your heart is deceitful, you can’t pretend honesty undetected.

It means, our air, our tướng, shows our true self. Then, if we want the world to see our good side, we need to have the good inside us.

This turns into the art of diplomacy: Let your true self do the diplomatic work for you. Be honest and sweet in your heart, and people will always see you as honest and sweet, naturally, without your trying to do anything.

And if you try to pretend honesty, while deceitful inside, it won’t work. Many people with sharp eyes will see the truth immediately.

Wish you all know the art of “diplomacy from the heart.”

With compassion,

Hoành

© copyright 2023
Trần Đình Hoành
Permitted for non-commercial use
www.dotchuoinon.com