Dear Brothers and Sisters

“Expand your horizon” means “Have a broader view of the world around you.” I have talked about this very often here in ĐCN.

Your generation is way different from your parents’generation. Today the world is a village – countries and people connecting togerther in a network called global village. Everything happens to one person in the village also affects others in the village. Say, some accident happens in Coca Cola USA may affect all the Coca Cola branches around the world and the pockets of billions of consumers. Continue reading Expand your horizon →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The world curently have so many on-going wars that one can hardly keep us with the count: Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestinians, Columbia, Somali, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, India, Philippines, Myanmar, Syria, Iraq… and almost every country of the world. In addition, today war is more sophisticated – beside biologial and chemical warfares (which are outlawed by international law), some rogue states – Russia, North Korea, Iran – constantly hold up the nuclear scepter. And there are psychologial warfare, misinformation warfare, hacking warfare, economic warfare – starving your opponent to death…

Map of ongoing armed conflicts (number of combat-related deaths in current or past year):  Brown: Major wars (10,000 or more) , Red: Wars (1,000–9,999), Orange:  Minor conflicts (100–999); Yellow Skirmishes and clashes (1–99)

So, how do you feel about the world today?

Have you ever thought about the world you are living in at all?

If you have been blissfully ignorant of the world’s woeful condition, then you are in deed ignorant, though ignorant in happiness.

Ignorance is bad – it is one of the Three Poisons in Buddhist philosophy – Greed, Anger, Ignorance (Tam độc: than, sân, si).

You live in a home, you need to always be aware of its state, physical and spiritual – where it needs to be fixed. Otherwise, the home will collapse on your head some day.

We have only one world to live in, we need to pay attention to our world.

It is an environmental matter, my friends. We need to pay attention to where we live: our house, village, city, country, world…

Many people have no idea about the world outside their family. For them, the world is too far, they don’t need to care, there are many world leaders working on world issues, why should the lowly me worry about the moon?

That would be like the attitude of some students: Why should I care about the school? I can’t do anything about its problems. That is the job of the principal and the teachers.

Well, we all know that a school with many students with such attitude will become a gangster hub very soon. Or it is already a gangster hub.

The environment we live in, be it village, city, nation or world, needs the attention and care from everyone of us. That is a natural matter, a logical matter, and a self-evident truth we all know by intuition, observation, and experience.

But what can I do for the world?

At the least, you can pray: “God/Buddha, please help our world be better.” That takes 2 seconds of your precious time. (“Oh My Lord, 2 looo…ng seconds of my ultra-busy time! I’ll be late for my meeting!” Busy Sir, can you pray for 2 seconds when you drive, to save you some precious time?)

If you don’t like praying. Then concentrate and say quietly: “I wish a better world.” That also takes 2 seconds.

Do that everyday, right after waking up in the morning is the best time.

That would be enough to be a relatively strong energy source to help save the world.

Don’t, never, ever, underestimate the power of your positive thinking, on yourself and on the world, at the same time.

Wish you all be positive to our world.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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Dear Brothers and Sisters

In primary school, I was taught: “You should be humble. When you see the poor, the disabled, you must lower yourself to their level to be equal to them.” I practiced that faithfully for many years, at least probably till I was in my 40s, but I always found it so hard to be humble. I couldn’t understand why.

Today, I have found the culprit. That is: The teaching I was taught contained these premises: (1) You are higher than many people, (2) Many people, including the poor and the disabled, are lower than you, (3) So, when you meet them, you humble yourself by lowering yourself to their level. Continue reading Humility →