Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We all know that everything in the world requires right timing. Since you were very little, you have learned that if you want to ask mom for some money to buy something, you have to wait for the right time, till she is happy and ready to hear your request and your explanation for the need, and hopefully she would agree to pull some bucks out of her pocket. You may have a very good idea, but doing it at the wrong time, you will fail.

Timing is one of the most important elements of any plan or strategy. A general may have a superb strategy to attack an enemy’s fortress, but at the time of attack, it rains heavily – which the general hasn’t thought about. His soldiers wade in flood, his airplanes can’t fly and see in the rain, even his cannon shells get blown off targets by strong wind and rain, while his enemies sit relaxingly inside the fortress, aiming and shooting at the slopping troops outside.

Sun Tzu’s (Tôn Tử) three most important elements of strategy are: Heaven time, Favorable earth, Harmonious people (my word-for-word translation of Thiên thời, Địa lợi, Nhân Hòa).

“Favorable earth” talks about favorable topography of the battle field, both the central area of the batlle and the huge regions surrounding the batlle with roads linking to other regions of the country.

“Harmonious people” means your citizens and your soldiers, all think in the same wave length – all are committed to fight against the enemy.

“Heaven time” is the most complicated element of the three. First, heaven time means the right timing for Heaven. Say, the enemies are cruel and their cruelties “shake the Heaven,” and Heaven will punish them. Attacking them now would please Heaven. This is also called legitimacy (chính nghĩa).

Second, heaven time means the weather – cold, hot, rain, dry, moonlit, completely dark, stormy, typhoon… The general predicts the weather and takes all the weather elements at the fighting time to design the battle strategy.

All these are to say that timing is the utmost of a strategy or plan.

Same thing in spiritual life. We  need to learn to patiently wait for everything to come and go at its right time.

In the Zen story No attachment to dust – Không bám bụi, Zengetsu (Thiền Nguyệt), 833-912, a Chinese master of the T’ang dynasty (đời Đường), wrote the following advice for his pupils: “Some things, though right, were considered wrong for generations. Since the value of righteousness may be recognized after centuries, there is no need to crave immediate appreciation.”

If you have lived for some years, you must have experienced this truth: You tell some people something you understand; however, you know that they hear but not comprehend and that you will have to wait for them to live for some more years, so that hopefully they will be more mature and wiser and understand you then.

I have said many times here on ĐCN that “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” meaning the teachers have been there all around the student forever – human teachers, sacred books, sacred writings, nature teachers: flowers, the wind, the sky and the clouds… All kinds of teachers are there, but the student can’t see because his time has not come. Until some day, he suddenly wakes up, and see.

Zen master Hakuin Ekaku, self portrait, 1767

Here is the Zen story Is that so? – Vậy à? about Hakuin Ekaku (1685 – 1768), one of the most influential figures in Japanese Zen Buddhism. He revived the Rinzai school (dòng thiền Lâm Tế) from a moribund period of stagnation, refocusing it on its traditionally rigorous training methods integrating meditation and koan practice. Hakuin’s influence was such that all Rinzai Zen masters today trace their lineage through him, and all modern practitioners of Rinzai Zen use practices directly derived from his teachings.

Wish you all patiently and serenely wait for the right time in everything.

With compassion,

Hoành

© copyright 2024
Trần Đình Hoành
Permitted for non-commercial use
www.dotchuoinon.com