Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Whatever we do in life, all of us want the same thing: peace and happiness. However, most of us go the wrong way to find peace and happiness. We think money, big house, big car, big power, big position, big reputation, big love, big marriage, all those big things give us peace and happiness. So, we chase after them, fight for them, and when we have them, we hold tight to them and protect them with all our might.

But if you observe life a little, you will see that most people who chase after big things don’t have peace and happiness. They struggle and fight to obtain the big things they want and struggling and fight to keep them. Well, struggling and fighting means no peace. Peace is the absence of struggling and fighting.

And if you have no peace, you have no happiness, because peace and happiness are the same thing – they are two words for one thing, like the two sides of a coin. Peace = Happiness.

That is why we see many people who are supposed to have everything live a very unhappy life – some of them commit suicide, some of them have drugs and alcoholic problems, many other have a very messy life with all kinds of crazy things going.

Not that everyone who has everything is unhappy. A number of them are happy. But the truth is that too many of them are unhappy.

They are unhappy not because they have everything. They are unhappy because the get attached to many things.

If you work hard and honestly on your job, you will be successful and everything will come your way. And you will be happy if you are not attached (not glued) to anything. Whatever come your way, you let them come. Whatever leave you, you let them leave. Like clouds moving through the sky – clouds come and go, the sky is always there, empty, not trying to keep any clouds from coming or going. The sky is your heart – always empty, non-grasping and free – everything comes and goes, the heart is always quiet and relaxed.

That is the peace and happiness of the heart.

It is not what you have or don’t have. It is your attitude of not grasping onto anything, allowing everything to come to you and leave you freely.

Brothers and sisters, this attitude is really easy to have, if you meditate often on it and tell yourself: My heart is the empty sky, things come and things go like clouds, they come and go in peace, and my heart is always at peace.

People cannot have this peaceful and free attitude because they don’t know about it – they are ignorant, using Buddhist terminology. Not because it is difficult to practice and obtain.

My friends, we only live for a while. Then we will die. None of the things we have really means anything, now and at the time of death. Except that maybe our soul (our spirit) will survive death, and we will want that post-death soul to be at peace and happy. The soul won’t be happy then if it is miserable now.

Wish we all understand peace and happiness.

With compassion,

Hoành

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