Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Most of the world think in duality – right v. wrong, true v. false, white v. black and, of course, corporal v. spiritual.

So, people divide our human life in two separate parts: the corporal part which is our body and the spiritual part which is our soul or our spirit. Many religions despise the body and glorify the spirit. They consider the body – the flesh – weak and sinful, and the spirit pure (if it doesn’t allow the body to commit sin). The body is temporal – it disintegrates after we die; the spirit is perpetual – it stays on for a different world and/or a different life.

I am saying nothing about life after death, because I am not dead yet and, therefore, know nothing about the afterlife.

I am talking about this life on earth. I think separating the body and the spirit from each other is unrealistic and incorrect. All we can experience in life is that our body and our spirit are one unit. Our spirit, our hope, our thinking, our attitude, our aspiration and inspiration, our Godly spirit, our Buddhahood – all our spiritual elements are a part of our body. When we die, our whole existence – body and spirit – die.

Heaven and hell are in us.
God and Devil are in us.
Buddhahood and Ignorance are in us.

The duality is in us, but the two parts work together in one unit like Yin and Yang. They don’t fight against each other, they don’t eliminate each other, they work together like day and night, the sun and the moon, the man and the woman.

So, when we give in to a temptation, the entire “me” gives in to that temptation, not just the body gives in but the spirit doesn’t. The spirit’s pointing the finger to the body is an arrogant way to deny responsibility: “Sorry, that was my stupid body, the devil, who did that sinful thing. Not me, I am the spirit.”

The Buddhist concept of “the heart” (tâm ) aka the mind (trí) aka the heart/mind (tâm trí) makes much more sense: Our mind is our entire unit of thinking and living. “Mind leads everything, Mind is the chief, Mind creates” (Ý dẫn đầu các pháp, Ý làm chủ, Ý tạo – Dhammapada, par.1, Vietnamese version Thích Minh Châu, TĐH translated).

We are both the body and the mind working together in everything, every decision, every action, living together and dying together.

Don’t separate your body from your mind/heart. Such a separation seduces you to fall into base temptations (because you said, “That is only my weak body”) while your mind doesn’t accept responsibility for its weakness.

Whatever you do, both your mind and your body do together – good or bad, righteous or evil – and receive reward or punishment together.

So, pay attention to both your body and your mind equally. Don’t focus on one and ignore the other.

Wish you live with the whole you.

With compassion,

Hoành

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