Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday March 11, 2024 is the beginning of the Muslim holy month called Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, the month of fasting and prayer. A commemoration of Prophet Muhammad’s first revelation, the annual observance of Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam (Muslim creed, prayer, charity to the poor, fasting in the month of Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca) and lasts twenty-nine (or thirty days), from one sighting of the crescent moon to the next.

Rafah tent cities

The Palestinians are Muslim and now is their holy month of fasting and praying. And Israel has been threatening that during the Ramadan they will invade City of Rafah in South Gaza, where 1.5 million people are jammed up in tent cities, with no where to go. The city’s prewar population was 280 thousand; more than 1.2 million refugees had run around to many places in Gaza before ended up in Rafah in extremely overcrowded tent cities, with worst living conditions anyone wants to imagine. And Israel wants to attack that super-overpopulated city in the holy month of their fasting and praying.

Can the human spirit ever be more cruel than that?

I don’t want to talk politics in my trà đàm. But the savage spirit of the humans depresses me. You can’t stay cool like a cucumber with everything vile and mean going on in the world, bros & sises. I don’t know if the Buddha ever cried, but Jesus cried very often, and for some reasons I feel I am more like Jesus than Buddha. And I don’t believe that living with Zen means you never cry. I think I am relatively calm and serene in many situations, but I still want to keep my heart sensitive to the pains of the world, probably just to know that “I am still alive and I need to do something about those pains.” (Please read Zen story No Loving-Kindness  about a Zen monk practicing Zen for 20 years with no loving-kindness).

Anyway, brothers and sisters, the world are in trouble because the humans have so much garbage in their hearts. And “the humans” means everyone of us, no one counted out. Forget about preaching to the Israelis or the Palestinians, or the Russians, or the Ukrainians. If we want our world to be beautiful and just, then clean our own heart first, get rid of all the garbage – all the greed, hatred and ignorance (tham sân si) in the heart, and fill our heart with honesty, love, gentleness, and serenity.

We shall better our heart and our heart shall produce sacred positive energy to lift up the world.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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