Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Sun Tzu (Tôn Tử) said: “Know yourself, know your opponent, fight hundred battles, win hundred battles” (Tri kỷ tri bỉ, bách chiến bách thắng). However, if you know yourself, you already know 90% of your opponent, because between 2 persons, the similarity is 90% and the difference is about 10%.

The real problem is, most people don’t even know themselves. They don’t know any of their weaknesses – they talk before thinking, they lie without recognizing, they steal without understanding, they are arrogant without knowing, they are ignorant without accepting… If you don’t even know yourself, the chance for you to understand others is zero. The chance for you to win life battles is close to zero (You still can win by luck when you fight against ignorant people like you. But the chances for you to win wise people is zero).

So, know yourself and you will win all life battles. If you know yourself well, you already understand 90% of your opponent, only 10% left for you to study.

People who don’t know themselves, know nothing about others, and nothing about life strategies, because life strategies are the ways of dealing with other people.

Practicing Four Kinds of Mindfulness Zen (thiền tứ niệm xứ) will help you know yourself deeply. You can practice it about 15m to 30m a day. Very soon you will always be aware of what you are thinking or doing. Below is my simple version of Four Kinds of Mindfulness. But you only need to practice the first three to know yourself, the last one is to know the entire universe.

Start by sitting crossed-legs like the man in the picture below, keeping everything out of your mind, and follow your breathing in and out. This is simple Breathing Zen to calm you down. Do it for several minutes.

1. Now start the first mindfulness: Observe your body. Close your eyes and use your mind to observe the way you are sitting, the way your legs cross, the way your hands are placed, the way your back straightens, your neck straightens… Observe your entire body .

2. Second mindfulness: Observe your feeling. First, physical feeling. Observe the feeling of the body – you are itchy where, aching where, uncomfortable where… Then move to observing the emotional feeling: are you feeling happy, a little sad, a little angry, some no-name discomfort in the mind…

3. Third mindfulness: Observe your mind/your thinking: What you are thinking? You may try to figure out why you feel a little sad? Or you are thinking about work tomorrow? Or you are asking how to calm the mind down… Look at all your thoughts in the mind. Just observe and don’t try to do anything with what you see.

4. Fourth mindfulness: Observe all elements are non-self, non-permanent. This, you don’t need to do to know yourself.

Your awareness of yourself will increase very fast. Years ago, a doctor friend of mine got some personal problem, and I taught him the first three kinds of mindfulness above. After one week, I met him again, and he told me happily: “The Zen you teach me is amazing. Now I am so aware of myself, what I feel and what I think. And I become much calmer, less depressed, and much more focusing.”

So, brothers and sisters, know yourself and conquer the world.

With compassion,

Hoành

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