Dear Brothers and Sisters,

When I was much younger, I understood the standard life is grabbing, gasping, fighting, lying, badmouthing, backstabbing… anything you do to win. Why? Because I saw everyone around me do that, almost no exception, and I understood that was the standard life, because I didn’t see any other lifestyles around.

I saw religious people, some of them, especially the nuns, were a little gentler, but not much. The entire religious institutions of all religions were doing politics and fighting and no religion trusted other religions. So, I believed religious people are even worse than the non-religious, because they live the standard life in a grand scale of their religion.

I distrusted religion. And I had no problem with living the standard life because (1) that was life and (2) I believed I was intelligent and strong enough to win.

The only thing that saved me was Jesus. The more I was annoyed at religion, the more I liked Jesus. This man was so gentle and probably naïve. He taught extreme love; his love was not at the middle of the road. He said, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Man, who would say crazy thing like that? And he was willing to die for what he taught. The way he lived outside the road like that really intrigued me. That was my man, my model. People thought of Jesus as God, I saw him as a man. What he thought and did, people didn’t really care, because they said, “He was God, so his thinking and doing are for God to think and do. Not us earthlings.” But I thought about him as a man, and I thought: “Whatever he did, I can do that too.”

Many years later in the US, at 40, I met a group of friends who declared themselves “non-religious” but they met weekly in the “spirit of Jesus Christ”. That was what they told me the first time they met me to invite me to join the group; they asked me: “Does that make sense to you?” I said, “Yes, it makes great sense to me. You distinguish Jesus from religion. I do that too.” These men were very high political and business leaders in the US. That has been a new and long friendship with each other in the group and with Jesus, to know Jesus personally as an intimate friend and to try live like Him. Well, I just discovered the real standard life, from the one man I have admired since very little, which many people have been trying to imitate.

That was a huge miracle. I don’t believe in coincident for a rare event of that nature.

So, my friends, the standard life we learn from the world around us is not standard, or at least it is rubbish standard. The real standard of life is much simpler, higher and purer.

We all think of the rubbish standard as life standard, because we don’t know the higher and purer standard that many people are practicing, not just talking.

Since I started to know Jesus personally on that day, my eyes have been open to the deep and wonderful meanings of human, God, and deep matters of the human heart.

And I started to re-read Buddhist philosophy, which I had learned as philosophy major in college, but didn’t really understand then. Now, lo and behold, all the Buddhist philosophy was so clear to me. I understood everything I read. That was another miracle. Then I understood when you know one, you know all.

So, my friends, there is a higher standard for life – the stardard taught by the great masters of the world: Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, LaoTzu, Confucius, Zarathustra, Trần Nhân Tông… You understand one of them, you understand them all.

And their standard is simple – easy to understand. You just read and practice the simple (and extreme) thing they say – like, turn to them the other cheek also – and your eyes will be open to the deep truths of life. And you now know that you have become a wise person.

And their standard is the golden rules for you to live successfully in this earthly life, here and now, not necessarily for you after death.

And if there is an afterlife, you will be successful in the afterlife, because you have lived with a very high standard in this earthly life.

Wish we all live with the high standard.

With compassion,

Hoành

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