Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We all have the habit of discriminating all kinds of people and things – this man is good, the other man is bad; I like sunshine and hate the rain; I like northerner and don’t like southerner… We have many discriminating views like those and we act in accordance to our views.

Of course, we also know that such discriminating views are the source of all evils of the world – hatred, disunity, dysfunction, fighting, war, misery, and suffering.

Thus, the major spiritual traditions of the world teach non-discrimination – non-discriminating heart, aka equality heart, aka equal heart – seeing all people, all living beings, and all things as equal.

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous… Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48).

The Buddha said, “All sentient beings have Buddha nature and have the ability to become Buddha. I am the Buddha who has become Buddha, all sentient beings are Buddhas who will become Buddhas.” That is the view of the equality heart, seeing all people and all sentient beings as equal beings, who have Buddha nature inside, and who will become Buddhas someday.

The ability to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly as equal to us, with Buddha nature, and to love all of them as Buddhas in the making, is the spiritual solution to fix this troubled world, making it more united, more loving, more functional, and happier.

So, friends, you can see clearly there are two ways to live – one is dividing and constantly leading to suffering; one is uniting and leading to happiness.

Pick your choice. It’s only a matter of the attitude of the mind, not a matter of doing more work.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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