Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Probably everyone has heard more than enough about environment – too much dust particles in the air, to much exhaust smoke in the air, to much plastic waste in the rivers and the sea, too much noise pollution…

Our environment directly affects our health, and in some cases our life and death.

But we cannot talk only about physical environment. There are other environments affecting our mind, our heart, and our soul – educational environment, cultural environment, and spiritual environment.

Educational environment: Do teachers think about their job as a sacred mission of planting humans (trồng người)? Do teachers love their students? Do teachers respect students and teach students to respect one another? Do teachers teach students how to think, analyze, and discuss? Do parents respect teachers and teach their children to respect teachers? Do parents and teachers work closely together to educate students? Does the government consider teaching the sacred mission of human planting?

Cultural environment: Do public media (TV, radio, newspapers, online sites) understand that they affect the minds of the public and, therefore, they must be truthful and positive in their tone? Do public media promote good values: honesty, charity, humility, loving? Does the government encourage everyone, including public media and the education establishment, to promote good traditional cultural values?

Spiritual environment: Do religious leaders pay attention to the hearts of the people, instead of simply repeating religious rituals every day? Do religious leaders practice and teach honesty, humility, tolerance, and unity of all religions? Do religious leaders understand that their job is to save souls, not to build big churches and temples, collect large donations, engage in divisive politics, or defend God?

While physical environment is important to our body, educational environment, cultural environment, and spiritual environment are critical to our mind, our heart, and our soul.

Thus, we all need to think about all environments and talk to everybody about these different types of environments. We need to generate wide discussions online and offline about them, so that everyone in the country is aware of them and well versed in them.

With compassion,

Hoành

© copyright 2024
Trần Đình Hoành
Permitted for non-commercial use
www.dotchuoinon.com