Dear Brothers and Sisters,

There is the secular culture and there is the spiritual culture.

Secular culture focuses on the mind and logics. Spiritual culture focuses on the heart.

On one hand, the secular culture usually separates mind and heart as two distinctive parts, often in conflict. The heart has all kinds of desire, some good and some bad. Therefore, the mind needs to control the heart to make sure the heart does not do crazy things.

On the other hand, all the major spiritual traditions – Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam – use “heart” in their sacred books, sutras, and prayers, and rarely use “mind.” Heart and mind here in the spiritual traditions are one unit performing one function of thinking, not two separate parts or two separate functions.

Heart and mind are one, but heart (love, compassion, sentiment) rules over mind (reasoning and logic); thus, one word “heart” is used for the entire system of thinking.

And you can see the difference in the spiritual heart thinking and the secular mind thinking.

– Secular: Love the good, and punish the bad, or at least avoid and boycott them.
– Spiritual: Love everyone in the world – the good, the bad, the ugly, the saints, the sinners.

– Secular: Ready to play rough when facing rough people.
– Spiritual: Tolerate (nhẫn nhục).

– Secular: Love people who love you, hate people who hate you.
– Spiritual: Love people who love you, and love people who hate you.

– Secular: Demand justice
– Spiritual: Demand not justice for oneself (but may demand justice for others)

– Secular: Focus more on one’s own interest in the competitive market place.
– Spiritual: Focus more on others as a matter of compassion.
…

These two modes of thinking are very much a matter of personal choice – whatever you choose, there is no point to say what mode is better.

However, obviously, if you want to have less stress and more peace, you want the heart road. If you want to be a fighter in the battlefield constantly, you may go the mind road.

Just be aware of the two different cultures and two different roads – heart and mind.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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