Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Many people have the common thinking that “I will start doing when I have done with learning.” To them, learning and doing are two separate stages – stage one: learning, stage two: doing.

But that is not how life works. In real life, learning and doing are one thing and one stage. You learn to be a dad by doing a dad’s child raising work – learning and doing are the same thing at the same time.

Why this issue is important to us?

It is important because you have to know when to learn and when to do. You cannot learn English until you finish your English learning, because (1) there is no such thing as a finishing point when you can say, “I have done with my English learning,” and (2) the way to learn English is to converse in English with another person – speaking English is learning English.

This line of thinking helps you do your learning the right way – learning something by doing it. Learning cooking by doing the cooking; learning car repair by doing car repair; learning to be a politician by actually being a politician; learning to raise your children by actually raising your children.

Brothers and sisters, you learn to know something by actually doing that thing.

You know the Bible only by practicing the Bible, and you know the Heart Sutra only by practicing the Heart Sutra. You can’t just read the Bible and the Heart Sutra until you understand them, because you will never understand them. You have to practice them, in order to understand them – doing is learning.

That is true to anything you learn in life – doing is learning, and learning is doing.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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