Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Love is a feeling and love demands action to satisfy that feeling.

Everyone who has fallen in love once knows exactly what I am talking about. Continue reading Do you love your country in feeling and action? →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am talking about personnel matters. There are many things the Vietnamese, as each individual and as a collective society, need. But I am trying to narrow down to three most fundamental things needed for good and quick development, personally and collectively.

1. Unity

Unity means all, or almost all, people unite into a single body, with one heart and one mind.

Right now, I have the feeling that the country is not very united. Continue reading Three things the Vietnamese need most to develop Vietnam quickly →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

What is the essence of spirituality, without it there is no spirituality?

People can call a thousand things spirituality – Zen, mediation, praying, reciting sutras, worshiping, fasting, exorcism, shamanship, fengshui, witchcraft, voo doo… and what have you. Some of these activities, especially in the well-established large spiritual traditions such as Buddhism and Christianity, may help a little, but they are not spiritual if exercised without the essence of spirituality. Continue reading The essence of spirituality →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We have been brainwashed by the world to believe that we are nobody, of no value, and having nothing to contribute to the world. So, lots of us live like a nobody without any responsibility to the world.

That is dead wrong, my friends. Continue reading Be a good example →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I have studied and practiced personal development for 49 years, and I have become an expert on personal development. I can tell you that most teachers on personal development don’t even know that they cannot teach you to know yourself – you have to be your own teacher.

It’s not a coincidence that almost the entire world lives with greed, hatred, and ignorance (tham sân si). It is because almost the entire world is ignorant, from teachers to students. Continue reading You are your own teacher →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

There are only two levels of living: (1) worldly level, and (2) spiritual level.

Level 2, spiritual, encompasses both – the worldly level is inside the spiritual level, like two circles with the same center point. Continue reading Two levels of living →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Understanding spiritual matters is completely different from understanding worldly matters. You use your head, your reasoning, and your logic for your worldly matters – selling and buying, marketing, financing, engineering, lawyering, doctoring… For spiritual matters – understanding the depth of your heart and the human heart, your true nature and the true human nature, God, the Buddha, the meaning of life, the purpose of living, reward and punishment, paradise and hell – you use your true heart, simple, pure, gentle, and loving, that can understand everything deep in the human soul. Continue reading Understanding spiritual matters →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Watch out for your habits – they are what kill you, or at least keep you down forever at the bottom of the pit.

Most people of the world understand clearly what they should do and what they should not do, but they continue to do what they should not do and don’t do what they should do.

Why? Continue reading Habits →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Loyalty is chữ trung, lòng trung, lòng trung thành. Loyalty is extremely important to keep relationships lasting – husband and wife, friend and friend, teacher and student, lover and lover, boss and subordinate, relative and relative, priest/monk/nun and believer …

Every relationship demands some level of loyalty for it to last. All relationships have troubles at times. Without loyalty acting as glue, all relationships collapse whenever trouble comes. Continue reading Loyalty →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

All the masters of the world teach us to love all people, regardless of who they are – good, bad, ugly, saint, murderer… And we are talking about all people in the whole world.

Can we shrink it down to a smaller scale, to make the idea more concrete and easier to fathom? Continue reading Love all your people →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Vietnamese family has clear ranking – we don’t call each other by the neutral “I and you” as in English. We address each other by family positions: “anh em, chị em, bố con, mẹ con, ông cháu, bà cháu, dì cháu/con, chú cháu/con, bác cháu/con, dượng cháu/con, o cháu/con.

And the family positions carry with them responsibilities. Speaking briefly, a higher-ranked person is supposed to live well, as an example for lower-ranked persons (làm gương có các em các cháu). You have the honor to be in a high position, you also have the responsibility of good living, to act like a good example for the lower-ranked folks to look upto and immitate. Continue reading Family ranking →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Each of us has effects on his/her village, town, city, country, and world. The way you live affects all the small and big communities surrounding you. The effects can be good or bad, but there is no such thing as “neutral living without any effect.”

When you live well – gentle, humble, charitable, loving, responsible – you generate positive energy to better all your communities. Continue reading Your effects on your communities →