Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It seems today, busy parents tend to leave the children’s education totally in the hand of schools. That is the parents’ grave mistake and their children’s grave misfortune.
Schools don’t have enough time for our children, because their time is spent mostly on academic subjects. They don’t have enough time to focus on educating your kids to be good persons. Continue reading Parents need to educate their children
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Probably the most misunderstood Buddhist concept is Zen. What is Zen? Is that sitting and breathing in and out? Or sitting and doing Vipassana (thiền minh sát tuệ)? Or practicing four kinds of mindfulness (thiền tứ niệm xứ) – meditation and full realization on the impurity of the body (quán thân bất tịnh), meditation and full realization on the evils of sensations (quán thọ thị khổ), meditation and full realization on the impermanence of the mind and thoughts (quán tâm vô thường), meditation and full realization of non-self of all elements (quán pháp vô ngã)? Or is that Walking Zen? Eating Zen? Continue reading What is Zen
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This Sunday March 11, 2024 is the beginning of the Muslim holy month called Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, the month of fasting and prayer. A commemoration of Prophet Muhammad’s first revelation, the annual observance of Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam (Muslim creed, prayer, charity to the poor, fasting in the month of Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca) and lasts twenty-nine (or thirty days), from one sighting of the crescent moon to the next.
Rafah tent cities
The Palestinians are Muslim and now is their holy month of fasting and praying. And Israel has been threatening that during the Ramadan they will invade City of Rafah in South Gaza, where 1.5 million people are jammed up in tent cities, with no where to go. The city’s prewar population was 280 thousand; more than 1.2 million refugees had run around to many places in Gaza before ended up in Rafah in extremely overcrowded tent cities, with worst living conditions anyone wants to imagine. And Israel wants to attack that super-overpopulated city in the holy month of their fasting and praying.
Can the human spirit ever be more cruel than that?
I don’t want to talk politics in my trà đàm. But the savage spirit of the humans depresses me. You can’t stay cool like a cucumber with everything vile and mean going on in the world, bros & sises. I don’t know if the Buddha ever cried, but Jesus cried very often, and for some reasons I feel I am more like Jesus than Buddha. And I don’t believe that living with Zen means you never cry. I think I am relatively calm and serene in many situations, but I still want to keep my heart sensitive to the pains of the world, probably just to know that “I am still alive and I need to do something about those pains.” (Please read Zen story No Loving-Kindness about a Zen monk practicing Zen for 20 years with no loving-kindness).
Anyway, brothers and sisters, the world are in trouble because the humans have so much garbage in their hearts. And “the humans” means everyone of us, no one counted out. Forget about preaching to the Israelis or the Palestinians, or the Russians, or the Ukrainians. If we want our world to be beautiful and just, then clean our own heart first, get rid of all the garbage – all the greed, hatred and ignorance (tham sân si) in the heart, and fill our heart with honesty, love, gentleness, and serenity.
We shall better our heart and our heart shall produce sacred positive energy to lift up the world.
With compassion,
Hoành
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Trần Đình Hoành
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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
If you look back on your life, you will find that most sad and painful experiences gave you a lot of wisdom, and most happy experiences taught you little. That is called lesson – you have to pay high prices for good lessons.
I have never hated painful lessons. Obviously, I don’t enjoy pain, but every time I am in a painful situation, I always thank God for sending me another lesson to endure and to overcome. Continue reading Pain and sorrow
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
You see a lot of lawlessness in Vietnam – big corruption cases involving lots of VIPs, lots of cheaters in the marketplace (from taxi drivers, to venders everywhere, even big companies lying on the packages of their products), everywhere you go you are afraid that someone is cheating you, big businesses do illegal development projects and the poor people in the area have no voice to protect themselves and their environment, people drive motorcycles and cars on the sidewalks, people drive aggressively, impolitely and dangerously… Too many things to list here. You guys and gals know much more than I do.
What is the cause of all these? Continue reading What is the fundamental issue of Vietnam?
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Every time I think back about my time in primary and high schools, I always feel sad. Not because those were sad times. Actually, you all would agree that primary school and high school were the best time of our life – we were young and only did eating, sleeping, schooling and playing. But most of the boys of that time of mine died very early, during various stages of the war – many at 18, some a little older, 20, 22… By the time I was 20, I could hardly have any friends left. College time was a lonely time. I felt all alone in the city – a couple of friends still alive were in the army, but you never knew when one would drop dead. Continue reading Remembering the old friends of the old days
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Vietnam has always been poor because our culture has been teaching us to hate the rich.
Have you read a lot of Vietnamese fairytales? Almost in every Vietnamese fairytale, when a rich person is mentioned, s/he has to be a bad person – greedy, stingy, oppressing and cheating. Business people are always described as cheaters. Teachers are always poor and their poverty is a medal of honour. Continue reading The myth of rich and poor
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
How do you want your children to be? Honest? Wise? Gentle? Loving? Be respected and loved?…
Then, be the parent with those qualities for your children to learn from you.
Children learn the most from parents, from watching their parents and imitating their parents. Continue reading How do you want your children to be?
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Everyone of us is familiar with the term “global village.” The term was coined in the early 1960s by Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who was writing about the newer technologies of his day, such as radio and television. It became popular some time at the beginning of 1990s, at the birth of what we call Internet today.
But, do you really understand and “feel” about the global village? Continue reading What world are you living in?
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Most of the world think in duality – right v. wrong, true v. false, white v. black and, of course, corporal v. spiritual.
So, people divide our human life in two separate parts: the corporal part which is our body and the spiritual part which is our soul or our spirit. Many religions despise the body and glorify the spirit. They consider the body – the flesh – weak and sinful, and the spirit pure (if it doesn’t allow the body to commit sin). The body is temporal – it disintegrates after we die; the spirit is perpetual – it stays on for a different world and/or a different life. Continue reading Corporeality and spirituality
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Diplomacy usually conveys a sense of public work between governments. But diplomacy may have a larger meaning of interpersonal relations – when you do a contract negotiation or a sale representation, you are doing diplomacy.
The only purpose of diplomacy is to make people trust you and believe in what you say. Continue reading The art of diplomacy
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
“How do you improve your self?” Is this a philosophical question or cosmestic question?
If I am a Channel sales rep, I will take the question as a chance to make some sale – perfumes, lipsticks, mascaras, purses, belts, trendy clothes… “We help you improve your self” is my sale slogan. And your self is a moving exhibition cart for my fashion products. Continue reading How to improve your self
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We usually think that we are calm and can be calm in any situation, until something bad happens, and we realize that we are not calm at all and have no ability to stay calm in that situation.
I think that is true to anyone.
How does a soldier stay calm in battle? Continue reading How to be calm all the time
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
What is your career goal?
Eveyone of us focuses on, sometimes with worries about, his/her career goal – I want to be a super-accountant, or super-AI-engineer, or super-teacher, or super-dancer.
The problem is we usually stop there. Continue reading A purposeful life
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I have been telling you guys and gals this many times, but I think I still need to repeat it many times more, because I know I am going against a headwind.
You can do whatever you are doing for yourself – making money, finding a good job, doing business – but instead of thinking about yourself only, think that you are trying to better yourself in order to better your country at the same time.
That’s all you need to do. Think about your country in everything you are doing for yourself. Continue reading Advance yourself to advance your country
Đọt Chuối Non 