Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Do you know people who tell you something and you simply don’t count on it. A guy tells you: “Whenever I come to Hanoi, I will call you,” and you thought: “Liar. That never happens.” Or, “Can I borrow this book? I’ll return it in three days.” And you answer: “Sorry, I am doing some work with it now,” because you know that the book will never get returned unless you come to the borrower’s home and knock on his door. Or, “I am a Buddhist”, except that for the last 3 years, he has set foot into a pagoda twice, to eat fasting meals (cơm chay) on two major holidays. Continue reading Can people count on your word ? →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We all know that there are lots of corrupted officials – some are vacationing in jail, many others are still undiscovered by the government. I am using corruption as an example, but this article is really for every other sin of the society.

Do you know the reason for corruption to run rampant out of control? Weak law? Weak law enforcement? Continue reading The root of corruption →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

You can try many ways to improve yourself for years and years, but if you have practiced enough of ways, you will realize that the best way for you to be doing well, physically and spiritually, is non-grasping onto yourself. As long as you still grasp onto yourself, all other spiritual ways become useless. Continue reading The me →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Confucius teaches Five Constant Virtues (Ngũ thường) which, starting from the most important to the less, are Humanity, Respect, Loyalty, Wisdom and Trust – Nhân, Lễ, Nghĩa, Trí, Tín. These are the fundamental virtues to live by, to keep both the individual and the society strong and healthy. Continue reading Humanity, Respect, Loyalty, Wisdom, Trust →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Most people going through life with the ideas of what they want to have – job, home, money, position, property, power – but no ideas about that kind of people they want to be.

The world generally thinks about 2 kinds of people: good and bad. Continue reading What kind of people you want to be? →

Dear Brothers (and Sisters),

Hey guys, have you ever cried?

When I grew up, I was trained by the older generations, like the famed scholar Phạm Quỳnh, that: men don’t cry, don’t smile, don’t laugh, don’t have a lot of body movements – like a statue – because we men are supposed to keep all emotions inside, so that nobody can read our thoughts and emotions. We men must be like generals whom no opponents can read anything when they look at us.

It made perfect sense to me, because we have been a country constantly at war for thousands of years against, first, our “big brother” China (who liked to lord over its southern stubborn little brother on and off for about 10 centuries in total, starting with Zhao Tuo – Triệu Đà – a general of the Chinese Qin dynasty (nhà Tần), establishing Nanyue (Nam Việt) in 204 BC after the collapse of the Qin dynasty), then the Mongolians (as ruler of China), then the Manchurians (as ruler of China), then the French (white devils), the Japs (children of Sun Goddess Amaterasu, during World War II) and Big Uncle Sam (big, strong, and cuckoo in the head), to defend, re-claim and protect our independence. If you have to be a warrior during your 20 incarnated lives to keep fighting against foreign aggressive powers like that, you want to show your opponents an icy, emotionless face in the battle – a pure fighting machine; the only cry you want to make is the battle cry “Advance! Kill!”

So, I liked old man Phạm Quỳnh and tried to wear an emotionless face and maintain stiff body movements all the time – Hey, man, I am a warrior of the Great Vietnam, no smiling, no laughing, stiff body, and absolutely no emotional crying with tears flowing.

But for some reason, at one time I could not control myself and started crying. I am not sure what was the reason and when – probably I was kicked out by a girlfriend. But I don’t remember there was a girl involved; besides, I was usually not that mushy with girls – more or less, I would be cool and in self-control.

If I have to guess, I would guess that had to be something related to a situation involving a sad condition for so many people, like seeing a military GMC truck full of soldier corpses during the War, or poor farming villages set ablaze by napalm bombs…

Anyway, the first time I actually cried with tears flowing, I felt such a tremendous relief in my heart. I felt lighter, relieved, and more human – it seemed I was no more a machine or a robot, but a real weak and vulnerable man, with no need to pretend to be a super-fighter.

From that point on, I paid more attention to others’ emotional states and their sadness and tears, and felt that I understood them more.

Much later I read somewhere the popular psychology that you should allow yourself to be in touch with your inner feelings and let them express themselves freely to you, and to others at times; that would make you more humane and wiser.

I think that is correct. EQ is better than IQ.

So, men, cry whenever you feel wanting to cry. No need to hide our emotions. At least, crying will relieve your stress, in addition to make you more humane and wiser.

Wish we all be in touch with our emotions.

With compassion,

Hoành

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We all are happy when succeeding and stressed when failing. That is natural. But we also know we become wiser after each failure, be it a lost love or a bankrupt business. That is why we says, “Failure is mother of success.”

However, this is something you may have overlooked.

If failure is mother of success, then there is indeed no failure. Each “failure” makes us wiser, then each failure is a success in being wiser.

All my life, as far back as I can remember, I have never thought “I am failing.” Of course, have been unsuccessful at many things, but I have never thought “I am failing.” No one ever teaches me to think that way. Somehow, I have thought that way since I was very little, I guess.

Every time I am unsuccessful at something, I feel absolutely like winning – just “no big deal.” Somehow, I naturally know you win some and lose some, no big deal. In my primary school time, I used to be first in my class. Sometimes I dropped down to second. One day in my fifth grade, my dad wrote a comment on my school report: “Why falling down? Try harder or you will be punished.” I held the report, read it and talked quiet to myself: “What’s the big deal. I can’t be number one all the time. There is only one way for me to go sometimes is to go down because I can’t go up.” I guess, that was the day that I formed in my head the idea that ups and downs are natural and no big deal.

Growing up from that day, every time I am unsuccessful at anything, I just think: “Good, one more good lesson.” Truly, I have never seen any failure as failure. The dictionary in my head probably doesn’t have the word “failure.” Every time, winning or losing, I only see a good living experience. I have never stressed at losing anything. In sentimental matters, I hurt like crazy when I lose someone or make someone hurt, but I don’t call that failure – just one more good lesson to learn.

Life is a long series of learning and experiencing. Ups and downs are living lessons and living experiences. All lessons and experiences, be they hurting or comforting, are good for us.

No failure. Just another good hurting lesson, once in a while. Thanks, God.

Wish everyone enjoy the ride up and down.

With compassion,

Hoành

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Individualism advocates the primacy of the individual and his/her independence, interest, goal and opinion over external forces such as the power of the state or the norms of the society. With the advance of Internet, which gives everyone the power to communicate publicly worldwide, individualism has been rising at an extreme speed.

But that rise has brought about so many problems for almost every human society in the world, due to the weakening of society’s rules and orders – children listening to parents less, same thing with students and teachers; many countries are in political and social chaos – even politicians put their individual selves above the unity and interests of their countries; the youth lose directions and have little idea about their role and responsibility in their community. Most young people care about fashion, entertainment, good foods, hot spots, vaping… and have zero idea about what they should do for their community, be that their school or their country. Continue reading Individualism →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We all want big things – big house, big car, big job, big position, big money, big power, big name…

Who want small stuff?

But here is the important point: If you do anything very well, you shall have big name and/or big money and/or big power, whether you like it or not. You cannot stop the big things coming to you when you are very good at something. Continue reading Small and big →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

If you are honest to yourself, you will be honest to everyone else. Most liars are not honest to themselves. They lie to everyone and most of the time they don’t recognize that they are lying, because their lying is a reflex – they just do it without thinking about it. Continue reading Self-measurement of your honesty →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We have talked about having a major goal in each period of our life, and persistently aiming at that goal to move forward until we reach the goal. Then setting a new goal for the next period. Most of the time, we work more effectively if we have a clear goal to pursuit.

However, if you are so hung up about your goal, you will become attached to it, with all the harmful effects of attachment. For example, you have a goal of having your own house before the age of 30. And you really focus on making money to fulfill that goal, to the degree that you are willing to join a corruption gang to do bribery deals, to make quick money. That is attachment with potential jail sentences. Continue reading Goal and non-attachment →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The best and flexible way of living is non-attachment aka non-grasping. How to practice non-attachment?

Non-attachment is much harder than it sounds. Take a look at your own living you will see you attach to thousands of things – coffee in the morning (I can’t live through the day without coffee); I hate Hue people; if you have no religion, you’re no good; I hate tattooed people; no swearing; no slang; I want money and more money… You can see that we are attaching to many things – religion, politics, money, power, position, sacred books, hometown, country, foreign countries, culture, arts… Continue reading How to practice non-attachment →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We all have learned to protect our name, our reputation and our honor fiercely, ready to stand up and fight to defend them when they are under attacked.

Name, reputation and honor are probably the same thing in Vietnamese. Name is danh; reputation is danh tiếng (voice/sound of name); honor is danh dự (praised name, meaning reputation too).

So, these threes are actually the same thing: our name (or our good name, if you will).

What does that mean? Continue reading Name, reputation and honor →