Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Do you realize that almost every parent worries about their children’s learning bad things, especially teens and college-aged children? Why is that?

The answer is obvious: More bad things than good things are being taught out there.

We adults know that. Life really has too many traps for the young. Parents never know what kinds of things their children may get into and be hooked, or how their children will turn out to be in the future. Scary! Raising a kid is a job with a lot of unknown involved. Continue reading Your supervisor →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Heart Sutra is the short and popular name of Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra, translated into English as “The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom” or “The Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra”. It is the apex of Mahayana Buddhism thought.

Buddhism developed from Theravada (Phật giáo Nguyên thủy) to Mahayana (Phật giáo Đại thừa). Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Laos are essentially Theravada. Vietnam, China, Japan, Korea, Hongkong, Singapore, Taiwan, Tibet and Mongolia are essentially Mahayana. Continue reading The Heart Sutra →

Ảnh: Trúc Lâm Đạo Sĩ Xuất Sơn Đồ

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

One of the most famous Vietnamese Zen writings is Cư trần lạc đạo phú (“Living in the World, Joyful in the Way” Meditation) by Trúc Lâm Zen Founder Trần Nhân Tông. It is a long poem, which I classify as a “meditation” – a long meditative poem, on life and Zen in this case.

The mediation has 10 chapters (10 hội), each chapter is a medium-length poem. Most people, however, only remember the short, four-verse poem that concludes the meditation, at the very end. This concluding poem, though short and simple, embraces the full spirit of Zen.

We talk about this concluding poem today. Continue reading Living in the world, joyful in the way →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We see a lot of problems in the world – wars everywhere with horrendous killings and bloodshed, the strong oppressing the poor and the weak, famine and starving, injustice, exploitation, diseases surrounding the poor, migrants in the millions risking everything, including their life, to get to a rich country… So many problems the world is facing.

And many of us have the indifferent attitude: “Those things are far away. I am here. I don’t care about them.” That is the self-righteous attitude: “They have problems because they create their own problems: Whatever seed you sow, you shall eat the fruit from such seed. That has nothing to do with me.” Continue reading Responsible for the world’s health →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

If you already have some experience with life, you would realize that you are tired and stressed the most when you try to get something. You work hard – that is one reason to be tired and stressed. But more than that, you often have to fight against others who either compete with you for the same prize or simply try to prevent you from getting to your goal just because they don’t like you. Fighting against others makes you tired and stressed manifold more. Continue reading No fighting →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In Tao Te Ching (Đạo Đức Kinh), Lao Tzu (Lão Tử) said, the highly virtuous person is like water, looking for the low place to dwell. Chapter 8, about virtuous person, reads:

Continue reading Water →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Life has a lot of roughness – people cheating, backstabbing, betraying, badmouthing, oppressing, hitting each other on the head – so the older we are, the more we become rough as everyone else in the world.

That is a big problem: There is a natural tendency for all of us to become rougher with time.

That is why Jesus said: “If you want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, be like children.” And Siddhartha taught that we are born with a Buddha heart, which becomes sinful as we grow up in an ignorant world. Continue reading Unlearning →

Do you love your country?

Love, not as a word or a slogan on your lips, but as a feeling in your heart, like you love your grandparents.

I have the feeling of that love since I was 8 or 9, when I was still in Hà Dừa Primary School, of Hà Dừa Parish, in Thành, Diên Khánh, Khánh Hòa. Continue reading Do you love your country? →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough. That is, the most important virtue to help you succeed in life, here and now, is honesty.

If you’re arrogant, people may not like you, but they will work with you when they need you.

If you don’t love people, people may still work with you as long as you do a good job for them. Continue reading Honesty →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Nhàn cư vi bất thiện – Leisure living is not good. It means if you have a leisure life, you are not busy with working, then it is not good for you.

Why?

When we have so much time in our hand because we are not working on anything, we become couch potato. Our health is on the way downhill – we are overweight, our muscles weaken from lacking physical activities, cholesterol builds up everywhere in our body from the veins to the heart, and we will start having all kinds of diseases due to the deterioration of the body and the immune system. In addition, when we have too much idle time, our mind goes down because it is inactive so much, and the mind may often wander off into negative thinking, unhealthy thoughts, ailing attitude. Continue reading Leisure living is not good →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

One of the biggest differences between a winner and a loser is their focus – loser focuses on theory, winner on practice.

I am not even sure I am using correct language when I say, “Loser focuses on theory.” I don’t think you can focus on theory – people who read theory all the time only read like they do Internet surfing, glancing over everything very quickly and not really focusing on anything. Continue reading Theory and practice →

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

You are Vietnamese. You may have a degree from the US or Europe, and you may wear a suit with a tie every day, but you are basically still a Vietnamese – you look Vietnamese and maybe your English speaking has a tint of Vietnamese accent in it.

Don’t try to act 100% like a Westerner, because you won’t be a Westerner, and because of an important thing: You have Vietnamese cultural capital in your pocket; take it out and use it for your advantage.

Let’s talk about your handshake. Handshake is important because it is the first and also the last thing that happens when people meet. First impression and last impression, both are ultra-important in communication and etiquette.

The Western handshake is your right hand gripping and shaking the other man’s right hand, while your body standing straight and your eyes looking at his eyes. It is formal and… cold.

Let’s add some Asian culture into the handshake to make it warmer, friendlier, and more respectful.

First, the hands. If you grip the other man’s hand with both of your hands, then that a show of great respect, usually used when you shake an elder’s hand in the Vietnamese culture.

However, in business and diplomacy, this way of handholding may be misunderstood as kowtowing, which is sign of weakness.

So, we change a little: Your right hand grips the other man’s right hand as usual, but you place your left hand on top of both gripping right hands, as in the picture below.

In this way, the handshake is warm and shows respect but with great confidence.

The head. While handshaking, bow down you head just a little, as if you are nodding your head.

Now you have a very Asian handshake, warm, friendly, respectful, and confident, which will win heart and mind of most people.

The great thing about this is that this handshake may make the other person feel so warm and respected, but he doesn’t know how to return the favour to you, because he has only his Western handshake. So, he feels like he owes you something. And he will love you for that.

If after a good-bye handshake, you top it off with putting both your palms together in front of your chest – chắp tay búp sen – as in a temple, and slightly bow to the other person, Thai style. Then he will be blown away.

The most important thing we are trying to achieve here is that you show yourself as a Vietnamese, and Asian, with respect and confidence toward others, and you respect them enough to act to them as who you truly are.

I guess in Vietnam today, people call it bamboo diplomacy. I like this term: Bamboo diplomacy.

Be respect and confident to show your true self in your communication.

Wish you all be confident in our bamboo diplomacy.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Each person has an aura – an appearance, a look, an “air” – that says something about us, such as “this is a sweet lady”, “this man looks mean”, “this women is untrustworthy”… We Vietnamese call it “tướng” – tướng hiền lành (aura of gentleness), tướng làm quan (aura of a future general)… Continue reading Aura →