[Vnbiz] Staying to be a leader

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear sis Thu Huong & CACC,

Thank you for your enthusiasm, sister.  It gives me happiness.

Glad you are excited about learning religion.  Since religion is such a
major element in any society and is oftentimes confusing and troublesome,
let me go over quickly a couple of points concerning religion.

1.  The founder's teaching:  In Christianity, that is Jesus teaching and in
Buddhism that is the Buddha teaching.  These are what keep these two
religious traditions alive for centuries, even with horrendous abuses by
their professed "followers."

2.  The church's teachings:  The "church" is the term used to call all the
followers of each religion (gia'o ho^.i).  Church teachings are issued by
people who run the church after the founder has passed away.  Church
teachings are numerous and by far not as profound and as good as the
founder's teaching.  If you hear about some teaching or some rule in the
catholic church, 99 percent of the time (and I do mean 99 percent of the
time), that would be church teaching, not Jesus teaching.

Church people tend to love church teachings more than Jesus teaching,
because Jesus teaching is too simple and too hard.  Say, Jesus teaches "Love
your enemy.  If you're slapped on the left cheek, give him the right cheek
also."  This is too simple to BS about, and too hard to practice.  So people
don't want to talk about it.  Instead they talk about "Trinity" (how one God
is reallly three persons in one, three persons but one person.  That is some
major distortion to the mind!  You figure that out), or how Mary
was a virgin mother (you figure that out too), or how a catholic cannot
marry non-catholic without the church approval.  Do you think God really
cares whether you think that he is one person or really three persons and
maybe 29 persons in one, or whether God is male or female or no-male at
all?  Or whether God cares that you marry a person of the same religion or
different religion?  Or does God care that you love everyone, including your
enemy?

Some church teachings are good, some are dumb, some are down right abusive.
Keep this in mind.

3.  As any human organization, all religions have their share of goodness
and evil.  Christinity is the light of western civilization in many ways but
also is one of the most bloody religions in the history of mankind.   Islam
is similar.  So, be careful about making general judgment about any
religion.  Sometimes people are good, sometimes they are bad.

4.  My experience is that, when you actually practice Jesus and the Buddha's
teachings, you understand their teachings much faster and deeper.  Reading
alone is not good enough for understanding.  In matters of the heart, ONLY
PRACTICE can bring true understanding. (You can practice any good teaching
by anyone in the universe, without being in any organization of church or
group.  You don't have to be Christian to love your enemy and you don't have
to be Buddhism to practice Ba't cha'nh -dao - The Eightfold Path ).

I hope these poinsters may save you much time when you start your journey
into understanding religions.

Great day, Thu Huong and all.

Hoanh
______________

On 4/1/07, huong dang thu <hdangthu at gmail.com> wrote:

> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
> Hi Bro Hoanh and my bro & sis,
>
>
>
> Your message is always great, brother. How excited I was right after I
> read your message!
>
>
>
> Yeah, I so agree with you about understanding culture effects greatly on
> the leader's listening ability. Actually, you make me more excited with
> learning about our culture.
>
>
>
> Religion is another point interests me. In the earlier days, I
> misunderstand that Christianity is a "selfish" religion (a religion supports
> people live for themselves only, which goes in conflict with Vietnamese
> traditional thinking). But now I can see Christianity is more and more
> popular in Vietnam. Thus, I will learn more about Buddhism & Christianity.
>
>
>
> I will try my best to be a good intellectual :) I know we all do this job.
> More, we are here to share to the other everyday :)
>
>
>
> Wish my bro & sis excitement,
>
> HeO
>

-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Attorney of Law
Washington DC
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