Thư viện

People usually ask the following questions: “What is the purpose of this life?” the worst answer is that: “We must survive to avoid death”, it means that this person could do anything, even evil things, as long as they could live. This belief is very dangerous. However, if the mindset is not too average, and we have knowledge and good values, and we would not accept the above belief, our purpose in life is to find happiness.

"Love sees no faults" is a Vietnamese proverb, that had been passed on to many generations; but we do not know its author. This proverb basically means that when we like someone, you can easily accept their flaws; on contrary, when you dislike someone, you can easily ignore their greatness.

It is absolutely not easy to be a genuinely good, honest human being in this world but it is very easy to be bad. It is easier to react to others badly such as we would involve in a fight, we would harm whoever had done bad things to us, and we would also hate the person who does not like us. However, the consequence of doing bad things is severe as it can lead us to be an animal in our next life, or to make it worst, we'll go to hell when we die.

In the Bible wrote a story: "Once, Jesus sent his disciple down to earth to teach human beings. He said: "I command you to live a life like sheep living among wolves, be wise as snakes and be kind as doves." We completely agree with this statement, so we like to discuss this statement in depth with you all today.

In the preface of Lotus Sutra, it is said that when the aura of Buddha appeared, the assembly relied on the power and the aura of Buddha to see countless realms of other Buddhas in the universe, in which Buddha and Bodhisattva were preaching to sentient beings, drawing very beautiful pictures. The aura of the Shakyamuni Buddha shocked all the realms it reached. Buddhas of those realms sent their attendants to this Saha world to visit and pay homage to Shakyamuni Buddha. Among those greetings, there was a question, "It is said that beings of this Saha world are very stubborn. Is it difficult for you to teach them?"

We are nearly at the end of the 20th century and are entering the 21st century and some sociologists have predicted that the 21st century will be the century of Spirituality. The statement had surprised the world. However, sociologists made this bold prediction based on many facts and evidences.

What is a miracle? It is not from any physical or biological principle. It actually indicates extraordinary abilities of human beings, or it could be a message from God, or Saint from the holy land.

Everyone is trying to live right. Really! It is true. If we did not try to live right, and always made mistakes and committed sins, bad consequences would have happened. When we made mistakes, others would look down on us, or even worse, we might have been punished by law, leading us to a miserable live. And speaking of religious beliefs, the law of Cause and Effect will always govern and direct our lives. The retribution will come to us in many afterlives “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”.

One of the special characteristics of human beings which other living creatures can never have is thirst for knowledge. We talk about UNKNOWN so that we can speak of KNOWING.

Today, we will discuss about the topic relating to Tsunami and Religion, as a gift for all of us on this Tet Holiday (Lunar New Year in Vietnam). You all must have heard about the tsunami happened recently. Let’s remember this event to really understand “what the tsunami wanted to tell us”.