Parents' divorce will affect the children first.
In Western countries, the divorce rate is very high; the children live with either their father or their mother. Lacking a parent, children have problems with their soul and personality, and when growing up, they are very easy to have personality disorders which cause their abnormal behaviors.
DIVORCE
Now we will talk about divorce.
Parents' divorce will affect the children first. In Western countries, the divorce rate is very high; the children live with either their father or their mother. Lacking a parent, children have problems with their soul and personality, and when growing up, they are very easy to have personality disorders which cause their abnormal behaviors. Most of them are selfish, easily fall into depression and wish to make others suffer. Rarely, a child still grows good in an unhappy family. Asians are often tolerant of their families because of that, hence fewer divorces.
While marriage creates new families for society, divorce breaks a family structure of society. Divorce brings many insecurities to both husbands and wives because they were very stressed before the divorce and their stress still lasts afterward. Many people were so depressed that they couldn't work. Why? Because of anger, affliction, self-love, they divorce, while they still owed karmic debts to each other. So despite being divorced, their soul remained tired.
People in the past had good endurance. They patiently endured difficulties until they overcame them then lived in harmony as before. And young people today had worse tolerance, self-control, so get divorced more easily than our forefathers did. But why is our forefathers' endurance better than ours now? - Because they have been educated the way that made their egos reduce. And the smaller the ego, the greater the endurance and vice versa. Is it odd? Western countries do not understand this principle so they try to teach children to be strong, have fight easily, and show their personality. It sounds good but in fact, it encourages children's egos which causes their poor endurance, and later when their marriages have problems, they are easy to divorce.
At present, Western lifestyles are flooding into East Asian countries, especially Vietnam, because we are in the integration process. We are influenced a lot, including our education. International schools appear everywhere. Many parents were shocked when their children became different after a time of learning in international schools. Their children grew selfish and tended to force their parents to listen to them because of the child rights. With such large egos, later when they get married, they can divorce quickly. We thought that children were taught to be strong, to fight for life, for the world, for the environment, to win the business and succeed, but unexpectedly, their lives are damaged just because of the education of increasing egos. East Asian culture teaches children to be obedient, which discourages their egos and encourages their mental strength.
This is the very significant psychological principle that Westerners do not enlighten. So in this world, there are so many wrong things that we don't know but follow, while the traditions in Asia are so great that we despise. Many people think that we must reform education according to international standards. Why don't we keep the identity of Vietnam?
In the old days, some Vietnamese doctors went to China and were so respected there that they were elected Chinese doctors. So they were the doctors of both countries. Such those people as Mac Dinh Chi, Nguyen Truc, Tong Tran, Phung Khac Khoan. They didn't have to study in China to become doctors of Vietnam, but they studied in Vietnam and became doctors then went to China and were elected doctors there.
Clearly, our education was excellent, why now we want to follow the Western world?
International schools in Vietnam teach a lot of things, but never teach children love Vietnam. Children may be good at many things, but not good at many things like morality, filial piety, East Asian politeness and reasons, and patriotism. Looking at a bunch of international schools across the country, we feel sorry for our nation because if the Education Ministry does not control those schools well and does not require them to have some programs to be taught in accordance with Asian standards, we will suffer from cultural invasion, though quieter but cause us to lose all some day.
There are many acts of sabotage that we can recognize their immediate consequences, but also there are some that after tens of years or even hundreds of years we will be able to realize them. Students who receive a good education, have university degrees, are good at foreign languages, and hold key positions in the government, but they are not patriots, so where will our country go to, while alien invasion always occurs? We forever need patriotic firefights to preserve this country, but there will be fewer such people if there are no ones who remain patriotism from generation to generation.
For this reason, Buddhists must have great patriotism, because only when can we keep our country, Buddhism can be preserved.
The military is the primary force to combat foreign invaders, but why the military has the strength to do so? - Because the military has discipline. What is discipline? Discipline consists of many things but it consists in absolute obedience, and thanks to it, the military has that strength. If there is no obedience, when the commander orders to fight here, his soldiers want to fight somewhere else, then they must lose the battle. So in the military, there are no arguments, commands must be above all.
Now it is time for Buddhist temples to be like the military, that is, we must have discipline. To do so, Buddhism will grow strong. Buddhism has been weakened and divided by many opposing forces. It is because Buddhist associations have few regulations and are unorganized. Now it's time to bring discipline into Buddhism like in the military. It means those of lower positions must completely obey those of higher ones. For example, two temples do not like and often argue with each other in a long time. It is because they disobey ones of more senior ranks. Temples are so, too. If all monks/nuns unconditionally obey the abbot, then there will be no division. Therefore, it is time for Buddhism to add strict discipline into the Buddhist association and each temple.
Now we're back to divorce issue. Often, 95% of divorced people do not find happiness, especially those who divorce because they poorly tolerate difficulties. They still don't have pleasure in their next marriage. Except when the husband/wife is too cruel, then the other must divorce because of the children. It's okay because it is the benefit of the children. Otherwise, if because of anger, self-love, poor tolerance, they divorce, then later they will never be happy again.
Written by:
Janna
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