Being aware of others needs is the first step towards oneness

[Music]

[Applause]

good evening everyone

and thank you so much for the organizer

inviting me here

to talk with you

i found my shelter because my

mind means tomorrow the new lawn

and with the heart the heart

of new norm of tomorrow

the meaning of the house of new dorm

means the house of hope of the new

beginning

because in 2005

i found many children

were abandoned in hospital on the street

because of hiv and aids

and i learned the experience of

providing care

for people dying with aids in bangkok

in india when i was a nurse and also

in thailand when i worked at the hospice

and i was surprised to see that so many

children and mothers who are around them

at that time

rejected our fear stigma

discrimination and so they were

considered

not part of the family they were

even considered morally unacceptable

because the family the people

thought that they committed

sin so they were rejected even

the newborn children with hiv

however since 2005 until now

more than 16 years working with them

what i discovered is that i learned more

from their wisdom rather than i could do

something

for them and one of the

touching story that i remember

it was around 2006 when i was called

by a social worker who worked with three

children

in the park in ho chi minh city

and the social worker asked me to come

to assist and help a lady

a mother and her child were left

abandoned

in a corner of the park and she was very

sick

and the social worker called me to go

over there to look

if i could help them so i didn’t know

where

was she in the park i arrived and were

walking around

along the public park and while

walking and looking for them

there was a car passed by a kind of

museum

near new world hotel very rich

very beautiful stop right in front of me

and beside the car the window slowed

down

and inside the car i heard the voice of

a lady

at her daughter i told you

don’t eat these things it’s not good for

you and she drew out from the window

a piece of cake around like this and

that the piece of cake was running

along the road so i was about to

go to work that piece of cake to put in

a trash can

and suddenly in front of me the girl

around three

three and a half years old run over and

pick up

the cake and run so i thought that she

was

she would eat the dirty things so i

chased her

to get back to retrieve the cake however

while following her she run towards

a lady who online and

who was in pain and that

little girl handed that piece of came

to her mother and that was

the mother and the child i was looking

for

three years and a half

all of us at that age

what did we do maybe we were just

asking for food maybe we didn’t know

what to do

we were learning to talk

but how come a little girl like that

and for sure she was hungry because i

bought food for her

and i buried her mother and i knew that

time she was very hungry

but she was able to give up

the food she picked up but give to her

mother

who was dying and that

touched me to my arm until i

couldn’t forget that incident

so today i want to share with you a few

talks

about this wisdom

many people think that wisdom

means you have something to tell to

others

what to do with something you have

something that others can learn from you

yes that’s right but correct

but many of us know that many people

know a lot of things

but never do anything for anyone

wisdom forming is the capacity

to love and

the real love is the capacity to

give oneself for someone

and that little girl three and a half

and she’s now studying in high school

stay in our shelter she had that wisdom

that many of our children or our youth

today

could not have the capacity to

realize to be aware of the need

of someone and let go my own need

for that person to bring life really

and how do we have that i think

and i believe each of us have

that wisdom built innate in our heart

and that was the awakening

in us when our mother

our father our parents touched us

did something for us when we grow up

when we just cry out the crying the

voice

of human life when we move on

we will secure we have praise and we

realize that

this world is worth trusting

however what is so unfortunate

for our society today at large

we are living in a deep polarized

society

either good or bad either black

or white either you are with me or not

with me

either you have my left alright and so

if you have something

that worth my sharing

my being with you i accept you if you

don’t have that

if you don’t have that which i like i

love

i don’t live and so this is why

so many children unfortunately

in our society today even in vietnam

until children would be abandoned

left abandoned in the hospital in the

trash can

on the street because

many were thinking that they were not

right for them

they wouldn’t be bringing something good

for them they don’t have anything that

they can be proud of

or be some even feel ashamed

to have them so reject them

i think many of us grew up

with the experience that if you don’t do

something

good or to prove that you are good you

will not be accepted

so something as failure as mistake

and error we will not be accepted

so we try to go over to make up

to live in the minds of our own

insecurity

wisdom really is the awareness

of myself of each of us

has our own strength and weakness

we all have it we all have dedication

but we all have our strength but further

than that

not only being aware but accepting

awareness have to come with acceptance

but acceptance is not enough

for me in my own tradition in my own

learning

from different field in my

service to the people who are dying

the acceptance go further

with self-giving

we have our self-awareness is what

we are asking each of us today

we try to raise ourselves self-awareness

today

but further than that

from awareness we must accept who we are

even upset the bad things we have with

us but only when upset

with acceptance that’s something

that we feel ashamed of or we don’t want

to answer

from being received to control us

and from that sentence we can share

ourselves to others

further oneness

as our organizers want to tell

us today come from the wisdom

that awareness of who we are is not

enough

but awareness of how we

each and every one of us is connected to

each other

we myself is not alone

we are committed

and that connection tells us how

important it is for us to recognize

the dignity the present orders in front

of us

and reach out to others

the government 19 make us

realize this important aspect of our

life

we are interconnected

how terrible it is when we are being

isolated when our friends our relatives

that used to be close to us now we

cannot see

but fortunately or unfortunately

the reason typhoon storm

in the center of vietnam and also the

outbreak of kofi

proved to us something so important

that we still have the capacity

to recognize the need to share and

to reach out we can regain

our wonders of humanity

we can regain our oneness with nature

with creature

we can regain our oneness

with the suffering and pain of others

and recognize that we can share them

we can handle that together

so i would like to end

this little talk today and invite

each of you to rethink the moment

that we are touched with love

unconditionally by someone in our life

a way of being touched telling us that

we are connected we are loved

we are important because of someone

and so that we can live with someone

and we can even die for someone

thank you