Normally, the beginning of spring is when people stop everything to summarize the past year, review what has been done and what has not been done, and then set plans for the following year. But there are burning aspirations from year to year that every spring we are tormented by, wondering why they are still there, and then continue to hope... even though the day of realization may be far away, even though sometimes we see everything within our reach!

Aspiration for a national culture

The beginning of a year is from spring, so let's look at how people welcome spring to recognize national identity. We are still looking for a spring "rich in national identity" as is often advertised year after year in summary reports, or stated as the direction of the cultural sector, but in the end we still see pale "tones" in the general picture.

Why? Many folk festivals take place, but the forms that we often criticize and call for an end to are still "bloodbath" festivals such as pig slaughtering, buffalo fighting...

While the number of festivals is increasing, their identity is decreasing sharply with the appearance of many deviant trends and lack of awareness among festival participants; along with that are negative manifestations, showing weakness in management and the trend of pragmatism, commercialization of festivals, wasting time, effort, money and causing inconvenience to festival-goers. Some people still blame it out of habit because of "positive and negative impacts of the market mechanism", such as the "betel trays" of the Lien Anh and Lien Chi singers asking for money even though the organizing committee of the Lim Quan Ho Bac Ninh Festival has a regulation prohibiting rowing boats and "raising hats to ask for money". Not to mention that Lim Festival still uses loudspeakers to "fight sound" between Quan Ho tents during the festival, no one can enjoy the "resonant, rumbling, deep, bouncy" natural voice and the intimate, close performance space of authentic Quan Ho in the old festival. Even some long-standing festivals, which are inherently quite unique, have a very high humanistic meaning and community spirit such as the Tro Tram festival in Lam Thao (Phu Tho) or the shuttlecock kicking and the phet robbery at Dong Lai and Lap Thach communal houses (Vinh Phuc), the Chuong market festival in Dong Son (Thanh Hoa)... have been gradually losing their good meaning when a large number of festival participants, especially young people, have committed excessive actions, taking advantage of the festival to commit acts of violence and molesting women. The cultural and spiritual values of the festival are lost and faded because of the lack of awareness and chaos in the organization. Above all these forms is the spirit of “profit” whether visible or invisible in the minds of the people performing the ceremony and attending the ceremony, alien to the original good values. They pray for fame and profit for themselves and their families. They fight and trample on each other to ask for “luck!”. The Buddhas, saints, and national heroes themselves are also turned into “gods” who bless those who pray to achieve their wishes, regardless of whether they desire shady and unjust things. The acts of burning votive paper, preparing large offerings, sticking or stuffing money into statues at any pagoda, in order to "bargain with the person being prayed for", even though the abbots and monks still try their best to persuade the masses to go to the temple, from big pagodas like Bai Dinh pagoda (Ninh Binh), Huong pagoda to Ba Chua Kho temple (Bac Ninh), Bia Ba, Phu Tay Ho, Va temple, Soc temple (Hanoi), Tran temple, Phu Giay (Nam Dinh), Con temple, Cuong temple, Ong Hoang Muoi temple (Nghe An), Ba pagoda (Binh Duong), Ba Chua Xu temple (An Giang). There is no cultural agency to guide the masses to build cultural spaces and preserve the sacredness of festivals and places of worship, to end superstitions through propaganda, education and handling measures. As readers of Buddhist books, we know that Buddhists do not ask for material or spiritual favors when bowing to Buddha statues.

The Buddha often taught: “I am like a physician who takes the pulse and prescribes medicine, and sentient beings are like sick people who need to take medicine to recover. Whether or not to take medicine and whether or not the disease is cured depends on each sick person.”

In the Sutra of the Last Teaching, he taught: “You must light your own torch and go.” Because: “Only we commit sins, only we commit impurity - Only we avoid sins, only we cleanse ourselves - Purity or impurity is up to us - No one can make another person pure” (Dhammapada).

In spring, we wish to reunite in the “big family” atmosphere of the East when children and grandchildren come together to wish the elderly a long life and wish happiness to the young. Yet nowadays, many people rush into gambling and drinking from before to after Tet... Has the image of the gentle, warm spring days of the past faded away?

The desire for a warm spring with national identity that was thought to have existed for a long time is now a dream?

The desire for a humane and honest culture

We are restless and worried about a humane culture. Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc once shouted, "What kind of culture is this that when cars are scratched, people fight and kill each other?". He also felt sorry when he asked the education sector to look back at itself. The fault is not only with the education sector, but with the whole society today when the situation of violence is at its highest level when people kill each other too easily, too simply from home to the street, from the office to school. The spirit of "dispute" without compromise and the use of violence may sometimes even spread to monasteries and temples? Let us not be fooled by the “attractive” numbers: “Up to now, the whole country has nearly 19 million families out of a total of more than 22 million families meeting the standards of cultural families, reaching a rate of 85.03%, an increase of 2% compared to 2014”.

But commenting on this issue right at the Summary Conference, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam himself had to comment that despite that, we cannot help but admit that the moral degradation is manifesting in many places, even though all levels and sectors have full strategies, projects, and steering committees to build a cultural life. Only then do we see that we have fallen into our own trap of “formality” or, more frankly, “deceit”. We report very well, very loudly, but lack substance and if we are more pessimistic, we can say that we reflect the truth incorrectly!

Humanistic culture does not tolerate deceit. Because if there were so many cultural families, how could there be violence ranging from killing one person to killing another's entire family (four or six people) out of hatred? And the situation of groups of several dozen people rushing to kill each other happens almost every week, everywhere, today in Hanoi, Thanh Hoa, tomorrow in Can Tho, Bac Lieu... The whole countryside is no longer as peaceful as before.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister, "it is correct to say that the whole people are united", but why is there such a problem with social culture, food hygiene and safety is an example, the production and trade of foods that are harmful to the health of others to the point of disregarding morality. He raised the issue that we should not discuss lofty matters, the Cultural Steering Committee must identify specific tasks to implement, creating real movement in social life. In the countryside, who grows clean vegetables, who grows dirty vegetables, do the farmers' organizations, women's organizations, the government, and commune secretaries not know? It is time to find some specific things and do them thoroughly. It is important to build understandable criteria, so as to overcome formalism. For example, just saying that the criteria for a cultural family is to comply with the laws and policies of the Party and the State is too general. It must be more specific, such as a cultural family must not have violence, gambling, or lottery. In rural areas, a cultural family is a family that produces and cultivates food that is safe and hygienic...

He concluded: "The situation of domestic violence and social evils is increasing, the degradation of family and social ethics and traditional family cultural values are at risk of fading away...".

Aspiration for a democratic society

The image of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, gentle, slender but full of inner strength, speaking on the day of handing over power from General Thein Sein to build a democratic Burmese government after decades of struggle, made the whole world admire. She works according to the fearlessness and democracy of Buddhism, using many concepts of Buddhism and Burmese folk wisdom to present her humanistic views and build civil rights. The ideals that she spent her whole life fighting for, sacrificing her personal happiness so that in the sunset of her life, she could see the dawn of Burmese democracy. Aung San Suu Kyi said that the Burmese people have enough experience in history with dictatorial power to be clearly aware of the need to remind them of those duties.

Those are: charity, morality, sacrifice, integrity, kindness, strictness with oneself, no anger, no violence, patience, and not going against (the will of the people). Because democracy will eliminate corruption and inequality as she said: “We do not want investment to make the privileged more privileged… We want investment to create more jobs. The more jobs the better, it is as simple as that…”.

This is what the West calls civil society. Activities with the participation of the people to increase initiative, increase people's supervision. We must educate the people in the spirit and awareness of democracy. When they understand more about their rights, they will be more responsible for the life of the community, less indifferent to social developments. Macroeconomic management is related to democracy and human rights; because all decisions affecting people's lives must be voted on because they use the budget, or the people's tax money. As for public investment, many officials use people's tax money without considering the effectiveness, causing waste and loss, either due to their qualifications or because of personal gain... but because of the lack of a control mechanism, or more correctly, the lack of a civil society to manage and supervise... Corruption and the polarization of rich and poor is a "tumor" that needs to be removed from the healthy body of democracy, otherwise it will be incurable!

Why do we build laws because if civil rights are not fully expressed, how can we avoid wrongful convictions? Saying all of this means that the political and legal system is the goal, but its foundation must be democracy and human rights. If democracy and human rights are not clearly expressed, those good goals are just "slogans". Perhaps democracy and human rights are necessary conditions, while a political system and laws are sufficient conditions for a civilized and developed country.

The masses want a government that rules for them, not “against” them. As Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870), a political writer and even considered a revolutionary predecessor of Lenin, said, “Every moment of history is full and closed in its own way, like the four seasons with both stormy days and sunny days. We think that the purpose of children is youth, while their purpose is to play, to enjoy, to live the life of children. If we look at the final limit, is the purpose of life not death?”.

In his time, Herzen also criticized socialist philosophers like Mazzini who called for people to make the highest sacrifice for the nation, for humane civilization, for Socialism, for humane justice - if not in the present, then for the future. According to him, the purpose of fighting for freedom is not for the freedom of tomorrow but for the freedom of today, freedom for individuals who are living for their own purposes. Crushing their freedom, their pursuits, destroying their happiness for the sake of a vague great happiness in the future, is simply building a metaphysical building on sand (From the other shore, Alexander Herzen, translated by Nguyen Van Trong, Tri Thuc Publishing House, 2012).

We would be guilty of a crime against the people if we told them about beautiful images or visions of the future while before their eyes they are in a place where the livability is ranked 124/125 countries.

The United Nations' "Livable Countries" ranking is used to measure each country's contributions to the planet and humanity. Seven aspects are considered: contribution to science and technology; contribution to culture; contribution to world peace, security and order; contribution to protecting the planet's environment; contribution to world prosperity and equality; contribution to health; and contribution to improving the planet and improving public health.

What do we think when, according to the United Nations' announcement, Vietnam ranks 124/125 ranked countries, much lower than the countries in Southeast Asia, only above Libya - an unstable country in the Middle East? It is known that the title of “Most livable country” belongs to Ireland.

That ranking may not be accurate, but we also find it difficult to think that if the ranking were correct, our country could be ranked at 80 or 70 on the list.

This ranking has a great impact on those who want to find a destination, even if it is just for tourism, before it is a place to stay, with a clean environment, beautiful nature, safety and friendliness.

The desire for national culture, democracy, and goodness still exists, because what is right, good, and beautiful is still being violated every day today. How can we water love into the aridity of the soul that is being corrupted by a cold, pragmatic lifestyle? Spring begins with youthful dreams as Zen Master Nhat Hanh once cherished: “Our dream is not just a dream of wealth and glory for ourselves alone. True happiness does not lie in money, fame and power. True happiness lies on the foundation of freedom. Freedom here is not the freedom to seize, the freedom to destroy, to destroy nature, to destroy our own body and mind and the body and mind of others. Freedom here is leisure, is having time to play and love. Freedom is not being bound by hatred, despair, jealousy, infatuation, not being dragged into work to be busy all day and all year round, without the opportunity to play, love and care for each other. The quality of life lies here” (Youth - Love - Ideal, Thich Nhat Hanh).

In spring, let us let our souls fly on the wings of imagination into that vast sky. As Steve Jobs said, “Stay hungry, stay foolish”. So that we and around us are souls full of spirit and enthusiasm, people who will perfect their personalities to be themselves. In other words, in the language of the times, people of good will together build a democratic society with an honest, national and humane culture, the goal of every culture, or of every livable country, and of every just government.