The art of the new philosophy: Simple, Sweet, Creative, Funny, Flexible, and Useful in real life

I am Phi Tuyet. 

In Vietnamese, Phi means *non* or the nothingness, emptiness. Tuyet means Snow. So Phi Tuyet mean There is no snow, no – tuyet, no-me. I am nothing. I am the emptiness. I am vain. This book is from nothing to nothing. I will give you many ideas, my philosophy, but in the end, I wish it can bring you to a state that nothing left in your mind. Just empty space, the silence arises and grows up in your mind, heart, and soul.

This is the book from nothing to nothing, no one to no one. 

This is a dangerous book that is going to change your mind and even want to wash it from all the old dust we have been gathering for many years, many lives until today. We wash our clothes, our dishes every time after we use them. We wash our bodies every day to make sure it clean after one day working. So the same with our mind, our brain. We have been using it for many years and lives, never stop even when we go to sleep or go on vacation. Even in the church or in the hospital, our mind, our brain never stops working seem like forever, why don’t think about washing them a bit to make them cleaner? Clearer and purer? Why have we never thought about this or so scared of this idea?

We have brainwashed even the idea of brain-wash; just hear that word, and we think it’s bad. No, it’s bad and dirty because you are so not responsible for washing it, for keeping it clean. Your mind was entirely so set up by the social, the history, the belief you have told that you forget you can, and you have to undo, eraser all old ideas in your mind first if you want to have a different life, a better life. The life that Jesus once promise: Just kids can come. 

Brainwashing is nothing but a big effort to clean yourself from all the dust you have had in your mind. The day your mind is clear and clean and pure as a kid, you can taste heaven. It is not a place after death, but it is right here, right now, if you know how to find it.

‘Heaven is nowhere’ or ‘Heaven is now-here’. 

It’s your decision. And once you can understand it’s Now-Here, not Nowhere, your life would never be back to the same old mindset. Just like after you can wash your brain successfully and enjoy the blissful of it, the peaceful of it, you would never want it to be dirty again.

Just an incident that my name is Phi, it is the first Phi in Philosophy. 

My journey to be a philosophy is so strange and sweet you will know after finishing this book.

I am not the philosophy you know: intellectual; full of knowledge; using big words, talk about the thing no one understands; ask the big questions that there is no answer, care about the destiny of the human, or what happens after death.

I am the philosophy that you could not believe: care about small things in life: laugh, good jokes, love, experiences, little knowledge but huge curiosity about life; I don’t care about human’s destination but my own; don’t ask big questions to anyone and let it ruins my life but ask small questions to myself and try to create the answer I want to see, if I can not find the answer-already-made. I am not the philosophy in the library surrounding by super thick books, but I am the philosophy that is trying to surround myself with all the gift that the existence of God has given to me: flowers, big songs, the moonlights, sunrise, sunset, starlights, the colors of the day and the darkness of the night; I am not the philosophy that cares about what happens after death; all I care about is what happens before death.

My philosophy has nothing to do with the old, it’s new, as new as the new sun ray you feel every morning. As fresh as the pain you feel after a broken love, no matter how many times you taste that pain before, it’s always new again when you taste it again. The same new every time when you fall in love again. 

So this book, I want to give you a new idea about Philosophy.

Philosophy set all the ground stones for our world, our civilization, our lifestyle.

That time of that philosophy is gone. We are in a time of a new era: Aquarius Era: Era of the truth not the lies, the creative not the copy, the individual not the crowd; the spiritual not religion; freedom not a slave of social; the rich in consciousness, not the material; and a simple, easy idea of life instead of the serious- heavy ideas.

This is the era of action, not thoughts. 

Old philosophy is nothing but thoughts. New Philosophy has to base on action. The actions based on the right thoughts. What are the right thoughts? 

Any thoughts can create and arise more joy, more love, more passion, more peaceful, more silence… inside you, it is the right one. At least, base on my philosophy.

Old philosophy was serious, substantial, nothing fun.

My new philosophy that I call Sweet Philosophy is something opposite. It’s simple, sweet, creative, and special: it is fun, humorous, and useful to use in your life.

Follow my sweet philosophy; you have to practice what you believe or what you choose to believe, practice it in your own life to decide it is right for you or not, you want it to be your ground-stone of life of not. Don’t let anyone decide what is right and what is wrong, what is important, and what is not. 

Don’t let some old men called philosophers to decide for you about the meaning of life, what is the human’s destination. No. This is time for you, every one of us, to become a philosopher: we decide what to believe in becoming our faith. We decide what is the destination of our own being, who cares about human-destination? Life is so short. Don’t wast it on thinking for humanity in general, just think for yourself first, make it right; make it become a good story to tell to anyone want to know. 

You don’t need to make history for humans. Just make your history as good as rich as you can. Of course, rich in many different ways: knowledge, heath, art, ideas, passion, compassion, love not just rich in material.  

The artist is who can see the beauty everywhere in anything, even a wild grass or a bun of garbage.

The philosophy is who can see the meaning (good and bad) in everything, too. Even just a wild grass or a bun of garbage has its significance, beauty, destiny.

I have read many philosophy books and not surprise that: I understand non, maybe just a little, that little is gone two the moment I put the book down. I read many and remember nothing, can use nothing in life. The best philosophy book I have read is “Sophie’s world” by Jostein Gaarder. It is an excellent book. When I was reading it, I thought I understand. I have read it at least three times and guess what? I still remember anything now. 

There is only one “philosophy man” in this world that I love, understand, and remember everything he said about philosophy. He was not a philosopher. He hates it so much that he had to learn everything and know everything about philosophy before using his whole life to against it. I will tell that excellent story later somewhere in this book.

Now these are some quotes from him about the philosophy that once I have read, I understand and never forget:

 

“I use a totally different word, ‘philosia’, instead of philosophy. 

Philosophy means, literally, linguistically, love for knowledge. The word ‘philo’ means love; ‘sophy’ means wisdom, knowledge – love for knowledge. 

In philosia, ‘philo’ means the same love, and ‘sia’ means seeing: love, not for knowledge but for being – not for wisdom, but for the experience.

Philosia means love for seeing, not only for knowledge. 

Knowledge is not enough for the real enquirer; he wants to see. He does not want to contemplate on God; he wants to encounter God. He wants to hold His hand in his own hands; he wants to hug and kiss God! He is not satisfied with the concept of God. How can the idea be of any help?

Philosophy is the blind man’s effort. It is like a blind man in a dark room on a dark night, searching for a black cat which is not there.

No philosopher has ever been able to know the truth. All the philosophers have been thinking about the truth. But thinking about the truth is an impossibility. Either you know it, or you don’t. If you know it, there is no need to think about it. If you don’t, then how can you think about it?

A philosopher thinking about truth is just like a blind man thinking about light. If you have eyes, you don’t think about light, you see it. Seeing is a totally different process; it is a byproduct of meditation.

Thinking becomes a veil on the eyes. It gives its own color, its own idea to reality. It does not allow reality to reach you; it imposes itself upon reality; it is a deviation from reality. 

The philosopher thinks about things. It is a mind approach. My approach is a no-mind approach. It is just the very opposite of philosophizing. It is not thinking about things, ideas, but seeing with clarity which comes when you put your mind aside when you see through silence, not through logic.

Seeing is not thinking.

The sun rises there; if you think about it you miss it, because while you are thinking about it, you are going away from it. In thinking, you can move miles away; and thoughts go faster than anything possible. If you see the sunrise, then one thing has to be certain: you are not thinking about it. Only then can you see it.

You can see the whole history of philosophy: every answer has brought thousands of unnecessary questions. It has not been an answer; it has been a problem.

Philosophy is an obsession with words. The word god becomes more significant than the experience of god: that is philosophy. Philosophers ask: What do you mean when you use the word god? What do you mean when you use the word truth? What do you mean when you use the word good? What do you mean when you use the word love? 

To love, you do not have to be a philosopher of love. Love needs no philosophy; love is an existential experience.

Philosophy is more or less a linguistic phenomenon: a question of language and grammar, hair-splitting and shadowboxing. It is not concerned with reality at all. It talks about reality. But remember, to talk about reality is one thing and to move into reality is quite another. 

Birds don’t need philosophy, flowers don’t need philosophy, rivers and oceans don’t need philosophy – but they are all existential; they exist, and they exist with totality and intensity.

Philosophers go on and on with words, and words have their own way. One word brings another word, and so on and so forth. You can go on and on ad infinitum. There is no end to words. You can fabricate, manufacture new words. And you can create such a fuss about words. You can mystify people. Philosophy is a mind trick, a very sophisticated trick but a mind trick.

To be a philosopher is just to be a ‘foolosopher.’ It is a sheer waste of time. Down the centuries, philosophers have been struggling intellectually to find the truth. Not a single one of them has found it, for the simple reason that intellect and its way goes round and round, about and about, but it never penetrates to the center.

When you are thirsty, you cannot be satisfied by the formula H2O. Howsoever right it is – that is not my concern, that is irrelevant – right or wrong, the formula H2O cannot quench your thirst. You would like water, and whether you know about H2O or not does matter. For millions of years, man has been drinking water without knowing anything about H2O, and it has been perfectly satisfying.

“Philosophy talks about water, religion drinks.”

 

How beautiful and meaningful the way he explains about philosophy is that anyone can understand it from deep inside. 

You would think: If philosophy is that bad, why is this book about philosophy? 

Here you are the reason: 

In many lectures about philosophy, he has said. I found one humble quote in the book that changed my life. That quote, he said:

“Always remember that philosophies are worthless unless they can give you an insight; unless they can give you a new vision of life; unless they can transform you unless they are alchemical.”

This man, he is my guru. I will tell you his name later after telling you many crazy awesome stories. He is the reason I am here, why I do what I do, and share what I share now. 

I am just a letter-girl, a messenger of him to express his message to the world, the same way you are the messenger of God to express love. I want to express the joys, laughs, freedom, and peace, of course, express love as well. 

He was an anti-philosophy, but somehow, I become a philosophy before I know what philosophy is and before I knew about him. We have two different journeys, but somehow we meet at one point, and that point is Philosophy. 

He said maybe a thousand bad things about philosophy. Still, even just one good thing he spoke about how good philosophy could be, I have caught it and been living it to the point that I have my idea, my way, my own philosophy to fulfill his vision about philosophy:

 “Always remember that philosophies are worthy only if they can give you an insight, a new vision of life, transform you as an alchemical.”

I have found a way to make it come true. Make philosophy become something that can transform life itself to be better, sweeter, more beautiful, and more meaningful. 

Now I share it with you with love.

Not as a philosophy which says: what I found ours is the truth. My philosophy is what I have used in my life and see how it worked to make my lìfe better. 

These ideas may don’t work the same for your life because we all have different experiences, cultures, beliefs, and situations. I can tell you how I found my right man, true love, but I can not tell you how to find your right man or can not tell you my right man is right for you too. It’s dangerous. So you just read and find some ideas, then practice it to see how you feel, then you decide. 

Book is the same philosophy somehow: if you just only read, think a bit, and forget, then it’s useless. You have to take its ideas to live in your real life at some point. Then it’s worthy.

Someone said something in a book that I remember: “If you read a book that you can find, then it’s time for you to write that book.”

I love this idea. I want to find a philosophy book that easy, fun, and full surprised to read, and after reading it, I can remember some ideas to use it in life to change my life. That’s why you have that book now in your hand. Because for a little girl from a little village, the middle of nowhere becomes a philosopher, write philosophy book for the world? Oh my God, it is just a dream that I never imagined before. 

But poorly, my philosophy about life is: Life is just a dream, live it any way you want, don’t be afraid. And create your dream quickly because life is short. The moment you wake up (or dead), they will all go away as never existed. So live your dream now. Take it easy.

Yes, for me, life is just a dream, why I can say that you will understand after the book. 

But I can tell you, I did, and I do live my life as a dream so many times. That’s why I do know Lìfe is a dream, or you can call it’s Maya, Leela – a drama in Indian. 

I know it by my experiences, not what I believe.

There is a vast distance between what you believe and what you experiences and know. 

For example, you say: I know there is the Sun and the Moon.

You don’t say: I believe there are the sun and the moon.

What you know, you don’t need to believe.

You say: “I know she is right” is so different from “I believe she is right.”

When you believe, you are trying to convince yourself about something you are not sure. When you know something, there is no question about convincing or confident or not.

You love someone. You say: “I love you”. And you know your love, there is no doubt about it. But if your love says: “Umh, I believe that I love you” then… what do you think? Or if you say: “I love you” and they say, “I’m sure I love you too.”

Do you see it? The moment you use “believe” or “sure” like that, there is no love, no real love.

Kids can ask parents, “Are you sure you love me?” If they don’t feel your love so clear and sharp. If the kids can feel your love is always strong and clear, they never had to ask to suck a question like that. 

And the parent, if they love their kids, they can show their love many ways, they also can say, “I love you, kido” many times, but they would never say: “I believe I love you”.

Just some example for you to see something that maybe you never thought about. 

The same way when you say you believe in God, you believe in karma or Budda… It just how you are not sure about what you are trying to convince yourself to believe. 

Words have their own power. The more you care about your words, the more your life would change. First, you have to try to be the master of words to see how powerful they are. Or if you know about the book “influence your people and friends” of Dale Carnegie, or the books of Napoleon Hills, NLP, psychology books, president’s speeches, poems… you will see how powerful words could give you.

After being the master of words, one day, you will drop the idea of it perfectly, as I did, because you will see no matter how powerful you are with words, you are still empty inside, powerlessness. Words mean nothing, no matter how good you are with it. It doesn’t bring you the most important things in life: the peaceful, the silence, the truth.

 

Phi Tuyet