Let's suppose you are canoeing in the dark and another canoe slams into yours. If you look and find that nobody is on the other canoe, you would not get too upset. But if there is someone on that canoe, there will be consequences. Who and what is that person? If they are your friend, your reaction will be different to if they are not. Then comes the gender of that person: a person of the opposite sex will cause a different reaction to one of the same sex. A married, not-so-good-looking person will cause a different reaction to a single, handsome one. The response brought on by the canoe accident depends on who is on the canoes, not the collision itself. What matters is not the canoe, but the set of factors that comes with it.

So when an event, either physical or mental, happens to us, the event itself may not be anything. Our understanding, analysis and evaluation of the event depends on countless other factors.

A bánh xèo (Vietnamese pancake) without herbs, sauce and condiments tastes bad, because by itself the cake is not enough. Without the dipping sauces, many Vietnamese dishes would fail. Agree?

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