Nguyen Binh Khiem (1491 - 1585), a great thinker of Vietnam in the sixteenth century, contributed to the history of Vietnamese thought with many valuable ideas, including the “Nhàn” (leisure) viewpoint. The thought “Nhàn” (leisure) was originated from Vietnamese social characteristics in the sixteenth century and inherited values in the traditions of national culture and the quintessence of human culture, especially under the profound and clear influence of ideology on human life of Taoism and Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu argued that human beings could not interfere with the evolution of all things and they had to be “wu-wei” in accordance to the rule – “Tao” (faith) to adapt to the objective development of nature and society. Through the method of historical and logical research, analysis and synthesis, the authors found that, from the viewpoint of “wu-wei” of Taoism, Nguyen Binh Khiem proposed a very profound and idyllic “Nhàn” (leisure) viewpoint to deal with the fluctuations of social history at that time through two issues, namely the thought on the category “Nhàn” (leisure) and the content of the category “Nhàn” (leisure) through human beings’ relations with nature and dealing with themselves. His “Nhàn” (leisure) viewpoint, due to objective and subjective circumstances, could not overcome the limitations of the times. However, in the current historical and social conditions, if we know how to inherit the values and overcome limitations, the “Nhàn” (leisure) viewpoint still has modern meanings. Article visualizations
