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SÁCH AMAZON


Mua bản sách in

When I was young, around 6th or 7th grade, I asked my third brother to take me to Van Hanh Pagoda in Santee City, in the San Diego area, to stay with my Master during Christmas because we had a 2-week break from school. That was in the 80s. My Master began presiding over Van Hanh Pagoda in 1984, after being sponsored by On Man Giac from the Palawan refugee camp in the Philippines.

I started participating in the Huong Thien Buddhist Youth Association in 1984, and was placed in the Oanh Vu branch. The leader, named Phuong, oversaw the Oanh Vu team and took good care of me and the team; taught us to memorize the Repentance Prayer, how to kneel when performing the ceremony in the main hall, and I also learned Vietnamese, basic Buddhist Dharma, Morse code, Semaphore flags, road signs, etc. After nearly a year of activities, Sister Phuong presented my name to the abbot, asking to perform the Quy Y ceremony. At that time, I did not understand what Quy Y was. The ceremony was quite solemn and peaceful, besides me, the youngest member, there were 4 other Thanh and Thieu members. The abbot gave me the Dharma name Quang Minh and explained the meaning of the two words "Quang Minh", then gave me a Certificate of Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels, in both Vietnamese and English. I kept this certificate very carefully for 20-30 years, but later because I moved house too many times, it was lost somewhere and to this day I have searched for it and still cannot find it. What a pity!

Van Hanh Pagoda was small at that time, but it was still the largest pagoda in the San Diego area in the 80s and 90s. The main hall could accommodate more than 30 people. In front of the main hall were three steps leading to a rather large and long front yard. It was on these three steps that every Sunday when my teammate Oanh Vu ran around the temple yard during recess or self-governance, I often sat and listened to the Master chant sutras with the elderly Buddhist uncles and aunts who gathered every week to pray for peace and salvation. My Master had a very good chanting voice, seemingly unique in the US for over 30 years. I was fascinated by his chanting voice and admired his way of performing rituals. More memorable was when Venerable Man Giac had the opportunity to come to the Temple to witness and attend major holidays such as Buddha's Birthday and Vu Lan, in his solemn Cardinal Robe, he and the Master chanted together through two microphones; oh, how beautiful it sounded! Both Hue accents, very sweet and warm, sometimes low, sometimes high, blending with the rhythm of the bells, wooden fish and gongs; if heard, the dead will be liberated, the living will also be freed!

Over the years, whenever I knew where the Master was, I would appear to witness and preside over the ceremony, and if I had the chance, I would also try to find a way to run there to hear the Master chant. I liked to go to the temple not necessarily to listen to sermons or meditate, but simply to hear the Master chant. Some people like to listen to music or reformed opera. Personally, I like to listen to chanting, especially with the Master's voice. It's that simple. To this day, I still don't understand why I went to the temple to stay with the Master for almost a week during the Christmas season in the mid-80s; but it was probably because I just wanted to hear the Master chant.

During the whole week with the Master, every morning around 5:00, I was still in the guest bedroom when I heard the Master chanting in the main hall. The sound of bells and wooden fish, combined with the Master's voice, woke me up. And then, I lay on the bed listening to the Master chanting the morning prayers. After the prayers, I didn't hear any more noise, but after a while I heard rustling sounds in the Master's room. Later, I understood that right after finishing the prayers, the Master had spent some time meditating, so he had a period of peace.

I don't remember many details about the days I was with the Master, but I remember this clearly:

The carpet in front of the statue of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in the Main Hall was torn, as if something had scratched it. But the Master said that the mice were looking for food and then bit the carpet, no one had torn it. Seeing the torn carpet, the Master was not happy, so he scolded the mice:

You guys go play somewhere else, don't hang around here and tear the carpet in front of the Buddha's table anymore. Do you hear? If you don't go, I'll beat you up.

For a boy of only 12 years old, I found the event before me a bit strange. First, it was the first time I saw a human talking to an animal. Immediately, a question popped into my head: If the Master talked to the mice when they weren't around, would they listen to him? Suppose they heard and understood his scolding, would they follow his instructions? Second, when he learned that in the Temple, and right in the main hall, there were mice running rampant, the Master didn't try to catch them, or set a trap to kill them, but only warned them, telling them to go play somewhere else. Third, it seemed like the Master didn't care or bother about the mice hiding under the roof of the house where he was living and practicing. This event, to me as a child, was a bit unusual; But later, when I grew older, I understood why the Master acted that way, when I learned that the carpet in the main hall was torn by rats.

Later, because my family moved to an area far from the Temple, I rarely had the opportunity to see the Master again. About 2 or 3 years later, I met the Master again with two neighbor uncles who had known him when he and the uncles were still in the Palawan refugee camp. Sitting in the dining room at the Temple, the teacher and his students were having dinner together, I followed the conversation between the Master and the two uncles. The tray had a bowl of soup, but it was missing a soup spoon. The Master told me:

Go to the place where the bowls and chopsticks are kept and get a spoon to pour the soup over here.

I eagerly obeyed the Master with a "yes" then pushed the chair back and stood up, walking towards the kitchen to get the spoon. While performing his duty, one of the two men sitting at the dining table opened his mouth and said, with a Da Nang accent:

Wow, this little guy is really good at clowning.

My teacher immediately replied:

Yes, this disciple is very good. When he finishes 12th grade, I will send him to Taiwan to study and then become a monk.

I was a bit startled by the teacher's verdict. Although I loved chanting, loved the teacher's chanting voice, and often went to temples, I had never thought of shaving my head to become a monk. A thought suddenly flashed through my mind before the teacher's decisive suggestion.

With a soup ladle in hand, I returned to the dining table, pulled out a chair and sat down. My uncle kept asking:

Are you really planning to become a monk?

I immediately replied:

Of course not, Uncle!

Turning to face the Master, I said:

Yes, Master, my broken heart is too serious, I probably can't become a monk, Master.

Everyone at the table laughed, then the two uncles continued to talk with the Master over a simple vegetarian meal.

The thing is, at that time, I was in 9th grade, and for the whole school year, I was infatuated with a classmate. All year long, I always paid attention to her, but I didn't dare say a word to her. Even when I got close to her, I didn't dare! But in class, I often glanced at her, paying attention to her every move and gesture. Day and night, I often thought about my classmate, but I never dared to say a word, even though we still saw each other every day. Every night, suddenly waking up at 2-3 am, listening to Duy Khanh humming the song "Dem Bo Vo" that he recorded on tape in the 60s, with the lines: "Dem Bo Vo, who do you miss, night after night, I'm far from you, far from you, I miss you every night..."; oh how sad and poignant!

My classmates knew I liked her, and often teased me. And it seemed that the rumor also reached her ears. However, she never said or did anything to me. And I was still me: shy, timid, not knowing what to say. Young people in America do not call the fluttering of the heart at this age "love", but "crush". Never mind, "love" or "crush" is fine; it is still a mark, a memory of innocent youth.

The reason I quickly answered the Teacher that I could not become a monk was because I was... "heartbroken" and deeply thinking about my classmate. With such intense male-female (or childish) feelings, how could I shave my head and become a monk?

At the age of 13-14, and because I had only finished first grade in Vietnam when I crossed the border, my Vietnamese language skills were limited, so I only understood the two words “that tinh” as lost love and the consequences that came from it. Later, I heard the phrase “that tinh… luc duc”. At first, I wondered why “that tinh” also had “luc duc”? So “that” here does not mean “lost”, but is synonymous with the number “seven”, because “luc” is “six”. Then I asked myself: what are the seven feelings in “that tinh”?

Gradually, I read articles and listened to lectures from monks and nuns and understood that we humans have seven inevitable feelings or emotions. These are: (1) joy, (2) anger, (3) love, (4) hate, (5) sadness, (6) fear, and (7) desire, which in Sino-Vietnamese are: joy, anger, love, hate, desire, etc.

In daily life, who among us is not happy, angry, resentful, affectionate, hateful, sad, fearful, worried, and desirous. For example: We are happy when we win the lottery or get what we want, but being too happy can lead to arrogance and complacency. We resent the other person for bothering us, leading to resentment in our hearts. We love the person next to us, but because we love too much, when that person leaves us, we feel a sense of loss and pain. We hate the person who hurt us, and then carry that hatred in our hearts, leading to dislike for that person. We are sad because of unexpected events, and then life becomes a series of gloomy, sad days. We are afraid because we have to face risks and challenges beyond our capabilities, so life is full of insecurity and anxiety. And, we desire beautiful, nice, fragrant, delicious and good things for ourselves, so life is a journey where we keep racing, trying to catch what we have not yet had.

The nature of the seven emotions, in itself, is not bad or harmful. Simply, these seven emotions help us to arrange our emotions in an orderly manner when facing external things. No one tells us not to be moved, to react naturally to external scenes that our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind have to collide with and face. For example, if something makes us happy, we are happy. If something makes us sad, we are sad. However, we should know how to control our emotions so that those joys and sorrows do not bring us troubles or harmful, unpleasant things. We ordinary people, due to lack of practice, are easily moved by these 7 emotions and torment our mind and body. Only those who practice at the highest level and have enough inner strength know how to control and restrain their vibrations and emotions when facing external scenes. To be more precise, true cultivators know how to apply the phrase "Ung vo so tru, nhi sinh ky tam" (roughly understood as "don't cling to anything to give rise to the mind") in the Diamond Sutra to their lives. Looking at the scene, knowing the scene, feeling the things are beautiful, nice, fragrant, delicious, good, bad; but true cultivators do not cling to it, are not fascinated by it, are not moved by it excessively because they realize that all things are born and must die; Every object, every scene, even my own emotions are like fragile dew drops, like illusions, nothing is solid or permanent.

Returning to the reason why I quickly responded to my Master in the late 80s at Van Hanh Pagoda to gently refuse the suggestion that I shave my head to become a monk that he kindly gave me, I found that I misunderstood the two words "seven emotions". I wonder if my peers misunderstood the two words "seven emotions" like I did because of my lack of understanding of Sino-Vietnamese characters?

But now thinking back, and thinking more broadly, the reason I could not become a monk was because I did not - or have not - had the ability to control the seven emotions in me every time I faced the outside scene through my eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Shaving my head to become a monk as my Master invited me, I must probably postpone it to the next life, or even the next, to hope to realize it; But this life of mine is full of turmoil and emotions, mixed with sadness, joy and consequences, all because of... broken love.

(Written to recall memories with respect for the kind Master who is now in his eighties)

Quang Minh


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The launching ceremony of the Lien Phat Hoi at Bayside Community Center (MC Man Phan)

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