FIONA MACLEOD

Hue is the most beautiful town. I have hardly been able to visit the various and numerous historical buildings here but I can come back any time I want to see them. What I have lived through for the last few days hovever is impossible to find on a tourist visit to this country.

Firstly there was discovering Thay`s root temple ; the one where he arrived in 1942 desiring to become a monk and determined to work tirelessly for the sake of helping all living beings arrive at the shore of freedom (freedom from fear, anger, ignorance, freedom to love, to be in peace and to help others be the same.)

This temple was founded by a high ranking monk who left all his high ranking position at the imperial court (because Hue is the town of the Emporeurs of vietnam who lived a fairly chinese style life with mandarins and confucian ideals ; I don`t know if they were a particularly happy lot, despite their numerous wives and offspring ; several died young or under suspicious circumstances ; the only tourist thing I did was to visit their Imperial Palace and hear some of their life stories)

Anyway Nhat Dinh the monk wanted to help his old mother and his position at court forbade that so he just left and went to live in the forest and built a small thatched hut. the story goes that his mother needed fish to eat because she was ill so he just went to town and begged a fish. this of course is against all the vegetarian life style of buddhist monks and so many people were shocked but he didn`t waste time explaining his action and continued to live a very simple life and became even more loved by the locals because of this.

It seems that this story influenced Thay a lot and as he himself has had to suffer from misunderstanding about his actions and intentions no doubt this story helped him go through difficult times.

We heard so many stories about Thay`s novice days here. One was that as it was forbidden in those second world war days to read western scientific works so Thay who was always determined to learn as much as he could and to renovate buddhism built a tree caban and smuggled these books up there and read them in secret,

In terms of renovating buddhism it is fascinating on this trip to see the common, popular form of vietnamese boudhism which is based on coming to the pagodas for a few hours and bring offerings of food and incense and prostrating oneself in front of the altar and maybe buying a few birds in a cage and freeing them and all this is supposed to bring you merits which will allow you to be reborn into a better life and if you are a woman you may be lucky enough to receive a male body in your new life so now you have a chance to attain enlightenment >>>> wow wow wow, so far removed from all I live with Thay and the community and I appreciate even more this gentle poet monk`s vision and ideal which he has put into practice to the best of his abilities.

We spent several days at this beautiful pagoda with its old tombs all around (this is common everywhere in Vietnam) and our lay retreat was held here. We also had a fantastic day going into the land around here to visit social work done with fuhds we collect in France and other countries.

Now we are into the three day chanting ceremonies for peace and reconciliation and these are so different to the Saigon ones, although still based on the three underlying aspects of calling back the dead, and particularly those who died unjustly in wars and then chanting so that the boddhisattvas come to the temple (understand by that our higher human qualities such as love, compassion, understanding, deep listening, loving speech..) and finally in the last ceremonies the souls of these wandering souls also called the hungry ghosts are released into the Pure Land, ie Paradise ie Peace and Joy/

The ceremonies are based on ancient religions, folklore, buddhist popular beliefs, and deep buddhist psycohlogical knowledge. Naturally they can be lived at many levels of awareness. We are so fortunate to live them from the inside out.

Last night we had a fantastic ceremony as night set in and the full moon rose over the Perfume river in Hue. The Master of the Ceremonies started the chanting, the music was sublime and then dancers wearing colourful costumes came on ( I only saw them from afar).

We stood for a long time in lines until finally we reached the part called releasing the lotuses . for this we were given lotus flowers made of paper with small candles ( as in Saigon) but here we walked in a long procession along the river bank and then boarded twenty dragon boats and set sail down stream. After a while we stopped the boats and released hundreds of tiny floating candles into the river. It was unforgettable and a scene of great great beauty. The tiny lotus flower candles bobbed up and down as they slowly wended their way to the sea.

The souls of the wandering ghosts were now freed to live in peace, mirroring our own ability to free ourselves from the obstacles blocking our own path to peace and joy. And indeed i felt this strongly last night . as one of my candles floated off over the dark waters, I felt released from one aspect of my ancestrally inherited ways of being that I had not been aware of before.

Today I am rather calm and not wanting to talk much ; it is mid way through our trip too and I feel this. The incredible richness of all I am living through, allied with the exhaustion of helping out with the monastics (how hard they work under difficult conditions!) combined with all the emotions of last night have invited me to silence today.

Tomorrow we have our last big ceremonies and then on thursday we leave for Da Nang. Love to all of you reading this !