by Hoa Pham
“Think about it, Liên.” He drew me close and I smelt his cigarettes on his breath and sweat. But still it was comforting when he put his arms around me and kissed me on the hair.
The rest of the day, the village was tense as the new cadre made himself known. Everyone turned up early for the village meeting, no one wanted to be accused of being laggard.
The straggly choir of fisher children were waving new red flags and their piping voices sang to Uncle Ho as the cadres made their way to the centre of the marketplace.
The new cadre opened the proceedings with a speech about how Uncle Ho had benefitted the people. Then he denounced those who helped people escape to foreign shores and how the village would be rewarded if the people smugglers were turned in.
During his speech, Bình suddenly appeared behind me and Tài, with her son. She was carrying a bag of candies and tobacco from town. When the speech finished, she bobbed her head up and down, looking like another serene old woman. She stumbled and walked slowly over to the communist cadres and gave them all wrapped red presents. Then she distributed the candies to the children and the tobacco to the men with her son’s help.
The new cadre did not open his present. I prayed that Bình had not put a customary bribe in the present. Then Bình returned to my side with her son.
“Cousin,” she greeted me and Tài formally. To the new cadre’s eyes, she seemed to be just another peasant trying to please. But to the villagers, she was someone reminding them of her ability to gift them with her money. Bình, I was discovering, was the real village head not the communist cadres posted far from Hanoi.
When the village meeting broke up with all the adults and children singing the national anthem, I finally was able to smile at Bình and be glad of her return.
Bình and her son resumed fishing with Tài’s and my assistance over the next few days. It was after Bình had warmed to Tài that I surreptitiously mentioned to her his interest in her smuggling operation.
“You trust this man?” Bình asked me seriously and I nodded.
“It cannot be now. Maybe a month or two from now. When the new cadre will either stay or leave.”
The wily, cautious woman would not even talk about the smuggling in detail in front of me.
Tai sighed when I told him that the smuggling network was dormant until the cadre left.
“I did not think it would be easy,” he said.
“I don’t know if I will go with you,” I said tentatively. I told him all the horror stories that I had heard from Bình’s son. Only one or two of those who had left by boat had been heard of again by people in Vietnam. There were pirates, and many people died at sea.
“I don’t know if I can risk my life. Having been close to dying so many times already.”
“I feel dead being here,” Tài tried to explain to me. “I cannot do well like your friend Bình living a duplicitous life. Wondering who is going to inform on me so I will be forced to go to a re-education camp instead of them. Don’t you wish to be somewhere that you can worship openly? Maybe your peace is overseas not here.”
I fell mute. I could not tell him that I had not dreamed of him one way or the other. All my recent dreams were of peace, and I was certain it was in Vietnam. The Lady had blessed me and I had to stay and make sure she was not forgotten in our village.
It was the only topic in which we would halt conversation, in a growing unease that some day we would be parted.
Finally the day came when Bình offered Tài a passage on a fishing boat. She only gave him a day’s notice, which gave me less than 24 hours to grieve.
“Are you sure you will not come with me, Liên?” He only asked me one more time, as I knotted a banana leaf rice cake for him to take on the trip.
“Are you sure you will not stay?” I asked, but he was silent.
“I will contact you as soon as I can,” he said. “You know they are going to come looking for me.”
I gave him a thin smile. “I will wail into their ears that no man can be trusted with your heart. That you have run away with a younger woman to the city. That you have deserted me.” Although I did not intend it, on the last sentence I felt a pang of truth.
We held each other close in those last few hours, and I treasured his solid presence. His love for me had restored my faith in the goodness of the human heart. That I understood why he had to go made it all the more painful.
“Liên, you have always been in my mind and my — ”
I put a finger on my lips. I did not want to hear a romantic lie in my last moments with him. He had loved his wife and children and he had thought me dead. Just like I had thought of him, and had tried to replace him with others in my heart.
When Bình’s son came to accompany him, I could not help the tears that welled up in my eyes. I could see that Tài too was trying not to cry in front of another man.
We embraced one last time and then let each other go.
MAITREYA, TRUE LOVE
SOUTH VIETNAM, 2007
I have arrived, I am home.
In the here and in the now.
THÍCH NHẤT HẠNH
It took another decade before word reached the village that foreigners were being let into the country again. I had found some measure of peace, praying to the Lady and meditating next to the stone monolith that looked out onto the village. Bình was right. She grew more prosperous even under the Communist eye. Somehow she was lucky and was never caught. I doubted it was just luck, though; she knew all the Communist cadres by name and never failed to give them gifts.
I helped her with the money lending but she never let me into the ins and outs of her people smuggling business. This way, you cannot speak if you are taken in, she said to me when I once offered to help.
I aged slowly with the quiet days weaving in and out. Every night I thanked the Lady that I was whole and untouched, and I lived to see another day. I heard and saw pictures of Hồ` Chí Minh City with wealth beyond imagining. Some of the young people of the village went there to seek their fortunes. But I was never tempted. Seeing the first mopeds come into the village was enough, and white ghosts with backpacks carefree and light sans responsibility. The television in Bình’s house showed me prosperity in the world outside the village. White ghosts populated some of the programs and I learned that they had love stories much like our own.
As the years went by, I stopped waiting for Tài to contact me. There was no way of contacting him if he had survived the trip to Malaysia. Bình promised to inform me of news, but she had rarely heard of whether the trips she had organised had been successful or not. They all knew that contacting her would be the prelude to her being investigated by the communist cadres.
Then one day I heard that Thích Nhất Hạnh was being allowed to visit the country and do public dharma talks.
“After suppressing the Buddhists for so long, why?” I asked, fearing it was a trap to assassinate the Zen Master who resided in France.
“He is going to perform Great Ceremonies of Mourning for those who have suffered during the wars from all sides,” Bình told me, as she split a pumpkin seed with her teeth.
I shook my head in disbelief. This opening of religious freedom from the government was too good to be true.
Bình gave me a flyer with Thầy’s tour dates and told her son to take me to Saigon.
Hồ` Chí Minh City had outgrown itself over the decades. The foreign neon signs and the density of all the people on mopeds and bicycles overwhelmed me. Bình’s son Hiếu was at ease with all this wealth, he talked on his mobile phone while riding his motorcycle. It was only his filial piety to his mother that kept him in the village, he told me. That and frequent ‘business’ trips to Hồ` Chí Minh City. When we arrived, he had to show me the central shopping district with foreign Western brands and shopping malls. I blinked in the light of this extravagance and marvelled at the carefree youth with their foreign clothes, fashions and gadgets.
Was this what peace and prosperi
ty looked like? Hiếu bragged to me that Western cities were like Hồ` Chí Minh City. Wide, clean pavements and shops glistening behind clean plate-glass windows.
Then we encountered a build up of parked mopeds and buses blocking the roads. It was like a festival with flower sellers and food vendors mingling around the crush of the crowd.
“Thầy is speaking in there,” Hiếu pointed somewhere in the middle of the crowds. He parked his motorcycle and we began to weave in and out of the crush of people. Speakers and lights were rigged up along the road and the glare of white reflected off the expectant people’s faces. A vendor with pirated copies of Thầy’s books brushed past us as Hiếu pushed his way further into the crowd. Sweat soaked my best plain white shirt and pants. The people were hemmed in so closely together, it made me dizzy.
Finally Hiếu had to stop when the masses of people refused to give way to him. In front of us was the giant stage set out on the road glittering in the spotlights. Gold umbrellas framed where Thầy was going to sit, and behind him were monks and nuns dressed in brown from Plum Village. They were standing, their hands clasped in prayer. A bell sounded and the people around us rustled for a better view as Thầy slowly proceeded through the crowds, gladioli flowers waving in the wake of his passing. I could not see much but I shared the crowd’s anticipation and awe as he ascended to the dais where he was to speak.
The Zen Master was still youthful at eighty years old, his bald head shiny and his presence radiating peace. Then the monks and nuns began to chant Avoliketera’s name, accompanying the tears sliding down my cheeks.
Nam Mô A Di Đà. Nam Mô A Di Đà. Nam Mô A Di Đà
In his dharma talk that day, Thầy spoke about family and our ancestors, which brought more tears to my eyes. He spoke about anger and how we needed to cradle our anger like a baby, and practice loving speech and deep listening for those we loved. Loneliness crept into my being as I found myself thinking of Tài and how he had left. But as the nuns and monks sang, I felt energy inside myself rise and take wing.
There was talk that Prajna Monastery in Bát Nhả was now open to the public. People were able to worship openly and young people were flocking to join the temple. Thầy was going to do a public retreat there, the monastics said. So I followed Thầy’s tour from Saigon to Bát Nhả in a crowded public bus. I left Bình’s son to go back home and tell his mother where I had gone. Although she did not believe, I thought the money-lender would understand.
When we came upon Prajna Monastery in the embrace of some small hills, I felt memory fall into place. The gates loomed above us and as we walked in, I saw a gorgeous white meditation hall with wide windows looking out onto tea plantations on the hills.
Excitement stirred within me. Was this the site of what I had dreamed about for so long?
People milled around me while monastics staffed tables with laptop computers, registering people for the retreat. The joy of the crowd was infectious, this sort of public teaching was rarely allowed. Even the obvious presence of communist cadres scattered through the crowd in cheap blue suits was not enough to quell people’s enthusiasm.
Books were being sold and enterprising photographers sold pictures of the Zen Master from his public talks in Saigon. Though the crowd numbered thousands, I felt safe among them in a way I had never felt before. It was as if mindfulness had affected us all.
Present moment, wonderful moment.
I decided to explore the monastery. Stepping on the paving stones I wandered under the shadows of young pine trees down the slope to find a giant statue of Quan m sitting on top of a miniature lake. Monastics and lay people were clustered around the white stone statue chatting quietly. My memories of my dreams shifted and stirred.
This was close, but not identical, to the dream I’d had for so long. Already the peace and hope that threatened to overwhelm me was cracking through my reserve. After all the suffering, maybe now the Communists were at peace enough to allow the nation’s spirit to shine again.
I wandered down the hill. The slope of the tea plantations was familiar to my eye. I followed two novices with their shaved heads and brown robes strolling along a winding path. I passed by two large white halls, with bright mosaics of the Buddha and animals – clean and modern.
The peace and tranquillity touched an old chord in me from when I was a monastic during the American War. But this time, the skies were clear and the people around me unwounded.
I have arrived, I am home.
The path followed the slope to the river. I looked to my left and there was the white-seated Buddha statue of my dream almost hidden by the trees looking over to the tea plantations.
Tears streamed down my face as I stumbled down to the river.
A wooden bridge went across it to a wooden gazebo. I found a rock to sit on. I did not meditate at first but slowly breathed in and out as I felt the rightness of the scenery settle around me.
I had dreamed of peace. And finally it had come when the Communists opened the doors to their old perceived enemies, foreigners and Thích Nhất Hạnh. I was old now. But Quan m had heard my prayers.
Na-mo A-vo- li-ke-te-ra. Na-mo A-vo- li-ke-te-ra.
In Prajna Monastery, I dared to hope that peace is possible. The government allowed Thích Nhất Hạnh, the exiled Zen Master, to come to teach the people and publish his books. Perhaps the government had finally realised the spirit of the people and Buddhist liberation is no threat to them. And even foreigners have taken to the fruit of the practice. Their white faces mirror our calm and their joy is like the spring from the river. When we sing of the island, the inner island of peace that we return to, it is my turn to weep.
Present moment, wonderful moment.
I like to return to my island.
Our teacher Thầy says, though we have suffered at the hands of the foreigners, they were once children too and we can feel compassion for the suffering children the invaders once were.
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate bodhi svaha.
Gone, gone to the other shore. All Hail!
There are Americans and French laypeople from the international Plum Village sangha who accompany Thầy on his visit. Their faces shine with mindfulness like the monks and nuns. One American man, tall and large approaches me and apologises for America’s involvement in the war with tears in his eyes.
I cannot hate these people or even fear them. When Thầy says the Great Ceremonies he conducts are for all that suffered during the wars, I believe him. At first I could not believe that Westerners would believe in Buddhist practice. But now when I see them sitting cross-legged and meditating, standing up for the monks and nuns, and breathing mindfully in and out, I see the Buddha within them.
I have arrived, I am home.
During the morning walking meditation I feel myself smile at the stillness permeating through the young pine forest of the Prajna Monastery grounds.
I am calm like the lake.
I am solid as the mountain.
When Thầy says we all inter-be and inter-are, and I see foreigners holding the hands of the Vietnamese congregation, I understand the Heart Sutra at last.
We all inter-be and inter-are. Our enemy is not other humans but fear and anger.
When I reach inside myself and meditate on compassion for the poor children the northerners once were, something inside me dissolves. I am free, I am free.
How can I continue to hate the American War veteran who cried in my arms for what he had done? The Việt Minh man who raped me so long ago, was a child too once. He had been brutalised by being a soldier in the wars.
I have let go of my fear, like used clothing.
I take incense and mandarins down to the giant Quan m statue and prostrate myself at her feet. The Lady is so powerful that she reaches even into the hearts of foreigners. I feel her embrace around me in the kindness and openness of all these people.
I am too old to join the Plum Village sangha
in France with Thầy. But I become another one of the old women monastics tending to Prajna Monastery, feeding Communist cadres, foreigners and lay people alike.
Vietnam has found peace, and I have finally found peace inside through compassion for others. Quan m, Avoliketera and the Lady have shown me the way through Thầy.
Thầy talks about continuation – how we all are the seeds from our ancestors.
Bà is still alive in me and tears come to my eyes. Though I am far from my village, I feel the love of all of those who have held me close, my family, Tài and the easy acceptance of Bình, my benefactor. With this sangha I am never alone, I tell myself.
Compassion for all those who have suffered and who have created suffering for me, runs through my tired bones. Energised, I come slowly to my feet, clasp my hands and bow my head to the Lady.
I am free, I am free, I am free.
KARUNA,
COMPASSION
PRAJNA MONASTERY, SOUTH VIETNAM, 2009
This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died.
THÍCH NHẤT HẠNH
The sound of the bell returns me to my true home. Opening my eyes, I return from the depths of meditation, as if from underwater, from the ocean. The bell echoes in the hollow of my soul and beyond. I look down at wrinkled brown hands with prominent blue veins, once they were smooth as the marble of a goddess statue. Memories of lives, past lives, begin to surface and I ask my mind to be still.
Breathing in, I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I am breathing out.
The sound of the bell penetrates my mind. Easing my posture, I let go of my memories, which floats to the top of my thoughts like a leaf on a pond.
I am fresh, fresh as a flower.
I am still, still as a mountain.
Glass shatters and a ripple runs through the consciousness of the meditating monks and nuns. The hired mobs are back again. A rumour is whispered that the authorities in Bát Nhả have paid villagers up to 150 kilometres away to come and destroy the monastery. I consciously breathe out my tension, trying to release my fear. In the middle of the sangha, circled by three hundred of my brothers and sisters, the practice is strong in the meditation hall. The terracotta Buddha statue at the front of the hall is still intact, though the white walls are filthy and desecrated with piss. In a brown nun’s robe, I feel visible, old and vulnerable. I attempt to return back to the island of peace and calm within, breathing in and out.
