Conversation With
a Dhyanist Monk
Nguyen
Tien Doan
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In the early 80s, I had the occasion of
reading the French version of Zen doctrine by the Japanese professor D.T. Suzuki, a book
lent to me by writer Nguyen Huu Dang. A volume of that work, "Satori" catches my
attention. I have consulted many French and Vietnamese dictionaries in my possession and
acquired a clear enough explanation of that key-word of Buddhism.One day, I was informed
from a carpenter in the neighbourhood that a monk of Ho Chi Minh City just came to settle
down in the pagoda of Vu Doai village (Vu Thu district) in my Thai Binh province.
According to the rumour, this religious Doctor in Buddhism had undertaken studies in
several countries. The desire for knowledge took me to seek his lights.
That was in June 1982, while I was
undertaking research on the village of Hanh Dung Nghia in Vu Thu which accommodates the
fortifications of the hero-gangster Phan Ba Vanh, and on many patriot scholars of the
XIXth century.
I arrived early at the pagoda of Vu Doan
with the intention of asking the real meaning of "Satori". The small temple is
located separately, in a very quiet place. A twisted path covered with grass leads to it.
The morning breeze brings the fragrant perfume of betel nut flowers, ngau and almond
trees. The moss draws mysterious designs on the tiles on the ground, on the walls and the
roof. Next to the ground is an old thatched house with three compartments and two sloping
roofs. I pushed my bicycle and waited, intrigued by the deserted atmosphere. A moment
later, an old woman came out from the kitchen and asked me:-May I help you Sir?
-Can I meet with the Venerable?
-He is in the pagoda. Please wait a
minute.
The Venerable finally presented himself.
He is a man of over fifty, calm and nimble, with very clear eyes which seem to read in
your soul, with a brown beard recalling that of Bodhidharma. He made me feel quite easy
with his natural approach.
-Venerable, you come from the South? - I
asked him.
-Just a few days ago, What makes me the
honour….? O I read books on Thien (Zen). I meet with a word that I don’t
understand well. Would you be kind to…Knowing that I am a researcher in history, the
monk smiled and gently said:
-You better consult the libraries. I
hurriedly left the South without carrying documents, even forgetting to take my reading
glass. My mother and I have only few possessions and a rosary. Excuse me…I insist, a
little embarrassed:-It would not take you long, Venerable. I only want to ask you the
meaning of just one word.
-Which word?
-"Satori"! In the book by Suzuki
on the Zen doctrine.-In what language is it?
-In French. Published in Paris.
-You know Chinese characters?
-Not much.
The monk invited me to sit. He began
talking, carried away by the subject. He expressed with ease and conviction of a Nagorika
Convinda (Character from "The Way of the White Clouds").He began to evoke the
theory of knowledge by K. Marx and Bertrand Russell in which certain approaches meet. That
of Buddhism is not very far off but its rationalism and abstraction seems more complex and
more varied to me…After having tasted some tea to hear his voice, the monk told me
about Eight knowledge’s (Bat Thuc) in the theory of Buddhist knowledge. He gave me in
Chinese ideogram the word "Giac" (awareness).According to him, the objective
perception concerning outside objects and especially of oneself is very difficult. One can
think of the wins over by Lao Tse: "He who knows is clear-sighted, he who wins over
oneself is strong". The "Giac" (awareness) must reach a degree of
maturation to the point of bringing the subject to the highest point of concentration,
which provokes explosion of knowledge, the ngo (prefect knowledge, awakening)…That is
the answer to your question. Thus, Thien, Gyo, Ngo or Satori are but one, but they vary
according to subjects. In each subject, there should be explosion of knowledge,
illumination, to have satori. After the stage of explosion of knowledge, the subject
changes entirely, it becomes another one, one can imagine.-I would like, I said, to ask
you to explain some more things.
The monk offers me a cigarette, excusing
himself of the humidity which has altered it.
-In 1963, I said, when I was in the army,
I learned that researcher Tran Dinh Ba had discovered a statue with a foot wearing a
mandarin’s boot, the other foot naked, at the Boc pagoda, near Dong Da in Hanoi. He
had identified it as Emperor Quang Trung, the victor of Tsing invaders in 1719.The monk
followed my remarks with an amusing smile. I continued:
-I conceive some doubt regarding this
subject. I have seen statues of this kind in other pagodas. Quang Trung would have been
worshipped like someone along the line of Buddhas?
-Your story, he replies, is known among
Buddhist circles in South Vietnam during the American occupation in Vietnam. The
interpretation is an error. The statue is that of the Indian monk Bodhidharma who went to
China at the time of Emperor Luong Vo De, in VIth century…In face of the lukewarm
reception by the Emperor of the Luong, he passed over to the Nguy to propagate Buddhist
faith. He was the founder of the Thien Sect (Dhyana, Zen). You probably know the two
Chinese verses which say how hard is the road to Awakening:Hoan Du, a well of science who
only knew the Buddhist way very late in his life,
At the end of quibbles, Emperor Luong Vo
had to recognize the truth of sutras.
These are examples of belated Satori.
-Better late than never, I commented.
We all laughed.
The monk carried on:
-Lets go back to the Boc pagoda. After
having terminated his apostolic mission, Bodhidharma died. According to legend, people saw
him return with a ceremonial boot on one foot, the other foot naked and another shoe
hanging on his friar stick. This detail characterizes very much the status of Bodhidharma
which figure on the altar of monk patriarchs. That is the case with the Boc pagoda statue.
The explanation makes me smile when I
think of fanciful explanations of some researchers who, carried away by their patriotic
ardor, believed that Quang Trung has become a democrat Buddha because one of the feet
wears no shoe.
I switched to another question:
-Venerable, I said, could I ask you what
this magic incantation means: "An ma ni bat minh hong" so valued by all Buddhist
sects including that of La To not to say of some followers of Yoga in the South of our
country?After having shown a kindly sign on the corners of the lips as if to feel ironical
at my greed for knowledge, the monk seriously replied:
-A Frenchman had spent twenty five years
of his life to work on the origin and meaning of this incantation formula. For this
purpose he had visited India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Buddhist countries of central Asia, even
the Himalayas. The fruit of his strenuous labour was a book of a thousand pages. 1000
copies were printed at the author’s charge and freely distributed to most important
libraries of the world. This formula has a content so rich that it would be impossible to
make a presentation of it this morning. In a word, it is destined to help us realize the
serenity of the soul, to relieve our heart and mindful from all trouble, to keep its
purity in a polluted social environment. Its fundamental meaning is: "He is in Me, Me
in Him"."Him" could designate the ideal, the transcendental God, the
Eternity, the Light, the Good…As for "Me", it could be the real Me or the
illusory Me, the pre-Me and the post-Me…The integration and disintegration of Him and
Me in different places and conjunctures becomes an extraordinary force, capable of
dominating permanent or unforeseen obstacles of the mind and matter. Also social or
natural obstacles. Leaving the philosophical ground, I approached another subject. I
learnt that the Venerable was born in Nam Hai village, Tien Hai district, Thai Binh
province and entered religion since childhood. He then left Thai Binh under the French
occupation in 1950 to stay in many pagodas of Hanoi and Saigon before going to learn
Buddhism during six years in India and visiting several countries.
-Have you met with Suzuki, I asked?
-Yes, I had the occasion of talking about
Thien with him. He was very old. He has passed away.
-Have you written or translated?
-I have made a dozen works by myself?
-Do you feel bored now that you lack books
for reading?
-No, the books are in nature, in the mind,
the cogitation. The Ancients talked about "books with characters" and
"books without characters". I now read these.After a conversation of two hours,
I left the Buddhist friar, full of respect and admiration for a son of my native province,
a province that had given birth to scholars like Le Quy Don and Ky Dong.
I learnt later that this monk was no one
else but Venerable Thich Quang Do, ex-General Secretary of the Dharma Institute of South
Vietnam.
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Source: Vietnamese Studies, No 2 - 1993,
Hanoi, Vietnam.
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Computer typesetting: Lydia Quang Nhu
Update: 01-11-2001
