“I was raised in a Catholic family, but over the years I became disenchanted. It just didn’t fit with me. I was very cynical for years, anti established religion and any religious institution. Then I came to meditation through my Aikido teacher. I was aware enough to realize that I…
“I went to the temple to practice Buddhism when I was 13 years old. I really enjoyed listening to the monks chanting. The sound touched me deeply. When I am chanting, the Buddha’s teachings enter me, and when I prostrate to the Buddha, I feel very close to him. I…
“Becoming a practitioner was a gradual process for me. I first learned about Buddhism in the youth group at Kim Quang temple, attending a lot of Dharma classes. Later I started seeing those things manifest in my own life. For example, when I was a young boy, I used to…
When I was a child, about 1 year old, my mother passed away and my father left us. At that time, I lived in Central Vietnam. I lived with one sister, one brother and my cousin, who raised me all the way through elementary and middle school. There was a…
I became a novice monk in Saigon when I was 13 years old. Every morning I woke up at 3:30 AM to invite the sound of the bell, and later in the afternoon I had to go chanting. I lived at a temple with many monks, so there were always…
“I was born and raised in a temple family, which means my father is also a Buddhist minister, and so was my grandfather. In fact, my father is the 16th generation of resident ministers in my family. This is a Japanese tradition, the son takes over the father’s place. My…
“What brought me to Buddhist practice was essentially emotional and psychological pain. Nothing worked, nothing could alleviate it, and nothing would make it subside. It just felt awful. I felt like I was hurting inside, my heart hurt, and I felt empty. There were multiple days when I felt like…
