Thich Hanh Thong, Uu Dam Temple, Marina, California
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 some novice monks, who didn’t have to join us for chanting; instead, they were playing soccer outside. I still remember trying to chant very quickly, so I could go play soccer with them.
I am vegetarian. In Buddhism we say that humans and animals have the same color of blood. Both humans and animals have a Buddha seed, so if we kill animals, we hurt the Buddha seed. By eating vegetarian we cultivate compassion, we don’t hurt the Buddha seed, and we also protect the environment.
I am a monk but I am also a normal human being. So occasionally my mind wants the opposite of what my reality is. Sometimes it can be difficult to control the mind. Whenever it feels difficult, I do sitting meditation, chanting, or some other positive activity at the temple. This usually helps. We all have bad seeds inside of our minds, and we need to work on purifying the mind day by day.
The Buddha said that if we get upset, we must not hold on to it overnight, because if we do, we will harm ourselves. So if I do get upset, I let it go quickly. When we get upset with others, they might not even know, they feel fine, but we are hurting ourselves. To control my anger, I breathe in and out mindfully, or I go to my room and just sit in the chair and breathe. I think chanting or sitting meditation is not helpful when we are angry. We need to calm ourselves first.
Meditation is the root of the tree. Without meditation a person cannot be stable. Meditation can be practiced by everyone. You do not have to be Buddhist. And there isn’t just sitting meditation, but we can practice meditation when walking, lying down, doing chores. We should not say that we don’t have time to practice meditation, it is a false argument, because we can do it in almost any situation. We can also read the Sutra and think about what the Buddha said. The Buddha gave us many teachings. He spent 45 years teaching, so we should study what he taught.
When we feel sad, we can put the sadness on the table in front of us and look at it. You don’t need to do anything about it, just look at it. What is the color? What shape does it have? Just observe it. When a guest comes to your house, and you watch the guest move around in your house without doing anything, the guest will eventually leave. Sadness doesn’t have roots, it’s like clouds or the waves in the ocean. If we look deep down into the ocean, there aren’t any waves. The sadness will leave again. That is the way I practice myself.