Tale of Kiều

Thich Nhat Hanh — Winter Retreat 2013–2014 [Assembly of Stars Meditation Hall, Lower Hamlet], Plum Village · 30 January 2014 (Tết eve) · talk 22 of 24

Illuminates: roots and ancestors — “trees have roots, rivers have sources, people have ancestors” (the ancestral altar; the Rose Ceremony of 1962) · the two worlds are one (this world & “the nine sources” — no separation) read through matter ↔ energy and no-birth-no-death (the cloud never dies) · the Vietnamese mother-goddess mediumship · a long retelling of Nguyễn Du’s Tale of Kiều as a teaching on the present moment and “nobody entangles us — we tie ourselves down” · the third mindfulness training (love is not sexual desire) · the reunion that is “too beautiful to seem real.”

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Dear Sangha, it is 3:00 in France, but only two hours and forty-five minutes until the new year in Vietnam, where many are listening to this talk live online. We are lucky to sit together — this is the last sitting of the old year as a spiritual family, in brotherhood and sisterhood, and an occasion to connect with our ancestors. Trees have their roots, rivers have their sources, and people have their ancestors; our ancestors are present in every cell of our body. A person cut off from her ancestors cannot be happy — as a tree without roots cannot survive. The Lunar New Year is a chance to come in touch with our roots.

The two worlds — and why they are one

In Asian countries there is a widespread belief in two worlds: the world where we live, and “the other world” where the deceased dwell — called also “the nine sources,” the “golden spring.” People long to connect with that world, to commune with their parents and ancestors. In Vietnam, every family, however poor, keeps an ancestral altar — a vase of flowers, a photograph of the departed — and for centuries we have lit incense there: it takes only a minute, but in that minute the mind turns toward the ancestors, and the connection is strengthened. Once, lecturing at an institute of Marxist philosophers and scientists in Vietnam, I told them that lighting incense before the ancestral altar is not superstition but a very scientific act: as we clean the altar and light the incense, the mind is directed to our ancestors, and we strengthen our roots — and our health depends on whether we have roots. Even burning paper clothes and paper money for the departed — which looks like superstition on the surface — carries, in its depths, a beautiful love: we remember and love those who have passed away, and this is how we express our loyalty and our missing of them. If we lose this capacity, we suffer.

In 1962 we held the first Rose Ceremony [Bông Hồng Cài Áo], when young students, for the first time in Vietnam, wore a rose to honor their parents — a red rose if a parent is living, a white rose if one has died. It too looked like sentiment, but it was not; over half a century it has grown alongside the older customs. I told the officials at that communist institute: as long as you have not found a better way for people to honor their ancestors, do not abolish this one. And in time they offered incense openly, no longer afraid.

In Plum Village, studying the Buddhist teaching deeply, we discover that these two worlds are just one — there is a stream, but no separation. We can touch our ancestors and loved ones in this very moment, without going to “the other side.” Science is on the same path. People once thought matter and energy were two separate things; now they know matter can become energy and energy matter — the law of conservation of energy, no boundary between them. So too electricity and magnetism are one; sound and space (space holds the molecules that, stimulated, make sound); heat and matter (the moving molecules of matter make heat — the microwave). For centuries we thought heaven and earth were two separate realms — until the law of universal gravity showed both under one law: heaven is in the earth, the earth in the heaven, no boundary. When we look deeply into this world, we see the other world is right here.

Have you ever looked at a cloud? A cloud may be pink, white, black; it becomes rain, and we say the cloud has “died” because it is no longer in the sky. But the cloud never dies — it only turns to rain, to snow, to ice, going in a cycle. So we can speak to it: Dear cloud, I know you cannot die; tomorrow, when you are no longer there, I will not lament, for I can find you in new forms. This is looking deeply — and science knows it too: the law of no-birth and no-death of matter and energy (the first law of thermodynamics). It is what the Heart Sutra says: the nature of things is no birth, no death, no coming, no going.

The mother-goddesses

Because we love those who have passed, in Vietnam we have sought every way to connect with them — including mediumship (lên đồng): a person purifies herself for days, eats vegetarian, and in a trance is “possessed” so that a spirit may dance, sing, and offer guidance. We also worship two mother-goddesses — the Mother of the Forest (who appears in a green robe) and the Mother of Water (in a white robe) — for without the forest and the river we cannot live. [Sister Chân Không] once shared that her family held such a ceremony, inviting her father to return, and she asked him where he had hidden her ID cards — and she found them. Seen from outside it looks superstitious, but there is beauty and ethics in it, so we should not readily judge it. (In Plum Village, in the first three days of Tết, we draw an oracle — guidance through verses — and you may pick one.)

The Tale of Kiều

Today we speak of happiness — through Nguyễn Du’s Tale of Kiều.

Kiều had been ransomed out of a brothel by Thúc Sinh, who loved her and used all his money to free her; they lived happily half a year. Knowing they could not keep the secret from his first wife, Kiều urged him to go home and tell her honestly — otherwise she could not feel at peace. But the wife, Hoạn Thư, already knew, and had Kiều kidnapped by night, the house burned and a corpse left so that all would believe Kiều dead. Thúc Sinh, returning to a silent wife, did not dare tell the truth; and when he came back for Kiều she was gone, an altar set up for her. So Kiều had “died” once — and we can imagine his suffering.

Hearing Kiều was dead, Thúc Sinh suffered enormously; he longed to ask her one question — why did you leave without a word? (As among us: sometimes our loved ones pass without a word.) He heard of a man with supernatural power who could cross to the other world and find her spirit. With great effort the psychic was invited; he bowed, touched the earth, “went to the other side,” and returned saying: I searched everywhere on the other side but could not find her — because this person is not yet dead. She has heavy karma and many debts, and will not die easily; within a year you will find her. The family did not believe him, and kept worshipping her for the forty-nine days.

Kiều’s second “death” was on the Tiền Đường River. Forced to wed a local governor after the fall of Từ Hải, she could not bear it and threw herself into the river to keep her loyalty. (Here is the heart of it: we are still alive — that is a miracle; breathing in, I know I am still alive.) Earlier, married to the hero Từ Hải, Kiều had urged him to surrender rather than wage war, to spare the people — she wrote ten poems on this; her aim was not to harm him but to lessen suffering. But the men who took his surrender killed him without mercy — their injustice, not her fault — and grieving, she jumped into the Tiền Đường.

Only one person knew Kiều had not died: the nun Giác Duyên. Earlier, Giác Duyên had asked a Taoist adept [Tam Hợp] about Kiều’s fate, and received a profound account: Kiều is beautiful and intelligent, but unlucky, lacking fortunate conditions; and because she is so passionate, she entangles herself. So it was she who tied herself into all this suffering — nobody entangles us; it is we who look for the rope to bind ourselves. In places of freedom — a temple, Plum Village, where one can walk freely and calmly — she could not be at peace, but walked as if chased by a ghost; demons and devils seemed to guide her path — and those demons and devils are our anger, our frustration. To have peace, therefore, we need to practice — mindful breathing, mindful steps — to calm our suffering and touch the wonders of life. Yet the Taoist adept added: do not worry — despite all her suffering she still has many wholesome roots transmitted by her ancestors, good seeds by which she can come through. Indeed Kiều kept her integrity: sold into the brothel, she refused to let it destroy her; love is not sexual desire — this is the third mindfulness training, very clear in Plum Village. And she had sold her body for a thousand pieces of silver to free her father from prison — fulfilling her duty as a daughter, a virtue that lightened her karma.

The adept foretold that Kiều would attempt suicide on the Tiền Đường, and told Giác Duyên: if you wish to continue your dharma-friendship with her, go to that river in five years’ time, and you will have a chance to save her. So Giác Duyên built a hut by the river and paid two fishermen — not to catch fish (as a nun she would release any fish), but to watch for Kiều’s body. When Kiều, on the boat, realized she was on the Tiền Đường — the very river a woman, Đạm Tiên, had named in her dream years before — she wrote a poem and leapt in; the fishermen drew her out and brought her to the hut, where Giác Duyên shaved her head, and she became a nun again, the two living together.

Months later, the family of Kim Trọng — Kiều’s first love, now married to her younger sister — came near, the war over, searching for Kiều. They learned the full story: that Từ Hải was killed, that Kiều received no reward but was forced to marry the governor and threw herself into the river. They held a requiem for her. By coincidence Giác Duyên passed the ceremony, saw Kiều’s name on the banner, and asked: She is still alive — why do you weep for her? (So a second time they had mourned the “dead” — while she lived. Breathing in, I know I am still alive; to be alive is a miracle.) Giác Duyên revealed she had saved Kiều and that they lived in a hut two kilometers away; the family abandoned the offerings and followed her along the river, through the reeds, to the temple. Giác Duyên called Kiều from the front yard, and Kiều came out and saw her whole family — her parents well, her brother and sister, and Kim Trọng, her first love. This was not a dream. For fifteen years she had dreamed every night of her family and felt despair — and now they stood before her. The present moment is so beautiful that we think it cannot be real.

The most precious moment

But we do not treasure the truth that we are alive. We let affliction, anger, craving, and despair take us over; we cannot live the present moment, always regretting the past and worrying for the future — postponing happiness to a diploma, a marriage, a house, a career, a “when” that never comes, sacrificing the present, which is the only place life can be touched. With one in-breath we can return to our body — the most precious gift of our ancestors. Do we cherish this body, or punish it? If we punish it, we punish our parents and ancestors, who are present in it. Breathing in, I know I have a body, and I carry my parents and ancestors in it. The past has gone, the future has not arrived; life is only in the here and now.

And there is the first night Kiều and Kim Trọng met, before all her wandering. When her family went to her mother’s relatives, Kiều pleaded a headache to stay home, then slipped over the fence to spend the day with Kim Trọng — an intense day, for they had waited so long. Returning at dusk to find her family not yet back, she went again; the moon had risen, and her footsteps on the pebbles woke Kim Trọng, who, half asleep, looked up and could not believe she was real: Is it true that you have returned, or is it only an image in my dream? And Kiều’s reply carries the insight of the poet: in this moment we see each other; if not for today, whatever happens becomes merely a dream. So with our beloved — our parents, our partner: if they are too easy to be with, we do not take the time to look at their face, morning or evening — and that is not civilization, only busyness. The secret is that today we have time to see one another’s face, and to see how precious that presence is. If we cannot do it today, tomorrow it becomes a dream. So the poet calls us back to the present, to recognize what is precious — that we are in “heaven” right now: our body, our bright eyes that still see the moon and stars, our good legs that can climb the mountain and walk; our beloved still here, whom we can call and tell the first mantra, “I am here for you.”

(The poet, Nguyễn Du, gives a poor dharma talk when he tries to preach — but in his poetry the dharma is profound.) When Giác Duyên saved Kiều and the two practiced together, they had many happy moments, and the poet wrote wondrous lines: the family living together, the breeze through the house in the morning, mother and father present, all aware they are still together — one family, living together, is a great happiness. The moon and the breeze on their cheeks; simple meals — for a simple life leaves us time to take care of and love one another, while craving much money and much spending leaves no time to look at each other’s face. The rising tide in the afternoon, the clouds before the house. Kiều was happy practicing with her older sister, yet missed her family; and Giác Duyên promised to arrange a journey north to find them — not yet knowing the family had already been discovered by the shore.

The ten poems

Yesterday Thay sat to translate the ten poems Kiều wrote after fifteen years’ separation from her beloved. Recalling the first time she met Kim Trọng, she had known little of life — not what it is to live or to die — only that she was a young woman, and that her passion was a woman’s love, a human condition. In their first meeting she tried to please him in everything — writing a poem on the painting on his wall, playing the lute when he asked — but when he asked for a sexual relationship, she refused, saying that to do so would destroy their love and their mutual respect, and the love could not last. (Only weeks ago a prime minister in India said that sexual relations before marriage are wrong — in Asia this is a serious matter of ethics.) Love is not sexual desire. The poems trace her vow to her beloved; her selling of her body to save her father (two words in the original both mean “body” — her bond to her father, and her own body); the abuse by Mã Giám Sinh, when she wished to die but could not, for her death would have failed her duty to free her father; the violence of the brothel; the urging of Từ Hải to surrender, and his unjust killing, after which she leapt into the Tiền Đường to keep her integrity — and, by the Buddha’s compassion, survived. And the last: today, meeting you again, I have tasted life and death — Kiều is now wiser than Kim Trọng, having passed through so much. That night she could teach him: before, she had complied with his every request, all but one — and that refusal, that integrity, is what makes her, in his words, not an ordinary woman but a heroine — whom he had sought so long, loving her not for desire but for her depth. When Kim Trọng accepted her wish not to have a sexual relationship, Kiều stood, adjusted her robe, and touched the earth before him, saying: you are truly my soulmate.

We have about an hour before the new year — let us rest before we return for the ceremony.