Finding out

Mr Hải was receiving some people from a research institute, and other meditation friends sat listening too. A staff member of the institute said:

• Mr Hải, we have heard of the reputation of this meditation hall for a long time. Many people who come here to practise settling the mind gain benefits to their health and psychology. Their lives become more peaceful and joyful and their minds clearer. Could you tell us what circumstances led you to open this meditation hall yourself, and which meditation master taught you this technique?

Mr Hải replied:

• In the past I worked in real estate, with the aim of building many houses for low-income people while still ensuring that the houses were decent and well made. Working relentlessly, I became stressed; the business problem was too hard. After I once impulsively went to a distant rural area, I met a friend who taught a way of settling the mind. Seeing that this practice was beneficial to everyone, and having land of my own, I built a meditation hall where anyone is free to come and go and practise.
  I'm sorry to say frankly that I don't like what's called "studying and researching" and so on. The reason is that whatever someone who doesn't practise says will be wrong. Only when you come here and practise settling the mind will you understand what settling the mind is. Then whatever you write about meditative concentration will be more accurate. But if you stand out on the street, look into other people's houses and then theorise this, comment on that, criticise the other, none of it will be right. Find out by coming to practise settling the mind; don't hear about it and then write it up as an empty theoretical study.

The people from the institute were a little taken aback, then after a moment asked:

• Yes, Mr Hải, we hope to arrange time to come here and practise for real so as to understand more deeply. While we're here, would you kindly tell us which religion this practice of settling the mind comes from?
  Mr Hải replied:
• My friend Minh, who taught me this practice, said that it belongs to all humankind and not to any one religion.

A little later the guests left, and the meditation friends gathered round to talk with Mr Hải. Suddenly Mr Hải looked at the young man sitting shyly in the corner and asked:

• Is this your first time here? What's your name?
• Yes. My name is Đằng. A man called Minh told me to come here and ask Mr Hải to teach me to settle the mind. He said he was a friend of Mr Hải.
  Everyone cried out in astonishment. For the first time Mr Hải lost his composure and asked:
• Where did you meet Mr Minh?
  Đằng honestly told how he had been depressed, had jumped into the river to kill himself, and had been saved and advised by Mr Minh. Two streams of tears welled in Mr Hải's eyes. Everyone was silent, moved. Mr Hải said:
• So Minh has never been far from us.
  Đằng added:
• The next day I went back to the riverbank to look for the late-night stall where Mr Minh had taken me to eat phở and drink milk, and it was nowhere to be found. I asked people, and nobody knew of any such late-night stall there.
  Mr Hải said:
• He played the same trick on me. He clearly had a house on the hill where he lived and received me. Yet the last time I went to find it, there was nothing there. The local people said they had never seen that house. He's truly a dragon: you see the head but never the tail. 🛸

We often use academic, theoretical research methods to understand the spiritual wisdom of meditation masters. It's truly measuring a gentleman's heart by a petty person's. How could language express a state without words or thoughts?
Someone once lamented:
"The words of the world are too poor;
how can they express the high heavens?"

To understand meditation masters, we cannot rely on papers or conferences; it must be real, laborious practice of settling the mind. Only when we reach a profound level of stillness of mind will we understand, in part, the greatness of the saints.