To a Stranger.

I received your letter several days ago and have read it over and over again, yet I still have not felt ready to reply. The reason is that there is simply too much I want to say and discuss, and so many thoughts I wish to share with you. From what you wrote in your letter, your life seems to have been made up of one long succession of sorrowful days. If I had the time, I could probably write an entire thick novel about your life and call it A Life of Misfortune. Yet perhaps I would write it only for myself to read, because those pages would be filled with so much sadness that they might evoke deep sympathy in many people. That is something I don't really want. Bringing joy to others is a wonderful thing, but spreading sorrow to others, in one way or another, is something we should avoid.

But there is one thing I would like to tell you. You know, the suffering that each of us personally experiences in life is often the most valuable lesson of all. Through it, we can truly understand the suffering that the Buddha taught about, and from this we discover insights that no book could ever teach us. We practise in order to understand suffering. Is suffering not the First Noble Truth that the Buddha wanted us to see clearly? When we truly understand suffering, we are better able to accept sorrow and disappointment when they arise. So please allow yourself to become still and calm, and learn from the things in life that have not gone according to your wishes so that you may grow. We study the scriptures and listen to the teachings of those who came before us, but without personal experience, such knowledge can remain dry, rigid, and lifeless. These teachings become truly meaningful only when we experience them through real life, do they not? Studying the scriptures certainly has its value, but it is even more important to study our own mind, our relationships, and the way the mind reacts to favourable and unfavourable circumstances. That kind of study is far more valuable.

You lost your mother when you were ten, and not long afterward, you also lost your father. During those years of wandering from one place to another, staying wherever someone would take you in, the little girl you once were had to endure beatings, bullying, contemptuous looks, harsh words, cruelty, and coldness, both from relatives and from people who shared no blood relation with you. When you reached young adulthood, there were people who showed an interest in you, but you had not yet dared to make a promise to anyone. Then another storm entered your life. An accident caused by a moment of carelessness left you unable to walk as normally as other women. Believing yourself unfortunate, you accepted marriage to a man you did not love, simply because you hoped to have a child who might become your support in old age.

That unhappy marriage lasted thirty years, with fewer smiles than tears. The responsibilities of being a wife and a mother became burdens that were always weighing on your heart. You did not love your husband, yet you were grateful to him for giving you the place of a wife and a home that you could call a family. Your greatest happiness was the two children you carried and gave birth to. Then your eldest daughter married and followed her husband to a distant country in the West. Quietly, you supported her choice, though a part of you felt sad at losing someone you had hoped might remain by your side as you grew older. Still, perhaps such was the bond between you, and there was nothing else to do but accept it. When your second child entered university, you continued carrying the financial burden of the family and worked to support his education. Unexpectedly, during his second year, he came home and asked for your permission to marry. After so many years devoted to his education, it seemed that everything might now be abandoned, while both his future and that of the family became uncertain.

You were deeply saddened and wanted to let go of everything and find somewhere peaceful to rest. You went to a temple to volunteer and practise for a period of time. At first, everything went well as you found refuge in the Dharma[, but gradually, other forms of distress began to arise. You felt that there were moments when others seemed to look down on you because of your physical disability, and thoughts about your life, your husband, your children, and the frictions of daily living once again brought tears that seemed impossible to stop. Dear sister, perhaps some of these things exist only in your own thoughts. It may not necessarily be true that others see you in that way. And even if someone truly does look down on you, their judgment is still nothing more than a passing breeze in life. Let them have the freedom to look at you and judge you. Let them indulge their habit of examining others if they wish. Their careless words and passing glances have nothing to do with you and need not affect you. Let people say what they want. Do not spend too much energy worrying about what others think. What matters is how you yourself choose to live. When the mind is at peace, the world around us becomes less turbulent.

Life naturally contains many colours. There is joy and sorrow, happiness and suffering. Perhaps sorrow itself can also become a material from which life gains greater depth and meaning. My Master once said, “From the mud, the lotus blooms. From hardship, a person of strength emerges.” You have already risen through so many difficulties, so why not allow yourself, just once, to bloom and offer your fragrance to the world? Treat others with kindness, meet people with a joyful heart, abide in the Dharma, and apply what you have learned to everyday life. The mind attracts what corresponds to it. I truly believe that when we sincerely care for others, eventually that kindness will be returned. It may simply take time. A sheet of paper or a blade of straw may fall from a great height and remain intact, but a ceramic bowl or porcelain cup will shatter when it hits the ground. In the same way, when we learn to see our ego as something small and light, we are less easily hurt when others look down on us.

Dear sister, there is really only one thing I want to tell you: please let go. Whether the past was joyful or painful, it has already passed. No matter how much we may wish otherwise, we cannot change it. You may not believe me when I say this, but human beings often have a strange tendency to keep chewing over their own sorrow. When something unfortunate happens, when life doesn't go as we wish, or when pain suddenly enters our lives, we quietly place it in a hidden corner of the mind. Then one day, when a new sadness comes, and in a life filled with suffering such things are difficult to avoid, we withdraw into ourselves once again and begin searching through the private storehouse of our memories. What we look for is not happiness that might ease our present suffering, but the wounds, losses, and sorrows of the past.

In a certain sense, we seem more inclined to preserve sorrow than joy. We torment ourselves with memories of unhappiness rather than simply experiencing what is happening in the present moment. Think about it. Whenever something makes you sad, do you begin thinking about your entire life and then say to yourself with certainty, “Why is my life so miserable? There is nothing joyful in it at all.” Please do not continue this habit. I know it is difficult because the mind is not easy to train, but try to cultivate a life of mindfulness. Mindfulness means knowing what is happening in the present moment, without constantly returning to the past or worrying about the future. Try to live a little more positively. Learn to notice what is good, beautiful, and joyful in life instead of constantly focusing on everything that is wrong, painful, or imperfect.

I once learned a teaching that I find very meaningful: “We should understand that life contains suffering. We should see its imperfections, uncertainties, and unsatisfactoriness so that we may be diligent in our practice. But we must also recognize the joy and happiness that exist along the path of practice so that we can keep the flame alive within our hearts. To see both suffering and joy, each in proper measure, is the Middle Way.”

You told me, “My younger son does not love me at all. How can he be so indifferent? I only want what is best for him. I want him to study and become a decent person, so I have tried everything. I have advised him, taught him, and corrected him in every way I know. There was even a time when, despite being looked down upon by others, I went to the city to work as a nanny so that he would have money for school. Every day I bent over my work until one or two o'clock in the morning, all for his sake. How can he not love his mother? How can he not think about all the hardship and sacrifice and study seriously?”

Dear sister, our ancestors used to say, “Parents give birth to a child, but Heaven gives the child his nature.” That is the worldly way of expressing it. As someone who studies the Buddha’s teachings, I might put it slightly differently: “Parents give birth to a child, but karmic conditions play a decisive role in shaping that person’s character and destiny.” Why is it that twins, born at the same time, to the same parents, living in the same circumstances and receiving the same education, can still be so different? One may be obedient while the other is difficult to teach. One may be gentle while the other is hot-tempered. Later in life, one may succeed while the other struggles. From a Buddhist perspective, this can be understood through the individual accumulation of karma from one life to another. Teaching one’s children is the responsibility and duty of parents, but whether a child eventually becomes a good person or goes astray also depends upon that child’s own actions and choices. We want our children to do well, but simply worrying about everything for them does not mean that they will live according to our wishes. To have faith in karma and its results is also to understand that each person has different karmic conditions. Sometimes endlessly helping another person is not as beneficial as allowing their own causes, conditions, merits, and karma to unfold. We love our children and want to help them, but if they themselves make no effort, remain lazy, or stubbornly refuse to change, then our help may eventually become meaningless. And our sorrow will not improve the situation either.

When we understand this, perhaps we can allow our hearts to become a little lighter. We can still care, but we should try not to become too attached. I know how difficult that is because a mother’s love for her child is sacred and profound. Yet such love can also contain a great deal of attachment. Here I am reminded of the Buddha’s teaching on the roots of the endless cycle of birth and death: with craving as condition comes clinging, with clinging as condition comes becoming, with becoming as condition comes birth, and with birth come aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. Much of the suffering in life arises from liking and disliking. Because we like and dislike, we become attached. That attachment then becomes a condition for continued becoming, and from there the suffering of life unfolds. Do you know what the Buddha taught? “Sons are mine, wealth is mine, thus the fool is troubled. Yet even oneself does not belong to oneself. How then could sons or wealth truly belong to us?” When we lose property such as a house, land, or money, we suffer. When our children do not listen to us, we suffer. When we see our children struggling endlessly to make a living, we worry. We love them so deeply that this love itself can become another source of suffering. Yet the suffering arises within us, not solely from what happens outside. Children and parents meet each other for only a few brief decades in this lifetime. Compared with the immeasurable flow of reincarnation, that period is like a grain of sand beside the whole earth. According to a traditional Buddhist teaching, children come to their parents through four kinds of karmic relationships: to collect a debt, to repay a debt, to receive kindness, or to return kindness. Yet countless fathers and mothers, because of attachment to their children, create all kinds of unwholesome karma. That is one of the great tragedies played out again and again in human life.

So far, I have only touched briefly on two matters: “dwelling on sorrow” and “loving one’s children wisely.” Yet this letter has already become very long. Perhaps we will meet again before too long. There are many other things I would like to talk about with you. How can you live in this complicated and troublesome world without allowing yourself to become exhausted by it? When we constantly see ourselves as inferior to others, could that perhaps be another hidden face of conceit? What lessons can we learn from a life filled with suffering? What should a disciple of the Buddha do when facing oneself honestly? For now, let me say goodbye.

Tuệ Đăng

Translated into English by Nguyen Thi Mai Thao