“I don’t want to remember Vietnam at all. I am a victim of the communists. A lot of bad things happened. I try to forget it, but I can’t. In my life in the United States, going to the temple, reading and chanting the sutras, talking and listening to the…
“Already in High School I thought about Buddhism, not because I questioned the validity of my faith, because I grew up Catholic, I just didn’t believe there was anything wrong with other religions. When I was growing up, my parents separated and got a divorce. It wasn’t an easy divorce,…
“I am a chaplain at a psychiatric center at an acute care facility, where people are mostly involuntarily, because they have tried to harm themselves or sometimes others. So I often meet people in a time of near death, brought from the ER. They are facing the consequences of…
“I had experienced Buddhism while I was in the Navy. I had a girlfriend in Japan and went to some temples there. It always stayed in the back of my mind. When I was a youth, there was no religion in my house, and when I got married, my wife…
“Cooking is my favorite work. I like it when people eat my food. That is my life. I cook at the temple, but I also like to cook outside of the temple. Cooking is my chanting, I don’t get a chance to go up to the Dharma hall much, I…
