When I was 5 or 6 years old, I started worrying about life and the end of the world, so I tried to find a way to survive. I decided that the solution is giving. I tried to give rice, money, or whatever I had to people in need.…
When I was 28 years old, my mother suddenly died in a horse riding accident. This was a very big loss for me, which turned my whole world completely upside down. I had a strong need for some guidance about what it means to be a human being, and what…
“I went to the temple to practice Buddhism when I was 13 years old. I really enjoyed listening to the monks chanting. The sound touched me deeply. When I am chanting, the Buddha’s teachings enter me, and when I prostrate to the Buddha, I feel very close to him. I…
“My whole life has been a spiritual journey, trying to find answers. It started when I was about 6 years old. I was riding a horse in our back pasture when I decided to get off and lay down in the grass a little bit. Looking up at the sky…
When I was a child, about 1 year old, my mother passed away and my father left us. At that time, I lived in Central Vietnam. I lived with one sister, one brother and my cousin, who raised me all the way through elementary and middle school. There was a…
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…
“I was born in Mongolia in 1967. Because Mongolia is a Buddhist country, we often went to the Buddhist temple when I was a child. Later, I decided that I would like to become a monk, but first I had to study the Tibetan language for two years. When I…
