On VietNam : Hañh Triñh Làm Lañh ~ A Healing Journey

Xin Chao. Bạn khỏe không độc giả thân mến của tôi? Hello. How are you my Dear Readers? It’s been exactly one month since we last engaged, and although I’ve been away, I’m happy to report a triumphant return to Mỹ, aka America, after a thirteen-day healing journey to the otherworldly land of Viet Nam. From the mountains north of Hanoi surrounding the White Tay village of Mai Chau — pictured beautifully above — to the South China Sea beaches of the central coast, and on down to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), the former Saigon and before that Prey Nokor, Viet Nam is one endless, ancient Altar. Gifts were given, offerings offered up, Ceremonies performed, and the blessings back continue on and on and on.

Throughout the ages, Viet people have practiced powerful, enduring rituals, welcoming the Lunar New Year with solemn rites, traditional foods and wholesome fun. Tet is a super sacred time for the Vietnamese, as a massive migration occurs just prior, with millions of people returning to their home and village from around the country and the world. Historically, Tet is considered incomplete without fatty meat, picked cabbage and onions, red couplets, Neu poles for the home altar, firecrackers, and Chung cake, banh chung being the most authentic Vietnamese cake. Rich or poor, all Vietnamese prepare a feast that serves as a New Year’s Eve offering. This is a symbolic invitation for the ancestors to return home and also enjoy traditional dishes, after which their descendants can sense their prescence, feel their support and reap worldly blessings. The modern world may have simplified many traditional Lunar New Year activities, but Tet remains a spiritual constant for Vietnamese people past and present. I was a delighted participant.

I asked my ban, my good friend and the great guide Nguyēn Ba Phuc how to say, “A Healing Journey” in Vietnamese. He’s pretty quick with a joke or the answer to any query, so I was surprised he needed time to figure it out. “Hành Triñh, that is the journey,” he said with throaty confidence. “Hmmmm… the healing journey? Let me think.” We spent the last leg of the trip in the rural countryside amongst the gardens of the town of Cai Lây, celebrating The Year of the Cat at the home of the sweet-hearted Viet nông phu (farmer) Nguyēn Vān Cu, otherwise known as Mr. Haiku. “Làm Lañh, it’s Làm Lañh” Phuc later informed me, as we walked amongst the Water Apple and Dragon Fruit Trees on Haiku’s land “When the cut on the arm goes from being hard and painful to softening and coming together, that is Làm Lañh. When you quarrel with someone, you have the disagreement, but then you make a reconnection and you no longer bicker and are friends again — that is Làm Lañh.” Being blessed to celebrate the New Year, offering prayers and tobacco at the altar of Haiku’s Gai Dinh (family), we’re happy to bring home the spirit of and share stories of Làm Lañh. Thêm sớm (more soon) Chao Tam Biet.

On The New Year 2023 and Happy Holiday Spiritual Development Class 1269

Chuc Mung Nam Moi - Happy New Year 2023. We completed our annual cross-country jaunt to the Southwest, happy to be working at renewing our practice at my Teacher Shinzen’s Annual Year-End/Beginning Meditation Retreat. “The mysticism isn’t watered down and the science is still rigorous,” to quote Shin. “Four walls, a ceiling and a floor and not needing anything more. Take those away and you’re left with pure nature.” There’s a brief excerpt from my notes on Shinzen’s latest riffs on effortless spreading and collapsing, powerful unifications and deepening our understanding and sense of fulfillment in the space/time continuum, with more good news to come.

I’ve answered several queries right at the close of 2022 on who the teachers are at The Higher Haven. Drawing from Shinzen’s ample arsenal of meditative techniques, we combine his Unified Mindfulness approach with the way of Ceremonial purification, passed on by my Native American Teacher Phil. But there’s a very thin chance of crossing paths with Shinzen on our retreat grounds, unless you pursue his teachings and retreats directly —a move I always encourage our students to make. And although Phil’s influence is still strong and enduring, he departed for the World of the Spirit almost 20 years ago now. John Ashbrook’s guidance, however, is a different story.

To tell you a bit more about John, we’re inspired to double back to Detroit in December, where and when we attended his Holiday Spiritual Development Class 1269. A quarterly gathering that offers an insightful peak at the road ahead, 1269 touched on topics like A Simple Path to Maturity, The Price of Utopia, and Biblical Brilliance, John’s citing of the bright, spiritual poetry of Psalm 19, in which “The skies proclaim the work of God’s hands… in the heavens, he has pitched a tent for the sun, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course… his commands are radiant, giving light to the eyes.”

Drawing from his Mastery of Numerology, class attendees looked forward as we do every year to JA’s take on 2023, Will we choose to let go and heal? Will our freedom expand or be constricted by fear of the future? The numbers reveal that truth, spiritual guidance, and putting our full faith in the process of life on planet earth will be major themes. On Day Three of 2023, making way for a successful new year might call for attending our Winter Noble Silence Meditation Retreat in early March, or coming out and meeting John in May at our Spring Comprehensive Spiritual Development Retreat. With the hope of a fresh, clean slate and having our best year yet, we look forward to seeing you and practicing with you soon.

I Want to Wish You A Merry Christmas From The Bottom of My Heart

Having fun razzing Shinzen on his teaching the Tipi poles behind us symbolize “the place of abiding”.

Feliz Navidad Prospero Ano y Felicidad. Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart as well as the hardpan of the Sonoran Desert by way of Tucson, Arizona, USA. With so much to say, Hokahey, let’s start by taking in the shine of the dude to my left here, my teacher Shinzen Young, who I was so fortunate to spend Christmas Eve with after busting cross-country 1,900 miles for a very special purification Ceremony. As a friend and student of The Higher Haven put it, “it was good to put a great face to name often heard” around our classes and retreats.

As to names, If you’ve watched the video on our site, the same Tohono O’Odham Medicine Man named Rupert was our leader, guiding the Ceremony as well as the people in the way of native prayer. What a miraculous healing to re-receive and re-reradiate 23 years later. The surreally special part for me was sitting and singing after all these years with Shinzen and Rupert, who pointed out that “tonight the world over, people are honoring life’s true spiritual nature, giving thanks for Christ’s birth.” We even heard the origin story of Rupert’s name, one I’d always wondered about as its rare for a Papago native, inspired by the Priest who baptized him into the Catholic Church. All was calm, all was incredibly bright.

Having driven by way of Chicago, St. Louis, Amarillo, and Ruidoso, a cool, southern New Mexico Sierra Bianca mountain village in the days before, I reflected on how far I’d truly come, since that initial transformational skin shedding over twenty years back. And the layers and layers of skin shed since then, in one of Shinzen’s classic dharma talks describing the process as being “the very meaning of Spirit. Spirit in English from the Latin Spiritus from the Greek Pneuma from the Hebrew Ruach And it means Wind! The wind is powerful, but it’s unfixated and attenuated. It is There. But it is not there” Behold the bright, shining mug of the guy who I like to quote when he said, “At first, every retreat (or in this case Ceremony) changes you. And then every sit changes you. Until every single moment changes you” — informed and transformed by your true nature.

Struggling to put it all into words now, I realize how intensely personal my takeaways and so many of these experiences are. But I’m glad for this public post for a few reasons. Mostly that the vision I’ve held — for others to have the same chance I had, to heal, to become well — is a reality. This story also answers a frequently asked question on our web site, that being: ‘Who are the teachers at The Higher Haven?” A: mainly the guy on the left above, who lifted it all from the guy on the right, added the teachings of a Sicangu Lakota Heyoka, and then topped it all off with the singular Soul Psychology of Master Teacher John Ashbrook, who you’ll read about in the next post and who’ll visit again in May.

As to change, after a terrifically successful year of growth that at times felt a bit overwhelming, oh, I think a change (a change would do us good), so we’re taking our own healing medicine and time to renew, as we do every year at Shinzen’s year-end/beginning retreat, soon zoomed from his University of Arizona home. And we’re back on this blog with regularity, of course continuing with the testimonials we love and deeply appreciate, along with so many new stories to both take in and tell, and finally a bit of time to tell them. Toksha