Healing: A Woman's Journey from Doctor to Nun

These attachments were the sharp blades that caused my bleeding. With each thought and notion that I was able to let go of, I felt freer. Liberation was becoming concrete and experiential moment by moment and day by day. One does not need to be an old guru, a wise person, or a corpse in order to taste liberation.

“This space is very important. This is the ground, where everything will grow—the flowers, the grass, and the animals. You need to accept that this space exists inside you. Do not run away from it. Sometimes when the suffering is not in balance with the joy, you may feel this space as a vacuum. You may feel lifeless. Be there to embrace it.” Thus,

the moment I “come back to myself” is the moment I am aware of my body, mind, feelings, and sensations but I am neither swept away, ignorant, indifferent, nor repulsed by them.

Yet I feel more peaceful and fulfilled than ever before. It is because I have learned the practice of stopping, of non-wishing and non-seeking.

Peace, happiness, and freedom are the delicious fruits of the Beginner’s Mind, and they are also the essential nutriments for the Beginner’s Mind. Thus, if we fail to nourish peace, happiness, and freedom in ourselves daily, our Mind of Love can become eroded. Status, power, stress, frustration, worry, hope, aspiration, expectation, and disappointm

“If you have pain or discomfort in your body, notice it, embrace it. Breathe in, and know this pain is not ‘you.’ We can be there for the pain without becoming the pain.

Suffering has no beginning and no end. It has no single cause. It has been transmitted to us from our ancestors, from our parents, from our environment, and from the way in which we have lived these past many years. Peace, stability, and freedom also work in the same way. They have no beginning, no end, and no single cause. We can choose the path o

Dang Nghiem;

had slowly begun to embrace my sadness without siding with it or thinking that it is permanent.