Healing: A Woman's Journey from Doctor to Nun

I had to patiently hold on to my breaths and footsteps; they are the reins that can restrain and keep my thinking at a steady and reasonable speed, so that I can recognize the wrong views and wrong thinking that are arising in my mind.

I saw for the first time that my mind was actually the main perpetrator of all the havoc in my life.

Our sensory perceptions are like a trail. When we pass by once, a faint line is laid down. It can be overgrown if we don’t ever use it again. However, if we travel it very often, it will become a trail, a road, a street, and then a freeway. When we experience an emotion again and again, it becomes habitual and habituated. When the neural pathway is

impermanent. Yet I hold on to the illusion of permanence, and when a change takes place, I suffer. I suffer because I take for granted what is, and I want to control what is not.

When sadness or restlessness arises, I can sit still or lie down and remain still in order to be present for it. I recognize the old tendency to grab a book or to look for someone to talk to, in order to fill up that void or to distract the buzzing of my mind. But I practice to be still because I no longer wish to run away from myself.

“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,

“Mother, I am walking for you. I know that in your life, you were never able to take a peaceful step.”

Dang Nghiem;

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.