What I learned from a Young Buddhist Nun in Vietnam

A young Buddhist nun in Hanoi shares her ideas

What wisdom can a 20-year-old Buddhist nun impart to a group of people more than three times her age? This young Vietnamese woman, who at the age of 15 joined a nunnery  in the Imperial city of Hue, had us almost in tears by the end of an hour-long conversation.  First we asked her all kinds of questions:
Why did she decide to become a Buddhist nun? (She was inspired by the way an older brother who had become a monk had changed.)
What is her day like? (She gets up at 3:30 AM, brushes her teeth, chants for 45 minutes, does some cleaning,  has breakfast at 6, goes  to school, returns, more cleaning, more chanting and bed by 9:30 PM.)
 What does she find most rewarding and most difficult? (Finding inner peace is the most rewarding--and also the most difficult.)
And then she asked us a question: What was the greatest difficulty we had experienced  in our lives? Some answered "raising children." Others said "balancing work and family." But most said "losing a loved one."
To which she responded that "Yes, that is the most difficult. You are sad but we meet people and then they leave, just as we are meeting today. And we must let them go though they stay in our hearts. That is Buddhism. We believe the one who has left us also feels our pain and we must find peace so that they may find peace. (And maybe be reincarnated.)
Except for the reincarnated part, her words touched home.

On Taking All the Forks

     Huaca de la Luna, a Moche temple

In an eco-restaurant in northern Peru, a dozen people lunch outside at a long table and share their travel stories: Halong Bay, Vietnam after our military left; Zimbabwe before the landowners fled; Xian, China after the long-buried warriors emerged; the castles of Ireland; a boat trip to Antarctica; lions in Tanzania; the grimness of the Ganges,
Now we have ventured to this land where the Moche people lived centuries before the Inca came and conquered and whose story and magnificent pottery and gold and silver  craftsmanship are only now being unearthed.
The travel-telling happened yesterday and I was astounded. For one woman, this trip is her 23d with Overseas Adventure Travel. Others had wandered equally widely, picking tours by time and place. As I look around the table, I wonder how these sturdy folks looked in their youths, before divorces, deaths of spouses, gray hair and grandchildren (now taken on trips as well). Despite some bad knees and hips, thkis gang would  rather travel than do almost anything else. For many, travel is the single most important purchase after food and rent. This is not a group that dresses chic or has had "work done" (though one 73-year-old climbed  onto a hotel fire escape, then walked out on a roof to retrieve his new and newly washed  Joseph A Banks briefs that had fallen three stories). They are people who tread lightly across the planet, packing for two weeks in one carry-on and a backpack, Who never keep anyone else waiting.  Who think nothing of spending weeks in one pair of walking shoes.
I feel as if I have met the  me of my future -- a confirmation that I can continue to do what I love even as the years creep up.  When  I get to a fork in the road, as Yogi Berra advised, I will take it.

Ps if you go to see the Moche sites in Trujillo and Chiclaya, Peru  --such as the Huaca de la Luna and Sipan --hire Miguel Alvan as your guide. He's terrific!!
miguel_got@hotmail.com

In Lima, I have only praise for guide Dante Minaya 

Daminaya@hotmail.com