Two Teachers

For two of my teachers

I give thanks:

Cao Ngoc Phuong

Khuu Vinh Ngoc Thuy

I first read Phuong’s autobiography

Learning True Love:

How I Learned & Practiced Social Change in Vietnam

When it was published in 1993

I assigned it for years

In a Social Justice course at SLU

The social work majors appreciated her

Phuong was a social worker without an MSW

I wanted the students

To become acquainted with lines like these

“A living example often can have a stronger effect

Than thousands of theoretical teachings and rules”

“What really inspired me was working

In the slums...

Most of the time I went alone

I never felt tired doing this work

It was a joy

To be able to help”

“My dear brother is gone

But his spirit lives on in my heart

And in the hearts of so many of his friends

Who continue his work

From time to time I still say ‘hello’ to him

When I see myself behaving the way he did

It seems that a part of him

Has been reborn in me”

In 2007 a new edition of Learning True Love appeared

Updating her and Thich Nhat Hanh’s return to Vietnam

After four decades of living in exile

Mostly in France

I had Thuy in class

In spring 2006

We meet up several times a year

She often brings me gifts

(Much art hanging on the walls in my home

I received from Thuy)

She has long touched me

With her calm and courage and kindness

She will deny it (predictably)

She will tell me to ask her sister for an alternative point of view

We went out to celebrate her graduation from SLU

She didn’t see why I made such a big deal about it

It was a big deal

Coming to this country at the age of 8

Graduating at 22

With a 3.7

Setting an example

For her younger siblings

She later tutored me some in Vietnamese

And was always so positive

She introduced me

To the intricacies of Vietnamese poetry

She thinks deeply about the meaning

Of this precious life

Thich Nhat Hanh quotes the sutra

“The one contains the all”

When I look deeply at Thuy

I get a glimpse of the vast interbeing

Of the United States people

And the Vietnamese people

Her parents in their 20s

During the war years

Their suffering after the war

Their journey to this country

War and peace

Victory and defeat

Home and exile

Grief and relief

I am

Because Thuy is

For these two teachers

I join my palms

I see the Buddha

In each of them

They live out the Dharma

The way of understanding and love

They are part of my sangha

Bringing harmony and awareness

Thoa and Thuy