my practice

I believe that deep down in each and every one of us lies a sacred longing. From this place, with sincerity, our journey home unfolds.

From my earliest memories, I have felt this pull toward the mysterious Unknown. As a child, I was captivated by the cosmos, a fascination that led me to become interested in math and physics. I wanted so deeply to understand the world, but soon, I realized that even science had a limit. I didn’t like that in any reasonable mathematical system, there would always be true statements that could not be proved. I didn’t like that even though I experience the world as continuous, “continuity” doesn’t exist and is only a mathematical technique for approximating very finely grained things. And I especially didn’t like that our ability to measure things is confined to a limit—the “Planck scale”. That below this small unit, our usual concepts of time and space cease to exist.

I grew up in Vietnam, a country that has endured immense suffering from countless wars over the last century. My parents were not in my life, so my grandfather raised me, but he passed away when I was 11. He loved science, and I loved him. After he passed, in my grief, I hung on to physics. I knew he would have rejoiced in seeing how much I had learned since his passing—the opportunities he longed for but never had. Yet, the more I learned, the more I saw that there were limits beyond the edges of our brain's capacity to ever truly reach. I was afraid to admit this, because I was scared it would sever the thread that connected my grandfather and me.

How naive I was to believe I could run away from life.

During this period of crisis, someone recommended me Vipassana meditation.

My first formal encounter with meditation was during a 10-day Goenka-style silent retreat in 2018. I went in with modest expectations, not knowing that this experience would fundamentally change the course of my life.

All it took was this one sit and I knew I could never return to a materialist worldview. In what to this day still feels like a happy accident, I saw that through the simple act of diligently observing, I could directly experience the vastness I had been seeking—not by looking at the night sky or gazing toward the horizon, but deep within myself. It was humbling to discover that the cliché was true, and it was literal: within me lies the answer to everything I had been searching for. In that moment, I felt the enduring thread of love from my grandfather and our family lineage—what I thought I had lost—continuing on.

It was love all along.

After that beautiful beginning, I wish I could tell you that my journey continued on blissfully, filled only with joy, ease, magic. Yet, the reality is that since then, alongside all of that, I've also had to face intense grief and heartbreak, sometimes utterly unbearable.

Over a period of three years, I had to stop sitting meditation because the practice became too debilitating and, at times, unsafe. During this time, childhood traumas resurfaced, and Western psychotherapy didn't help. Feeling called to seek healing, in the summer of 2023, I traveled to a remote village in the Peruvian Andes to participate in an Ayahuasca retreat, guided by indigenous shamans from the Shipibo lineage.

Years ago, during my first Vipassana retreat, the first time I arrived at a meditative state, when the mind became so very quiet, a spiritual understanding of solidarity arose within me. I realized that this in-between space was the place that millions of spiritual seekers had searched for and arrived at before me, and where millions will continue to do so after me. I had come home.

In a somewhat parallel fashion, during that full moon ceremony where I took Ayahuasca for the first time, with animals howling from all corners, in the reeking, haunting voice of a Shipibo maestra, when I finally died in the embrace of Source, once again, the same spiritual wisdom arose. Ah, death. Millions sought this very experience before me, and millions will continue after me.

That night, I learned that that the home I was searching for was not in enlightenment. It was waiting for me at the moment of death.

What I experienced with Ayahuasca—"the Vine of Souls” or “the Vine of the Dead”—was a continuation of a lineage of spiritual seekers that spans back to the beginning of civilization. Across many spiritual traditions, the focus was not on seeking enlightenment, but on learning how to die. We voluntarily seek out and undergo initiations to meet our Memento Mori — to “die before you die,” so we know how to live.

From the Eleusinian Mysteries—a secretive ritual that lasted for two thousand years and counted among its celebrants the most well-known names of Greece and, later, Rome, including Plato, Marcus Aurelius—to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which teaches what happens at each stage of death and what to do about it, the emphasis has been on the significance of dying. Preparing the mind for death through meditation is a core element of Buddhist practice. The Egyptians also believed that the most significant thing you can do is die.

So, what am I practicing these days?

Like any earnest meditator, I started my journey seeking enlightenment. Happy to report that I’m no longer searching!

I’ve slowly moved away from traditionally masculine/yang practices such as Vipassana meditation. My practice now leans more feminine (being/surrendering), rather than masculine (looking/doing). I’ve also embraced more embodied practices, such as breath-centered yoga, dancing, singing. And, I pray every day.

I found that the practice of sitting meditation in solitude, while blessing me with bliss, was slowly taking away my interest in society. I just didn’t want to run away from life anymore, under the guise of renunciation. And while I don’t know if enlightenment is possible in this lifetime, I do know that I have friends to nurture, family to care for, people to love, meals to cook, bills to pay, money to earn, and households to manage. My spirituality is here, now, in this life, constantly and easily found in relationship with all.

When death is here, I want to rest into its embrace gratefully, knowing that I’ve lived out all and everything that was in me.

Just like the name of one of favorite bands, the Grateful Dead!

My spiritual practice turned my once-gray life into living colors, and every day I’m grateful for it. If you’re reading this and are curious about embarking on this journey, but feel overwhelmed by the myriad of traditions and practices, I offer this advice: choose what feels pleasurable and where progress feels natural. In other words, choose what’s “easy.” Disregard anyone who insists you must suffer, especially when starting out. What I’ve found is that with time and effort, walking the spiritual path becomes quite challenging. Almost everyone I've spoken to, including myself, has had to make significant life changes to continue the journey. There will be times when it feels hopelessly difficult. This is what many spiritual teachers try to warn beginners:

When the Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa arrived late, as usual, to a crowded San Francisco lecture hall, he offered a refund to anyone who did not want to stay. He warned newcomers that a true spiritual path is arduous and demanding, involving “one insult after another.” He suggested that those with doubts not embark. “If you haven’t started, it’s best not to begin.” Then he looked steadily around the room and said, “But if you have begun, it is best to finish.”

The spiritual path is a marathon, not a race. Ultimately, I hope our practice leads us to personal and collective transformation. It is my deepest belief that the spiritual journey is not a private one — a meaningful practice will naturally lead to actions that relieve the sufferings that ail humanity. We are all we’ve got.