When a Zen Master and his kapiar did the rounds for alms, the Master always received more food which he shared with his young assistant.  One day the kapiar collected alms by himself and unexpectedly received lots of food and a bolt of fine cloth which he offered to the Master.  When the Master refused the gift the kapiar, he felt rejected and began thinking about leaving and selling the cloth.  What animals could he buy?   Maybe hens – they would lay eggs.  Later he could trade the eggs for a pair of ducks.  Eventually he would be wealthy and his mother would arrange a wedding to a good and caring woman.  Soon he would herald the birth of a son.  However, his wife and he would argue about who would carry the child to get the blessing from the Master.  As they tugged at the child, the baby fell, struck his head on a rock and died.  The husband was so upset at his wife that he lashed out and hit her.  At the same moment the Master said, “It’s my head you hit, not your wife’s.”

Are we like that?  Do we live in streams of thoughts as boundless as bolts of material because a thought never comes alone. When we think of a word we envisage the form and after that more associations are made.  So how can we reduce these purposeless thoughts?   

Meditation is one of the best ways of sweeping out the mind so that it becomes clear of obstructions.  There are four principles of Thien and they are not in any particular order.  Each of them achieves clarity that will lead to the true self. 

The first principle is realisation or awareness of thought.  When we meditate we realise that we are thinking but we should not follow our thoughts like the kapiar did. 

When the thinking stops there remains only calmness which is your real mind.

The second principle is when the senses meet the sense objects.  When the eyes see something, stop at that.  Don’t create anything else.  A bolt of material is a bolt of material, nothing more.  The six senses should meet with the six sense objects only, then we will not fall into illusion. 

We tend to discriminate between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong often according to our transitory moods or events.  In the story, the wife was good but their arguing contributed to the baby falling to its death.  What was her real self? 

The last principle is:  always live with the truth.  Are we sincere with ourselves?  We watch other people and are critical of them.  In Thien this is known as “herding someone else’s buffalo”.  Like the husband, it is so much easier to see other people’s faults.  We have to always be sincere with ourselves if we are to find the serenity and clear minds that we seek.

The lineage of Thien Vietnam goes back to Bohdidharma, the twenty eighth Patriarch of Indian Dhyana who brought his teaching to China, thus becoming the first Patriarch of Chinese Ch’an.  The second of these Patriarchs was Hui Kha and the sixth was Hui Neng.  In the thirteenth century the king of the Tran dynasty became the first Patriarch of Thien Vietnam.  These Patriarchs taught that enlightenment does not come from scripture but simply from mind to mind transmission.  The essence is to keep your mind clear like a luminescent moon in a cloudless sky.