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Basic Practice Sutra 3
During the winter retreat at Lưu Viện Phương Khê, it was announced that Thầy Khai Lý would continue sharing and would soon invite Sư Giới Tạng to speak about the lives of young people in America and Canada. Musician Phạm Duy, “one of the pioneers who laid the foundation for modern Vietnamese music,” passed away at the age of 93; together with Văn Cao, he brought the folk spirit into modern music and composed “Ten Songs of the Heart” during the war years. The School of Youth for Social Service was established right after Thầy returned to Vietnam, with the aim of engaging in the world through four fields:
- Education (classes under the banyan tree, then building bamboo and leaf schools).
- Medicine (providing care at clinics, treating diarrhea, eye diseases).
- Sanitation (building sand-cement latrines, preventing pollution).
- Economy (small-scale technology, cooperatives, microloans).
Following this, Lá Bối Publishing House printed works on Buddhism and everyday literature, connecting many artists such as Phạm Duy, with his “Epic of Mother Vietnam” (1964). The Institute of Buddhist Higher Studies—the predecessor of Vạn Hạnh University—was operated from temple facilities, inviting professors to teach for free, relying on the people. Phạm Duy composed “Songs of the Heart” as prayers for peace:
- “I will sing louder than the sound of gunfire on the old rice fields…”
- “My song will mend the fabric of love, my words will one day soar above Trường Sơn.”
Finally, the Dharma talk on ‘Dharma as is’, nothing to attain, and self-reliant liberation emphasized: to receive the teachings objectively, to contemplate the five skandhas inside and out, to practice fully in the present moment without being caught in achievement or the future.