After walking for a few minutes, I began to hear the sound of water drops falling onto stones. I let myself be guided by that sound, and I walked and walked until finally, I found a well. It was a natural well, and the water inside was extremely clear.

You know, at that moment, I was thirsty. Very thirsty. And seeing water like that was something wonderful. I knelt down. I cupped my hands to scoop up the water and I drank.

And I can tell you, that water was delicious. Before that, I had never tasted anything so good. I assure you, it is much better than Coca-Cola.

I had the feeling of being completely satisfied. A deep, complete satisfaction. That means I had no other desire. Not even the desire to meet the hermit. I do not know why. But after drinking the water like that, I felt entirely satisfied. There was no longer any desire in me, even the desire to see the hermit.

And at that moment, a thought came to me. Perhaps the hermit had transformed himself into a well so that I could have a private meeting with him. When you are young, you have ideas like that.

Have you listened to many fairy tales? Of course. And I had read many fairy tales. And at that moment, I truly believed that the hermit had transformed himself into a well so that I could have a private audience with him.

And that is why I no longer had the desire to see the hermit as a person. The hermit was manifesting as a well. Freshness, solidity, compassion—the well possessed all those qualities.

Last year, a friend living in Paris went to Vietnam. I asked her to climb the mountain to verify that the well is still there. And a wonderful thing happened: she sent me photos of that well. It looks a little different. That is because they have arranged the place. They have put in new stones.

But it is confirmed that the well I met more than sixty years ago is still there on the summit of Mount Na Son. After drinking that water, I lay down next to the well. I was completely satisfied, and because I was tired, I fell into a very deep sleep.

I slept very deeply; I do not know for how long. Perhaps three minutes, perhaps five or seven minutes, I did not know exactly. Because when I came back to myself, I did not know where I was at all.

So the sleep must have been very deep. That is happiness. Very deep happiness. And looking around, I remembered that we were on Mount Na Son.

So I told myself, I must go down to share the picnic with the other boys. But with a lot of regret. I did not want to leave the well. The well was too precious to me; the well was the hermit. The well was solidity, freshness, and compassion for me.

And as I was going down, a sentence in French came into my head. The sentence was like this: "I have tasted the most delicious water in the world."

I have tasted the most delicious water in the world. It is like poetry. A poem written with only one line.

And a strange thing happened. I did not want to share that experience with the other boys. I became silent. They asked, "Where have you been? We have been looking for you everywhere." But I kept the silence, complete silence.

I did not want to speak about the experience of the well. It was because I had the feeling that if I spoke about it, it would become something ordinary. It would lose the sacred nature of the encounter between the hermit and me. And I became very silent during the whole picnic. And that was a transformation. You see, sometimes silence speaks better than words.

You have an impression, you have an emotion, you have a deep experience, and you cannot express it in words, in notions, or in concepts. If you try to say something, you might destroy everything. So, at that age, I knew how to keep the silence for myself.

And the image of the well has lived in me ever since. And the desire to become a hermit, to become a monk, grew greater and greater. That is the reason why, at the age of sixteen, I asked my parents to let me become a novice monk. It was not easy.