The vast ocean of suffering, The karma you've shouldered Still unawakened from the yellow millet dream
Quick, recite the Buddha's name
Leave the verge of delusion Cross to the shore of enlightenment
A burning incense, a conjuring of spirits…
It has been 50 years since the closing of the third Indochina war, but the sufferings of war are still being carried by succeding generations. After the victory of Điện Biên Phủ, the American empire once again decided to intervene into Việt Nam's and Indochina's political life —with imperialist ambition— to divide our country and orchestrate the death of millions under the destructive power of bombs and chemical weapons. Hundred of thousands of families were divided; mountains, rivers and Vietnam's ecosystem are poisoned with toxin; villages, fields, streets, temples, churches, sewer bridges, stations, everything is destroyed and burned completely.
Now Việt Nam is no longer divided into two. Vietnamese families across three regions and across the world can reunite in Saigon or Hanoi. From North to South, no foreign military troops are allowed to set up millitary bases in our homeland. But after 130 years of occupation, exploitation, war, and trade embargo, our country is still poor, our people are still suffering…
When my country’s at peace i shall revisit I’ll visit the many sad graves I’ll look at the tombstones, The ones that sprouted up like mushrooms When my country’s no longer at war Mothers will go up to the mountains To find their sons’ bones
When my country’s at peace I’ll travel without stopping Sài Gòn to Central, Hà Nội to the South I’ll go with gladness, and hope to forget My nation’s past
—Tịnh Công Sơn
Bình An Cemetery, Bình Dương
—introduction—
We are a group of young Vietnamese from all over the world who are returning to the history and origin of our country. We carry the aspiration of connecting with you, and understanding what had happened to our people, our ancestors coming from all sides of the war.
We have walked ourselves through pivotal moments of the Vietnam War which had unfolded in Cần Giờ, Côn Sơn island, Quảng Trị, Huế, Quảng Ngãi, Bình Dương and Vũng Tàu. We have felt the dreadfulness, the contention, the pain, the conflict, the helplessness of each person who had experienced the war, who had perished, whether they had directly participated in fighting or not.
We have returned here to be with you —to recognize, commemorate, and pray for your unjust deaths, as well as your heroic deaths.
Tây Lake, Hà Nội
The way of abeles is stretching with the evening shadow, The street of pear trees is scattered With the ground fog on the tops, What a moving sight touching people’s heart! The land of the living is so gloomy, Let alone the world of the dead.
No where is for incense-smoke to be burnt, Lone souls linger in the dark night, There is nothing left to say who is rich or poor, As well as who is talented or ignorant, isn’t there?
In lunar July it is raining continually Releasing the frozen air to the bone What a heart-rending autumn evening it is! Forests of reeds are turning grey And maize leaves are shedding yellow.
It is so dark in the long night There are holy souls hovering about, How piteous for dozens of forsaken spirits! Being alone, adrift in the foreign land.
It’s at the beginning of autumn to set up The altar for getting out of sufferings, Water in the decanter is sprinkled over the spirits of the dead! Wishing a favor of the compassionate Buddha, Who can exonerate, saving wandering souls from misfortune For them to go to the western paradise.
________________________
-This text is an excerpt from Nguyễn Du’s A Salvation Oration for Wandering Souls of many sorts. The translation is done by Lê Vương Ly.
—Nguyễn Du
—historical sites—
Mangrove Forest, Cần Giờ
To the livings,
If this letter reaches our comrades in the Southern Liberation Army Regiment, or any unit that happen to pass through, please forward it to your superiors.
Our Liberation Army squad in the “Ky Con” platoon has completed our mission. We hope to be recognized that we had lived, fought and died in a springtime amid the sky and earth, like hundreds of thousands of deaths of genuine Vietnamese the for the survival of our country and our people.
If in the case of us being discovered later, after 5-10 years of precious freedom, then please let us send to those who are living — living with its truest meaning, in a glorious era — our deep gratitude because you are making our death preserve their its meaning. You are working selflessly, just as we have fought selflessly for our country to bloom today, for our people to be more prosperous and happy, for our society to be more democratic and fair.
Or in case of 50-100 years later, this letter will reach to those we might say are our descendants, then allow us to send our greetings to socialism, allow us to express our marvelous joy at the happiness and peace that are engulfing our planet, of which we had became useful dust — and even more, if possible, let us send our warmest greetings to the people of the distant stars, our new friends among the planets.
*Study well, work hard, and live your days meaningfully, my dear, because only then will my pain be dissolved into nothingness, will it become joy, and my sacrifice won't turn into mere sea-foam devoid of meaning. You are my descendant, who is granted the chance to live fully in a time of peace, without the appearance of massive bombs, without witnessing tragic deaths, without hearing mournful cries, without loss, without separation, then if you care for me, please live for the part of life I've lost, the part that when I was still alive, is the dream I dreamt of every time I go to sleep, is the wish I prayed for every time I wake up.
Best regards.
________________________
—The first 4 paragraphs are cited from the letters of 3 National Liberation Front soldiers wrote to their descendants before their death. Their name are Lê Hoàng Vũ, Nguyễn Chí, Trần Viết Dũng.
*This is a piece of creative writing by one of our pilgrim, who is imagining what the soldiers might say to her directly.
Here is Côn Sơn, island of resilience Decades of stained blood and bones
Oh, the souls of my fellow prisoners Return here to greet Tết, the Tết of our homeland
Hàng Dương Cemetery, Côn Đảo
Côn Đảo Prison
Dear departed souls, those who have fallen on Côn Đảo,
Your passing is not only a torment for our country, but also an irreparable loss for millions of families across Việt Nam. We regconize that you'd died unjustly and indignantly. We also recognize that each of you has a different story. You came to Côn Đảo through different paths, and we know that history books will never fully comprehend and illuminate the concealed stories that you've carried with you.
You may be patriots who carried an idealistic vision of the revolutionary path, you may also simply be amongst the ordinary people who do not understand what Communism is, but are steadfast in their aspiration for reunification, and you may also be people whose sacrifices we do not yet know about.
We recognize that the greed and oppressive nature of colonialism and imperialism caused your unjust deaths. We know that you were pushed into a senseless war with your own fellow countrymen, compatriots and even brothers and sisters in your own family. This war could've been prevented, and Việt Nam would have had the opportunity to rebuild…
We would like to confess that we are just a group of young people studying history, and our understanding of your path and story is still incomplete. Our understanding of history and of you may carry certain biases from our own familial and social circumstances, but we promise to open our hearts to accept the emotions and thoughts that are arising from within us right now.
We promise that we, the young people of Việt Nam, will try our best to continue building the beautiful future that you have dreamed of and fought for until your last breath
We respectfully dedicate all the merits of this practice to the souls of all of you here, in Côn Đảo , as well as all the souls who died throughout Vietnam because of this war, praying you may rest in peace.
We pray for Việt Nam to be at peace, and the Vietnamese people live in prosperity and happiness.
Sincerely. July 10, 2022. Côn Đảo
Oh boats sailing through Thạch Hãn...row gently Beneath the riverbed, my friends lay Twenty years have turned to waves Forever patting the shore, for thousands of years
—Lê Bá Dương
Thạch Hãn River, Quảng Trị
Dear those who had fallen in Quảng Trị, here on the Thạch Hãn river, and on all the battlefields from spring to the end of 1972, often called the “red fiery summer.”
You may be 17-year-old boys breaking buffalo horns, full of life, or 18-year-olds, or 20-year-olds, with many dreams and ambitions. You are the female guerrillas, or girls rowing boats, herding buffaloes, and secretly cooking rice balls for the troops.
You may not think of yourself as a Northerner or a Southerner, but only as people from the hamlets, communes, villages in a country called Vietnam since the Nguyễn Dynasty. The system of racial discrimination governed by scientific racism of the West, may call you by your skin color: white, black, or colored.
You may have joined the army because you had no choice. You may have joined the war with the dream of unifying the country, liberating the South from the shackles of the US; some of you may have had the aspiration for national independence by fighting against imperialism and the US empire; some of you may have fought for the independence of the South by fighting against communism; and some of you simply just wanted to live in peace with your family, with three meals full of rice every day.
You might be Americans who may not know why you've came here, to fight a war that your government proclaimed as protecting “human rights," while the reality in America is that Black people are still not free, all the while every treaties with the natives are violated.
You, and we, are victims of America’s desire for hegemony, victims of America’s political and military policies in Indochina, with Việt Nam as the center.
We've returned here to still our hearts, to witness the emotion, the pain and sorrow of the fiery tragedy amongst the Vietnamese people, due to the brutal intervention of the US, and especially the "Vietnamization" policy of the US government, a policy that created the element of civil war and pushed some Vietnamese people against their own people.
We regret that this war has caused countless losses, sufferings, and hatred on both sides, and within many Vietnamese families. Today, we still feel the presence of deep wounds that have not yet healed within our community, so healing is not easy, as it may take a lot of time, effort, and goodwill. And, there are also families that will never know each other, or be in harmony, or reunited with one another. Even some Vietnamese people today still hold a hostile and malicious attitude towards the ruling regime.
We regret that you had to put aside your dreams to fight in this fierce battle. We regret that you were robbed of the opportunity to realize your personal ambitions.
Former Vice President Nguyen Thị Bình said, “to build and develop a prosperous and strong Vietnam, a fair, democratic and civilized society. The immediate goal is to carry out industrialization and modernization of our country. That is the goal that every patriotic Vietnamese are concerned with. The new struggle of our people is to develop our country, which requires the active contribution of all Vietnamese people, at home and abroad, regardless of their views and political opinions.”
Also, some of us are now living abroad. And today, imperialism still exists. Class conflict still exists. Our new struggle is also to continue fighting the systems of oppression that are creating social injustices.
Although we residing in different places, and fighting different fights, our struggle against systems of oppression are connected. As Eldridge Cleaver, an early leader of the Black Panther Party in the United States, said in 1970:
“The Black man’s interest lies in seeing a free and independent Vietnam, a strong Vietnam which is not the puppet of international white supremacy. If the nations of Asia, Latin America, and Africa are strong and free, the Black man in America will be safe and secure and free to live in dignity and self-respect.”
After the war, the greatest task is to rebuild the homeland. As Uncle Ho said:
“If we have an independence and freedom in which the people are not prosperous and happy, then independence and freedom are meaningless."
We offer this prayer for such prosperous and happy future to be realized.
Sincerely. July 12th, 2022. Quảng Trị
Dear departed souls of the 400 those who had died in Khe Đá Mài, now resting in this mass grave, as well as those who had fallen throughout the city of Huế, regardless of whether you were Buddhists, Catholics, foreigners, civilians, Republicans, Fronts, or Communists who have died unjustly, or have sacrificed heroically, whose bodies have been found, or have yet to be found in mass graves across Hue.
Dear 6,000 civilians, soldiers, and officers of the Republic of Vietnam, who either died unjustly under extremely painful conditions such as having their skulls smashed, being shot, or being buried alive because of “rather kill by mistake than letting go” policy, or who died because of personal grievances, or who were blown to pieces by American bombs while fleeing. In those mass graves, you could also be one of the 10,000 soldiers of the NLF and the North who sacrificed their lives for the 1968 Tết Offensive under American bombs, giving the 1973 Paris Agreement a chance. But ironically, the chance for peace and reunification for our country, for young people like us to exist, had taken away your chance to live.
We repent for our indifference to the history of our people, and for only now to come here to light an incense for you. This action may not have any concrete results to relieve your grievances, but we hope that this is the beginning of a connection, a dialogue between our generation and yours, a bridging of the historical fractures that young Vietnamese people overseas, and in the country, have suffered and are suffering because of the forces that have taken the lives of many of you — capitalism and imperialism.
We realize that we will never understand fully what had happened, as well comprehend entirely the sufferings you have endured. But we recognize that when death befalls us, Communists, fronts, Republicans, foreigners, or civilians are all deserving to be remembered as people who had once lived, who were once present, who once breathed, who once loved, and who once dreamed during the most brutal time in our country's history. We mourn the fate of the poors, the farmers, the civilians, and even the officers and soldiers who, because of circumstances, were forced to take up arms, to defend themselves, and to use violence. There are always unfortunate mistakes in war. But you were somebody's children, somebody's grandchildren, somebody's shoulders, or — you were just somebody. All of you are victims of oppressive systems. We pray that you may find peace at the nine streams, and that any grievances you may soon be resolved.
We wish to continue learning, and cultivating our understanding of our country's history and politic with an open heart. We wish to be warriors who will fight for our country when our names are called forth. We entrust our paths in your care and guidance.
Sincerely. July 13, 2022. Huế
Human corpses float on the river, They dry up in rice fields, On city house roofs, on the winding streets. Corpses lie unattended, under pagoda roofs, Inside city churches, on abandoned house porches.
Oh spring, corpses fertilize your plowed fields, Oh Vietnam, corpses vaporize your land for tomorrow. There are spikes and thorns on the road ahead, But these corpses will protect it.
—Trịnh Công Sơn
Ba Tầng Cemetery, Huế
The tiniest of dream, A simple hut with two rows of sweet potatoes Yet i pray to the ten directions, For twenty years but the dream has not been fulfilled
—Trụ Vũ
Dear uncles, aunts, grandparents, and souls of the fallen soldiers in Mỹ Lai village, Quảng Ngãi.
On the morning of March 16, 1968, in the middle of the sweet potato harvest season in Mỹ Lai village, Quảng Ngãi, American helicopters landed and massacred more than 504 people.
“If there were no Việt Cộng, why would they shoot?” - Mrs. Hà Thị Quý innocently thought at that time, 50 years ago. But the American soldiers were not like Mrs. Quý thought, and certainly not like you thought either.
They turned their guns on her and killed her entire family, including her mother, her 17-year-old daughter, and her grandchild. Mrs. Quý was one of the few survivors buried under dead bodies. The American Empire massacred her family; just as it massacred her aunt, uncle, grandparents, and everyone else’s family.
Until many months later, what happened at Mỹ Lai was still only superficially investigated, with the conclusion that “more than 20 civilians were accidentally killed.” In just 4 hours, 500 lives were lost. Your deaths were not only tragic and unjust, but also forced to betray the traditional values of our people. Husbands lost their wives, parents lost their children, grandparents lost their grandchildren. Parents were forced to wear mourning clothes for their own children. Grandparents were forced to wear mourning clothes for their children and grandchildren. To say this was a pain is probably too mild.
Mrs. Quý's words that day echo your bewilderment at the injustices done to our people: "Why did they shoot?"
Imperialism has lied time and time again to achieve its hegemonic goals, at the expense of innocent people. The policy of the US Empire not only aims to destroy the enemy in battle, but also to exterminate and persecute unarmed, innocent people. It also destroys sacred indigenous values through imperialist bullets and bombs, through the indignant of lackeys who benefit from the system of racial discrimination and white nationalism.
The imperialists are arrogant about the injustices done to you as you were raped and murdered. For imperialism, the lives of indiginous yellow or black people are not worth a penny. They not only cruelly commit crimes against the elderly and women, but also do not spare even small children, even fetuses in their mothers' wombs. The haunting memory of a war crime, the sadness, resentment, and indignation can still be felt in every steps we've take today.
However, our generation will never fully understand your loss, pain, cries, and injustices. We still have many privileges and ignorance, but we would like to use the collective force of our presence, send it to the land, to the plants and trees here, so we can hold you in rememberance, our dear uncles, aunts, and grandparents. We pray for peace to return to your life.
Wishing you a peaceful afterlife at the soothing golden stream.
Sincerely. July 14th, 2022. Quảng Ngãi
Sơn Mỹ Village, Quảng Ngãi
Bình An Cemetery, Bình Dương
I return like fallen leaves Coming back to their roots
The fireplace of humanity is warm tonight
I pour some rosy wine
To exonerate this sea of vicissitudes
—Tô Thuỳ Yên
Dear those who have rested in Biên Hoà cemetery, now renamed Bình An,
When I came here, I saw that the people in those graves, with or without names, were not strangers, as you could've be my father's comrades, friends, brothers — those who had been through life and death with him. As I was walking, it felt as if I am returning to a lost world, a wounded place full of memories and stories that yearn to be told, to be embraced, and accepted.
You may be soldiers who fought for your belief in democracy, in the Republic of Vietnam government, in a beautiful Vietnam as you've understood it to be. You may also simply be young men pushed into the machinery of violence because of the circumstances of the times, because of the need to make a living, to survive.
As I was walking around the cemetery, a sadness passes over me —for you who are lying there, and for your loved ones who are not able to come regularly to care for the grave of their loved ones. I know that in war there are winners and losers. I recognize that the path of decolonization toward independence and unification is inevitable. But in that process there were too many sacrifices, misunderstandings, and injustices that happened when our people were pushed into opposing sides. When peace finally arrived, the legacy of those divisions still reverberates.
The war is over, but why are families still separated from each other? Why are we have split across life and death, acrossregions, and ideological factions? The war has ended, but it seems that it continues to live in the pain of separation from loved ones, of separation from the homeland of Vietnamese scattered across the world, and of suceeding generation like ourselves.
The work of national reconciliation and healing historical trauma will continue. But for now, I've came here. At this moment, that is enough. I've came closer to my father. By lighting incense for you, I've came closer to the shadow of my past.
Sincerely.
Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu
Take me to the sea when I’m gone A life exiled shall never fill a barrow Nor the alien soil break down the flesh How could a stagnant soul return home
Take me to the sea when I’m gone But don’t be in a rush to close my eyes Let my eyes set upon my homeland alas Just in case my body never reaches its destination
Take me to the sea when I’m gone So I may meet again my children So I may see the falling tears From eyes sadder than the dark
When I’m gone the sadness too shall be gone The eternal exile of my soul.
Take me to the sea when I’m gone The riptides shall take me On the other side of the sea is my homeland the bamboo groves evergreen through the ages
Take me to the sea when I’m gone Don’t hesitate ‘cause you’re worried about me So many were fish food not long ago Another dried up corpse matters not
Take me to the sea when I’m gone Sing the national anthem on the way So long since it’s been sung (The song is now a spectre)
—Du Tử Lê
Dear grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, and the souls of those who drowned in the ocean,
We acknowledge that there are many forces that have compelled you to leave your country and family just to have the opportunity to give your children a brighter life than the one you know. After decades of war, you have wished that you could live in peace and quietly in a unified country.
But it turns out you were sent to a reeducation camp, father and son separated from their families. In the reeducation camp, many of you were promised leniency from the new government, only a week of indoctrination, to be educated in the socialist values of your new country. According to the US State Department, the average prison sentence in the reeducation camps is 3-10 years. Many prisoners died or lost limbs due to lack of food, unsanitary conditions, and being forced to clear landmines in the jungle.
Outside the reeducation camps, the US embargo further worsen economic conditions and delayed reconstruction efforts. Mothers could not earn a living and had to find work for the first time without an education, and children had to drop out of school to help families with no future aspirations. Some of you were discriminated against in universities and work places because your family was somehow related to the old regime. Furthermore, many of you were forced to leave your homes and go to new economic zones. You knew that you could not survive there, and thus you crossed the sea because you had no other choice.
You were not just Vietnamese-Kinh. About 200,000 of the 1 million boat people were Chinese. During the Sino-Vietnamese border war, many Chinese businesses were boycotted and attacked. Because of racial discrimination, the government forced hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese to move to new economic zones.
Without international outrage at the way imperialists tried to ignore the boat people crisis for their own benefit, many more boat people would've surely died at sea.
It was only after about 200,000 boat people drowned that the US imperialists began accepting Vietnamese refugees and exploited your suffering to create a story: America is the savior, Communism is the devil. The UN only created the ODP program to make it appear that the world community was doing something about the boat people crisis. Many of you were rejected because you were not accepted as “anti-communist refugees.” Yet, you still went to the sea and drowned, then the UN and other imperialists said it was your fault for not taking advantage of “safe procedures.”
From 1975-1995, about 1 million boat people left Vietnam. 200,000-400,000 boat people died during the journey. They died because their boats collapsed in storms, died of hunger, disease, or died at the hands of pirates. The stories of women and children being raped and jumping into the sea are still vivid in the minds of the survivors.
“To leave is to die, to stay is to die.”
Many boat people recounted that they embarked on this journey because if they stayed, they would face poverty, imprisonment in accordance to their family circumstances, rank, or participation, hardship for the veterans of the Republic of Vietnam.
With the war over, you felt that you had no future in their homeland.
"Live in a house, die in a grave"
The entire ocean is your graveyard. Your souls still wander on the water, with no place to rest. Even now, there is no memorial to commemorate and worship the boat people in our homeland.*
Some of us are descendants of the boat people who are still alive. We have inherited the divisions and pains of the previous generation, and we've lost our connection to the homeland.
We admit that we cannot fully understand the suffering endured by you on your journeys. But on this pilgrimage, we study, practice, and commemorate to rekindle our connection with Vietnam.
Even though we come here from all over the world, we are still Vietnamese and our homeland is in Vietnam.
We offer this prayer for you to return safely.
Sincerely. July 19, 2022. Vũng Tàu
________________________
-Du Tử Lê’s poem is translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
*In one of the points of consideration the Plum Village delegation sent to the president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 2007, Thích Nhất Hạnh specifically asked for a memorial to be built in Vũng Tàu to commemorate the boat people who had perished at sea.
Từ Hiếu Temple, Huế
Tonight the moon and the stars bear witness. Let my homeland, let Earth pray For Vietnam— Her deaths and fires, Grief and blood— That Vietnam will rise from her suffering And become that soft, new cradle For the Buddha-to-come. Let Earth, my country, pray That once more the flower blooms.
Tonight we hope That our agony will bear fruit; That birth and death will cross The stream of immortality And love’s spring bathe ten thousand hearts; That man will learn the language of the inexpressible. Then the babble of a child will teach the way.
—Thích Nhất Hạnh
We regret that this war has caused countless losses, sufferings, and hatred on both sides among Vietnamese families. Today, we still feel the presence of deep wounds that have not yet healed in our community. From the bottom of our hearts, we ask the winds, trees, and clouds to send our sincere prayers, praying for your bodies to rest in peace fromwithin the womb of Mother Earth, for your souls to rest in serenity at the nine streams. We hope that if you have any wishes that have not been fulfilled, please pass them on to our generation, so that we can follow in your footsteps, so that our lives will not pass in vain. We hope that you will be by our side — guiding us, and giving us strength.
For many people, especially those of our generation, history only begins from the moment our country is completely independent, gradually transforming itself and joining the economic currents of the time. Everyone looks back to the past as a bygone era, as a memory that needs to be soothed, so they can turn toward the future to entrust their hopes and ambitions. We think that generations of the people who have fallen or survived the tumultumous war, must be feeling lost, disappointed, forgotten, when they see that the meaning of history is gradually fading in the hearts of their descendants. However, one thing is certain: the flow of history will live on, the legends will survive, as long as someone is present toremember and continue to pass on the stories, even if there is just one person left. And we wish to be the ones holding that mission, so that your stories will continue to be passed down.
Although many of us are not yet clear about our path and mission in life, we vow to move towards our own direction of reconciliation, love and understanding. We vow to live in a way that is worthy of the sacred meaning of peace — a peace that has been nourished by blood and bones, by sacrifices and injustices, a peace that is incomplete, but a peace that is real.
More importantly, we promise to change our indifference and lack of understanding of our country’s history. Our country was built from your blood and bones. We will engrave in our hearts the obligation to learn, to understand and to preserve the history of oour people as a foundation to foster reconciliation and ease the rifts between our fellow countrymen.
—about project—
Connecting Việt Nam is a 10-day pilgrimage designed for twelve Vietnamese activists, scholars, healers, and community organizers both at home and in the diaspora to recover, commemorate and meditate on the histories of the war in Việt Nam. Unlike tourism, which seeks to escape and risks replicating neocolonial dynamics, this is a return toward the physical places in which the spirit of history abides. In contrast to the typical understanding of pilgrimage as only journeying to religious sites, Connecting Việt Nam is also about going on a sacred journey to sites of suffering — battlefields, mass graves, and cemeteries. Visiting the graves of our forebears to pay respect is an ancient land-based practice of the ancestor-veneration tradition in which the living is responsible for. To look back at who our ancestors really were — both their vices and their virtues, their aches and their aspirations — is what we owe to them. We are called to make a return to the origins of our trauma and resilience to find inner healing and reconciliation.
Our chosen historical narratives start with the backdrop of Việt Nam’s history of colonization at Côn Đảo Island, and then the failure of the Geneva Conference in which its aftermaths had led Vietnam into the Second Indochina War, or more commonly known as the American/Vietnam War. We then will journey to the representative sites of sufferings which were inflicted on the Vietnamese people; markedly the rise and downfall of what once was the National Liberal Front, the calamity from the 1st and 2nd Battle of Quảng Trị, the lesser-known peace and reconciliation-advocating efforts through the sacrifices of Vietnamese Buddhists, the reconciliation efforts of some NFL members, the more sensitive topics to be discussed within Việt Nam like the Huế Massacre and Boat People Waves, to the more well-known events of Mỹ Lai Massacre.
From here not only we hope to commemorate the innocent lives who fell down but also honor those who died fighting for a Việt Nam they believed in, either by choosing a side, or standing firmly in the middle. We will visit both Hồ Chí Minh Cemetery where thousands of NLF soldiers were laid and the little-known Biên Hoà (Bình An) Cemetery where thousands of RVN (Republic of Việt Nam) soldiers resided. We will honor warriors of peace who consciously decided to not take a side, but to fight for the end of war at Từ Hiếu pagoda. Finally, our pilgrimage will visit Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda as our ending point of the journey, as this is where one of the rare efforts for Việt Nam’s healing and reconciliation has been marked since post 1975.
This website is a visual prayer — the encapsulation of the perspectives and experiences of pilgrims — weaved through photos*, prayers, letters, and poems.
Courtesy to the Kataly Foundation, Dalai Lama Fellows, Humanity in Action, and Harvard Divinity School for their generous support in making this project happen.
Please connect with us through email/instagram to receive information about upcoming trips!
*photo credit by duy minh, duy liêm and bảo khang