FOREWORD

 Soul is a matter that needs to be ascertained and clarified, so that everyone will no longer have the blind and backward faith as from the past to today.

Soul is a word indicating the abstract and metaphysical states that often happen in people’s life and human consciousness of mind could not comprehend.

From the past to the present, from east to west, scientists have spent so much time and efforts to study and seek to ascertain and give an answer to people “Do souls exist or not?”. But up to now the answer is still an unknown.

Because of their belief in soul existence, people become ones of blind faith and superstition without profound understanding. Due to blind faith, superstition and superficial knowledge, the practice of worshipping ancestors in the families become backward, it has been handed down by one generation to other generations, without any change. Particularly when someone in a family died, the family does not know how to perform in conformity with the moral spirit of gratitude of the Vietnamese tradition.

When someone died, the only thing that people know is to invite the monks from pagodas to come and then entrust them with all the procedure of enshrouding the corpse and simply follow their instruction. Thereby the performance of funerals in pagodas nowadays is all influenced by the superstition of Chinese Buddhism. How Chinese Buddhism performs, Vietnamese Buddhism follows the same, there is no difference except the name of Vietnamese Buddhism.

Even Zenism also imitates the Chinese and is given the sonorous name of “Truc Lam Yen Tu Zenism”, but does Truc Lam Yen Tu have any meditation method originated in Vietnam? Please re-study to see. 

Chinese Buddhism is not genuine Buddhism. Chinese Buddhism have two streams of ideology:

1. Buddhism of Sukhavati sect1 with the ideology of Confucianism (superstitious worship).

2. Buddhism of Zenism with the ideology of Taoism (which considers asankhata2 as life and thus exterminates the consciousness of mind).

Vietnamese Buddhism and Vietnamese Zenism do not have any method originated in Vietnam. A specific and obvious evidence is when performing funeral for the dead, Vietnamese Buddhism and Vietnamese Zenism only recite the sutta, repeating the name of the Buddha, wishing for peace, performing requiem, preparing food to worship the dead in seven weeks to imitate the Chinese, without knowing that these blind, superstitious and backward activities performed by many generations are such kind of ideologies that the Chinese have skillfully applied to rule our people, they have nonsensically wasted the money of our people, bringing no benefit to the dead as well as to the living. This is a wicked conspiracy to make our people poor so that they could easily rule.

1 [translator] Pure Land Buddhism.

2 [translator] (Vietnamese word: vô vi) asamskrta (Sanskrit), asankhata (Pali): a Taoist term has the literal meaning of “non-doing” or “non-striving” or “not making”. 

We do not blame the commoners who have little education as they do not have scientific knowledge and sufficient understanding, so their deeds are still superstitious, backward and simply in accordance with what they have inherited from the previous generations, they follow things bequeathed to them, accordingly they believe in the existence of souls. The reprehensible ones here are people who have education and knowledge but believe in the existence of souls. When believing in soul existence, why don’t you specifically prove the existence of soul? If you have not yet been able to prove it, you should not hastily believe it.

Human sentiments are so deep, if soul existence were true, the living and the dead would be connected in affection. If otherwise there is no soul existence but the living keep being attached to the dead, it means they live in illusion. People living in illusion are ones without perspicacious intellect, they resemble a machine functioning under the control of others. As such, when invaders rule any country they often apply the policies to make that country’s people stupid and keep them in ignorance. So the belief in soul existence is also a policy to keep people in ignorance.

Therefore, when we have not been able to ascertain if souls exist or not, we should not hastily lay our love and compassion on this theory, because such haste will make us misplace our love and compassion. To lay one’s love and compassion on the wrong place often makes oneself suffered, wasting one’s efforts and money that has been made out of one’s sweat and tears. In this world people have nonsensically spent money on worship for souls of the dead without any practical benefit for the dead.

At present we see that people, from commoners to ones with education and knowledge, are all influenced by the superstition of the Chinese, because of their thousands of years ruling our country, hence few people don’t perform requiem, wishing for peace, burning joss paper, particularly burning clothes, vehicles, houses made of paper, it is such a tremendous waste of money.

As such, right in the capital of Hanoi there is Hang Ma street where people display and sell products of superstition, this is a sadness. Hanoi is a place symbolizing the moral culture of Vietnamese people, nevertheless, having Hang Ma street, we can’t help feeling sad, can we?

Superstition, blind faith, backwardness are the policy to keep people in ignorance which will make a nation lose its value of moral culture, civilization, and progress. When a funeral procession passes by, so much joss paper is thrown to the street, this causes unhygienic living environment. How can a country with such act of causing unhygienic living environment be called one of culture, civilization, and progress?

This is such an unacceptable traditional custom of superstition, backwardness, and ignorance of people. However people still phlegmatically accept and consider it as something that every family has to do when a relative dies. They consider such wrong deed as right, as if unless they throw the joss paper, the souls of other dead people would cling to the coffin and thus people could not carry the coffin. In the past people carried coffins, nowadays automobiles carry coffins and so there is no reason why the coffins cannot be carried. The argument of people in the past is obsolete.

As such the whole world of human beings is waiting for this answer from the scientists, however, up to now none of them dares to confirm “yes” or “no soul existence”.

If souls really do not exists, then since the ancient times to now people have been living in blind faith, believing in phenomena and states which are unexplainable but they still keep believing, such belief is from the commoners with less education to ones equipped with postgraduate education, with modern scientific knowledge, with master, doctor, etc. degrees. In the face of metaphysical phenomena and states they also have to accept and dare not deny. With such superficial knowledge of human beings, how dare they speak up!

As metaphysical phenomena happen every day and scientists have directly witnessed such phenomena in real life when they are in contact with the psychics etc. but they have no idea, because their comprehension is still limited and they are unable to ascertain what soul is.

In the book we often mention the names of people with spiritual states such as Bich Hang, Nha, Lien...as the evidence when we analyze and explain such spirituality to make it easier for people to understand, we don’t mention people’s names to disparage them, as they bring benefit to the society, we need to be very thankful to them.

According to the long-standing tradition, the theory of souls has existed since the appearance of human beings on this planet, albeit no one has practically and specifically ascertained souls.

Nowadays people everywhere have been equipped with knowledge of science, however they are not able to find out the answer and so they still believe in the existence of souls. According to legends, they not only believe each person has a soul but also believe the theory of three spirits with seven astral spirits or three spirits with nine astral spirits. Three spirits with seven astral spirits or three spirits with nine astral spirits are the legends of our ancestors from the very old days handed down to the generation of today.

After having accomplished our practice, we entered Buddhist concentrations to look for metaphysical world but could not see it. Therefore, we finally used the Three Insights to observe all over the universe but could not see souls of the dead, instead we saw all the magnetic fields3, which had been created out of the actions, images and sounds of people who had passed away, remain in space.

Based on this observation we assert and determine that metaphysical world does not exist, it means there is no afterlife and therefore soul does not exist as people hitherto thought and imagined.

3 [translator] Vietnamese “từ trường” literally means “magnetic field”. However the Venerable Elder Thich Thong Lac made clear that this scientific term does not exactly reflect the nature of the phenomenon; as currently there is no suitable word in human vocabularies to describe this phenomenon, he thus temporarily used this term for the sake of name.

When the Buddha4 had accomplished his practice and attained full enlightenment, He announced: “Thirty three heaven realms are the knowledge of imagination instead of the thorough/true knowledge!”. This teaching coincides with our observation and thus we dare to confirm “Soul does not exist” to help people to free themselves from vague and abstract knowledge, blind faith, superstition and backwardness. Though we confirm soul does not exist, it is up to you to believe or not, we cannot force anyone to believe. The State Law has clearly stipulated the right to freedom of religion of each citizen. But we as citizens in the country

4 [translator] the Sakyamuni Buddha: was Siddhattha Gotama (Sanskrit: Siddhārtha Gautama). Sakyamuni means the ‘sage of the Sakya people’. He lived and flourished during the fifth century BCE in eastern India and died some time around 400 BCE. Source: Sayings of the Buddha, New translations by Rupert Gethin from the Pali Nikayas, Oxford World’s Classic, Oxford University Press, 2008. have the right to state our opinions to contribute to establishing a progressive and civilized moral culture of our country.

When receiving the document of “Searching For The Remains of Patriotic Martyrs, A Mysterious Journey”, we borrow it to directly show people that the phenomena that happened and are considered as souls entering human bodies are only the creation of the consciousness of imagination of human beings, please read “Soul Does Not Exist” for details.

With all respects,

The Venerable Elder Thich Thong Lac