Ancestral Roots

When I was little, my family made offerings to the Buddha and our ancestors on an altar,
inviting them to visit us on special occasions.
As a first-generation Vietnamese Canadian, I never understood what this ritual meant.
None of my school friends’ families were inviting dead relatives to eat with them, so it embarrassed me. Yet I enjoyed how it brought my family together.
My family escaped the American war in Vietnam and settled in Edmonton as refugees.
Starting from scratch, we faced many stressors while acclimating to cold winters, learning
English, and finding our place in a new culture. My parents worked hard to raise us kids
while sponsoring family members to join us in the safety and opportunity of Canada, all
in the context of a Vietnamese diaspora. I’ve inherited many wonderful seeds from my
mother and father—among them courage, determination, and resilience.
My family will forever be grateful to the Christian family who sponsored us. They supported us both materially and spiritually. Their kindness and generosity nourished us in a
time of uncertainty and scarcity, but the relationship was complicated.
Every week, we joined other refugee families on a school bus that brought us to our
sponsor family’s church. My family was open and grateful for this kindness.
Then one time, our sponsor came inside and saw our Buddha on the altar. With concern, she shared her view that the Buddha was a false God and that it should be removed.
This Buddha statue was precious to my mother in many ways. It had been given to her as
an offering of hope and protection at the refugee camp by someone who had little to give.
The impact of our sponsor’s actions were not what she intended.
My parents were vulnerably caught between not wanting to be ungrateful and wanting to honour their root wisdom tradition. A language barrier made everything harder, and
there was a lot of suffering. They couldn’t agree to remove the Buddha, putting our family
at risk, and we still carry anger and sadness from this encounter.
Although this happened before I was born, my body holds the painful memory. Ethnic,
cultural, and spiritual oppression can trigger a strong activation in my body. When I’m
faced with such experiences, my body associates it with threat to safety and my sympathetic nervous system fires—chest tightening, jaw tensing, heart racing, and face reddening with heat.
Thoughts that show up are, “How dare they? Who do they think they are? Do they
think they’re better or more entitled?” Rage, insult, and powerlessness arise. I feel alone
and against an offender. Seeds of violence are watered, and I want to yell and fight to
teach them they’re wrong. Or I freeze and avoid the conflict altogether.
Ancestral Roots
Alda Ngô shares how Thích Nhất Hạnh helps her to transform
intergenerational trauma and racial injustice and to
honour her blood lineage as a first-generation
Vietnamese Canadian.

I continue to practise recognizing the activation as a bell of mindfulness to stop and
return to my body, noticing bodily sensations and resting my attention where there’s less
charge. I often find more stability in the sensations of my breath or in the points of pressure
in the soles of my feet. When I’m able to anchor my attention in these spots, the activation
slowly decreases and I touch calmness. I know that when I’m more calm, I’m better able to
see clearly and respond skillfully.
When the activation is overwhelming, I contact someone who can help me feel
more stable. Sometimes I’m successful, sometimes I’m not. I’ve learned that touching
nourishing elements like my son’s laughter or the warmth of the sun on my cheek can help
increase my capacity to be with difficulty.
I’m grateful for the conditions that support my mindfulness practice, and I’m aware
that this isn’t available to everyone.
Despite having been divorced for twenty years, my parents returned to Vietnam with
my sister and me in 2005. It was painful to revisit traumatic memories. During this trip, we
were standing at an intersection when my father shared a new story about having fallen
off his bike there because a bomb had gone off. It was hard to experience traumatic memories while navigating our family’s collective habit energies while in Vietnam together, but
our journey was also healing.
I first encountered Thầy by chance during this trip, in a small temple in Huế. He was
speaking to a local crowd in Vietnamese about healing war wounds. The familiar language
sounded like my relatives’ voices, and it particularly sounded like my father’s. Hearing
Thầy teach about nondiscrimination and interbeing in a language that I associated with
suffering was transformative and I couldn’t hold back the tears.
Now I’m an adult with my own family, and it wasn’t until Thầy transitioned that I set
up an ancestral altar in my home.
Not long after Thầy died, my father unexpectedly passed away. In our grieving, we
placed a photo of my dad on our altar as well. We make offerings to the Buddha, Thầy, and
my dad to remember them and to express our love and gratitude for what we’ve inherited
from them. Without our spiritual and blood ancestors, we would not be where we are now.
The altar reminds us that our ancestors are present in us, and we honour them by
watering the wonderful seeds we’ve inherited from them. I see that I’m the continuation
of my spiritual father, Thầy, and also of my blood father.
In my grieving, I see that while many of my dad’s habit energy seeds have died with his
body, my son and I have inherited some of them. Like many refugees, my dad persevered
despite undiagnosed post-traumatic stress. We’re grateful for his endurance, sacrifice,
and generosity. I recognize his seeds of happiness, creativity, and humour in us, as well
as seeds of intolerance, pride, and violence. With mindfulness, I practise choosing which
seeds to water.
My family escaped the physical war, but they still brought many parts of it with them
to Canada. Bombs exploded outside in Vietnam; in Canada, the pressures of oppression,
violence, and poverty manifested as internal explosions.
Dad wasn’t able to make peace with our sponsor, but his peaceful legacy can continue
through us.
I love Thầy’s teaching that when meeting someone, we’re not just meeting them as an
individual, but rather as their entire lineage, and we too represent all of our ancestors, who
are present in us. As best as I can, I aspire to contribute to Sangha eyes and ears—creating

safe spaces to practise skillful sharing and listening without discrimination so that deep
collective understanding can heal all lineages and intergenerational traumas.
When we offer a land ancestral acknowledgment at our Sangha gatherings in Edmonton, we also offer acknowledgment and gratitude to our spiritual ancestors—the Buddha,
Thầy, and the Plum Village lineage. We acknowledge this lineage as part of the ancestral
stream of the Buddha and as a continuation of Thầy’s efforts to renew Buddhism, preserve
its relevance, build a beloved community, and share the healing he realised in exile.
As somebody who shares the intergenerational trauma from which this lineage has
grown, I feel it’s important to remember and honour these roots, particularly as Thầy is
becoming an ancestral teacher. His body no longer holds this acknowledgement, so the
Sangha body must.
I continue to grieve for the impermanence of Thầy and my dad while having gratitude
that they returned me to my roots. I’m inspired by Thầy’s encouragement to look deeply
into our roots in order to better understand ourselves and one another.
Thầy said that if we are connected to our roots, we will know what direction to grow in.
Alda Xuân-Mai Ngô, Chân Khai Truyền/True Unfolding
Transmission (pronouns she/her), has been practising in
the Plum Village Tradition since 2005, and she became
a member of the Order of Interbeing in 2019. Her family
took refuge in Canada after escaping the American war
in Vietnam, and she is a first-generation Vietnamese
Canadian. She is a co-founder of the Going As A River
Sangha in Edmonton, Alberta. She practises as a Doctor of
Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, as well as a
mindfulness facilitator and researcher. She loves spending
time in nature with her partner, son, and puppy.