Our Patriarch Liễu Quán

All who received the Mindfulness Trainings from
Thầy, even The Five Mindfulness Trainings, receive
an ordination certificate. Usually the brothers and
sisters who transmit the precepts read the certificate and let us know what lineage we are a part
of—whose disciple we are. Thầy’s disciples are the
forty-third generation of the Lâm Tế (Linji) Dhyāna
School and the ninth generation of the Liễu Quán
Dharma line. Now we are going to learn about the
patriarch Liễu Quán.
“Liễu” has two meanings. It means joy complete; it also means understanding: to see, to
know. “Quán” means to contemplate, to look
deeply; it means we can say that because of looking deeply we can see clearly. It can also mean we
have looked deeply successfully, contemplated
successfully, completely.
The patriarch Liễu Quán is Vietnamese. He was
born in 1670 in Bạch Mã village in the province Phú
Yên. We’re very lucky the province still exists today.
Anyone who wants to find Liễu Quán’s homeland
can visit the beautiful province. Here, those who
are Vietnamese can organize a tour to visit the
homeland of our ancestor, of our patriarch.
Liễu Quán’s family was very poor. He was not
like the Buddha, the son of the king. He was like
Jesus—poor and born in a poor family. Jesus was
born in a stable, and Liễu Quán was born in a forest. He lived in the forest and was a logger. In 1676
his mother passed away, so after that Liễu Quán
lived only with his father, who would take him to
Hội Tôn Temple to play with the monks.
At the temple, young Liễu Quán met a Zen
master from China named Tế Viên. Tế Viên was the
abbot at a temple he built in Vietnam. Liễu Quán
would often go to the temple and was very loved
by Zen master Tế Viên. When he was twelve years
old, Liễu Quán officially began to live at the monastery under the guidance of Tế Viên. Liễu Quán
was a novice. He learned the sutras, gathas, and
chants, but all in Chinese. He lived at the temple
for seven years, and was still an aspirant when
Zen Master Tế Viên passed away. Liễu Quán heard
that many high venerables were in Huế, in Central
Vietnam. So after Zen Master Tế Viên’s funeral, Liễu
Quán went south to Huế. He walked because there
weren’t any vehicles at that time. The journey was
about five hundred kilometers. Liễu Quán had to
cross mountains, streams, rivers, hills, and it was
very, very difficult. It took him one year to reach
Huế.
In 1690, Liễu Quán arrived in Thuận Hóa (now
Huế). He went to Thiên Thọ Temple (now called Báo
Quốc Temple) in Hàm Long Mountain—the same
place where Thầy went to study when he was an
aspirant. Our root temple sent Thầy to Thiên Thọ
Temple because it was a Buddhist Institute, kind of
like the European Institute of Applied Buddhism in
Germany. They would regularly receive monks and
nuns from other temples, and they didn’t ask for
money for ordination. Instead, monastics would
pay by offering kilos of rice to the temple. Thầy
shared that he sent about forty kilos a year of rice
to this temple.
Our Patriarch Liễu Quán
Sister Đoan Nghiêm teaches about the Plum Village lineage;
Thầy’s disciples are the ninth generation of the Liễu Quán Dharma line.

In Liễu Quán’s time, Zen Master Giác Phong
lived at Thiên Thọ Temple. He was from Guangdong province, China, which was very close to
Vietnam. This closeness is why the Chinese Zen
masters could go to Vietnam to teach and share
the Dharma.
After practicing in the temple for one year, Liễu
Quán heard that his father was ill, so he walked back
to his hometown in Phú Yên and became a logger
to afford food. When Liễu Quán was twenty-five,
his father passed away, and Liễu Quán returned
to Huế to continue his practice. On his way back
to Huế, he heard that the venerable, Zen Master
Thạch Liêm had organized a Great Ordination Ceremony at Thiền Lâm Temple. Liễu Quán stopped at
the temple to receive novice ordination. Two years
later in 1697, Liễu Quán received full ordination in
another Great Ordination Ceremony organized at
Thiền Lâm Temple. He was now an elder, a most
respected Zen master. After receiving ordination,
Liễu Quán wanted to study, so he stayed at the
temple two years before continuing his journey. In
the past, monastics really liked to travel to learn,
so going to this temple and that temple was very
normal. Liễu Quán continued to travel, and three
years later, in 1702, he met his teacher, Zen Master Minh Hoằng Tử Dung (commonly known as Tử
Dung) on Hoàng Long Mountain. He originated
from Guangdong, China. Zen Master Minh Hoàng
established and lived at Ấn Tôn Temple (now Từ
Đàm Temple), and there, he and our patriarch,
Liễu Quán, met. They spoke to each other, and the
Zen master gave Liễu Quán a koan.
I need to explain this koan so we’ll be able to
understand the Zen masters’ conversation. A koan
is like a question, a riddle, that doesn’t need an
answer from your intellect. Maybe this is a normal
riddle, for example: The sandy road—is there sand
in it? It could mean fine sugar or it can mean sandy path. Sugar that is very, very fine is called cát,
which means fine as sand. So the word cát, sand, is
used to speak about the nature of sugar, how fine
The koan’s purpose is for us to embrace it—to hold it,
to take care of it, water it, and then one day it will bloom.
Then, we suddenly understand.
“How do you understand, ‘The ancestor transmits to the
ancestor. The Buddha transmits to the Buddha’?
What do they actually transmit to each other?”
—Z EN M AS T E R T Ử D UN G

it is. But this riddle is using thinking, speculation,
analysis. The koan Zen Master Minh Hoàng gave
Liễu Quán is this:
All Dharma goes to the one.
The one goes to where?
I think, here, nobody understands anything
about the koan yet. So our Patriarch also didn’t understand. He embraced this koan and went back
to his hometown, and he studied. He investigated,
and he tried to understand. He embraced the koan
in his heart and mind.
The koan’s purpose is for us to embrace it—to
hold it, to take care of it, water it, and then one day
it will bloom. Then, we suddenly understand. You
can’t explain it. Understanding a koan is very miraculous.
In 1708, Liễu Quán met Zen Master Minh
Hoàng (Tử Dung) and shared his understanding of
the koan. Liễu Quán wondered if the Zen master
would approve or certify his insight. Was it correct
or not? When the Zen master heard the patriarch
Liễu Quán share, he wanted to check one more
time. The Zen master read this poem:
Release your grip over the abyss,
Alone, you endure,
Dying and being reborn,
Who dares to criticize you?
After the Zen master heard Liễu Quán offer his
insight gatha, he wanted to make sure he really
understood, so he read this poem to see his reaction. When Liễu Quán heard this poem he clapped
his hands and laughed very joyfully. The Zen master was not happy with this reaction. He said “No,
no, no, no, no. Not yet.” (That’s how these two Zen
masters spoke to each other. We can imagine in our
head that it’s very funny.) Liễu Quán then pointed to a weighing scale. The Zen master said “No,
no, not yet.” He wasn’t satisfied with that answer.
That day they ended their conversation there. The
next morning, Zen Master Tử Dung saw Zen Master
Liễu Quán walking back and forth, but Liễu Quán
didn’t notice that Tử Dung was approaching him to
… practicing in the Zen tradition is not using your mind
to think; we should learn to use our heart.
What else do we need to ask from our ancestral teachers?
What do you need to look for from our ancestors,
to ask from them?

speak further. If he had experienced anything new,
Liễu Quán would always want Tử Dung to know
about it, to see if he had attained enlightenment
yet. So, Tử Dung called Liễu Quán over and said,
“We haven’t finished our conversation from yesterday.” Zen Master Liễu Quán replied with one line:
“If we already know that the lamp is fire, then the
rice was cooked long ago.” Once he heard this line,
Zen Master Tử Dung nodded his head and praised,
“Wonderful, wonderful.” He was very satisfied.
In 1708, Liễu Quán built Thiền Tông Temple on
Thiên Thai Mountain. When he had established his
temple, he continued to study and began to teach.
In 1712, Liễu Quán had the opportunity to
meet Tử Dung again for the third time. A ceremony
had been organized in Quảng Nam Province, and
the two Zen masters spoke to each other in a Zen
way. Zen Master Liễu Quán was like a disciple to his
teacher. He presented a gatha. History didn’t write
down that gatha. We just know that it had to do
with Buddha nature. Zen Master Tử Dung read the
gatha to see how Zen Master Liễu Quán was studying and where he was in his practice at this time.
Tử Dung asked, “How do you understand, ‘The
ancestor transmits to the ancestor. The Buddha
transmits to the Buddha’? What do they actually
transmit to each other?”
“I teach to you; you teach to the younger ones.
And then the younger ones—who did they teach
to? What are we transmitting? What do they actually transmit?”
Liễu Quán was able to recognize a question,
but at the same time if we answer like the sutras,
we’ve failed. This is how a Zen master replies to another Zen master:
Bamboo shoot on the rock is very long, very
high.
A duster of the turtle weighs three kilos.
After Zen Master Liễu Quán replied to this
koan, he offered another:
Rowing a boat on a high mountain
Riding a horse deep in the sea.
Rowing a boat on a high mountain is not really
possible. It doesn’t make any sense. Riding a horse
in the depths of the sea—can you really do that? In
the first poem, we read about the bamboo shoot
and the duster. We saw it doesn’t make sense. In
that way, it’s similar to the latter verse about rowing the boat on a high mountain. That means they
are on the same frequency.
A broken string plays the zither throughout
the day.
The buffalo horn roars all night.
In this gatha, they’re trying to say these are
responses that ancestors are transmitting to ancestors and the Buddha is transmitting to the
Buddha. We can never talk about it or use words to
explain it. They speak to each other through images, through poetry. When we think of it, we cannot
think further. How can we think further? This helps
us not to think too much. That’s why practicing in
the Zen tradition is not using your mind to think;
we should learn to use our heart.
After they spoke to each other, Zen Master Tử
Dung was very satisfied. He continued to nod his
head; he was very happy with his disciple. Liễu
Quán was officially considered as his disciple.
In 1742, when he was seventy-two, Liễu Quán
saw that his health was not very stable and so he
made a gatha for the Sangha. On Liễu Quán’s last
morning, he saw that his appointment with this life
was completed. So when we come to this life it is
an appointment, and when we come here the appointment is finished. Now we return back to our
home.
What else do we need to ask from our ancestral teachers? What do you need to look for from
our ancestors, to ask from them? Liễu Quán’s life
was completed. He had nothing that he needed to
search for. He saw his life was complete, and he just
needed to return home. He no longer needed to go
somewhere to study, to learn. After he finished this
gatha the Sangha cried, because they knew that he
was about to pass to Nirvana. Liễu Quán said:
Why are you crying? What is there to cry
for? When the Buddhas are born, they
pass into Nirvana and me, I know the
path to take. There is nothing more to
fear. I don’t need to wait for anything,
so you don’t have to worry or be sad
about anything. If we pass away and you

know where you’re going, what fear is
left? It’s a great happiness. It’s like we are
going traveling and it’s a one-way ticket
traveling forever. And if we leave in that
mindset, then what is there to cry about?
If we’re being kidnapped then of course
we’re going to be very fearful because we
don’t know where we’re going, but he has
a path, so what is there to cry? I already
have my path; I already know where I’m
going. What is there for you to cry?
When they heard that they said okay. Then he
asked for the time. “What time is it?”
He said, “Yes, it’s almost time.”
He said, “I will go. Please remember,” he said.
“One last reminder that impermanence is very
quick, it passes by very quickly. You should practice diligently, properly. Please remember.”
He did sitting meditation and he passed away.
It was very, very beautiful. Hopefully we’ll be able
to be the same. Zen Master Liễu Quán had left a
gatha so whenever we receive an ordination we
will know where we stand in the lineage. Novices,
you will see this gatha on our novice ordination
certificate. As disciples we should memorize this
gatha.
The great way of Reality,
Is our true nature’s pure ocean.
The source of Mind penetrates everywhere.
From the roots of virtue springs the practice of
compassion.
Precepts, concentration and insight—
The nature and function of all three are one.
The fruit of transcendent wisdom,
Can be realized by being wonderfully together.
Maintain and transmit the wonderful principle,
In order to reveal the true teaching!
For the realization of True Emptiness to be
possible,
Wisdom and Action must go together.
This is an excerpt from the first Dharma talk of the Rains
Retreat on September 16, 2018, in the Full Moon Hall in
New Hamlet, Plum Village, France. It has been edited
for clarity. You can listen to a translation of the full
talk on the Plum Village YouTube channel at https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYnZ8UplFXA and read an
expanded version of this article at mindfulnessbell.org.
Sister Đoan Nghiêm was the sixth monastic to be
ordained by Thích Nhất Hạnh into the Plum Village
tradition in 1990, and received Lamp Transmission in
1996. Her experiences as Thầy’s attendant were filled
with learning and growth, reflecting her dedication to the
monastic life and her deep respect for Thầy’s guidance.
Sister Đoan Nghiêm’s path exemplifies a journey of
transformation, dedication, and the embracing of
simplicity and mindfulness in everyday life.