I invited Mhue over for dinner tonight. His village back in Vietnam has been severely damaged through the recent floods. Fortunately his blind mother is okay, but his monastery (which has only 10 monks) has called him back immediately to perform “charity”. This appears to involve prayers for the dead, blessing for survivors and distribution of money. He will take the bus to Delhi tomorrow, not knowing when he will return to McLeod Ganj.
I keep the food simple following my efforts last time - a tomato, onion, garlic cheesy sauce with noodles. He tells me it is good, but then seems to struggle to eat it. Maybe the sauce was too rich? I can hardly eat at the moment and i do stuff his plate pretty high.
Although he insists on calling me "Sir", he reiterates i´m his brother and we´ll keep in touch by email. We certainly will.
I particularly like his attitude to Buddhism. He tells me it is neither a religion nor a philosophy - it is simply the path that should be taken. He laughs at the different Buddhas prescribed by the Tibetans – Buddha of Compassion, Medicine Buddha etc. For Mhue, there is only one Buddha, Siddarhta, and he was/is a human. He believes too many Buddhists complicate the Buddha´s message and spend too much time intellectualising a simple path to follow.
I like Mhue a lot and i am going to miss him. I hope he manages to get back to The Ganj, before i depart. I´ll see him off at the bus-stand tomorrow evening.
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