WHO AM I ? ( MAHARSHI ) Here is an answer to this question in Vietnamese Buddhist, and not Buddhist literature. According to Trần-Thái-Tôn, our great scholar King of the thirteenth century we can only realize but not systematize this reality. Both immanent and transcendent not by any mystic way, but by a life of unselfish actions. Of course, after searching in vain for the Buddha nature in the forest and mountains, he came back to the throne and devoted himself during years and years to social organization, courageous performances on the battle field against Mongolian armies until he reached this conclusion : " Ứng vô sở trụ nhi sinh kỳ tâm " (
)
" Keep your mind active, not clinging to anything." Doing so he thought like Gandhi today who recently declared : " I reduce myself to nothing." That is, when the relative I disappears, then the true I will appear, TháiTôn put : " Vô sinh hóa cố vô hóa vô sinh ; hữu hóa sinh cố hữu sinh hữu hóa ."
1
" The I who does not know life or death can not die or live ; and that which belongs to life and death has to die or live ." In fact, the essential reality is ) " living living " or everlasting. But when it is seen " sinh sinh " ( from the conceptual consciousness point of view, it became discrete, discontinuous, and we are alarmed by the less of this manifesting I to which we cling so much . After Thái-Tôn ' answer, there was another in the eighteenth century from an outstanding Vietnamese scholar, the ultimate reality is to be found outside and inside together by the classical way of " Cách vật trí tri " ) " Investigating things and performing knowledge ". ( But instead of the practical aspect of human nature, Lê-Quý-Đôn stressed the problem of Unity and Diversity : " Đồng qui nhi thù đồ " ). So that he recognized in the human nature two ( dynamic aspects : the conditioned and the unconditioned, the practical and the transcendental . The third answer to the problem was from a well-known scholar of nineteenth century, Nguyễn-Công-Trứ. The later was a man of action but very learning too in Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism. He believed in the infinite personality of man. But he stated that beside this eternal spectator, there is also the actor. The actor changes but the spectator does not. He put it artistically : " Ngàn muôn năm âu cũng thế ni, Ai hay hát và ai hay nghe hát ." During millions and millions of years it remains the same ; Who is actor and who is spectator in me ". And he concluded : " Linh khâm bảo hợp thái hòa ". (
)
" In my innermost self is a spiritual principal which comprehends the universal “ harmony ”. " 2
And he proposed as a solution of the problem the same way of disinterested action as Trần-Thái-Tôn. In many poems he translated his philosophy of action ; I quote these significant verses : " Chữ vô cầu là chữ tiên thiên Đem bẩm trời, trời cũng phải khuyên, Khuyên hai chữ anh hùng yên sở ngộ ." " The word no-selfish desire is innate in us. If you present it to the Lord, He will bless it, He will bless and bless this idea that man of action has to suit himself to the situation he is in ." In conclusion, in Vietnamese thought we believe in the infinite personality of man, in the immanent and transcendent Human nature ; but personalism till now is rather foreign to us because we are not so much for the conceptual thought and closed system. We believe in the Human Person, not in the closed system of logical concepts, so according to all Vietnamese thinkers reason and intuition do not exclude each other and the three principal systems of Oriental thought, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism can go together as different points of view or ways of life aiming to realize the ultimate creative Unity .
3
