Stories of Ancesteral Healing

During the past years I was invited a few times by some of my mentors to share about stories [of ancestral healing], but I have always avoided doing it. Why? Breathing and feeling my body, I would say for shyness, and below it, because of fear.

Stories are very interesting events, like memories. They are clearly so fluid and unreliable, a kind of chain of habitual running thoughts, images, and often unconscious mental activities, and yet there is a great power in them. They can easily affect our body and mind and those around us. Sharing them makes them even more powerful, more real. I can see how taking ownership of some of them is easy for me, as if I and them were somehow separated from life and from each other, instead of looking at them as simply many conditions coming together. If I don’t speak about my stories, I can experience them in a much lighter and inconsistent way, limiting the “identity luggage” that I have the tendency to nourish and carry around.

This description is about understanding my stories and how they operate within my mind. True understanding is not separate from love. So if I take refuge in the aspiration to love, to connect and to offer something beautiful, even the power of a story and my attachment to it can become a skillful way to expose my vulnerabilities and to connect with others’ hearts.

This is what I am learning and that’s why during this period of changes, while this five year program is approaching its end I have asked my heart “what would you like to express now?” This sharing is my heart’s response.

I’ve also written the following letter for the Son Ha Sangha during the last days before the Great Ordination [in March 2025]. During that period the Sangha kindly supported some extra time out of the daily activities for us ordinees. This silent time has allowed me to be fully present for my heart. One morning, in a burst of gratitude and trust, this sharing naturally came up and I wrote it down straight away. It was something very intimate, so I was not sure if it was appropriate [to share it], so I checked with my mentors. They were pretty happy with it. So, here it is…

Dear respected Thay, dear Brothers, dear Sangha

Thank you for being there for me and for so many others.

This morning, during my meditation in Thay’s hut, I touched a great deal of gratitude for you and for the opportunity to have some time and space slightly withdrawn from the schedule during these days. I also felt inspired to share a little more about my inner journey in order to cultivate understanding, love, emotional intimacy and spiritual intimacy, which seem to me to be the essence of true siblinghood.

During these past sixteen years of healing, sustained by the practice of mindfulness applied to daily life, retreats, and a couple of years of therapy, the story of my family naturally unfolded within the loving awareness of breath and body.

When my mom became pregnant with me, my father tried to convince her to have an abortion because he did not feel ready to start a family at that time. Luckily, my mom strongly refused and that’s why my dad became part of my life only years later, as he wanted to offer me the best possible education during my teenage and adult years.

At that time, my mother’s dad also had recently died, and my mother’s mom was so overwhelmed by grief that she gradually lost her will to live and eventually died just a few months after my birth. During this difficult period, my mother decided to leave behind her city in southern Italy and move north. She was a single parent, alone in a new place, and she immersed herself in many kinds of duties and responsibilities.

I do not remember spending much time together with her. I was mostly in front of the television. I was very spoiled. Every time I wanted something and could not get it, I would cry intensely until my exhausted mother would eventually give me what I wanted.

Sometimes, however, my mother would become so furious because of this behavior that she would beat me repeatedly until I could no longer cry and would freeze.

In my meditation, I could clearly see the beliefs that these repeated episodes developed within my young psyche, which could not make sense of them: “The most important person in my life loves me very much, but sometimes she can deliver an unbearable amount of violence. She cannot be wrong. Therefore, there must be something deeply wrong within me.” Every time this physical and verbal violence penetrated my body and mind, this message was deeply absorbed.

This process divided a basic part of my psyche into three main elements that still manifest from time to time: a wounded child, a punisher (or inner critic), and a soother (or sensual indulgence). The strange thing is that this painful process was somehow very functional. The “punisher” pushed me intensely and allowed me to achieve many successes in education, career, and community building. The “soother” tried to balance the system through various unhealthy coping mechanisms. Meanwhile, the inner child cried unattended.

This is why, during a retreat in 2011, when one of my mentors guided Thay’s meditation on the five-year-old child, it was so profoundly healing for me. Since then, I have continued nourishing this healing process within myself and around me.

Still, caring for the inner child remains a very sensitive and vulnerable process within me. Each time I feel that I am not meeting other people’s expectations, the “punisher” becomes activated and creates toxic judgments about myself and others. If this process is not fully recognized, these judgments are projected outward and generate suffering. This builds up emotional stress that the soother then attempts to suppress through compulsive activities or consumption.

Through the practice of gathas, sitting meditation, and walking meditation, I am able to generate enough energy of mindfulness to become fully aware of this process and free enough from it. This is why service meditation and taking on responsibilities can be especially challenging for me. During work or other social activities, this process can manifest in its full power, and my capacity to care for it properly is limited.

The result was so beautiful. The Sangha allowed her simply to be a mother: offering food (focaccia and chocolate), sewing hats, and distributing candies into brothers’ pockets. In this way, she grew more and more confident in her own capacity to love the Sangha. Through this, we could even offer songs, rap performances, and sketches for the Sangha during the New Year’s Eve Be-Ins.

What a wonderful process for both our hearts. They are truly not separate.

I hope this sharing may cultivate some trust, love, and understanding.

With gratitude, love, and trust,

Brother Dinh Tuc