A Battle in the Bardo

Ever since Dai Dien had first seen the young duchess, when his sangha at Thien Phuc Pagoda conducted the Liberation Rite for Land and Water for the imperial court last autumn, the wicked monk had been plotting, fixated on the memory of her. She had been dressed in an elegant deep blue ao trang vat, the flowing silk cross-collared robes of the aristocracy, with a fine silk sash as white as pearl tied around her waist. It was gathered into a knot sitting just above her hip, which stirred something lecherous in Dai Dien. Despite the ochre robes, Dai Dien was not a monk with any love for the Buddha’s dharma or discipline—he was an orphan, surrendered to the temple at Mount Sai Son as a child. He discovered later that he was rather skilled in both meditation and magic, the taste of which unlocked a devious hunger for greater depths of power. Earlier that autumn, he had learned the spell of invisibility, and, on the very day he’d lain eyes on the duchess, he immediately put it to use, cloaking himself in illusion as night fell and creeping into Duke Dien Thanh’s manor, moving like a shadow into the duke’s bedroom, to feast his hungry eyes on the duchess asleep in their bed. Some nights, when he felt particularly daring, he leaned forward to breathe in her scent. Dai Dien soon abandoned the temple. He kept himself invisible, to great exhaustion, secretly residing on the manor grounds, stealing food and water as he needed, keeping an ever-watchful eye on the duchess as he followed her about her day.

After a couple of weeks, Dai Dien realized he needed to be able to stay at the manor openly—maintaining the invisibility spell for so long was so exhausting! And so he devised his plot.

He began to stalk Duke Dien Thanh instead. One day, when the duke was traveling by caravan, Dai Dien chanted a spell, and one of the carriage wheels suddenly burst into splinters, stranding the duke on the road for hours. On odd occasions, a flurry of gusts would kick up at night, blowing out all the candlelight in a room. And then Dai Dien would conjure mystical disguises, thrusting himself into the servant staff or among the guards or the court magistrates, whispering rumors of a curse on the duke and of the great miracles of healing and exorcism known to the monk Dai Dien. On one of these occasions, he took note of a handsome judicial mandarin named Tu Vinh who sometimes met with the duke and magistrates—he was young, quiet, simple-looking, the type of gentleman that fades into the background of the mind. This poor sap will be my patsy, Dai Dien thought, etching the contours of the nobleman’s face into his memory. Afterward, Dai Dien ensured to be present any time Duke Dien Thanh left his home, always catching the duke’s eye and seeming an ordinary monk, until finally one day Dien Thanh beckoned Dai Dien over, telling him how much he had heard of Dai Dien’s reputation, and inviting him to stay at his manor as spiritual counsel. Dai Dien thought, At last! And hastily accepted.

Now, the wicked monk could conserve all his magical power until night fell. He was done with just looking at the duchess—now that he was free to use the full extent of his power, he would have her. He devised all manners and methods to lure the duke away with concocted sudden administrative emergencies that might occupy him late into the night. Then Dai Dien disguised himself as Dien Thanh, entering the bedroom to lay his greedy hands and more upon the duchess. Night after night, the duke would be led away, and Dai Dien would take his face and then take his wife, and nobody was any wiser to his deception.

Except the judicial minister, Tu Vinh.

The young magistrate Vinh was a devout Buddhist. Together with his wife, Tang Thi Lan, and his two sons, the Tu family observed the five precepts, practiced the ten wholesome actions, and went to the temple on the six posadha days of the month to receive the eight precepts and chant the repentance liturgy. And while the monks of the temple were resolute and well-disciplined, not engaging in idle chatter, the novices were undisciplined gossips. Due to his regularity at the temple, Tu Vinh overheard that the monk Dai Dien was not in good standing with the sangha, and had in fact abandoned the kasaya. The youngest son, Lo, was 15 and spent several additional days a month studying dharma, preparing for his novice ordination in the coming months. He confirmed when his father asked if Dai Dien had indeed abandoned the temple months before—maybe even before winter, Lo couldn’t recall with precision. It was a big scandal for a few days, and then temple business quickly resumed as if Dai Dien had never been a monk there at all, the boy told his father. “We must tell the duke immediately of this deception!” Tu Vinh exclaimed to his sons.

But it was on this very night that Duke Dien Thanh returned to his bedroom to find his wife in a carnal state of undress with his very double! 

The duke was locked eye-to-eye with his duplicate, dumbfounded, his jaw hanging agape. And then the face of his duplicate began to contort and morph into a different one altogether—different, though still familiar. One of the magistrates. Tu, he thought. Magistrate Tu. Yes, Magistrate Tu Vinh. Now dashing like a startled cat past the duke, scurrying with his naked body out of the duke’s bedroom. The duke followed chase into the hall, but he wasn’t able to see where Tu Vinh had gone—it was as if the man had simply vanished. Boiling over with rage, the duke stormed into the chambers of his resident monk and yanked all the sheets off his bed, where he found Dai Dien lying, still in his robes, startled awake. Duke Dien Thanh barked, “Find Magistrate Tu Vinh and kill him. He is a wizard practicing black arts.”

Just as Dai Dien was leaving the manor grounds, he saw Tu Vinh crossing the bridge over To Lich River on his way to the manor to speak to the duke. With his magic power, Dai Dien tore a branch off a nearby tree. It flew toward Tu Vinh on the bridge and struck him hard in the skull with one end, and then twice more, flinging his lifeless body off the bridge with a resounding final blow. Dai Dien grinned, and turned back around to go and inform Duke Dien Thanh that the salacious black wizard Tu Vinh had been slain.

*

At the age of 15, Tu Lo was ordained as a novice, his future set for a life of scriptural study and meditation. But Tu Vinh’s son was no longer content to practice at this small, simple temple outside the capital—he swore on the altar of his father to avenge his murder. He was determined to find and kill Dai Dien, but knew there was no chance of standing up to the dark wizard’s power. Tu Lo thought, I must study the dharma in the Tathagata’s homeland—only there will I learn powerful enough means to protect myself from Dai Dien’s wizardry. For the entirety of his novice tenure at Thien Phuc Temple, he prepared and planned for pilgrimage to the Western Lands, the homeland of the Sakyan sage. Keeping his true motivations secret, he told his preceptor that he intended to travel to India to retrieve scriptures after becoming a bhiksu—it was not entirely untrue. He received the ordination name Tu Dao Hanh in short time. Not long after, the venerable monk recruited two enthusiastic novices to accompany him and set off on a journey westward to India.

Together, the trio climbed many treacherous mountains, trekked innumerable forests, and waded through countless rivers as they crossed through the Dali kingdom, and farther through the territories of the gold-toothed Hmong, and farther west still. One day, near the western border of the Bagan Empire (modern-day Myanmar), as the three sramanas were traveling along the bank of a gentle river, they came across an old man rowing an old dugout canoe. Dao Hanh called out to the old man, asking for directions to the Buddha’s birthplace. The boatman laughed, rowing to shore near them and beckoning them on board. “The Buddha’s homeland is just down this river—I can take you there,” he said with a smile. The monks climbed aboard and rode the canoe for what seemed only an hour before they were docked at a town where people of golden-brown complexion wore clothes made in such an extravagance of colored dyes the monks had to rub their dazzled eyes.

The old man then said, “I will show you the way to the Buddha’s birthplace, it is not far,” and helped the two novices out of the canoe. Then he hesitated and addressed Dao Hanh, “Master, will you wait here and watch my boat while I show your disciples the way? After we return, they can show you back.” Dao Hanh agreed, and the old man clapped his hands, joyously exclaiming, “How wonderful it is to lead such faithful and pure-hearted monks to the Buddha’s relics,” but briefly shot Dao Hanh a judgmental look that stirred up shame and guilt in the monk’s stomach. The old man and the two novices departed. Hours passed. Night fell. Dao Hanh went to sleep in the canoe. When he awoke, he was back on the river bank, back within the imperial realm of Bagan, where they had encountered the old man, alone, with no canoe in sight.

He sighed, picking himself up from the ground and gathering his robes, going to search for shelter in which to wait out the coming monsoon—he wouldn’t be able to proceed to India or return to Thang Long (modern-day Hanoi) until the rainy season ended. After some time, Dao Hanh found a small rock cavern that opened up near a bend in the river. He settled into the small hollow of this earth, intending to practice meditation in seclusion during the summer rains.

On some mornings, a woman from a nearby village would come to sit in the cover of the cavern’s canopy to be shielded from the rain, in order to wash and prepare basketfuls of vegetables to sell in the afternoon. When she came, she would offer him some vegetables as alms, which he accepted gracefully. Then she went to wash her produce and he sat peacefully in meditation. As she washed her vegetables, she sang the Sutra of the Thousand-Hands-and-Eyes Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. And on more and more mornings, the village woman would appear, offer alms to Tu Dao Hanh with a reverent bow and smile, and then go and wash her produce, singing the sutra again and again, until each syllable was branded into Tu Dao Hanh’s memory. They began meeting each morning as the wet season went on, singing the sutra together for hours into the afternoon before bowing their heads to each other and departing.

One day, as the rains were beginning to clear, the village woman asked Tu Dao Hanh his next plans. The monk lamented, “I entered the Buddha’s homeland with a wicked heart, seeking powerful magic to avenge my father’s murder—surely, that old man was the Buddha’s emanation. He sensed the hatred I harbor within and turned me away as unworthy.”

“Why trek all the way to Sakyamuni’s homeland when you already reside in the land of Amitabha’s acolyte?”

The village woman shook her head in a scolding, motherly manner. “Evil begets only evil, venerable master. That is not the way to escape karma.” But then the woman smiled and added, “Besides, why travel so far from home for mere magic? Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara protects all the peoples in the lands touching the Southern Sea—her pure land of Potalaka is not far. Master, if you can relinquish the malice in your heart and chant this sutra of Great Compassion 18,000 times with a pure and sincere mind, she will command the loyalty of all Heaven to protect you. The Southern Sea is her home as much as it is yours and mine—why trek all the way to Sakyamuni’s homeland when you already reside in the land of Amitabha’s acolyte? Place your faith in Avalokiteshvara and a more merciful justice will surely be yours, master.” With that, the village woman stood. She touched the top of Tu Dao Hanh’s head gently as he was seated there among the rocks. A sudden flash of light blinded Tu Dao Hanh. When his vision returned, the village woman had vanished. He touched his head to the ground reverently, convinced he had encountered a bodhisattva.

The monk gathered his things and journeyed back to Thien Phuc Pagoda. He spent months reciting the Sutra of the Thousand-Hands-and-Eyes Avalokitehsvara Bodhisattva as the village laywoman had instructed, allowing the mantra of Great Compassion to slowly erode away the malice in his mind, to bathe his heart in the soothing warmth of Avalokiteshvara’s compassion. Each afternoon, after the morning liturgies and meditation with the sangha, Tu Dao Hanh found his way to a small garden on the temple grounds that the monks nicknamed the grove of the dragon trees. At the center of the garden, two ancient pine trees sprouted up side by side, trunks twisting together as they stretched to the sky. Tu Dao Hanh sat facing the twin trees, resting his left foot upon his right thigh and his right foot upon his left thigh, his hands held gently in his lap, chanting the sutra every day for three months. As the days passed, layers of bark began peeling off the dragon trees, gathering in piles as the roots. The monk noticed, too, how his anger peeled away from him, layer by layer, until his desire to slay Dai Dien was wholly transmuted into something new—a wish to protect others from further harm, to prevent another boy from enduring the same sick grief as he had.

At the moment of this insight, the last of the bark fell away from the dragon trees, exposing the trunks’ heartwood. A spear of sunlight fell from the sky. A blue-faced god appeared before the monk, bathed in the beam of sunlight, adorned with magnificently tiled lamellar armor, brandishing a longsword in his right hand. Dao Hanh knew instantly—this was Virudhaka, the Heavenly King of the Southern Quarter. Virudhaka held his left hand at his chest reverently in prayer mudra, bowing his head respectfully. “Venerable one, I am of service to all faithful and pure-hearted devotees of the Great Bodhisattva—what do you ask of me?”

Tu Dao Hanh said to the Heavenly King Virudhaka, “It is time to expose the crimes of the wizard Dai Dien and confront him.” Virudhaka bowed his head again. The two then vanished from Thien Phuc Pagoda in a gust of wind.

Throughout the city of Thang Long, all of the buildings and stones and trees began to reverberate forcefully, and a voice thundered up from the ground decrying the crimes of the dark wizard Dai Dien—his mastery of illusion; his defiling of the duchess of Dien Thanh; his misconduct among laywomen; his monastic masquerade and abandonment of the Vinaya; his use of meditative and magic power for personal gain; his framing and murder of the magistrate Tu Vinh; and on and on. All who looked upward to the sky above the city saw the images of the Four Heavenly Kings standing together, bathed in golden light—this voice was sanctioned by Heaven itself. 

All who looked upward to the sky above the city saw the images of the Four Heavenly Kings standing together, bathed in golden light—this voice was sanctioned by Heaven itself.

At this time, Dai Dien was living in a small hut by the To Lich River, and he rushed outside angrily, wondering what was causing this public exposure of his crimes. He found Tu Dao Hanh standing outside his door waiting for him. “Dai Dien!” cried out Dao Hanh. “Do you remember me? I am Tu Lo, son of Tu Vinh—you will come with me to the royal guard and be made to pay for my father’s murder!” 

Dai Dien said, “You do not have the power to apprehend me, monk.” The wizard then used his magic power to lift a large branch from the ground, which then flew over to Tu Dao Hanh to strike him. But just then, Virudhaka plummeted from the sky, appearing instantly beside Tu Dao Hanh to intercept the branch, holding it in the air.

The Heavenly King declared, “Evil begets only further evil,” with an admonishing grunt. A rush of wind flung the branch back at Dai Dien, knocking the dark wizard into the river.

As Dai Dien was pushed by the current down the river, thrashing his arms and legs to try to stay afloat, he was able to gasp out in shouts, “I will kill you in this life or the next, monk!” But the weight of his heinous karma had brought recent heavy rains, and the current was stronger than he could fight. The dark wizard’s body was battered against the rocky riverbed too many times until, finally, Dai Dien lost the strength to stay aloft and drowned.

*

In the years that followed, Venerable Tu Dao Hanh achieved widespread recognition for his role in bringing Dai Dien to justice. He traveled all of Dai Viet, healing the sick and injured, summoning rains in times of drought, performing miracles far and wide, and spreading the great medicine of the buddhadharma. 

Over all this time, King Ly Nhan Tong reigned over Dai Viet; he was advancing in age, and still had no heir. No amount of Buddhist or Taoist magic had helped. Oracles, geomancers, and witch doctors were all useless. Not a single wife or concubine ever conceived; the king surrendered all hope. He declared that the future son of his younger brother, Duke Sung Hien, would be the crown prince of Dai Viet—Sung Hien’s wife was already pregnant, and the nation could rest assured the prosperity of the Ly dynasty would continue.

One day, an orphan boy appeared wandering around the paved streets of the imperial court, loudly declaring himself to be the son of the king. He approached aristocrats at random, demanding they take the boy to his father. When the king caught word of this, he asked the royal guard to escort the child to him. The boy called himself Giac Hoang and displayed remarkable characteristics in spite of his youth and common attire—he could read; he could orate centuries of dynastic history; he could recite Buddhist and Confucian scriptures from memory. The king quickly fell in love, gleefully adopting him as his ward. 

But it was soon discovered that Giac Hoang was critically and terminally ill. The king lamented, “What cursed karma did I commit in past lives to finally have a son, just to have him ripped away immediately? I want nothing more than a life where you are my true son and I could raise you into a fine king, dear child, but Heaven is surely punishing me.”

Giac Hoang said to the king in a weak voice, “I have an idea, Your Majesty, if you do not detest more mystical means.” The king did not object, and the boy went on. “We can cast a spell so that I take rebirth as Sung Hien’s child, but we must hurry if you truly wish for me to become your heir.” Immediately, the king sent out men to procure everything necessary for the spell.

Tu Dao Hanh, in his clairvoyance, knew Giac Hoang was in truth Dai Dien, still lusting for power, and so the sorcerer-monk made his way to the capital to speak to Duke Sung Hien and his wife, warning them, “The adopted son of King Ly Nhan Tong is the dark wizard reborn—in his lust for power, Dai Dien will take rebirth as your son if we do nothing to stop him.” He produced a series of four enchanted pine-bark talismans engraved with the Great Compassion Dharani, asking that they be strewn about the palace in alignment with the four cardinal directions.

Giac Hoang’s condition grew worse within days. He said to the king, “Father, an iron net now surrounds the palace on all sides—the spell is interrupted. I will not be able to take rebirth as intended. You must stop Tu Dao Hanh before the child is born.” With those words, the boy died.

Now, the king was thrown into a rage. He had Tu Dao Hanh arrested and thrown into a dungeon cell. Duke Sung Hien pleaded with his brother to free the monk. “You were being influenced by the dark wizard Dai Dien, who seeks the throne through mystic means—is it not peculiar for an orphaned toddler to come to you, able to read and recite histories and demonstrate a scholarship of spellcraft? Brother, Your Majesty—you have been bewitched!”

Finally, through his brother’s reasoning, King Ly Nhan Tong came to his senses. He ordered that Tu Dao Hanh be released. Sung Hien was there when the monk was freed to give his thanks for freeing his brother from the boy’s wicked enchantment, but Tu Dao Hanh only shook his head, saying, “This is not yet over, good duke. Send me word when your wife goes into labor.” Only when Duke Sung Hien agreed did Venerable Tu Dao Hanh leave the dungeon and proceed back to Thien Phuc Pagoda.

Two months later, messengers appeared at the temple, announcing the labor of the duchess and the imminent birth of the royal heir. Tu Dao Hanh promptly left the temple grounds, entering a nearby cave. He sat on the ground and carefully pulled his legs into lotus posture. He chanted a praise to the Buddha and to Avalokiteshvara. He chanted the Great Compassion Dharani 108 times and then entered a deep samadhi, leaving the whole of his body behind as a sacred petrified relic and a field of merit for the masses. His mindstream swam through the Intermediate-Existence, making his way to the ghostly parallel of the palace grounds. He found Dai Dien there, in the room where the duchess was in labor, trying to take rebirth as the prince, but finding iron chains appearing at his ankles and neck every time he approached closer, holding him in place. “You can stop me this time, Tu Dao Hanh,” said Dai Dien as he fought against the mystic chains, “but I will ascend the throne someday—your protection spell will not last another lifetime. Your magic cannot endure.” As Dai Dien spoke and struggled against the chains, cracks formed in the magic iron.

Tu Dao Hanh nodded his head in agreement. “You are right, wizard. My power cannot endure—but Avalokiteshvara’s power can.” He then placed his palms together and reverently bowed his head. He chanted the Great Compassion Dharani and called out to the bodhisattva, “For the sake of protecting the people of this country, for as long as a Viet nation exists, please, Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, ensure that no being will ever be able to take rebirth through supermundane power again. Namo Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva.” Suddenly, the iron net Tu Dao Hanh cast over the palace transformed into one of crystal, going from inky black to radiantly iridescent, and then stretched outward, expanding to cover all of Dai Viet. 

“For as long as a Viet nation exists, please, Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, ensure that no being will ever be able to take rebirth through supermundane power again.”

Next, Dai Dien and Tu Dao Hanh were both swept up in the inertia of their own karmas—Dai Dien tumbled about the Intermediate-Existence until he settled into a new birth to a family of nearby rats; Tu Dao Hanh’s mindstream gently drifted into the infant prince’s body just as he was born, opening his eyes with a disoriented gasp and cry, so sudden the shock of returning to birth.

It was suspected by all the Vietnamese people that their young prince was, in truth, the sorcerer-monk Tu Dao Hanh reborn—he was born on the very day that the monk left behind his petrified whole-body relic in that cave, after all. The young prince demonstrated himself to be brilliant, skilled in scripture, a dutiful Thien practitioner and patron of the buddhadharma. He sought out the dharma heir of Tu Dao Hanh, Nguyen Minh Khong, and became his disciple. When the young prince was coronated king, he took on the name Ly Than Tong, the fourth king of Ly dynasty, and appointed Nguyen Minh Khong the country’s national teacher. He retrieved the perfectly preserved whole-body relic of Tu Dao Hanh from the cave on Mount Sai Son and had it enshrined within Thien Phuc Pagoda for all to worship. He spent his reign building a network of Buddhist temples throughout the kingdom, spreading wide among the Viet peoples the teachings of Master Tu Dao Hanh, acolyte of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva-sorcerer that gave his life protecting the nation.