Empty Vessel, Empty Me

Life Lessons in the empty vessels

1. An innocent Thief

“The way a person becomes more mature is more through learning from mistakes than through doing the right things”.
—-🎶

Born and raised in the most “well-off” family in the village, my life since childhood had lacked nothing—if not to say, it was full and abundant. So the question of “stealing” something never arose.

However, in the first days as a bewildered student in Saigon, I was arrested for… stealing. Yes, how embarrassing!!!

That was when I was eighteen years old. One time, I went to the supermarket, and while walking around the shelves, I saw some really beautiful bottles of perfume.

I don’t use perfume, and I’ve never cared about perfume because I come from the countryside, so I didn’t care about that. Not to mention, the price of these perfumes was very expensive (one bottle sometimes cost as much as my entire monthly allowance), so I never wanted to buy them.

So I stood in front of the perfume shelf for a long time, fascinated by the small glass bottles with beautiful designs, and thought to myself, “These sample bottles are all out of perfume anyway, they’ll probably throw them away. Maybe I can take them without any problem.”

Thinking so, I took two empty perfume bottles from the shelf and put them in the shopping cart. No one said anything at the checkout counter. I was very reassured—and happy too—thinking to myself that I would come back from time to time to see if there were any more bottles left to take. Soon, I would have a collection of pretty bottles, they are such arts…

While I was rejoicing, a security guard in a neat uniform with a walkie-talkie walked up to me and asked me to stop and follow him. I was extremely scared.

He led me into a room with many monitors and told me to sit down in a chair, in front of another old security guard who looked at me sternly and told me to put what I had stolen on the table.

I trembled as I searched my pocket for the two empty bottles and put them on the table. He looked at me with such a look I had never seen in my entire life —perhaps a mixture of contempt and pity.

He asked me why I had stolen from the supermarket. I replied that because the bottles were empty, I thought it was okay if I took them. He said that even if they were empty, they were still the property of the supermarket, and I couldn’t take them.

Then he threatened me, saying he would make a report, hand me over to the police, and send the report to the university where I was studying so they could discipline and expel me. He talked about how I had ruined my future because of this crime.

I cried like rain, never thinking that taking a few empty perfume bottles would cost me so much.

But luckily, it turned out that he was just scaring me. After letting me cry and be scared enough, he said he would forgive me this first time—no report, no police—just asking me not to repeat that action. Of course, I was extremely happy but didn’t dare to show it. I just silently left that office with great shame.

And just once is enough, I know the feeling of a thief and never want to repeat it, no matter to whom or for what.

2. Mistakes carry treasure

So you may think that the mistakes we made in the past are sins, are bad things, and you might live with the remorse for the rest of your life. But I tell you, every mistake carries at least a lesson. And if you are smart, you will learn the lessons very quickly—once is enough.

But if you are not smart enough, you will keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, until you see through the nature of life and yourself, to change, to grow up.

Many people ask why I have so much awareness since I was young. Many people also think that awareness is like an inheritance that we can just enjoy without paying any price. It is not like that. The journey of knowing is a journey of experiencing, enjoying, making mistakes, suffering, and learning from those mistakes.

Each and every experience in life is a precious material for us to weave our web of consciousness. If you are lucky, you will have the intelligence to see things faster. That’s it!

And for me, just one experience of stealing two empty perfume bottle almost two decades ago, and having to sit before the “judge of justice”—who was the security guard—to hear about how my life would be destroyed, erased all the potential gray shadows of being a thief.

Because hating the feeling of being a thief somehow created a new sense of dignity in me, even though I had never intended to steal anything before.

Do you see the difference:

At first, you don’t intend to steal simply because you are naive, living in abundance, and never had that idea.

But the second time, after experiencing the feeling of a thief, you still have no intention of stealing anything from anyone, but not because you are naive anymore—because you have matured.

Now you are “saltier”: the taste of tears of regret, of fear, of gratitude, and of relief—that is also the salty taste of self-recognition.

Self-recognition is a bitter process of many tears and sweat, but fortunately, its aftertaste is always very pure and sweet.

In my whole life, I only experienced being-a-thief once and it was enough for the entire life.

I never mentioned this event, even forgot about it, but recently, when I heard many of you confide in me about the extreme pain and frustration of being “cheated”, of losing many treasures in life, it suddenly reminded me of this experience.

Nowaday, people cheat/scam each other too much. I have also been cheated/scammed many times—sometimes because of greed for promises of profit, sometimes without greed but still got cheated/scammed.

Sometimes I wonder why people cheat/scam each other so much, specially in this era.

Cheat or fraud or scam is just another name for theft. We take other people’s sweat and effort and consider it our own, like it’s obviously.

The worst is many people are even proud of it and say, “just because you are too stupid.”

The difference between a thief and a robber, in my opinion, is that a thief still has a little dignity — a little dignity to be ashamed of what he does. But a fraud, a scammer and a robber? Even that little dignity is gone.

Fraudsters or scammer are nowadays so arrogant that when they see you cry, they laugh harder in your face and even make big parties to celebrate their “success”.

3. Empty Vessels, or Empty Self-Values – creates the Greed

When I think about why there are so many fraudsters in this age, I see two reasons: One is that human greed is so great, so huge. And the second one – well, just like the first one – Yes, it is all because of greed.

(I wanted to say “the unconsciousness” but they are not two things anyway. The only root of any sin is the unconsciousness, remember that! But this post today is about the greedy state so I want you to meditate on this when it comes to “scam”)

If you are not greedy, no one can scam you.

Because if you are not greedy, you will not want to take anything that does not belong to you. You will not want to receive anything that you have not worked for. Then who can cheat you through promises?

But why are people greedy?

To find the answer for this, I remember Osho once said, “Greed is an attempt to fill an inner emptiness.” But what is that inner emptiness? He was talking about the sacred emptiness – well-known as “Tánh Không” in Vietnamese – the nothingness in the Buddhism sense that many of you may have no idea about.

So, I have another answer for you in this very topic about the empty bottles/empty vessels today, one that you may find more relatable and easier to recognize in yourself:

“Greed is an attempt to fill up the emptiness inside – the emptiness of values / substances”

I draw this “mantra” from my own life, as well as from observing many other stories. When you do not create any real value/substance for life, for others, for society, for yourself—you are like an empty jar, an empty vessel—you will feel very afraid.

This fear makes you greedy and impatient, wanting to find any way and every way to quickly fill the jar, the vessel.

The industrial age has created a “fast-food” lifestyle, or so-called the convenient lifestyle: Everything needs to be fast, faster; everything is spinning in speed competitions. Then, naturally, everyone becomes impatient, everyone is in a hurry. No one (or very few) wants to spend a lot of time and effort to build inner substance – the kind of value/worth that truly helps people cultivate dignity and self-recognition.

In the agricultural era, people grew food, and somehow they knew how to respect nature and respect the process: Trees need time to grow. Flowers need time to bear fruit. Fruit needs time to ripen. Everything follows the laws of nature, and people had the common sense to understand the right timing for everything – rushing was useless.

But in the post-industrial era, if you want to eat fruit, you just need to open the refrigerator and take out a box of pre-peeled fruit. All steps are shortened to save time, so people no longer have a sense of patience and process.

In the post-industrial era, the material benefits are obvious, but the great spiritual consequence is that people become distant from natural processes. They lose patience, discipline, and the ability to wait. No one wants to be patient. Or they don’t have time to know what patience is and how important patience is.

Patience is a quality that is increasingly disappearing – in the material world, the mental world, and even the spiritual world. It seems like people have everything except patience. No one mentions patience as a necessary substance anymore. On the contrary, patient people are easily seen as stupid or foolish.

It is difficult to patiently sell cups of coffee, bowls of phở, or loaves of bánh mì for spare change when all your friends and neighbors around you are just sitting around brokering real estate or buying-selling some “coins” and making a fortune. Of course, you feel worried, anxious with fear. The fear of missing out is one of the biggest fears of this era.

More people get impatient and lost their trust in the process of creating real substance, of course, there will be more people cheat and be cheated. Because everyone wants something that helps them get rich quickly.

People who want to get rich quickly – rich without creating real substance inside – no matter how much money, how many assets or treasures they own, they still see themselves as an empty vessel, a bottomless vessel, never at peace, never satisfied. An empty vessel would create more and more greed. To stop being greedy, the vessel needs to be not empty. There are three states of the empty vessel that we need to pay attention to:

First is the innocent emptiness of a child: This is the state of an empty vessel in its purest form – a child’s mind, open and untouched. But this state disappears very quickly. In our instant industrial age, everything is fast. Children are forced to “get-big” (not really mean grow-up) quickly. Parents, schools, and society rush to cram/over-feed them with all kinds of things: informations, prejudices, wishes, goals, ideas about life – into that innocent vessel, causing it to be filled before the child has his own knowing about anything.

The second state when people grow up, they know they are, somehow, empty vessel, kind of emptiness – the lacking state… And for that feeling, they begin or trying to fill their lives with many things they believe to be of value. They pour into their vessel money, material things, fame, power, love, friendship, knowledge, skills, creativity, initiative – everything.

The real substances that truly fill the vessel – such experience, knowing, wisdom, skill, passion, creativity… – they all require time, cultivation, patience, and discipline. Fewer and fewer people choose this path because technology has made it easier for everyone who do not want to make any effort but still “look like” they have everything the effort would offer.

In fact, filling the vessel with material shortcuts and quick fame becomes easier and more seductive- especially in an era where image-ism dominates all corners of life. Just one carefully arranged or photoshopped photo can bring a same sense of value, because everyone praises and applauds. So why bother working hard? If fake-things would bring the same fame but quicker, then why should bother the real? Instant-fake-fame is still better than nothing – impatient ones thought.

Not mention, fake-images now could bring real profit and money easily – of course from the same fork of image-ism people. Then of course more and more people would choose shortcuts to fill the vessel instead of the long, arduous path. That’s why we are always afraid. That’s why we are always greedy.

“Có thực mới vực được đạo” = “Need food to recieve the truth” But in Vietnamese, thực = food, and also = the real. Anybody who says this sentence seems just understand it by the meaning of food: People need food before need the truth. I have never heard anyone mention the other meanings of this maxim/proverb.

Today is the first time, I will tell you another meaning of this beautiful wisdom from our ancient. From now on, whenever you hear this maxim, don’t think “thực” here is “food”. In this context, better, “thực” should be “the-real–thing” – cái thực – what is not fake.

So, the maxim would be: Need to be real, to receive the truth – or Tao. Because, The Tao, or the truth is litterally the non-false, non-fake.

A vessel is truly full only when it is filled with substance – with what is real. This substance dissolves the fear and ends the greed. A person who possesses skills, creativity, responsibility, independence, self-control, discipline, and patience – has nothing to fear.

Remember: One is not afraid when one is a full vessel of values, substances…

And a vessel is full only when it contains what is real.

And what is real is always something we must invest time and effort to create. It is never an easy instant noodle. It is like a bowl of phở, which needs hours to prepare, slow-cooked with beef, bones, and many kinds of herbs…

—

Then here it comes – the third state of the empty vessel: The sacred emptiness of the awakened.

When one has already collected and created real substance, and then comes to see even that as non-essential, meaningless, such a burden in a way…

When one has the ability to release everything, to let go, to empty themselves once again from all they have collected and created— not in ignorance, but in awareness.

Yes, to consciously make oneself empty again, innocent again, pure again… They may seem like a child, but they are not a child.

At this state, one becomes a sacred vessel of the existence, of the Divine. At this state, one becomes a tool, a vehicle of God to carry and delivery what ever needed: Always full and always empty—at the same time... Mindfulness and Emptiness (Zen) at the same time.

The Taos, or the sacred-experiences can not be contained in words nor to be proved:

But I have seen all three types of vessels and I also have been both three states of a vessel, that’s why to me, it is my truth. The truth will free us, free us from what? From fear and greed, from doubt and excuses…

How about you?

If you find yourself still full of fear or greed, then let’s open “the eye” to recognize that you are still an empty vessel. And start doing something to truly fill your vessel…

Phi Tuyết, 2022