Vietnamese Portland

Allen Luong Oral History

Allen Luong is the Temple Guardian of the Temple of the Mother Spirit in Tigard, Oregon. He came to America in 1975 at the age of seven when his parents brought their family’s spiritual practice from Vietnam. After earning a doctorate in education, Allen took over the Temple from his mother in 2001. In 2012, he relocated and expanded the temple in Tigard, reconstructing it as a traditional 16th-century temple using materials and craftsmen from Vietnam.

In this interview, Luong explains the Mother Spirit Practice as an agronomically-based spiritual tradition focused on respecting heaven, earth, and water, with the mother figure representing consistency and nurturing. Luong discussed how UNESCO’s 2013 recognition of the practice and site as intangible cultural heritage helped remove the stigma of superstition. He addresses how the Temple welcomes people from all backgrounds and accepts both male and female spiritual expression.

View the institutional page for the Mother Spirit Practice/Vietnamese Cultural Arts Alliance here.

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Transcript

Zoë Maughan: This is Zoë Maughan. It is November 7, 2024, and I am at Jeffrey Allen Gallery speaking with Allen today, for an oral history about the Temple of the Mother Spirit [or, Mother Spirit Practice]. So I'm wondering if you can begin by briefly introducing yourself, stating your name, and telling me just a little bit about you.

Allen Luong: My name is Allen Truong Luong, is my American name. My Vietnamese name and title would be Ông Đồng Đức, and that is my title as the Temple Guardian. I am 57 years old. I came to America in 1975 when I was 7 years old. Our Mother Spirit Practice has been in my family for several generations. If we were to say a specific date and where it came back to, I couldn't tell you because most of this is oral and has passed on from from parents to children. So most of the time in our particular practice, women are the head of the practices. So typically, it's women passing on the oral history to their daughters. And in our practice it is really, really rare back in the days to have men involved. However, today is a different society, and so there is almost a 50/50 now where before it was really rare to have male interaction.
We came here in 1975. My parents brought the practice over when we immigrated to America.
And from there, they did what they could do, building the temple with the best resources that they had, implementing practices, and making the scenery out of whatever they could find. So just keeping on with the tradition. My parents brought it here to Portland, Oregon, and established it here until 1984 and then they moved to San Jose where there was a larger Asian community. And there, they again [were] just reestablishing the practice and typically in America it is a practice that is, in people's homes because it's not an organized religion type of… It's a very individual spiritual path that people feel that this is what they can do, this is how they can do it, and then sometimes it grows into a larger manifestation and sometimes it stays very small in an individual home.
And then in 2001, my parents brought the temple back up to Oregon because my parents were getting older and my dad was ill. And, so my parents brought it back up to Oregon. And since 2001-ish, I've been in charge of the temple. And in 2012, we relocated to Tigard, and we expanded the temple to where it is today, where we now took what my parents had, put together from what they could find, to reconstructing it in a traditional 16th-century temple, where we're using everything as much as we can from Vietnam, made in Vietnam, done by Vietnamese craftsmen. So not just things that we found and then we put together. Because during my parents' generation, things that had to [be] made up were literally decorations that they could find from a Chinese restaurant. Yeah. To make it look Asian because there wasn't an Asian motif.

ZM: So interesting. I wonder if you could share a little bit more about your experience growing up with the practice, what that looked like as a child and as you got older, and how you have come into the role that you are in today.

[00:05:05]

LA: Yes. So when we were… when I was a child, I was basically the: “Here. Go get this. Here.
Go get that. Will you move this? Will you put that together?” I really didn't understand much about it besides being that whatever my mom needed or whatever my dad needed, that's how I helped them. So we did everything from, you know, making flower arrangements for the altar to wiping down the altar. Or cleaning up after the ceremony. And one memory that I had that was really, really special to me was… it was actually when my mother had a ceremony at a different temple. And at the end of the ceremony, what I saw was these kids that came in, the owner's family came in after the ceremony. even though they weren't involved in it. But as a family, they came together and helped their mom clean up everything, and then sat down and had dinner with her. And that to me was a memory that really stuck in my mind because even though I didn't understand the ideology of the practice and the principle of the practice, I saw what brought people together. I saw how this brought her family together. And so it never… you know, it was something that was ingrained in my head that made it really special because it was family-oriented. And this is probably at a stage when I was in college, and I was learning a little bit more.

And when I participated, it was really just as a gopher. But then seeing how the other person's family participated… They weren't at the actual event, but it was interesting that they came after to clean and then have dinner with their parents. So, that to me was really interesting. And then as we got deeper into the subject, when it came down to passing over the torch, it was time to move it to the next generation. In a whole course of events, my mother handed the torch over to me. And so from there, I basically had to learn everything that I could because in our practice it is very oral. It is not… it's not about academia and it's not about what you can memorize. It's not about how well are you in understand[ing] the theory of this. It was more of how do you apply what you know to the application or apply the application to today's situation. So for that, the information changes but keeping the same principle as to why you're doing something. So when my mother handed over the practice to me, it was basically, it was a limitation of being human. We get old and when we would get old, we find someone to succeed us. And to make sure that we keep what is important to us going on about the future. And it's not a matter of who's going to do it or what's going to happen to it, but just to make sure the torch is handed over. The transition was much harder for me because in our tradition, it's mainly oral. And I didn't live with my parents. So I didn't get to know the daily in and out.
So basically everything I was doing was trial by fire. But being that we are a spiritual practice, and we believe in practice, when you practice, you win and you fail. So it's having the knowledge and having the ability to learn. And receiving the information sometimes spiritually, you don't know where it came from. Why do I know this? How—who this is in my brain? It wasn't in my brain 10 years ago, but why is it in my brain now? So, coming from a scientific background, having a Bachelor of Science in horticulture, having a Master's in education, having my Doctorate in education, to me, you couldn't just [say], “I told you so. I told you to.” It didn't doesn't make any sense to me. So you have to have a rhyme or reason why something is done. There has to be a logic behind it. So using my principle of education and remembering the story told to me by the elders—and actually a lot of it was literally how I learned a lot about this practice was when I was little—my mother and her friends, the other shamans, the other priests and priestesses, would sit around a table and have tea or eat dinner or whatever. And I would be a little kid sitting underneath the dining room table and listening in. Because in our tradition, in the old days, you never ask questions. Because if you ask questions, that means you're questioning me, and you don't question your elders.

[00:10:50]

And so they have a very distinctive style of teaching, and it's through storytelling, and it's through experience. So when people, I think, in America have an issue with, “Well, that was your life. That was your experience. What does that have to do with me?” You just missed the whole point. The whole point was to share the experience. What you gleam out of it is what it is for you to learn. If I told you, “If you ran into a brick wall, it would really hurt.” And you said, “Well, that's your experience. That's not my experience.” Well, learn from why that would hurt. And so the way we learn in our culture is my mom and her shaman community would sit here and tell us stories. Or they would have discussions as to, you know when so and so did this, it led to this, and this is how it was relieved. And we learned through the principle of what happened and how to fix what went wrong. And it wasn't about gossiping about somebody else, and it wasn't about… but being able to extract the information.

So it was a skill that I learned from college, which is you can read 400 pages, but can you extract the information from those 400 pages? Or all you know how to do is memorize 400 pages. So my favorite professor in college taught me this. I don't need you to memorize anything. I need you to know how to look it up. I need you to find… have a technique of finding information because I don't expect you to remember a thousand principles. There's no reason it's in a textbook or back then, you know, so using that same concept, I applied it to our practice, which was an oral tradition, an oral practice, and you learn through storytelling and storytelling that is applicable to the time. So we're not telling someone a story of when, you know, going through the desert and, you know, and being lost for 40 years. No, it was, you know, Miss Nguyen, you know, daughter who is doing this and, you know, that happened last year. It was very now. About [the] here and now. And how it applied to that particular region. So what makes this practice so difficult is you have to apply it to today. You have to apply it to your situation.You have to apply it to the other person's situation. It's not an easy open the book and read, you know, the first book and the second book. It isn't. It's literally your interaction with the people involved in your life. And also, really the true belief system of having and making sure that you are able to apply current events, current life, current situations with the current problem. And being able to help someone through that. And so that's the long and short story of it. But then I became… that's how I learned about what I'm doing today is really practicing it.

ZM: So I know you said earlier that, if we tried to, you know, trace back, when did this start? That would be impossible. But I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about how it started. Your family temple and, yeah, how it started, really what you want to say about the origins and how we are here today.

[00:15:00]

LA: Actually, this is really simple for us. This is the big picture, and then it narrows down to the family. So the big picture is this. This particular practice, the mother spirit practice was founded on an agronomic principle. Because what it is, you respect the land you stand on, the water you drink, and the sunshine that makes your food. So simply to put it, the respect of heaven, earth, and water. Because the sun is in the sky, the earth is where you stand, and the water is how you live. And how everything… They have three basic principles. Nothing else.

So today, academia would say this is an agronomically-based practice. And I would agree with that because back then, what is more important? Food you put in your mouth, a house that you could live in, and air that you could breathe, which is still heaven, earth, and water. Still the same. Whether it's a sun, whether it's air, or whether… but land is always land. So with this particular practice, when they sat, and thought about it—and I can safely say a thousand of years ago—may not have [had] the same name, the same everything, but a thousand of years ago, somebody thought, “But who should we thank? If we had to thank someone, who should we thank?” So they thought, this, that, and all the other things. And then they came down to the one unique person, which is the mother spirit or the mother. Because this is the one that gave you life. This is the one that feeds, nurtures, disciplines, loves, cares, defends. This is the one person that would do all those things for you. And why? Why [did] they choose mother? Because if we go back scientifically, historically, anthropologically, we understand this: If men were the hunter and gatherer and women were the person that made sure the fire remained burning, well, the fire [that] remained burning is the person that is at home. The hunter and gatherer would be the one that is running around. So in our understanding of this, why they chose this is because mother is the consistency that we need in our life. No matter what happens in life, it's the one consistency that doesn't change.

So we may grow up. We may leave the house. We may get married. We may move out. But we will always have a home, which is mother. Wherever she is, that is your home. So when they chose a mother figure, it was to choose a home. It was to choose the consistency that we need as human beings. We need consistency. And so from that ideology, other practices came out of it. So being able to be grateful, being able to say thank you, being able to ask. So being able to ask, that means you are able to say thank you. Because if you can't ask, then you don't know how to say thank you. If you don't know how to receive, then you don't know how to give. So in a simple principle, the person that teaches you that was actually the person that was at home, which was mother. Because she teaches you, if you need something, ask me. But if you receive it, say thank you. And if you're sick, I will take care of you. But if you're well, take care of others. So in what we have in simple… going back to how it started, it started out of someone being grateful and going, “Who should we thank? I don't know who to thank. Oh, wait a minute. Here's a person we should thank because they are there all the time.”

And so from there, we went into… as the practice evolved, as the practice relocated or spread out, different principles from different eras and different areas clung on and created people practice. So what may be done in this region may not be done in another region. Because, I don't live on the water. So how am I going to do what you're doing? Well, I live on land. So how am I going to do what you do on water? So people actually have the same principle, but they apply it differently. They made it applicable to where they are.

[00:20:24]

So in our practice, in the region where there are lots of water, there's a different way people practice this. In a region where you're up in the mountains, there's a different way people practice this. If you are tribal, this practice is done in tribal. If you're in the city, it's done in the city. It's done in city language. If you are educated, it is done in a very intellectual, educated language. But if you are just in a simple countryside, and this is it's very simple. So there is no wrong way. There is no right way. There's just one way, the intention of why you are doing this: What do you want out of this?

And so in our practice, the way it went from the bigger picture down to the family size is because my mother is a really powerful shaman, and she was able to help people with very simplistic things of water and herbs and think, oh, I don't know where medicine comes from. Cheese. You know? That simple. And being that her heritage is partial tribal, my mother speaks traditional Vietnamese, but she also speaks tribal, which is the various tribes that lived around her area. And so for her, connecting with her roots, as we say, “What do we do as a career?” She found her career in helping people. But earlier in her life when she had to make money and raise a family and be the lady of the house, this was a really hard calling for her because she couldn't do that at that time because she had 12 kids. She had a household to run. She had a business to run. She had a family to take care of. But as she got older, where she wasn't taking care of everything, she dove into it a little more intentionally. And most of the time, we say people in our practice in this, it's a calling. People who don't want to do it doesn't mean that they can't. People want to do this doesn't mean that they can. So it's a calling. So you can hide… my mom didn't want to do this. [She] literally did not want to do this. She did not want to be a priest. She did not want to be a shaman. She did not want to have a temple. It was way too much work. This is too hard, but it's her calling and her calling, of like anything you have inside of you, if you can't be who you are, what a horrible way to live. So when she found the struggles that she had internally, that what she really wanted to do, and when she found a way, a form to manifest that, what is inside of her, she became really powerful and a better person.

You being you. You being you… knowing who you are, being proud of who you are, and being what you are. And no disguises. But there is a period where we all have to be [in] the cocoon. We have to go through the period of being a caterpillar and being a cocoon before we can be that butterfly. And so to understand the process in this, this is why this practice is very difficult and it's hard to explain to a lot of people because it's very individualistic for the whole. So from one, it creates the whole. And so it's understanding what the concept and the principle of helping and and wanting to do better. Giving hope to those that need it. Giving help to those that want it. So remember that because someone could need help but if they don't want it, you can't help them. Which is [what] makes this practice very hard as well. Because sometimes you see the people that need help but they don't want it or they can't see it. And so they won't be able to receive it. It's like me giving you medicine. You go, OK. That's OK. And you put it on the counter. Yeah. Not going to work. No. You have got to take it. Well, it's on there, on the counter. OK? And that's how we look at it. So for me to transist scientifically to ethereally, spiritually, I was given a gift to be able to connect the two and see the logic behind why something was done.

[00:25:30]

So understanding how this practice began because if we were cave people, the men were the hunter and gatherer and the women made sure the fire stayed on. Well, when the men got sick or the family got sick, who went out and got the medicine? Who got the berries and the bark and the mineral and the roots? It was the women. So women being natural shamans was absolutely essential because they made sure the health of their family. And so for us, why in this particular practice having women as shamans or women were the more traditional shamans was because that's how that's what the rule was. You know? Because if the guys came home with a cut arm, well, who took care of him? The kids got sick. Who took care of him? So in this way, as I'm rambling on beyond our questions here, we have to understand why a practice like this has to continue and have to exist because to remind humanity of our origin and what it's meant to heal and help and provide hope.

What does it mean? And so in this, the mother providing hope, vision, help healing the family. And in our case, why my parents brought this from Vietnam to here was because they saw the value of the family. And the value of the family is to have someone be the vision, how to be a family. What does it mean to be a family? And how can the family help the family? And so typically in this religion or this practice, it is very important to remember that this is a family practice. It's about the family. If a family is strong, it's able to help other people. If the family is weak, who's it going to help? So that's why for us to build this up and be able to move it into a different culture is… we're still talking the same language. Family. It's just a different way of practicing how you think a family is. Or what does a family need? In western culture, we feel that people have forgotten their roots and they've forgotten family. What does it mean to be a family? The country as a whole, 50 states, is a family. We cannot just chop off the part we don't like. We have to work with the family. It's the family that wants to chop its arm off that you can't do anything about. Well, here's a knife. You want to chop your arm off? I can't stop you. But knowing that and knowing that what we do is limited to what we can do one on one. And why this is a place that we hope that will help and inspire people that give people hope, give people a place of happiness, a place that they can come to and not feel bad about whatever it is they feel bad about because it's not about that. It's about… what you feel bad about is already recognized by you. What you need to see is a hope and vision and happiness of what you are lacking right now. So come when you need. That's how and why we did this. So switching right back to my parents saw the value of how this practice is family-oriented. It is about the family and even the principle in here. It's the community of deities and goddesses and gods. It's the community. It's not one singular person trying to do everything. It takes a whole community and everybody has a function. From young to old, from men to women. So, if everybody is old, who is our new generation? Where is the future? If everyone's young, then, where is the knowledge from? So, there has to be young and old and there has to be [both] men and women.

[00:30:23]

Right now, there are men and women because we play a very specific role. As a male, I cannot give birth. So, as a female, you can give birth, but you can't have the baby without my interaction in the traditional way. So there has to be a partnership and the value of both. So that's why we find that this is a very practical practice because mainly, it focuses on the here and now. I'm not in Vietnam. I'm in Tigard, Oregon. And people [are] like, “Why are you in Tigard, Oregon?” Because this is where we're needed. And those who can find us will find us. Where we don't recruit people. We don't… we're not out to populate. We're only there to manage. And the people that we like to influence the most are the people that can help other people because it takes more than one. So you can help a whole bunch of people, and they have no capacity to help other people. It only stops there. But if you can help people who can help other people, then it will go further.

Because we don't have the capacity to do thousands of people. But we have capacity to do a roomful, to encourage, to inspire, to give hope to a room full of people. Yeah. So in that, it starts with the family, and my parents brought this because we came to America with nothing, and we need a constant to keep the family together. And this practice was the constant.

It was the one thing that my parents knew even though they spoke a little English, but none of us spoke English. Why would we speak English? But it was one thing that we knew even if we weren't participants, but we knew that was the one constant that we can depend on. So for that reason, we brought it to America, or my parents brought it to America. Also because they believe in the hope and everything that stems out of it. Yeah. There's my rambling. That's great. I'm going to take this natural pausing moment OK.

ZM: So kind of start us back up with… I wonder if you can talk a little bit about your very strategic choices in the language of the name of the temple. So going for Temple of the Mother Spirit. Whereas sometimes you'll see it, often in journals and things like Mother Goddess Worship.

AL: Yes.

ZM: So what kind of drove that language choice? Because I think it was very strategic or intentional.

AL: Yes. It was very intentional because basically what we're looking at is if we were to look at this historically, everything would be in kanji. Everything in kanji is written in Vietnamese kanji. Kanji is just characters. That's it. So Chinese people can read it, Japanese people can read it, but the essence is not the same. So what I found when this was taken from Vietnamese and translated into English, it went right into academia. It skipped the whole process of essence of what it means. So, you know, if you understood the essence of what it means to say, mother worship, mother goddess worship. That's a literal translation. That's the academia. But what is the essence of that? So for us, Mother Spirit Practice is more true because mother spirit can be man or woman. The way we use the word spirit is like school spirit, team spirit, people spirit, whatever it is. It's having the spirit to cheer on whoever. Practice. We literally want to use it as a practice because it's not about who you say you belong to or what you associate yourself with. It's a practice. You are a human being. You practice. You practice every day. You don't know what you did is good or bad or right or wrong. You practice. You practice living. And this particular religion is called the here and now practice. And in Vietnamese is called hiện tại, which means here and now.

[00:35:32]

So we took the essence, what the word really means. So taking it out of Kanji, which is written in Vietnamese, it's like for me to take something from Latin and try to apply it to something that is today, you better really understand. You better understand what that really meant in Latin before you throw it into English.

ZM: And the nuance.

AL: Yeah. The little nuance of what it is. And so, you know, even though we can OK… So like this… Even though we know Latin is a dead language, but when you talk about like a living language like Vietnamese, when you take it from all Vietnamese translations to new Vietnamese to current Vietnamese, that's three different things. And then no different than when we went from Latin to old English to modern English. Oh, or Queen's English.

I mean, there it is a different thing. So you need to understand more about what it is than just to say [it]. So we chose the word that we felt the most applicable to today's society, which is the spirit of a mother. A person who nurtures, educates, disciplines, cares for, sacrifices, teaches, loves, learns, all those things. And funny enough, that word exists in Vietnamese, but it doesn't exist in English. The word in Vietnamese actually describes all that. And it follows the word mother. So it is the essence of the word [that] really means: you can be a man and be a mother. You can be a woman and be a mother. You can be an old person and you can be a mother. A dog can be a mother. Because if that's nurturing and loving and caring and defending, that's a mother. That's a mother's spirit. You know? And so that's why we want to believe mother spirit is more encompassing. Yeah. It's not gender related. And as we know in today's society, we need to make people… and empower people to nurture and give people a reason to be a mother. You know? Or why? What's the importance of having a mother, you know? Because I've said this to people before, and it really made me think about this. He said… well, this person said to me, “I wasn't that close to my mother, and she was a horrible mother.” And I said, “What about your father?” “Oh, yeah.” Then that was your mother. Because when you… pigeonhole someone into the role that they play based on gender, then you now set yourself into a system that will give you or will disappoint you.

So why do that when you have the decision and the choice? And being human, that's the only thing that makes us different, is we make decisions and we have choices. You can't ask a tiger to stop eating meat, and you can't ask a fish to not eat plants because that's what they do. And so that's the nature of what they do. We have the nature of being able to reason, make decisions. We can reason and make decisions, and it's up to us to use that or not. And so for this, in this practice, it's so critical that people involved in it have to own what they do and how they live. That's why we can't—don't just say you're part of the practice and not practice it. No. Then you're not. You just missed the whole principle. You have got to practice. And so for that reason, we found that Mother Spirit Practice seemed to be more applicable to what we are doing here in the United States and in America. In Vietnam, it's still called that, and there because it's a language that people understand, they understand what it is because it's not Christianity, it's not Buddhism, it's not any of the other major practices or major religions in Vietnam.

[00:40:31]

But this coming out of Vietnam, and I'm going to say it a little bit more simply, is this: when UNESCO recognized it as a cultural heritage practice. Why? Because they didn't want to make it a religion. Because this is not about religion. This is about how a culture was shaped. What the principle and concept of that culture was. Remember when I said this is an agronomically-based [practice]. That's how people live. That's how they got from one day to another. And so it came into a principle of how and a discipline of how you live to be respectful, to be grateful, to be able to ask for help when you need it, to give help when others need [it]. So when UNESCO did this, we were super happy because it took us out of the bad stereotype because of what other people [have] thrown on us.

When we went back to saying shaman in the western world, they would be called Wiccans. And so but that means you're witches. OK. Well, Wiccans were great people before Catholicism decided to make it an awful thing, which was really funny because Catholicism is very shamanistic in its true form. You know? And so it's like people forget where they're from. And so in our country, until UNESCO recognized that we are not a superstition. That's what it is. It's because other cultures that have come into Vietnam demonized it and called it superstition. “Oh, and by the way, because you're a woman, you know it's women's things, and it's women's superstition, and it's the old way, and you're superstitious.” Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

They took the relevancy of the history and philosophy of it, and they made it into a… they demonized it because it went against their belief system. Or didn't go against it really. We believe in the same thing, but it went against the way that they were able to attract participants in what they believed in. So the best thing to do is divide, demonize, and then you can conquer. And so when UNESCO recognized us, it gave us a chance to get out of the closet. It literally did. Because anyone who says this to me, “Oh, it's a superstition. It's women's superstition.” I go, “No. This is recognized by the United Nation of Educational Scientific Community.” So I don't know… A bunch of scientists and educational people recognize this as the natural… as a positive influence to the history of your country. Are you saying that's a bad recognition? So, you're saying what they're saying is superstitious? No. It's a scientific educational community.

For that, when we brought this to America, we still kept it pretty quiet. When we brought it to Portland, we kept it pretty quiet. When we brought it to Tigard, we kept it pretty quiet because we believe in what we believe in. We believe in hope, love, and sharing and giving and educating. And if we can preserve that, then I think those are pretty great qualities to try to preserve. We were given a backing when UNESCO recognized it as a cultural heritage practice. And the reason they did was because socially, economically, culturally, it developed a whole entire culture from it. It may not have its same effect today or it doesn't have its really—not a fact—but it doesn't have its obviousness today. But it started something. It stemmed something that grew into something else. And so for that, when I'm able to explain to people and go back to the origin of where your country comes from and where your culture comes from, this is where it comes from. So no, it's not a superstition. It's not just a woman thing. It's not just the old way.

[00:45:44]

This is a principle of respect and love and give and take. So we are now a little more open to talk about what we do and to be able to share. So since 2013, when UNESCO did this recognition, in 2024, we were recognized by the Vietnamese Preservation Society as a critical, integral part of knowledge, cultural exchange with America. And so where we are today is we are the representative for the Vietnamese practice of the mother of spiritual practice in America. So from there, we continue to go back and forth with Vietnam to give our input of American society and American philosophy and how this particular practice has integrated itself into American everyday living and people and why they would want to be involved in it. And having that recognition is really important because the preservation society’s model, which for a socialist communist country is very, very strong because their model is simply freedom, education, preservation. Those are strong words in a country that has its limitations. And for that, because that is recognized by UNESCO, even in a country, in a political environment that may not sit well with the principle of the political environment, it's really strong to be able… it’s the little candle flicker that gives hope to many people. It gives hope to people who for years have been persecuted. It gives power to those who were imprisoned. It's giving [hope to] the memory of those who were executed because of their involvement. So that to me is hope.

That to me is something to say it isn't going to be all bad all the time. There will be… The sun will come out tomorrow. Yeah.

ZM: So off recording, we talked a little bit about how the practice is kind of depicted or recorded in more academic spaces. And you talked a lot about how it takes this anthropological view, but kind of misses talking about some of the core ideology, core principles. So I wonder if you could talk more, you know, “explain like I'm five,” the real core principles that are at play here. And then leading into that, maybe talking about the community of deities and who some of those major players are.

AL: Yes. So if I have to say the major principle is, like, what we call the four realm administrative community. Academically, they would say the four palaces because actually that's the word. You know? So that's why I say it's academically. They just took the word and they just academically… you know, translated it. But when we say realm, it is much more encompassing. It is much more… It's open to expanding. It's open to allowing in and expanding out, growing, and nurturing or the concept of what it is. So a simple four principle of this: Heaven, Earth, the one element that gives this earth life is Water. And the fourth realm is Life.

[00:50:23]

So you take Heaven and Earth as a structure. You add the active ingredient which is Water. It makes the active product, which is Life. That's the basic [idea] of it, where you have to understand in everything. There's top and bottom, left and right. Heaven and Earth. One doesn't exist without the other.

So from those simple principles, we also believe in the very basic core. Dark and light cannot exist without the other. It doesn't. It can't. That's why when we look at hope, every time the sun comes up, it's hope. Every time the sun sets, it's a time we have to learn how to get through. But in this, where we can understand the structure of what it is scientifically, there has to be a beginning and an ending. We have to understand that there are forces to make it more livable or not. So water was thrown in there because thousands of years ago, they already knew that. Everything takes water and funny enough, agronomically Vietnam is a very water-based country. I call it water-based because really the ocean is right there and all the rice and everything is grown in water. So that is why we people really respect that. But back then they weren't even really thinking about it. They were just thinking about what they were living around, which is the ocean. And they were just thinking about, “Wait a minute, how do we grow rice? Oh, water.”

OK, but when we look deeper into the thought where they didn't have the technology of a satellite or a rocket going out to the nine planets that we have in our solar system, they didn't get to see what activated water really means. And for me, back to scientifically, I go: that's why they chose water. They didn't choose fire. They didn't choose wood or they didn't choose metal. No, they chose water because it has nothing to do with any of those other things. But everything arises out of water. Water can destroy metal. Wood is created by water. So metal comes out of the earth. Wood comes out of the earth, but wood can't come out of the earth without water. Fire already exists. That's already in the sky. We utilize fire to make our food and warm our houses. But outside of that, the one critical thing is water. Nobody can live without water.

So, they took the four very simple, simple concepts. The four realms [are] Heaven, Earth, Water, Life. So you can almost say Heaven plus Earth. Heaven and Earth plus Water equals Life. So there's my equation. But the thing about this is to… what we're saying before is being able to respect the air we breathe, which is the Heaven. The land we stand on, which is Earth. Where you are. And the water that we drink and use which is the third realm that created the fourth realm. And then respecting life. Respect life for what it is. In our practice, [it is] super bright, colorful, intricate. Wait, that's life. Life is intricate, colorful, and if you just took a quick glance at it, you'll get a headache. But if you know how to look at life, there [it] is in everything. There's a beginning and an ending. There's a left and a right. There is an up and a down. So you have to use those simple principles in your everyday decisions.

If I do this, I get this. If I took this, then what will I put back to what I took? Because it has to be balanced. You can't take one thing off a scale and expect a scale to stay balanced. So you have to learn how to balance a scale. So it's a principle of balance. Which is simply one of our biggest similarities [with Buddhism]. There's two similarities with Buddhism: Reincarnation. Oh, I don't know. You slept in class. Didn't turn in your assignment. You're going to take the class again. You didn't do that well. Go to night school. And I'll give you a little example later. But that's reincarnation. The other one is the principle of Balance. Even Buddha going through everything he went through, the historical Buddha, Siddhartha. When in the end and he became enlightened and became a Buddha, he realized life is about balance. You can't extreme anything. He went from a path of starving, a path of quiet, a path of abundance. That's when he was a prince. A path of… he went through all different paths. And when in the end, he realized what it's all about. It's the balance. The balance of it. That's it. You can, you know, in your balance, even in the way they're taught in the balance... In traditional Buddhism, people weren't vegetarian because again, we are the combination of a tiger and a cow. You know? We can do both. But the balance is not being able to take more lives to make, to give you life, but the balance is because if you say, well, I'm a vegetarian. Well, isn't that a life? You ate a plant. That's a life. So no. You can't. You just have to be OK with it. Do you need to eat meat all the time? Probably not. What if you eat only plants all the time? Well, that's fine, but you also need other things, but it's up to you. We have a way of finding out how to survive. Balance is a commonality that we have with Buddhism.

[00:57:39]

Reincarnation is the other commonality that we have with Buddhism. In this practice, because it's called here and now, it's like going to school. You sign up for a class and you don't show up, guess what? You're going to take it again. You're not really good in math, and you don't want to learn math? Well, in your life you will have a little problem with figuring out how much something costs. So in this way, what we say to people who said, “How do I know cosmically my karma is with this temple?” Simply, what do you feel you can get? And what do you feel that you lack? So if you feel that this is a place that gives you a sense of happiness, a sense of spirituality, a sense of discipline, then that's what you need.

Because in your life, when you feel like, how do you know what… we call it craving. Some days you just crave a donut. You know, why do I crave a donut? Well, it's called craving. So for people who are involved in this practice a lot of time, it's a craving. Like my mother, it's a craving internally. She wanted to help people, but externally, she needed to take care of her family. And when to take care of her family, it's on the simple basis of, oh, I have got to make sure the household is run well. I have got to make sure the kids are going to school. I have got to make sure my business runs well. Well, that is externally. But internally, fighting with her own self inside. That her calling is to help. That's a craving. How do you get rid of a craving? You do it. You do it. And that's why these people do it. It's to satisfy a craving. A craving that some people get, “Oh, I'll put it off. I'll put it off. Oh, I'll eat something else.” But is it ever satisfying? You know, you go into a restaurant and you can't afford it. And you go, “I'll get an appetizer instead of an actual meal.” But you still, when you leave, you still want to go eat something. Or do you bite the bullet? And you go, “I'm going to order the meal.” Yes. it'll take me a little bit longer to pay it off but I'm going to follow my instinct. I'm going to follow my craving. So, in our path here for some people to be a participant is being able to recognize that is a craving. They crave something. And here's an opportunity. You know? You don't know [when] you walk in [if] that restaurant is going to fulfill your craving or not. But are you going to try or you're just going to be hungry? It's up to you. You know? We open the door. It's up to you to walk in. And if you go, “That smells good. Yeah, that's exactly what I was craving.” Then come on in. But if you go by, “Nope. Didn't do anything for me.” Keep going. It's OK. You know? So in here we have participants from all different religions. Funny enough, there are people that will come in here who go to mass in the morning and come in here in the afternoon. And we have people come in here in the afternoon and go to mass in the evening. So we know that being humans, our craving is more complex than that. And the craving in here is what we find is discipline and spirituality. They find a place that spiritually they can tap into what that craving is. Is it salt? Is it sugar? Is it liquid? Is it solid? What is it? You know, is it a cake? You know, but my job as a guardian is to be able to see if I can find what it is they're craving. “What are you craving?” “Oh, I really want something salty.” “OK, this is what we do.”

[01:02:12]

OK, so you go in a restaurant, you order something. There's going to be a bill, right? Unless it says free restaurant. But technically, how we believe in this, nothing is free. What they do, they have to pay. What you take, you'll have to pay. What you want, you need to pay for that. So in this practice, it's not as simple as, “Well, can't I just be spiritual and the universe will take care of it?” I'm glad the universe is paying your mortgage. Tell me what universe that is and, I will go there. So spirituality has a price as well just like everything else. Because for something to exist, it has to pay a price. And for us, the participants, the people, they need to understand when they are involved in something, it's a commitment. It's a discipline. It's a way of fulfilling what it is they're craving for. So what price are you willing to pay? And at what level will you be a participant? So as employee, what level of job or position are you willing to hold for the salary that you're going to receive?

Now that's a little funny abstract because in our temple, it's broken out into observer, participant, pillar, chair, and then when the time comes or some people, they become the guardians. And simply when you put this in life form it's the same thing. You go and you apply for a job at a place that you want to work, unless you're really desperate and you're going to do anything. Once you apply for the job there's all the formality, there's all the first you go to that, you know, first you go to that job. That's the observer. “Wow, must be great to work in a place like this!” Yeah, OK. Then you go, “I want to work here.” Then you become a participant. Then you go, “But I want a position.” That makes you a pillar. Then you go, “But I want to be an administrator.” That makes you a chair. And in the end, for some people, “I want to represent this company.” Then you become the guardian. But how many guardians do you have in one company? One.

[01:05:20]

So you can have lots of observers. You can have lots of employees, you can have some managers, but you can only have one guardian. See how this is very life-oriented? See, and it's that simple practice. So we show people and we tell people that everything has a step. Everything has a way. Sometimes you're just meant just to be an observer. You'd like to come because it makes you feel good. It's like shopping at a store. It makes you feel good, you know? It doesn't mean you weren't there. It just means that you like going to the shop. Then when you, if you decide to, “Oh, I love shopping here. I want to go work here.” Then you become a pillar. But just like being an employee, who is it for? You. You're working. You're getting the paycheck. It's not like you're working and I'm getting the paycheck. And if you want to be an excellent employee, an excellent pillar, then they might look at you as, “Would you be interested in management?” Because you know how to manage. So you're at the next level. But how do you become a manager? You have to show your ethics. You have to show your discipline. You have to show your conviction. You have to be on time. You have to be there. But if you're not, you just come by twice. You know, you show up to work once a week. Well, I'm glad you didn't come to work once a week, but no freaking mak[ing] you a manager, OK?

So being a manager requires a little bit more. You have got to look at other people. You have got to think beyond yourself. You have got to think beyond yourself, and you have got to think about the corporation or the company. Because why are you managing? You're managing to help people through the process. But, ultimately, it's for the company. So that makes you management. And some people would say, you're still a company. But it's management. And so with management, if you rise above that, maybe one day, if it's meant to be, you will be a guardian. Or if in this whirlwind, say if you're so good as a manager and you want to go open your own company, that'll be no different than someone being a guardian at their temple. That's how you move up the ladder. And the wackiest part is you can be a pillar if you want to, but being a chair, you are now offering your service because you're representing the employee as well as upper management.

So in this particular case, we would say you're representing the people, but you're also representing the deities. Because when you chair, you are now creating a platform that represents what the company wants to say and, hopefully, what the employees want to learn. Our chairing process involves spiritual things such as opening your mind, opening your heart, opening you, allowing for things to come in that you cannot explain. So when you can, not everyone can be a chair because not everyone can be a manager. And people are just good at being in place. When we use the word chair [that is] because it's an academic translation. And the reason we use that is actually it's really easy to use. If you offer yourself as a chair, what makes you a good chair? Do you have one leg or do you have four legs or do you have five legs? Are your legs rotten? Alright. Nice and firm. Is your seat firm? Is the back firm? You know, what are you able to accommodate? Are you able to accommodate energies that [are] very strong? And are you a good enough chair to be able to handle that weight? Or you're sort of a chair: you look good but don't sit on you. Yeah.

[01:10:16]

OK, so to be a spiritual chair for the deities is allowing your mind, heart, and body to open up into what you don't understand. And to be able to respect what comes in and goes out. And to be able to to move the concept forward and be able to give a manifestation on this plane, a little bit more of a visual. Hence, we have our ceremony. So just like manager, there are average chairs. There are exceptional chairs, and, oh my god, you really need to be, you know, there are some awesome chairs. OK, but that's where they are in their life. So just like managers, that's the same thing. You can be a manager, but are you an awesome manager? Are you just like, yeah, you're a manager? Because in the end, it still will go back to who are you doing this for? Which is you. You are good at being management, then you might go up to upper management. If you're not good at management, you will go back down to being an employee. So when we chair, we open our mind, heart, and everything up to the heavens or the universe to allow spiritual beings [to] empower us or sit in us, the chair.

Academically, it's called possession. But, you know, essence- or terminology-wise possession sounds like the exorcist. You know, so we don't use the word possession, but it's a technical term which is possession. Literally it's possession. But, just a negative connotation so we don't use it. So we use the word chair because you're literally that. You're allowing someone to sit on you. And if you are a great chair and that person doesn't stand up and or that that entity doesn't stand up and leave right away, the present that someone sits on you gives you the image of that present, which is how we explain to people when they go, “Wow. When you chair the image is so different. It's not you.” That's because I am behind the image. Because I allow the image to be there. But if I don't allow the image to be there, they're going to go, “Whoa. Bad chair.” “Gotta go. Unsteady chair.” “Crazy chair. Three legs. Three legs and rotten.” No. Oh, no. No. But that's our simpler way to explain, you know, pillar and chair.

Pillar really is the start. You're the freshman. You're the one upholding everything. You're the one holding up the foundation. You're holding, making space over the foundation. And then when people become a chair, then they go into more of what that craving is. You know, as they're calling the craving. I know that was random.

ZM: That's great. I wonder if you could talk—and we can be mindful of the time. This is always something [where] we can do a two-parter if we need to.

AL: OK.

ZM: But I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about the community of deities and who some of those—who they are.

AL: So because this is called a Mother Spirit Practice, obviously, the CEO in here is the mother. Then we have Generals which I know in academia they call them Mandarins. And then the Ladies, they call them, how do you see this word? Consort, I think. And then, so that's going literally so much by name and academia and not going by position and ability. So when we broke this out into our understanding of this, we have mother who is the CEO. In every CEO, you have CFO. You have managers. You have human resources. You have employees. There's a whole gamut. You have accounting, you have everyone. So that's the prefix of why there are so many. Because not one person, any one person, even the gods, can’t do everything themselves. They need [the] help of others, they need, if this is what you specialize in, this is the help I can use from you.

[01:15:38]

So Mother being the CEO, she represents… she has the principle and philosophy, the model of what her company is about. And then it's up to management to make sure and develop or instill, follow through what those principles are. So typically in here, we have Mother, who is the CEO. Then we have the generals who are basically the administrators. OK? So they are the administrators of the realms, right? So there's the general of the Heaven realms and the Earth realm and the Water realm and the Life realm. And even the Activation realm. So their role is administratively to be the face for those realms.

OK, and then what we call the high goddesses. These are the ladies who are equal to the generals. They share the same position of those generals because they share in the same way what realm they oversee. So we still have the Heaven, the Earth, Water, and Life [realms]. So they share their responsibility to start, to give the vision of what Mother wants. So they start looking at the allocation of sources and risk and people and the talent of what those people are.

Then we have, we say lieutenant. And again, the academic term is different. We say lieutenant because if you have generals, then you have lieutenants. You know? And they are the ones that we would say… in our practices, they are the ones that are the… I want to… not cheerleader, but they're more of the fun face, of spokesperson? Yeah. They're like the fun. The lighter form of, like, OK… This is your application seriously. You know? They take care of the image.

And then what we have down to the goal, which are the princess. And they run in the same realm as a lieutenant. So left and right. And their job is a little bit different where it isn't just about the imaging, it's about the action. OK? The two princesses that we have in front of the mother spirit are the ninth princess and the third princess. The ninth princess is of the Heaven realm. The third princess is the Water realm. Simply in this, water falls from the sky and water is on land. That's where the two places, you have Water and Heaven, why they chose those two. But they're like secretaries to Mother. So what they do is stand in front of our gate, or in front of her door and say, “Why do you want to come in? What purpose do you have? And what is that for? You know you want this, but what is it for?” So they are the type that in life, you don't want to peeve off the secretaries because they know everything. They hear everything. They see everything. They know the schedule of everybody that they work with. If you, in life, if you practice on this, if you are kind and gracious and humble, they will find you an opening on the appointment. If you're a jerk and mean and such, they will make sure that you are never scheduled. Is that not life? You know, because they have to protect the CEO.

[01:20:04]

So and then we have down to who we call the uncles. The word uncle is obviously in English, but in Vietnamese, the word uncle in this particular case can be from… it's the young person or, the second generation of the main. So they are possessing the future because they're young. And also, that they are in the realm of being inspired. So when we go back to, can't have all without yin, yang can't exist without all. So they are… if we were to say what their function is, a lot of time their function is they are the cheerleaders. They are the, “Hey, come on. This is fun! Have this candy. It's really good.” You know? They are the ones that are the encouragers. They're the fun, but you peeve them off, it’s the same thing. And how do you peeve them off? Don't do what you said you were going to do. Promise and not deliver. That's simple. Because they have the personality of a kid. “You said you'd give me candy! Where's my candy?” “Oh, shoot. Let me go get your candy.” “You said you go get me candy, and I will make sure everyone stays happy.” OK? And you don't bring him candy. That's why you have candy. They're cheerleader. They're people who are are helping open the way. So, not only being able to go rah, rah, rah, rah! but be able to go, “Hey, let's go this way. It looks bright and fun.” Yep. So, the simplicity of the classification of the the deities in here: The men typically have roles that they play. The women typically have roles. It was really kind of funny because in the men, you find a lot of action. In the women, you find a lot of philosophy. So it's like the brain telling the hand what to do. So that's a very simplistic way of looking at a lot of the roles of the women, the women deity in here, the female deities, holds. Does that make sense?

ZM: Yeah. OK. Great. I wonder now, having talked about some of the core principles and the community of deities, I wonder if you could talk a little bit for, someone listening who has not experienced a ceremony, what some of that entails. What really happens? What does the practice look like?
AL: What is a ceremony?

ZM: Yeah, what happens?

AL: Yes. And when we say the ceremony, [that] is the academic word. Celebration is the essence of what it is because ceremony has… [ZM: The distinction of the language is fascinating me.] Right? Because “ceremony,” people have a tendency to think of, “OK. There's these calculated events that are going to happen.” But celebration, how do you calculate a celebration? A celebration is based on the room, right? If you come into a celebration and everyone is happy and it just goes on. But you walk in here a room and everyone's going to, well, I don't know what you're celebrating, but that's not going to happen. So I like to use the word celebration because it is not about a stand up on the platform and preaching or finger wagging or condemning. It's not about that. Celebration is to celebrate the event.

So typically, are the people, what we typically do: celebration happens again beginning, middle, end. So the New Year, it's a celebration. It's the New Year. We welcome in the New Year. We ask for blessings of the new year. We ask for the health of the people. World peace. I don't sound like beauty pageant. And the middle of the year, typically in our practice here, the middle of the year is when after… what the introduction is, you begin to get the essence of the body of the essay. So typically in the body, it's more complex. There are problems. There's, you know, “Oh, where are we going with this? And then how do we conclude?” So in the body, typically [in the] middle of the year, those celebrations also happen to help find clarity in where we are heading. And how do we get through? And this is going back to traditional agronomic time. Summers are the worst time. Hot. Lack of water. Pests. This is what people prayed for back in the days that “May we have a speedy summer. A cooler summer. A summer that's not so hard.” But summers are summers. This is the karma. Summer is summer. It's long days. It's hot temperature. And it's usually not as wet.

[01:26:05]

But how we apply this today, because we're not farming here… We're growing stuff, but we don't farm here. So here we ask for continuation and clarity and direction. Like what we have all now spring has blossomed. Things are moving. Where should we move next? What should we do with that?

And then the last one, the typical one, the last one is the end of the year. So this year is done. We go through the review of what was done this year. And in an essay, this is the conclusion. You have the introduction, body, and conclusion. Conclusion is… what is the conclusion? And not only that, but to reflect on the body and the introduction and conclude it at the end of the year. And being able to look back and say thank you for the year. Thank you for all that we have received. Thank you for all that has passed. Thank you for tomorrow, if it comes. Because at the end of the year, a week later is New Year's.

So it begins again. So in this way, in the cyclical cycle, sunrise and sunset. We have the New Year, and then we have the end of the year. But [we] know at the end of the year, there's going to be a new year. And so everything that you've done in this last essay, you can rewrite it again the following year. Because it's a new year. It's a new page, but it allows people to keep moving and not hang on to, “That's what I wrote. That's what I'm about.” No. I'm going to give you an opportunity. Here's a new page. So in the celebration, there is definitely pomp and circumstance.

There are obviously rituals on things, why we pay respect, why [and] how we do this. It involves flowers and candles and offerings and fruit and everything that this life offers to us. Flowers, may we see beauty. Fruit, may we have substance. Even down to the incense, may our word carry through the atmosphere. Candle, may we see light. May we have a glimpse of hope. May we have warmth in our life. And most importantly, water. Because this is life. This is how life is made. In a celebration, we reside in front of the altar holding all the deities. And in there, whoever is the chair will ask certain deities depending on season, date, and time to come down and inspect. Literally, to inspect and to offer guidance and to offer blessing and to offer hope and to offer structure. So when in this, most people would look at and go, “Oh, they're just dancing up there.” Well, if I tell you to go up [on] my platform and dance, good luck with that. But it's amazing. This is where we think of spirituality. “How do you know that? How do you know how to do that?” Nope. We didn't go to school. We didn't practice. We didn't go, “Hey. You know, last next Tuesday…” That practice ceremony doesn't happen that way. It moves through spirit time. They know what to do. And scientifically, you can say, “Well, you've come to enough of this celebration. You will see how to copy.” Well, I can safely tell you there are people that have been coming to the ceremonies for 50 years, and they still ask who that is on that platform. Like, there is no… it just goes in one side and out the other. There's nothing that sticks. But for us, they're kind of, they're just observers. There's nothing vested in it.

[01:30:43]

So in the celebration, the intention, the chair would ask for deities to reside into them for certain purposes and reasons. Maybe it's just to bless the temple. Bless all those that come to the temple. Maybe it's to offer advice. Maybe to offer direction. Maybe to help with… really a lot of times just help with clarity. But it is not a seance. We do not call up the dead. We cannot make someone love you. We cannot make some dead relative come back to life. Yes, I stole that from the Latin. So it is just asking something we do not know to give us hope, to help us guide us through our difficult time. And to help find a way to be able to say what sometimes we feel but we can't say. And they are offering a vessel for you to speak to. And when they are done with their protocol and rituals, then they leave. That's it. So we say spiritual time because I don't know, it depends on how long… it's a celebration. Depends on how long you have people in the in the room, you know? But it doesn't mean that you have to have a lot of people in a room to have a celebration. You could have five people. You know? You could have three people. It doesn't matter. It's when we have our celebration. The first purpose is to have a deity bless the temple. Honor the temple. Bless the people that have attended.

And during certain part of ceremonies, it depends on [the] time of year and days, and they could be anniversaries. So [the] anniversary of when they come to Earth, when they reside. So all of this is done through rituals, costume changes, offerings, everything that you would actually do in life. If you go to a party, you would probably get ready. You would probably have an invitation, which we do because we have prayer papers before we start all this. We have to invite. We have to notify. We have to announce. And then at the actual celebration, you have to be prepared for… Is it a formal dinner? Is it a casual lunch? Is it a costume party? What is it? But come prepared. And so the chairs are the ones… it is for them.

So when they chair, it is their craving that they need to have that extra energy in them to help them in their journey through this life. And some of them it is just to help them through their journey. Some of them it is to help others through their journey of life. And from there, when they are done with their business, that's when they would leave. And then the next deity would be called into. And then again, mainly for the blessing of the temple. But if it's a certain month or certain days, there are special dates for certain deities. And then those people are really highlighted. So if I know it's your party, if I know it's your birthday, you're going to be the birthday girl. Offerings. When we present offerings in here, it's mainly as a way of what you would do when you go visit your mom. You bring her a basket of fruit, and she's not going to eat the basket of fruit but she will share with her family. So when offerings are brought up to offer, it is then dispersed with everyone. Because if one person asks for strength and health, shouldn't everyone get strength and health as well? Just because they didn't ask for everyone. It doesn't mean that it's not given to everyone. You bringing something to your mom. You don't ask her. “Hey, Mom. Can you give this to everyone in the family?” No. It's something that she does. She goes, “Oh, you know what? Your brother doesn't have me. Your cousin doesn't have me. Oh, and even the neighbors.” Whoever she can share [with], she shares. And so that's the purpose of offering. And some people offer as a gratitude, so they want to say thank you for something that's happened in their life. Or they want to offer just because they can. They brought an extra dish to the table just because they can, even though they know there's plenty of food on the table. But they said, “Hey. You know what? I'm going to bring my macaroni salads because everybody loves that.” And so they bring that because it's what they feel inside that they can offer to give and to make the community, enrich the community.

[01:36:52]

ZM: I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the role that music plays in the celebration and the source of the music that you use here.

AL: Yes. So what celebration doesn't have music? Right? That's what we call celebration. The source of the music is from Vietnam. It is from my adopted sister who has been singing these lyrics for 60 years now. And in Vietnamese, it's called Trao Vang, which in the preservation society, it is high on their list of preservation because it's a style of singing that is very special to Vietnam. No different than Peking opera to Italian opera to, you know, American pop. It's a style of singing. What makes it unique is it's a storytelling process of the deity. So the people that are in the temple, it tells a little bit about their history, what they have accomplished, what their functions are in the temple. Traditionally, it's done live. Obviously, we're in America. That's not going to happen for now. And hopefully one day, I hope that we can transcribe it to English. Because it can be sung in English. It's just a rhythm. You just have to learn how to sing it but I don't know if that's going to be in my lifetime, but it would be it would be a wish. It'll be… everything is possible. But with any celebration, it's not a party until there's music. A room of silence is, well, not exactly a celebration. People over being too loud is not really a celebration. But when there's music and there's people, and it becomes a celebration, so, the music is storytelling as well as acknowledgment of the deity. So it’s singing their credential.

ZM: So let's see. I wonder if you could talk, we've talked about this quite a bit, but, it being, established as a cultural heritage practice with UNESCO. I wonder if you could just talk, a little bit about what your involvement in that looked like and how it has affected the practice.

AL: Yes. Well, we are really lucky because the preservation society in Vietnam—because I go to Vietnam to the temples where I am—and they recognize that basically being on Mars, we have brought a temple, a full temple to Mars. They find that absolutely commendable, and they find it so interesting on how traditional we are. Because my grandparents brought this into South Vietnam before 1954. In 1954, the country was split in half. In 1975, we left Vietnam and my parents took it to America. So in the weirdest way, we actually hold an older version of what this practice is.

[01:41:04]

Because since the new government had taken over in 1975, and people in this practice have been persecuted, and temples have been torn down. And this again, people try to erase this out of the culture of the people, but they couldn't. And so today being that UNESCO recognized it and gave Vietnam the credential of what it has that is so unique and special, the preservation society and the government over there feels that this is another feather they can put in their cap which they empowered people to be able to preserve, educate, and advance. So with that, the obvious path is to move it forward. So being in Mars—America—how wonderful is it to see your homeland on Mars? And for that, they gave us the credential that we are not a made up practice. This is generational. They can find us back in my family for generations and we have established a temple here in Tigard, Oregon that is in some places bigger than places in Vietnam and more true to the original because we're not influenced by political or social [factors]. Because over there, now when the temples were torn down it was political and when it was put up it was political. And for us to not have that effect on what the picture looks like, they find absolutely fascinating, so they want us to be a time capsule or a relic of what was before and we do. We do things in a very traditional [way] that even surprises Vietnamese people in Vietnam that we know how to do things that they don't even know how to do because that was banned for almost 50 years.

And if we talked about since 1954, that was banned for 80 years. So you know when you stop the progress in education and the people who with the knowledge move on then how do you have that information anymore? So in us, they find the uniqueness of the ability to preserve the culture but to also expand and educate our current location, which is the American people. So that's why we are really supported, not supported in, but we are well-recognized by the Vietnamese preservation society. Because what we're doing is super unique, and they didn't even think that was possible.

ZM: That’s really interesting. I think we touched on these next few questions. I’ll just start with a little bit about how his practice had to evolve in the United States, which I think we've covered, and a little bit about the history of the practice and its prohibition in Vietnam. I don't know if there's more you want to speak to that.

[01:45:05]

AL: No. That was literally that. I mean, at first, it had to go through its, you know, break out of the stigma from from other cultures. And then it, you know, getting to evolve and getting to be, moved up to center stage instead of just shoved behind the sofa.

ZM: Yeah. So shifting a little bit, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the relationship between the practice and gender expression. Quite a lot of the academic research I've looked at has actually talked a bit about how the practice is kind of characterized as destabilizing these gender norms and kind of stigma against LGBTQIA communities, particularly in Vietnam. So I wonder if you could speak to that topic a little bit.

AL: Well, for me, it's even more personal. Number 1, I was born in Saigon, Vietnam. Number 2, I came to America. Number 3, I'm a gay man. And to be able to come back to a country where homosexuality is frowned upon or not talked about or simply it's just a way of life but you never talk about it. What's really interesting about this is in this practice, it is very accepted by men and women, even strangely, socially in a society, a person can view homosexuality as a wrong thing. They may not condemn or they may not condone it. Right? But in this practice, I find the same people being super accepted when a female entity resides in a male form or a male entity residing in a female form. So meaning if I, as a chair, I call upon male and female spirits. And when they reside in me, their characteristic comes through where most people would look at it and go, “Wow. That's like, that's not Allen. That's like a woman.” But that's the image that they allow onto me. If you say, “Oh, yeah. Well, he had to practice that.” Sorry. Don't have time. But it's what is in you. And in this, going back to what we shared in Buddhism, that's a little bit similar in Buddhism. True forms of Bodhisattvas or Buddhas or a true form of heavenly spirits are neither male or female. They possess both. Male and female is what is on terrestrial, not celestial. Celestial, there's images. So even going to the practice of, or this religion of Buddhism, Kuan Yin, who is the goddess of compassion, originally by origin is a man. Avalokiteshva is a man. But going through history and region became more of an effeminate figure because it was non-warring. It was nonthreatening, and it was easier to move a spiritual figure of a male in a form of a female in order for it to move through a new territory or a hostile territory. Because, you know, after all, women, there's nothing threatening about women. And that's how Kuan Yin became female.

[01:49:43]

And in our practice,some of the deities, sometimes they are female, and sometimes they are male. They have the same ability to be a masculine figure when they need to, and a softer figure or a feminine figure when they need to. And so I find that in society in Vietnam, there might be less acceptance of gay and lesbians. But in a temple, that gets thrown out the window. Like, no one ever questions that. No one ever says, “Oh, he's a man. Why is he in a dress?” You know? Or, “Why is he in a woman's robe?” It's like, no one ever asked that. You have the most machismo male come up to the platform and ask for guidance from a… they may have their own feeling as to whether you know homosexuality is something. So I find that really interesting. Yeah. Because I found that to be the same in Polynesian culture. I found that same to be in Native American culture. Oh, I don't know. Didn't that stem from Asia? But it was the same thing where people had so much respect for those who can. You are more than just male or female. You are both. So the acceptance is still very interesting because in the temple, it's widely accepted. But in society, it may not yet have progressed to that. But a lot of the time, if they accept it in the temple, it does bleed out to the society. But you still find instances where I'm like, “Did you just, like, make an awful joke and yet yesterday, you were in the temple and you were totally different?” We better keep thinking about that, you know. But societal norms and spiritual norms are… I find really interesting. Very, very different. And so we are able as human beings are able to condition the way we think. So when people say, “Oh no you can't condition.” No, you can't because in other religions where they say no. it is taught in our belief system that this is wrong and so we carry it all the way through. And here's not taught that. It's taught more on acceptance and believing and accepting what you don't know. How do you know? You don't know. So accept what you don't know instead of persecute what you don't know.

ZM: That's great. So, a lot of the questions we have left are kind of about how you engage with, interact with the community here in Portland. So I wonder if you could talk just a bit about the connection you feel to the community in Portland, its relationship to the temple, and just kind of your experience of that, maybe how you've seen the change over time. I know I'm asking a lot of questions.

AL: Oh, no. But, that can be led. I mean, that can be, put in a time for a time frame. So initially, when we came, when we opened up a little bit more to the public, we found that people who are spiritually open-minded. We found people who had Eastern philosophy. We found people who believed in spirits, spiritual[ity]. That they were more in tune or they were more accepting of our practice because it hit all those notes for them. Through age, through the years, the more I can learn academically and experience, then it's much easier for me to explain to the participants who are not familiar with this. And as you've said, trying to look this up on… Now we have computers. The Internet, which we never had, it's all sorts of information. And then you have to learn how to weave through that course, and then you have to learn through how to digest it and then how to edit that.

And so for us, the evolution of how we came to Portland and what we offer to the community and how the community interacts with us is mainly through people who are looking for cultures and people who are looking at spirituality. So when UNESCO gave us the title of cultural heritage practice, it was so much easier to explain to someone who is not familiar, where they realize this is culture, it's heritage, it's history, practice. It's what makes that culture be what it is. So if they are not threatened by spirituality, culture is interesting to them. If they're interested in spirituality, that will catch them in as well with the culture of where the history of that spirit comes from. So it's gotten to be easier for us. And now with having UNESCO behind us, it is much easier to say to those who would come in here and say, “Oh, I am of a so and so religion. And so I'm not…” I go, “Well, it's OK. This is a cultural heritage practice. I'm not recruiting you. I'm not asking you to believe in what I'm just sharing with you. This is a cultural exchange. And if you would like to, if you want to be more of a participant, then we'll go to that level when we can or when we need to, but in the meantime, this is a cultural exchange.” So it's much easier to talk to Westerners, who already have their perception of what they believe in and and how they believe in. You know? And so and so, being that and being part of the preservation society as a cultural heritage practice, it is much easier for us to expand our base or allow or give more, be able to share knowledge because this is a cultural heritage practice. I'm not asking you to abandon your belief system. I'm not asking you to make this your way of life. This is just an exchange. And so if you would like to know, welcome. If this is way too hard for you, then don't worry about it.

[01:57:19]

ZM: Yeah. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the different locations that the temple has resided in throughout its history in Portland and where… I know it's gone from being in a home and a very small kind of humble environment to public, to this beautiful space. And so I wonder if you could talk about the specific places in Portland that [it] has lived in, “Portland” as the greater Portland metro area.

AL: Sure. Tigard included. So wherever Asian people have our Vietnamese people have immigrated to in America, mainly larger states, California, Texas, even Atlanta, Virginia, and actually, this is a lot more simple. Where the military bases were? That's where the immigrant people or where the Vietnamese people have tended to reside. And what has happened is when people first came, like my parents came to America, there [was] limited access to anything. There was no communication with Vietnam. There was no communication that was applicable in America. And so everything remained small, and typically they were in people's homes. It was in their living room to a bedroom to garage because mainly for those people, it was their way of carrying their heritage to where they are living. Typically, for most people, it was relatively easy to do because honoring ancestors was very common, or is very common in the Vietnamese culture. And this it is just an incense bowl with a picture of the ancestor or maybe just an incense bowl with the image of the deities or maybe even just a photograph. For the people who are destined to be guardians, they will try to reinvent how the temple looks in America. So made up things like we said before, made up of, you know, Chinese restaurant decors, because those things had dragons in it and red and gold.

[01:59:44]

But what happens is some of those people as they have moved on, they've passed away. If the kids in that family were destined to continue, they will change it, and they will upgrade it like what we've done. So my parents went from one incense bowl to their living room, to a larger part of the house, to moving it into a public space, which is my store [Jeffrey Allen Gallery]. And then when I had the opportunity to move it into a replica of something that is from Vietnam, I did that. And that is a feat of its own. For two years, it took five villages or what we would say, they're really towns and a village and 250 carvers to replicate what we are sitting in right now because these are the hand memories of the artisans and the craftsmen. What they were, not allowed to do for over 50 years under political powers. When we had the opportunity to say, let's replicate it, those people were still alive. So, yes, there are newer generation, there are newer people that learned how to carve this. But simply put in your home, no one will cook your grandmother's dish like she did. No one will cook, it was her oven, it was her recipe. It was her. And in the craftsman that we have in our temple.

It was the old craftsman who for 50 years, 60 years hand memory of how to do these things, and we wanted to capture it and capsulize it before it was gone. Because they're a newer version, but they don't look like the old ones. So in Portland, as we know it, we are the only one of this caliber. Everybody else in their home, we would never know because this is very private. It's a very individualistic [practice] or path. In other states, i.e. California, Atlanta, Houston, North Carolina, Virginia, Minneapolis, Pennsylvania, that I am aware of, there are other people that have more sizable temples. The one that I'm most aware of is in San Jose, California and Houston and Atlanta. Those are the larger ones that I know of. But outside of us in Oregon, I don't believe there's anybody else that's on this caliber, where it can bring in and accept the public because everything else is in somebody's home and unless you know, there's no way of knowing. You know, I know where it is but I know there's some even in Hawaii. And what we have found out through the preservation society: Russia, obviously, Australia, and Europe. So wherever people immigrated to—and I never even thought about Russia. I mean, it was like and when they showed me pictures, I go, “That's in Russia?” Yeah, that's in Russia.

Australia was the other obvious place, but, places that we are aware of in France in particular because the French colonists that were in Vietnam, and that was brought over to France, back in the fifties. And there's documentation now, or documentation back in the fifties in the Bordeaux area in France where the immigration or the immigrants resided a lot. So we know for sure in France. I'm aware of some places in Italy and even Sweden and Germany. Even in Germany. So I know these temples are all over, but because of that stigma of superstition and, you know, voodoo and conjuring the dead, people are afraid to say anything. So how they call it conjuring the dead is because we're asking spirits of the heavens. And some of those spirits were historical people. So they call it conjuring the dead.

[02:05:03]

ZM: Yeah. Interesting. So this like fear, it's all the basis of fear.

AL: It's like not degrading what you lack of understanding. What you don't understand. “Put it down.” And if it's in competition with what you believe in, put it down quicker.

ZM: That's interesting. OK. I think we've covered quite a lot of what I have. I'm going to ask kind of a combo question, and all of them will wrap up. So the first part is I wonder if you could talk a little bit or reflect a little bit on the temple in the context of the coming 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. And then to finish out, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how someone who is interested in learning more could do that.

AL: Yes, so currently we have twp websites that we're putting together and one is coming up. It's the 50th year commemorative and one of the reasons we're using “commemorative” is because we do understand it was the end of the war, end of a war. There are people still living, i.e. myself, from the end of the war. There's a lot of sad feelings that goes with that. But we want this event to be about hope and inspiration for what we have done as a community in America, in Oregon, in Portland. What our contribution is, the Vietnamese peoples’ contribution is to this state, to the city, and to celebrate the kids that were born here in America and to celebrate the achievement of the Vietnamese people that have put all their hearts and soul in survival skills. Literally survival skills into living in America: learning a new language, learning a new way of life, going against all prejudices, rising above hate. So we would like to have this celebration or like to have this commemorative of the 50 years of the Vietnamese people's involvement in this state of Oregon and the city of Portland. Our temple is going to be included in part of our commemorative because this is the root of the Vietnamese culture. The acknowledgment of the contribution of the Vietnamese people is the present. Highlighting the kids is the future. So in what we are trying to accomplish is to present past, present, and future. And so what we would like to do is show this through arts, show it through culture, show it through history. Because the obvious is the obvious. There was a war. People got hurt. People lost things. That's the obvious. But what is not the obvious is the happiness. There, as I would say, was no reason for me to be in America except circumstance. Because we were perfectly happy. Then someone said, “Live, die.” 50 year commemorative is not to focus on what was, [it] is to focus on what is. So that's what we're hoping to do. And through arts, “culturey” cultural events, and literally showing and presenting what the contribution has been.

ZM: Wow. Yeah. So for someone wanting to learn more about the temple or how to be involved, what does that look like?

AL: So we are starting on our website on the Mother Spiritual Practice. We are starting on that site. And we're just starting to do that now because the negative connotation has been lifted. So it's in the works. But we're starting it with the Luong Ancestral Foundation, Family Foundation. And under it, we are doing, DBA as Mother Spirit Practice. And from there, we would like to invite people. And there, we have a place where if people wanted more information, that we would be able to reach out to them. Because that's one of the things that we found that was very difficult, very hard. And as you've done your research, reach out to who? You know, if you found a bunch of people who were just in academia, they don't always reach back to you. And if you find people in… there's a language barrier. So for us, this is just a start that we would have, and we welcome people. We welcome people who are open minded. We welcome people who are spiritual. We welcome people who believe in culture and history and hope and love and preservation of humanity, which is what UNESCO is about: is preservation of humanity and we want to be involved in that.

[02:11:45]

ZM: Well, in closing, is there anything else you want to share that we haven't touched on? We have covered a lot of ground, so no pressure.

AL: Well, in a lot of ground is this, everything we've covered, I think, in closing statement, the main thing I want to say is we found something that is very hopeful and bright and happy. And in a time when we need something to look forward to and wait for the sun to rise again. We want to make sure that we are open and we are here for people who would like a space to feel good. And so we offer that through our celebration in the temple. We offer the temple as a place for when people come and they want to… they just want to sit in a place that they don't have to understand. They just can feel and I think that was one of the biggest reasons why we set up this temple in a public space. Because if I kept it in a home, it would be pretty awkward if you came to my house and not. But here, offering it to an interior design store, sometimes people stumble upon us, or we can say magically find us, you know? But, we hope that we can continue to do more academic things based on the philosophy that we believe in. And it's not just about academia. So it's not just a translation. It's actually what the essence is. So it's trying not to use words that [are] not current with the times. Because sometimes, I think the translation gets lost when the wording is outdated.

ZM: That's great. I'll just close this out. This has been Zoë and Allen having a conversation on November 7, 2024 in Tigard, Oregon, and thank you so much again.

AL: Yes.

[02:14:23]

Additional Information

Date: 2024-11-07
Interviewer(s): Zoë Maughan
Interviewee: Allen Luong
Location: Tigard, Oregon
Subject: Temple of the Mother Spirit; Mother Spirit Practice; Rites and ceremonies -- Vietnam; Cultural Heritage Practices
Creator: Luong, Allen, Lewis & Clark College Special Collections
Format: mp3
Duration: 02:14:23
Language: English
Rights: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

For questions about rights statements, or access to the original document please contact Lewis & Clark College Special Collections and Archives http://specialcollections.lclark.edu