An Introduction to the Dharma Family

Ed Wortz was my friend and mentor. He ushered me through some bad times and was there to toast me when the sun was shinning bright. Thich Thien An was Ed’s mentor and initiator in Buddhist philosophy. Ed and Thien-An first met the Ven. Dr. Thich Thien-An when Thien-An came to Southern California in the summer of 1966 as an exchange professor at UCLA. Thien-An’s father had been one of the monks who self immolated to bring attention to the world of the horrors being perpetrated in Vietnam by the Diem regime. When Saigon fell in 1975, Ven. Thien-An saw his responsibility and helped the boat people and other refugees from his homeland. Thus, the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles, the first Vietnamese temple in the U.S, came to be.
For Ed, Thien-An was the real thing. He studied Zen meditation with Thien-An and conscripted this Buddhist training as part of his psychotherapy practice. “Good Luck, Bad Luck” is a favorite parable that Ed used to tell. How true it is.
Thien-An’s Story: Good Luck, Bad Luck?
This story, a favorite of Thien An, and one that I’ve told to many clients and groups, is set in a valley in ancient China. The inhabitants of this valley were very poor. Each year none of them managed to store away more than just enough grain and other food stuff to make it through the winter. One of the families consisted of just a farmer, his wife and son, and they each worked very hard just to maintain this subsistence level. One night, at harvest time a herd of wild horses found an opening in a fence and broke into this family’s field. They ate much of the grain and trampled and ruined a lot of what they didn’t eat. The next morning the family was really bummed out about this turn of events and neighbors added to mood by saying things such as; “Oh my!” “you poor people”, “what will you do”, “we all have so little to eat and there is none to spare!” ,”we have our own mouths to feed”, thank the gods this didn’t happen to me”, “we can’t be of much help to you”, “You will certainly starve to death this winter”, “we cant imagine what awful deeds you must have done in your past lives to warrant such an awful fate!”
The farmer shook his head and said “It really does look bad but good luck or bad luck you never know!”
The next day the farmer and his son were working in the fields trying to recover what they could when the herd of wild horses, lured by their memories of the good grain, came back into the field. Well the farmer and his son, seeing this, hastily put up the fence rails and effectively corralled the entire herd.
The family was of course delighted. And the neighbors, hearing of their good fortune, came by and said: “what lucky people you are”, we thought that certainly you were going to die this coming winter”, “this is the most amazing turn of events in our memory”, “you have certainly beaten the fates”, “now you are the most wealthy family in the entire valley”, we can’t imagine what wonderful deeds you must have done in countless past lives to deserve such a reversal of fortune”.
The farmer listened to them all, shook his head and said again, “well good luck – bad luck you never know”.
The farmer and his son, being good business men, decided to break the horses before they took them to market and thus make a larger sum. The son was riding the wild horses, in an attempt to gentle them, when the horse he was on, reared into the air, fell over on his side and crushed the young man’s leg. The damaged leg was so bad that it had to be amputated.
Well, when the neighbors heard of this additional turn of events they were truly concerned and distraught. They came to the farmers house and offered their condolences “You unfortunate man”, “What a truly terrible thing to have happen”, “your only son”! Who will take care of you in your old age”, “we can’t even begin to imagine the awful things you must have done in countless past lives to have your apparent good fortune marred by this truly catastrophic event”.
The farmer said in response to their concerns, “It really seems like a tragedy but good luck – bad luck you never know”.
Well, hardly a month passed before young man was up on his one leg with a crutch serving for the second when the army of the Khan came through the valley and took away all the young men, never to return, except one.
So good luck – bad luck you never know.
Personally in my own life it seems to take me at least ten years or even longer to assess the significance of major life events. – Ed Wortz