This Buddhist Monk Used His Own Practice To Make Peace With Cancer

In 2011, William Tran, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk with the honorable ranking of Highest Buddhist Master, went to the dentist for inflammation in his gums. Antibiotics did not help and when the dentist saw him again, he was so concerned that he personally took Tran to the emergency room.

There, Tran was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and was told 
that his disease might not be cured. After chemotherapy treatment, 
a period of remission and then a relapse, his doctors at Cedars-Sinai 
hospital in Los Angeles, California decided that it was time to 
investigate transplant options. When they could not find a perfect match 
for him for a bone marrow or stem cell transplant, Tran’s doctors looked 
to a relatively new transplantation option for adults with promising 
results: umbilical cord transplants. Before Tran could receive his 
transplant from donated and matched umbilical cord blood, he went 
through another vigorous round of chemotherapy to get him back into remission.

Tran’s transplant was successful and he has been in remission from 
leukemia for six months. He is back home at his temple in Garden 
Grove, California, just three miles from Disneyland, surrounded by 
students, nuns and friends. The Huffington Post met with him and 
a translator -- a longtime family friend and student by the name of 
Roy Le -- to learn about what cancer looks like through the eyes of 
a Buddhist monk.

 


“After I got sick, my body changed a lot. I lost weight and felt weaker
than before. It takes time to recover,” Tran, who is nearly 60 years old 
and has been studying Buddhism for over 50 years, said through a 
translator. “But mentally, I feel stronger. I have more confidence in my Buddhism than I did before.”

At his personal temple, where he studies and teaches Mahayana 
Buddhism, Tran, speaking in Vietnamese, shared six ways that he 
used his practice to find peace during his process of diagnosis, 
treatment, transplant, recovery and remission:

William Tran is a monk who lives at a personal temple in Garden 
Grove, California where he studies and teaches Mahayana Buddhism. 
Two years ago, he was promoted to the level of “Highest Master” in 
Buddhism.

1. As a patient, you have to let go now. Letting go means 
having no attachment.
"I have been practicing Buddhism since I was six years old. Letting
 go of attachments is part of me. In other religions, the soul is 
permanent. In Buddhism, it’s not. Let’s say you light a candle and 
there is a flame. If you transfer the flame to another candle and blow 
out the first one, where did it go? We don’t know. It’s the same thing 
when we die. You were different 10 minutes ago from now. Every time 
we have a new experience, our soul isn’t the same as it was before."

2. Don’t deny the disease. Accept it as fact.
"Face reality. Deal with your stress right now. Doctors can take care 
of the body, but they cannot take care of the mind. Accept what you 
have right now. Face it directly and deal with it. If you accept the facts 
and ask for help, your mind will calm down. The medicine will kick in."

3. When you’re faced with a crisis, believe in your own religion, 
God or morals. 
"Don’t start questioning now. Believe in morality and what your good 
deeds are. And you have to believe in yourself. This is really important. 
You have a lot of knowledge and power. All people have the potential for something great. For a great accomplishment."

4. Believe and trust in your medical team. Follow their instructions.
"We can deal with the side effects of the drugs with our minds. The doctors 
are the professionals. Trust them. It is a misconception that Buddhists 
believe that when you donate part of your body (blood, bone marrow) 
that your body is no longer intact and that you will not have a full rebirth 
in your new life. We believe that donating your body is the highest level 
of Buddhism. Donate anything. It’s the right thing to do. The key is you do 
it for nothing in return -- just to help people."

5. Meditate.
"When you meditate, your body produces endorphins. You produce less 
cortisol --that’s the bad thing that creates a lot of stress. This is one way 
to calm yourself down and let your body heal along with the medication. 
I practiced meditation every day and I did not have problems with nausea 
or vomiting during chemotherapy. I ate double what I was expected to!"

Meditation also helped me psychologically through my treatment. It 
helped support me. It helped me accept my fate. "Accepting your fate 
doesn’t mean that you give up. It means facing your reality. Stand up 
and fight it. You don’t just give up. When we say we accept our fate that 
means we face the facts right now and we will deal with it."

6. When confronting the unknown or the fear of relapse, live 
in the present.
"To practice meditation, you have to live in the present. [Your disease] 
might come back and it might not. Don’t live for the future. Plan for the
 future. We still plan for the future in the normal ways in life. But we are 
all going to die. If someone doesn’t die of cancer it could be heart disease 
or a traffic accident outside. We have to die somewhere. We don’t know 
when. So we try our best."

As told to Sasha Bronner. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Posted: 03/20/2015