Emperor Tran Nhan Tong

Clouds drift across the top of Yên Tử like a stream flowing sideways through the sky. Dew gathers on the bamboo leaves and drips onto a narrow path that climbs high. More than 700 years ago, a man in a plain brown robe walked that path, one stone step at a time. Few people would have guessed that he had once been an emperor, dressed in royal robes and seated on a golden throne in the capital. He was Emperor Trần Nhân Tông.

His real name was Trần Khâm, and he was born in 1258. He belonged to the Trần dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400. In 1278 he took the throne as emperor, and the weight of a whole country came to rest on his shoulders. He was still a young man, suddenly responsible for countless people.

In those years the country faced a very great test. From the north came a mighty army known as the Nguyên Mông. They were the Yuan, the Mongol dynasty then ruling China. They marched south into Đại Việt, an old name for Vietnam. Đại Việt was a small country.

During his reign, the emperor and the people of Đại Việt drove that army back twice, once in 1285 and again in 1288. A small country had held its own against a far larger force, and it did so because the whole nation stood together. The emperor above and the people below each did their part to protect their homeland.

What is most precious is not that he knew how to defend the country. It is that once the country was at peace, he felt no wish to hold on to high power for himself.

In 1293, with everything calm, he gave the throne to his son and became Thái thượng hoàng, a retired emperor. He stepped down from the throne himself, at the very height of his power. A man who had led a whole nation now set that burden down gently, like setting down a robe worn long enough. In his heart he already saw the shape of Yên Tử and a quiet path waiting for him.

But he did not stop there.

Then, in 1299, he did something that people still speak of. He took off the royal robe and went up Yên Tử, a high mountain wrapped in cloud, in what is now Quảng Ninh. There he put on the brown robe and became a monk. On entering monastic life, he took the name Hương Vân Đại Đầu Đà. An emperor had become a gentle monk, living among forests and mountains, among the sound of streams and bells.

On Yên Tử, where clouds hung all year, he no longer gave orders to anyone. He planted trees, walked the mountain paths, and taught people to be kind, to be gentle, and to love one another. The emperor who had once stood before the battle lines now chose a life that was simple and still.

On that cloudy mountain, he did something very great for the culture of his country. He founded the Trúc Lâm Yên Tử school of Thiền. Thiền is the Vietnamese name for Zen, a school of Buddhism that puts meditation at its heart. He drew the Zen traditions that already existed into one line, a line with the deep character of the Vietnamese people. Later generations honor him as the first patriarch of that school. A school of Zen was born on Vietnamese soil, started by a son of that same soil.

He lived on Yên Tử until his last day, in 1308, on the mountain he loved, just turning 51 years old. Later generations honored him deeply and gave him a very special name, Phật hoàng. It means a king who is also a gentle teacher of countless people.

His life was as beautiful as the mountain where he spent his last years. He took off the royal robe in the capital and traded it for a brown one and the sound of bells on the mountain. Even now, when the clouds drift past the bamboo on Yên Tử at first light, a monk in a brown robe seems to climb quietly toward the summit. He carries a heart open to everyone.