Tan Nhut Ngo

Born in Phan Thiet, Viet Nam, in 1953, I entered the monkhood at the age of 8. Following the sudden death of my teacher, I returned to the ordinary life of a layperson when I was 17. In 1971 I joined the Thu Duc Infantry School in the South Vietnam Army (http://anloc471.com/trang_Khung.htm). I graduated on July 29, 1972, with the rank of third lieutenant (chuẩn úy) and was subsequently selected to serve in the 81st Airborne Ranger League (Liên đoàn 81 Biệt Cách Nhảy dù). After the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, I was confined to a concentration camp, one of the many “Education and Transformation Camps” erected by the Communist government. In 1978, I was temporarily released and admitted to a provincial hospital because of an unknown disease that had killed many prisoners over a short period of time in my camp. During my treatment at the hospital, even though I hovered between life and death, I was still required to report to a local concentration camp. Taking advantage of the situation, I escaped from the country on a small fishing boat, crossed the Pacific Ocean, and finally arrived at a small, remote Indonesian island. In December 1978, I settled down in Ottawa, got married and had two children, who are now married and starting their own families. Presently, I have a grandson and a granddaughter.In 1990, I returned to the practise of Buddhism, and in 2011, with the strong support of my wife, I again became a monk. Not long afterwards, I went to Myanmar to receive full ordination as a bhikkhu in the Theravada tradition, and stayed some time there to practise meditation with my teacher.I earned my diploma in computer science not long after I arrived in Canada, and then worked in the computer industry as a senior Oracle Database administrator for nearly 20 years, despite the fact that this was not my chosen profession. In 1999, I decided to return to school. I obtained my B.A. in Psychology at the University of Ottawa in 2001, and twelve years later, in 2013, I was awarded a full scholarship to pursue my studies in the M.A. program in Religion and Public Life at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. I will resume my studies in September 2016 to pursue a Ph.D. in Religion at the University of Ottawa.Shortly before completing my M.A. in the spring of 2014, I was diagnosed with liver cancer. I fought hard to complete my M.A. thesis, a core part of the degree, at the same time as I was undergoing a series of aggressive chemotherapy treatments to cont