Diệu Viên Pagoda, Huế 2025: wheelchairs and rice for families facing illness

On March 22, 2025, the Compassionate Hands Foundation travelled from Đà Nẵng to Huế and gave 40 wheelchairs, 270 monthly rice allotments and gifts at Diệu Viên Pagoda.

On March 22, 2025, the Compassionate Hands Foundation (Hội Từ Thiện Bàn Tay Nhân Ái) left Đà Nẵng and drove a long way north to Huế, to Diệu Viên Pagoda. The team returns here every year because so many families in the area live in great hardship.

On the road to Huế

The narration describes the team passing wide fields, steep mountains and quiet rivers before reaching Tràng Tiền Bridge, reflected in the Perfume River. The narrator likens the gentle river to a mother's lullaby.

The families at Diệu Viên

The narrator tells of Mrs. Lê Thị Lụ, whose children all live with mental illness. In her pain and despair she once took poison to end her life, but was saved. Since meeting the team and receiving monthly rice, her life has been somewhat easier.

Diệu Hảo, a member of the team, handed out bread rolls so people had something to eat. Families took them and ate hungrily, as if they had gone without for a long time. Among the crowd were children with sores on their skin, bleeding and in pain. People who joined the trip for the first time broke down in tears. The narrator says she or he returns every year and still cannot hold back tears.

A first-time volunteer asked why so many people suffer so much. A companion answered gently that she had cried the same way the first time. The question stayed with the whole team: why are they poor, why are children so ill, where would the money for medicine come from. The narrator admits the team can only ask and has no answer.

A word from a monk

A member of the clergy in the team spoke to the families, among them people who cannot see or hear, or whose bodies are not whole. He reminded them that they still know the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha:

Even if our eyes cannot see, the light in our hearts is always on.

A monk with the team

He encouraged them to recite the name of Amitabha Buddha, do good, avoid harm, and so plant good seeds for now and the future.

Three reasons Diệu Viên is special

A member of the team explained why Diệu Viên receives extra attention. First, many pagodas are visited only every three or four years, while here the team comes every year. Second, a typical stop has ten to thirty wheelchairs, but here there are forty, thanks to the organizers who gathered the disabled so well. Third, most stops receive about 200 gift packages, and here the number is higher.

Diệu Hảo thanked the abbess and nuns of Diệu Viên, Venerable Thích Minh Nhựt, head of the team, and everyone who came to help the poor and the ill.

The numbers and the appeal

At this stop the team gave 40 wheelchairs and 270 monthly rice allotments. Many poor people not on the list also came for gifts. The narrator said the team hopes this small amount of tịnh tài (cash offerings) eases a little of the burden for the poor of Huế.

Near the end the team read a poem by Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh and promised never to forget the children in need. The foundation asks supporters to sponsor monthly rice, delivered to families house by house through the provinces along the route.

What remains

For first-time volunteers, the morning at Diệu Viên raised questions with no answers. For the team, it is another reason to come back next year. The foundation says it is still looking for more people to share the monthly rice, and the trip continues.