From Poet to Businessman to Both

Awakin Call with Lam Nguyen Phuong

At fifteen, a stream of consciousness poured through a Vietnamese boy onto paper while he sweated profusely — and a poet arrived. Forty years of Wall Street later, he could no longer see the poet. At a Gandhi 3.0 retreat, a fellow participant recited a line from his own poem — please lead me from pontification to purification — and Lam recognized himself in it. He had been pontificating for twenty years; it was the ego doing all the spiritual work. What follows is his reckoning with that: with love held in the mind versus love that lives in living, and with non-judgment — not as an idea, but as an experience — as the beginning of love.

Lam has also written an essay exploring these themes. Audience Q&A and book recommendations are at the end of this page.

His Essay →Poems →

Nuggets

• The Poet Within — Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-nine, Lam wrote nearly fifty poems, arranged into three books: Sweet Innocent Love, Dreams of a New Earth, and Dreams of a New Humanity. His second poem — "The Stone Crusher" — poured out in fifteen minutes while he was fifteen, sweating profusely. It was almost a mystical experience; its symbolic content feels more valid today than it did then. By eighteen, the poems had grown more urgent: "Is injustice not enough? Do I have to catch the birds singing in the sky? Is oppression not enough? Do I have to raise marble palaces and snuff out the last dim flames in children's eyes?" The poet went into hiding because, as a non-white refugee on Wall Street in the 1970s who had to fight for his family's survival, he had to dismantle his identity simply to belong. "The poet was always inside me. Forty years of immersion veiled the poet, and I couldn't see him." Read two of his early poems here.
• All Rays From the Same Sun — Vipassana is the hardest of retreats — many people cannot stay beyond two or three days. But those who stay have a very memorable and transformative experience. For Lam, the realization was this: "I'm not this physical body, not even these emotions, not these thoughts, not even my identity — but part of something much, much bigger. We are all personal manifestations of the same being. All rays come from the same sun. We are all one." He has not missed a day of meditation since, for over twenty-five years. Practice the practice. Remember to remember.

  The reality of oneness is incompatible with an extractive economic system.

• From Pontification to Purification — At Gandhi 3.0, Lam felt awkward — it was the first time in decades he was not treated as a VIP. Nobody interviewed him, nobody asked him to open the meeting. The breakthrough came when a fellow retreatant recited a poem with one line: "Please lead me from pontification to purification." That was the aha moment. "I have been pontificating for twenty years. It was the ego doing all this work." The pang of discovering the role of your ego. All around him were people not just understanding love but living it — and he realized: love held in the mind is not love. True love lives in living, in generosity that costs something, in kindness that asks nothing back.

  A spiritual journey can become the best hiding place for the ego. It shields us from our own inner light — and gives us status, the belief that we are spiritually superior. Father Richard Rohr: "Religion is the safest place to hide from God."

• The Best Practice — Provided we are sincere, there is no right or wrong way to practice. The best practice is the one that fits our personality and level of consciousness. The only non-negotiable: any practice must combine inner contemplation with outer engagement — they are not separate paths, just two sides of one. On sustaining a daily practice for twenty-five years: "I just find the time to do it. It doesn't have to be long. We need a moment of silence every day to go deep into ourselves." Abby reflected that what Lam shared helped shift her own practice from discipline to devotion. Unlearning bad habits is harder than learning good ones — the advice to younger seekers: start early.
• Care vs. Attachment — In caring, we often expect something in return. If the other person stops recognizing you and your caring stops, then it isn't compassion. Compassion is a free act of love. Check the motive: if it comes from wanting to gain, it's attachment. If it comes from "I'm not doing something to you — I'm simply doing something for life, and you happen to be the recipient," that's compassion. Does the act flatter you? Compassion says: I do it simply because I do it. I don't feel better about myself because I do it. The ego speaks in terms of gains and belonging. True love doesn't. When the ego perceives a loss, it contracts, and you feel sadness. Deeper compassion opens you up. Listen to your body. And watch who you exclude — notice when you're playing favorites. Compassion excludes no one.
• Kindergarten, Middle School, PhD — If we feel compassion for those who don't have limbs, who are sick — that's kindergarten compassion. If we feel compassion for those who don't yet understand impermanence — that's middle-school compassion. If we can feel compassion for those who commit atrocities or genocide — that's PhD compassion. "I'm far from being at that level. But compared to eighteen months ago, I no longer blame that person. I no longer feel hatred or anger." Why does it matter? Because those of a high consciousness can compensate for many others at a lower consciousness. We can compensate for the world by uplifting our own level.
• The Friend's Last Gift — Lam had a friend who was the complete opposite of him. When this friend passed away, he stood at the funeral for an hour and felt neither sadness nor joy — and realized: in both sadness and joy, there is judgment. We judge all the time — our children, ourselves, everyone. That's duality. Non-duality is the beginning of love. It is not an intellectual activity but an experience. Non-judgment, not as an idea but as something felt, is where love begins. His friend's last gift to him was that realization.

  Genuine philanthropy means helping people remember who they are. His greatest hope is that more of us realize who we truly are.

• The How Is the What — Even the ego practicing — sitting on the cushion, doing philanthropic acts — is necessary. It is part of the purification. Without twenty years of sitting and doing, he couldn't have had that moment of realization that it was all the ego's work. The important thing is not what someone does, but how and who — who is the person doing that job, and are they doing it with compassion? A teacher who doesn't care about students can do harm. A banker who acts from love can do good. If we act from fear, worship of money, control, and measurement — it's not good. If we act from love, whatever we do will bring goodness. An ache to become what we can become.

  "AI may turn out to be an unexpected spiritual teacher — not because it possesses any wisdom, but because it closes every other door, until the only thing left is us."
  — Nipun Mehta

Audience Q&A & Book Recommendations

Questions from the call that couldn't be answered live — Lam's written responses are here →

Many books can help us advance on the journey. What we find most enlightening depends on our level of consciousness at the time. At various stages of his own journey, Lam has found these authors most helpful: Bede Griffiths, Richard Rohr, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, J. Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi, Kim Michaels.