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Master Hien: Martial Arts, Kung Fu & His Spiritual Path
For centuries, martial arts and spirituality have often crossed paths.
Traditional Kung Fu can involve far more than learning how to fight. Discipline, concentration, control of the body and mind, philosophy, and years of dedicated practice can all be part of the training. For some practitioners, that path also develops alongside a
deeper interest in spiritual life.
Master Hien's journey followed a similar direction.
His involvement in Kung Fu began before his spiritual path, but the two developed relatively close together. Over time, martial arts, Buddhism, spiritual study, and his experiences with the spiritual world would each become important parts of his life.
They are different disciplines, but together they help tell the story of who Master Hien became.
A Foundation in Martial Arts and Kung Fu
Martial arts became part of Master Hien's life while he was still young.
What began with Kung Fu grew into decades of training, practice, teaching, and eventually the development of his own martial arts system.
The physical side of Kung Fu is easy to see in old photographs: the stances, forms, movements, balance, and techniques. What a photograph cannot show as easily are the years required to develop them.
Martial arts demands repetition and patience. A practitioner must learn control before power can be used effectively. Progress is measured not simply by physical ability, but by the discipline required to develop it.
These ideas would remain important throughout Master Hien's life.
Martial Arts and Spirituality: Two Paths That Grew Together
Not long after martial arts entered his life, another path began developing.
Master Hien was born in Gia Dinh Province, South Vietnam, in a culture where Buddhism and traditional spiritual beliefs existed alongside practices that may be far less familiar to many Western readers.
This included beliefs concerning spirits as well as the work of mediums and sorcerers.
For many Western readers today, the word sorcerer may immediately bring to mind fantasy, fictional magic, or supernatural characters from books and movies.
That is not the world Master Hien describes.
The mediums and sorcerers he encountered were real people practicing within traditions and belief systems that existed in South Vietnam. Their practices, abilities, intentions, and roles could differ considerably, and Master Hien's encounters with this world became an important part of his own spiritual education.
His spiritual path continued to deepen over the years. In 1974, he was formally recognized as a Spiritual Master, and in 1993, he was ordained as a Buddhist lay monk by Venerable Thich Thien Nguyet.
Martial Arts, Kung Fu and the Lohan System
While his spiritual life continued developing, so did his martial arts.
In 1996, Master Hien founded the Seven Mountain Kung Fu Lohan System, building upon the knowledge and experience he had accumulated through years of martial arts practice.
He would later receive the title of World Grandmaster.
For Master Hien, however, mastery of martial arts is not simply demonstrated by the ability to perform a technique or overpower another person.
Discipline matters.
Control matters.
And knowledge carries responsibility.
Those principles are also visible in the way he approaches his spiritual work. Although martial arts and spiritual practice are not the same thing, both became paths through which he developed discipline, understanding, and responsibility.
From Experience to Journey of a Healer
Master Hien's experiences with the spiritual world eventually became stories he believed were worth preserving.
His encounters with mediums, sorcerers, spirits, spiritual practices, and the traditions he knew in South Vietnam provided the foundation for Journey of a Healer: Mediums and Sorcerers of South Vietnam.
For Western readers in particular, the book opens a window into practices and beliefs they may never have encountered—or may only recognize through fictional portrayals.
But Journey of a Healer is also personal.
Behind its stories is the life of someone whose development was taking place across several worlds: martial arts and Kung Fu, Buddhism, spiritual study, healing, and the traditions of his homeland.
Understanding that background provides another way of understanding the man behind the book.
Beginning in 2027, Journey of a Healer will return in a newly expanded edition, bringing readers new knowledge, experiences, and stories that were not included in the original book.
Two Paths That Continued to Grow
Looking through Master Hien's old martial-arts photographs today reveals a part of his history that readers of his spiritual work may not immediately know.
The martial artist and the spiritual healer did not emerge during completely separate chapters of his life.
The paths began close together and continued developing over decades.
Kung Fu required physical discipline, patience, focus, and control.
His spiritual experiences led him toward a different kind of study and understanding.
Eventually, one path would lead to his Seven Mountain Kung Fu Lohan System.
The other would lead to decades of spiritual work and stories preserved in Journey of a Healer and his other writings.
Together, they reveal more of Master Hien's journey—and how a young martial artist from South Vietnam eventually became a teacher, healer, World Grandmaster, and the author of Journey of a Healer and A Price for a Life.
A true Master🙏