Introduction

AL KASHA

Two-time Academy Award winner

"Supreme Master Ching Hai perfectly demonstrates
our potential to be both fully human and fully divine..."

When looking for a story to tell through music, one premise that I always search for is an interesting clash between two separate worlds that, through love, finally come together.

Supreme Master Ching Hai's life is ripe for this kind of storytelling. Supreme Master , Who was born in Âu Lạc (Vietnam), and her love interest Rolf, being from a different background, offers the foundation of an inspiring story, and one that can be readily told in this theatrical medium. Her choice to sacrifice her own love and contentment for the service of the multitude, though difficult, is one to be applauded as her own happiness plays second fiddle to the joy that she has since created in the world.

Supreme Master Ching Hai perfectly demonstrates our potential to be both fully human and fully divine, shining as an example to those of us striving for the same balance. One place where this is truly apparent is in her poetry. While reviewing the poems that Supreme Master composed, I was touched by her commitment to bring the world to an inner peace and received the inspiration to create a musical about her life story based on her profound verses.

Each of the poems Supreme Master composed dealt with both the spiritual and the physical of how to consume nourishment through her choice if foods and prayer. Through her poetic nature the human qualities and divinity that she strives for are pulled together and conveyed in her poems. Adding music gave a further, richer dimension for this work to be turned into a musical.

It has truly been an honor to collaborate on this musical as we come to rejoice in the melding of two worlds and to make this Earth a better place to live, to work and to survive together for a peaceful future.