More Than Bricks: What It Really Means to Build a Home

Before the foundation is poured, before the walls start climbing, before there’s even a whisper of where the kitchen table might go, there’s a pause… for intention.  Inspections and paperwork will come later. That’s how it started for Ami and me.

We stood on a raw plot of earth in Da Nang with our contractor and a few construction workers, surrounded by rebar, , and the faint echo of hammers from the neighbors’ homes-in-progress. And yet, in that moment, the land felt still. Waiting. More than a simple construction site, to us, it’s something sacred.  It’s a space about to be transformed into our home. And in Vietnam, that transformation begins from the inside out. Literally from the ground up starting with stones.

For many families in Vietnam, building a house is a financial project or an architectural dream and for everyone it also symbolizes something even bigger.  It’s a lifelong marker, often tied to family legacy. Homes are meant to last generations, and the energy they carry is just as important as their square footage. So, before the concrete trucks arrive, before the structure takes shape, families perform a quiet, beautiful act of grounding. They lay spiritual stones beneath the surface. They offer blessings into the earth.

These stones can be decorative and symbolic in many ways but also they are believed to carry protection, prosperity, balance, and ancestral strength into the walls that will rise above them. This is a tradition deeply embedded in Vietnamese cosmology and local feng shui, blending spiritual awareness with cultural reverence. And it’s one that many Vietnamese people, including my wife Ami, hold close to heart.

When Ami explained the tradition to me, at first, I was confused.  In the west, we just build... the faster the better.  And the idea of burying stones (especially expensive ones) under the foundation where nobody will ever see them felt odd and mildly wasteful.  It didn’t take long to convince me of what it truly is, though. I’ve practiced mindfulness for years, and this was mindfulness in one of its oldest forms: being present while laying down what cannot be seen but will always be felt.  I was intrigued. 

So, on a rainy early evening in Da Nang, we did just that.

We gathered the stones. We centered ourselves. With the assistance of the onsite crew, hands dusty, hearts full, we honored the ground beneath our future home with simple awareness rather than ceremony for show.

The Meaning Beneath the Stones

We didn’t just scatter rocks and call it a day.  Each element we placed had purpose, position, and meaning.  Let’s start with the prayer stones.

These stones are often semi-precious, or selected from places believed to hold powerful energy; sometimes jade, sometimes quartz, sometimes just smooth river stones revered for their balance and grounding effect. You can walk into any feng shui shop or traditional market here and see these stones displayed behind glass like jewelry. Some families spend days researching the type of stone that best matches their home’s orientation or the family’s birth charts. Ami chose ours carefully, spending long hours researching and discussing with family and feng shui masters to determine the best, always with attention and reverence.

These stones are scattered across the footprint of the home, every corner, every edge. They’re believed to radiate energy upward, spreading peace, harmony, and good fortune throughout the house. Kind of like WiFi for the soul.

Then come the three sacred points: a ritual within the ritual.

At the front of the house, we placed special stones encased in golden octagonal boxes meant to welcome prosperity and joy into our lives. Sure, money is part of this but so is openness, kindness, and setting a tone of warmth for everyone who crosses the threshold.

At the center, we placed stones for grounding, stability, harmony, and health. This spot, buried directly beneath what will one day be the heart of our home, is a silent anchor, reminding us to stay rooted even as life changes around us.  I was particular moved to place this one myself in the area that will eventually become my office and no doubt endless hours working hard and adjusting to life’s challenges.

And at the rear, we laid down stones for protection and legacy. A kind of energetic firewall, but also a gesture toward the future, offering strength and endurance to our family that will grow and gather here.

Finally, we placed the dragon. Not a large one, just a small stone statue with a fierce expression. It disappeared quickly into the dirt, right where it’s meant to stay.

In Vietnamese culture, the dragon is a powerful symbol connected to water, wisdom, and cosmic balance. It brings life energy (what’s called “long khí”) and is said to guard against misfortune while encouraging abundance and personal power. In feng shui, the dragon is often placed near water features or entryways to channel energy correctly. But in this tradition, it goes beneath. Out of sight. Doing its work quietly like a hidden sentinel. 

I loved that.

There was something poetic about laying a symbol of power beneath the home, not on display but doing the heavy lifting beneath our feet. It reminded me of how the strongest things in life don’t always announce themselves. Integrity. Faith. Stillness. Love. They show up without needing to be seen.

So Ami placed our dragon, gently and with care, and covered it with dirt. And in doing so, we gave the house more than a start, we gave it a spirit.

More Than Ritual

We didn’t perform this ritual with incense or chanting. We didn’t invite monks or dress in ceremonial garb. There was no audience. No curated moment for social media.  It was just me, Ami, a few workers, and a bag of stones, quietly honoring something most people will never see.

And that’s the point.

This was about what we will remember, what will only be known to a few and never ostentatiously advertised as a symbol of wealth and prosperity to strangers passing by. A home, like a life, needs more than materials. It needs meaning. And this tradition (this very Vietnamese way of beginning) felt like mindfulness that wasn’t performative but rather grounded. That’s what struck me most.

We’re so used to building fast. Speed is a virtue in the West. Time is money. Delays are problems. Foundations are something contractors deal with while you shop for countertops. But standing there in the wet dirt in Da Nang, hand-in-hand with my wife, I realized: this was the foundation... for us. For how we want to live. For the kind of family we’re growing into. We buried out intention with those stones.

And that’s something mindfulness teaches us: it’s not the big declarations that shape your life. It’s the quiet, repetitive acts of presence. The small, sacred gestures. The moment before the moment. Ami and I didn’t speak much that evening but there wasn’t a lot to say. We both felt it. She carried the cultural knowledge, the spiritual history. I brought curiosity, deep respect, and a willingness to slow down and listen. We moved together with quiet purpose, placing the stones like words in a sentence we’ll spend the rest of our lives finishing.

Even now, as I write this, the foundation has already been poured. The cement and steel are in progress. The crew is building fast. Da Nang is a city that moves like that. But beneath it all, beneath our future floors and furniture and memories, those stones will always be there anchoring us.  I’ll never forget where they are, and I’ll always remember what they mean.

Foundations That Stick With You

If you don’t mind, I would like to get a little more personal about this.  As an American participating in the building of a home in Vietnam, I’ve gotten used to feeling like I’m living in two places at once. There’s the culture I grew up with: fast timelines, concrete goals, efficiency above all. And then there’s the culture I’ve married into: more rooted, more patient, with deeper attention to meaning and legacy.

This stone-laying tradition wasn’t something I ever imagined myself doing. Back home, we build fast. We focus on structure, resale value, deadlines, usable space, tax deductions, school districts, trash collection, crime statistics, etc. But standing there in the mud with my wife, watching her place each stone with care and conviction, something clicked.  This is a custom that, yes, is nice, but also one that profoundly screamed at me, “how you begin something matters!”

I don’t mean that in a poetic sense. I mean it in a practical, day-to-day way. Because I’ve been around long enough to know that houses built in a rush often require repairs later. And relationships built without attention tend to crack under pressure. The same goes for careers, habits, and anything we hope will last. So this ritual, placing stones for energy, protection, and long-term peace… it made sense. It slowed me down. It gave weight to the project in a way that felt deeply human, not just spiritual. I wasn’t watching someone else’s tradition. I was participating in something that now felt like mine.

I’ll be honest: I don’t know what kind of house we’ll have in ten years. Styles change. Plans shift. But I do know what’s buried under the floor. And I know that the memory of that day, the weight of the stones as I carried them to the site, the feel of the rain, the look on Ami’s face when we finished.  It will stick with me far longer than the trim we choose or the color of the tile.

In a place far from where I was born, we’ve started something with respect and with a foundation that actually means something. That’s more than enough for me.