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Thich Quang Duc

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I originally posted this 6 years ago today, a date which is the anniversary of the event. I reshare it because I still think the lessons are important. 
 

For those of us of a certain age, we may not know his name, but we know what he did on this day.

Thich is a title, an honorific, used by all Vietnamese monks and nuns, meaning that they are part of the Shakya (Shakyamuni Buddha) clan.  Today most associate it with another Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.

There is video of what happened this day in 1963 at a busy crossroads in Saigon.  I will neither embed nor link to it.  

On this day Thich Quang Duc sat quietly as a fellow monk poured gasoline over him, as a crowd held back by a ring of Buddhist clergy, and although there were police present, they could not intervene  He set himself on fire and sat calmly as he was immolated.  If you see the video, you will see one policeman, himself a Buddhist, prostrate himself before the fireball that was consuming Thich Quang Duc.

Later his body was re-cremated, but his heart remained intact.  To devout Buddhists this was a sign that he was a bodhisattva, an enlightened being who remains to help others reach enlightenment.  This by itself represented a huge threat to the Diem regime then governing South Vietnam.  The President - himself a Catholic in a predominantly Buddhist nation - promised reforms, but they were slow in coming and unrest began to spread.  It accelerated when special forces under his brother (who headed the secret police) raided pagodas and seized the sacred heart.  It also did not help when the president's sister in law, the infamous Madame Nhu (commonly referred to as the Dragon Lady) called what he did was that "they have barbecued one of their monks." The raid led to other self-immolations, and eventually the coup in December that overthrew the regime and killed President, his brother and his sister-in-law.

There is a larger lesson.


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