Stories of Courage: Part 2 – The Monk who Sacrificed his Life

Reading time ~5 mins

This is the second part of the two-part series that we’re covering on courage. In part 1, we looked at the story of Julia Butterfly Hill, and how she courageously gave away two years of her life to save thousand-year-old trees in the Redwood Forest in Northern California. You can read that story here.

Today, let’s look at the exemplary courage shown by a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk – Thích Quang Duc.

First, some History – The Buddhist Crisis of Vietnam

In the year 1963, the political situation in the then South Vietnam was tense. South Vietnam had a Buddhist majority (~80% people were Buddhists) but the Government at the time – headed by Ngo Dinh Diem (a Catholic himself) – persecuted the Buddhist majority.

Diem followed discriminatory practices against the Buddhists. The Government was biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions. Catholics were given high positions in the army and civil services. Many officers in the army converted to Catholicism in the belief that their career prospects depended on it, and many were refused promotion if they did not do so. Similarly, preference was given to Catholics in the allocation of land, business favors, and they even got tax concessions.

Even when the guerrillas from North Vietnam attacking the South, the distribution of firearms to villages for self-defense were only given to Catholics. It is said that some Catholic priests ran private armies while forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred in some areas. Several Buddhist villages converted en-masse to receive aid and to avoid forced resettlement by Diem’s regime.

The Govt under Diem made exemptions to Catholics from forced ‘free’ labour that the Buddhist citizens were made to perform for their Country each year. Similarly, public spending was disproportionately distributed to Catholic majority villages. Also, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, etc. Diem also went on to dedicate his country to the Virgin Mary.

People considered dangerous to the national defense and security were sent to concentration camps. It is needless to state that most such people were Buddhists.

The Trigger

In May 1963, Catholics were encouraged to display the Vatican flags at a Government sponsored celebration for Diem’s brother who was the Archbishop in Vietnam at the time. However, a week later, a decree prohibiting the display of religious flags was invoked, which made the display of the Buddhist flag on Vesak (i.e. Buddha Pournima/ Buddha Jayanti) illegal.

On May 8, in Hue, a crowd of Buddhists protested against the ban on the Buddhist flag. The police and army broke up the demonstration by firing guns at and throwing grenades into the gathering, in which nine people were killed.

Subsequently, Buddhist leaders made a five-point manifesto which included permission to fly the Buddhist flag, religious equality between Catholics and Buddhists and an end to arbitrary arrests of Buddhists. However, the Diem Government did not budge, gave petty excuses and even called the Buddhists “damn fools”.

Quang Duc’s Ultimate Sacrifice

It is often said that “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

The times were indeed desperate, since the Government was in no mood to grant a religious equality and there was no progress despite months of protests. In fact, in one of the protests, the police poured chemicals on the heads of praying Buddhists due to which sixty-seven people had to be hospitalized.

Amidst this backdrop, on 11^th June 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a senior Mahayana Buddhist Monk immolated himself on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. He was attempting to show that to fight all forms of oppression on equal terms, Buddhism too, needed to have its martyrs.

On the morning of 11^th June 1963, about 350 monks had gathered in solidarity of the Buddhist cause. The monks formed a circle around Quang Duc. Duc calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on a cushion which was laid on the road by another monk for him.  As Duc rotated a string of wooden prayer beads in this meditative posture, another monk poured gasoline over him.

With the words Nammô Adi đà Phật (“homage to Amitābha Buddha”) on his lips, Quang Duc struck a match and dropped it on himself. Instantly flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.

David Halberstam, a journalist from The New York Times, who was present at the incident, later wrote this:

“Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think … As he burned, he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.”

After approximately ten minutes, Duc’s body was fully immolated, and it eventually toppled backward onto its back.

Quang Duc’s body was re-cremated subsequently, but Duc’s heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xa Loi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion.

The Aftermath

Quang Duc’s sacrifice was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis in Vietnam. After this incident, the US put more pressure on Diem’s government to grant religious equality. The US President at the time John F. Kennedy said in reference to Duc’s immolation photograph that “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one”.

However, the persecution continued including raids on Buddhist Pagodas and five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963. Diem was eventually assassinated in November 1963, and the Vietnamese Army overthrew Diem’s regime in a coup. At the time of his assassination, Diem was widely considered to be a corrupt dictator.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A small burning matchstick touching our fingers can make us recoil in pain. And here was Quang Duc sitting peacefully when his entire body was burning in flames.  This act of exemplary courage by Quang Duc has left a deep impression in my mind. He knew that he would not survive the immolation and yet he chose to make such ultimate sacrifice. The act was not to bring him any personal gain, but it would indeed further the Buddhist cause.  

I want to close by quoting Quang Duc’s last words which were documented in a letter he had left before his self-immolation:

“Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngo Dinh Diem to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.”

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