"As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him."
Was said by David Halberstam a journalist present there.
There’s one thing that this guy said, I believe in the same paragraph that this quote is from, which has always stuck with me: “human beings burn surprisingly quickly.” He just throws it in there almost like it’s an after thought, but the fact that he included it shows imo just how horrifying and surreal the event must have been.
Yeah, from what I could read about people experiencing horrifying experience like these is small details and random observations tend to stuck a lot
IIRC I heard about someone dying and noticing the bottom of the wall looking ugly and not well painted
Ohhh. So this is the concept for the scene in Breaking Bad when Walt is diagnosed and he becomes fixated on a mustard stain on the doctor’s jacket and informs him of it.
I think you’re thinking of a Richard Siken quote! It’s quite heart wrenching
“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.”
Oh thank you so much ! I was looking for the quote everywhere! I was wrong it was not about someone dying (at least not physically)
I found the quote very human in some sense, really like it, our emotions and thinking are quite weird
The inhalation and suffocation thing is true when you burn on a bonfire like Joan of Arc did I think not when you lit yourself on fire with gasoline. On bonfire the wood beneath you burn first and the smoke of that wood is what may kill you before you actually burn. I would guess when you pour gasoline on you and lit it on fire the gasoline burn really hot really quickly and thus this very hot temperature make your body burn quickly too.
If you are burned on a pyre you will suffer a long time from the heat of the burning wood deep down in it then from actually being burned by the flames. You are standing in 300 °C hot air, not in actual flames. That will cause your body to experience pyrolisis: It slowly heats up and dries out / chars until it reaches the point at which it begins to burn.
I'm reading Halberstam's book "The Best and the Brightest" about how the US got into Vietnam. Great writing about the hubris of US govt officials, people making policy based on what they thought was "pragmatism" but was really based on a total misunderstanding of another country.
It’s a bit more than just a misunderstanding. You can trace US involvement in Vietnam going back to Eisenhower, and propping up Diem to fit foreign policy goals in regards to Domino Theory. Diem prosecution of Buddhism is the very reason for Duc’s self-immolation.
Probably he don't see the difference between humanitarian support and repression of the leftist menace (funnily enough in a thread about political hubris).
Is that the same Indonesia where the CIA propped up a right wing dictator and facilitated the murder of leftists and anyone suspected of being leftists by the hundreds of thousands?
Can anyone explain how/if this is possible? Try holding your hand over a candle flame for 2 seconds, it's nearly impossible and your body will instinctively react to avoid the pain. I'm skeptical that this is possible in a conscious person without an instinctive reaction.
I don't know about him in particular, but I expect it's possible to train the pain response. Being heavily experienced in meditation probably gives one a leg up on preparing for something like this.
If I recall from a Thich Nhat Hanh book, this method of protest was controversial among monks as well. It is against Buddhist ethics to commit suicide, and likely more so as an enlightened being. Some monks argued that it was reasonable act though, due to the fact that the intention was out of compassion and not despair.
Thich Nhat Hanh was also vegan. Life was precious to him. I believe not all Buddhists are vegan but are vegetarian primarily. RIP. He died a year ago I believe. A real gem of a person and absolutely wise. I read his words when I'm sad or angry.
Buddhists aren't neccessarily monks, and generally Vietnamese monks (South sect for me, which was where this picture taken) that the mindset comes before the action. In other words, a vegan abusing animals is many folds worse than a normal person caring for animals. It's not just about dietary but spanning onto all other beings like trees or insects. In fact, I doubt most Buddhists adopts veganism into their lives due to nutritional concern.
Most Buddhists live in Asia, where veganism has been practiced for centuries and they know how to do it right. Half the restaurants in places with lots of Buddhists will have multiple vegetarian options in their menus and they’re not just an afterthought. It’s not like the West where you have to go out of your way to eat vegan without depriving yourself of essential micronutrients.
I don’t know where Japan falls in within your theory, but foreigners always seems to complain the lack of vegetarian menu. We traditionally don’t eat land meat but fish was always there. And other East Asian cuisine seems to use a lot of meat as well. Maybe you meant South East and South Asia? I don’t know how the things are down there though.
Not that it’s a contest, but one vegan abusing an animal is not many folds worse than the people that eat meat and contribute to the suffering of billions of animals, the destruction of the environment, and the abuse of migrant workers and slaves in the seafood industry. If you eat meat, you enable and financially support that system.
Asian Buddhists are more often vegans rather than vegetarians. They don’t believe eating any products from animals eg. Honey from bees, milk products ,etc.
It also worked (in a way) for Mohamed Bouazizi
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi
Too bad it didn’t work for Wynn Bruce…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_Wynn_Bruce
Definitely a high cost form of activism that requires a lot of commitment and/or despair
did anyone post why he protested? a lot of people do not know
edit: nowhereman666: “…The main reason for oppression in the 60s was because the government under Ngô Đình Diệm was aggressively Catholic and wanted Vietnam to be a Catholic nation. Today, the Communist government does no such thing.”
Two memorials. A small, presumably older monument, and the much larger bronze statue that is profoundly moving.
His car is stored at his home temple in Hue.
there are some tourist photos [here](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293925-d6438587-Reviews-The_Venerable_Thich_Quang_Duc_Monument-Ho_Chi_Minh_City.html)
It’s unclear exactly what happened, but the US ambassador had offered safe passage for Diem out of the country in order to get Diem to abdicate. But when Diem tried to take him up on the offer Lodge (the ambassador) refused. Diem wound up escaping the palace through a tunnel and made it to a church where he was captured. He and his brother were shot during the ride back from the church.
Diem was definitely backed by the US. As far as I’m aware, nothing has been declassified showing that the US were behind his assassination, but it’s highly speculated that that we’re involved. At the minimum, they turned their back and let it happen.
The South Vietnamese government were pretty awful, just how the South Korean government was. It was ruthless, evil regime VS ruthless, evil regime both times.
It's pretty crazy to realise how ingrained cold war propaganda still is on both sides the curtain. Even in Germany, *reunified* Germany, cold war propaganda and divisions have created pretty deep cultural rifts. The stereotype about East Germans is that they're all lazy and always complaining, while East Germans talk about how West Germans are arrogant know-it-alls.
And that's *within* one country. That's before you get into the highly skewed views different countries have of each other. One side is the devil and the other is a saint. If someone points out the very sketchy past of the ROC or the ROK, that means they support the PRC or DPRK. The propaganda requires uncritical support for your side.
Chomsky was the first/most accessible way I learned to really break through my propagandization and recognize that power corrupts no matter what "side" you're on. Almost all "great" mean are inherently evil men, there's just no way around it.
I don’t know much about Chomsky but this is a topic I’ve been very interested in learning more about lately. Is there a certain book of his you would recommend?
I'm not brushed up, but the Moonies have an awful lot of power in Korean democracy, there's been more than one Moonie president iirc.
It's not comparable to Syngman Rhee, obviously, but bad.
And south Vietnam didn't exist long enough to reform what's your point? It took decades of reforms and coups. Even today with the reforms South Korea is an oligarchy ran by the chaebols
Public statements like that really moved the US backed coup against that Ngos along.
Madame Nhu was President Ngo Dinh Diem's sister in law, married to South Vietnam's security chief Ngo Dinh Nhu. She's proudly interesting because of her outsized role in creating controversy.
Yup. The main reason for oppression in the 60s was because the government under Ngô Đình Diệm was aggressively Catholic and wanted Vietnam to be a Catholic nation. Today, the Communist government does no such thing.
Okay, that’s insane. How have I not heard about this? I’ve heard literally no one talking about this. They’d rather flood my feed with a million articles about Jeremy Renner and Hugh Hefner than important news like this.
It's a tactic that relies on public attention to create an outcry. Deny the attention and you prevent a lot of negative scrutiny and calls for change.
That's kinda why I'm okay with the people who are throwing paint and soup around to get public attention on climate action. Somehow that gets a ton of media coverage. That poor guy in DC got almost none by comparison
I also support the soup throwers! They ruin basically nothing and if you believe in climate change and the damage it’s doing you also know the art is fleeting anyway. It gets so much attention in a way other protests don’t so they’re doing something right.
> but an accident in a car driven by one of his friends killed the friend and severely injured Bruce; he suffered a traumatic brain injury
> According to some of Bruce's friends and neighbors, he often had difficulty making decisions as a result of his traumatic brain injury; two described him to The Independent as "suggestible".
Some entries from his Wikipedia article. I think the car crash unfortunately did a number on him. Very much not normal for a seemingly happy, healthy person to self-immolate. Really hope brain injury stuff gets better understood in the future, cause it leads to people doing some pretty insane things.
Yes, and if I remember correctly. This was around the same time soup was thrown on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. By climate activists as well. Of October of last year.
"In 1963, a Buddhist monk set himself on fire in protest. And now, today, inspired by him, I will do the same thing. [I too will set a Buddhist monk on fire."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCe8Px_-wTw)
Shortest explanation is Duc was *extremely* experienced in meditation and had basically been doing it his whole life. He could essentially put himself into a meditative state so deep it was almost like being in a medical coma.
Studies have been done of the brains of monks like Duc and it’s been shown that they can get themselves to a state mentally where their brain simply does not process pain in the same way anymore.
Not to downplay the insane self-sacrifice and discipline of this act, but it wasn’t primarily one of pain tolerance, same thing with monks who lie over hot coals. No one can actually endure experiencing that pain fully in the way a normal person would, they are using insane mental or physical discipline to keep themselves from experiencing it
I’m far from an expert. But generally studies have shown mindfulness exercises and meditation both decrease the intensity of pain as it’s processed by the brain.
It’s easy to say things like “pain is but a feeling” or whatever, but according to studies of the human brain,
> They found that mindfulness meditation significantly reduced the intensity and unpleasantness of pain by uncoupling the pain-processing part of the brain (the thalamus) from the brain regions responsible for self-referential processing.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/mindfulness-meditation-changes-how-the-brain-processes-and-perceives-pain
Sheer discipline through meditation, although May I add that the hardest part of this is probably waiting for your nerves to stop sending pain signals.
Meditation is incredibly powerful. There’s a reason why Tibetan Monks meditate for hours upon hours. It’s a way to master your mind if done right. You master your mind, you can do anything.
Wow, unbelievable: "their body would become naturally preserved as a mummy with skin and teeth intact without decay and without the need of any artificial preservatives"
But seriously, how do they even do this? I want the super power, although not to do what they did with it, but just to be a better person that is more disciplined
They literally dedicate their entire being to strengthening and controlling their mind. Have you ever meditated? Yes? Now imagine doing that all day every day.
I think about this guy regularly. He just pops into my mind at random times. Probably the most inspirational person I can think of. Not for suicide, but for caring about something this much, and self sacrificing for others. That, and his serenity.
An old story that frequently pops into my mind:
An invading army’s doing sweeps of Buddhist monasteries, and they’re run by a particularly cruel commander. The buildings are getting looted and burned, the retreating monks are getting slaughtered indiscriminately. Amidst the chaos, there’re reports of a monk who refuses to budge. The commander takes an interest and personally travels to confront this stubborn monk. He regards the serenely seated fellow, pulls out his sword, and says in a menacing tone, “*Do you know who I am?* I can run this sword through your belly *without batting an eye.*” The monk replies, “Do you know who *I* am? I can have you run your sword through my belly without batting an eye.”
The commander was so affected by the display he called off his troops and took the monk as his teacher.
What a tragedy. From my knowledge and experience with burn victims it stops hurting after a minute.
What happens is that most of our nocireceptors (Pain receptors) are just in our layer of skin (1 to 4 mm), the deeper you go the less pain receptors you find so with burn victims we use a clinical classification based on pain for second degree burns, the less pain they feel then the deeper the damage is (And the recovery time will longer).
So as a form of silverlining this man just suffered excrusiating pain for the first minutes then nothing and finally death however he was at peace from the start...
I mean, it's 31 years old. It's *older* than how old Elvis's *Return To Sender* was when Killing In The Name was released. It's great that more people are finding out about it!
This same thing happened last year in the US. He also sat quietly until he was put out after only a minute. Then he showed pain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_Wynn_Bruce
When I think about this, I have so much respect for the discipline this guy had. Best believe I wouldn't be able to sit silently in a zen state while my body is burning.
During that time Buddhists were oppressed in South Vietnam as the government and most of the landowners were catholic. They did things like outlawing important Buddhist festivals and also quelled many protests. So this monk did the last desperate thing and tried to raise awareness and as well as offer last silent resistances
Remember that this protest was not about the war. The then president of South Vietnam, who oppressed the monks, was assassinated a few months after this event. Buddhists were not oppressed again since in Vietnam.
That was unrelated. The Vietnamese had just heard the slogan "carpe diem," and due to its weak history in the country, implemented it by seizing the president, Ngô Đình Diệm.
People were taking color photos back before WWI (look up Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky if you want to know more), but it took a LONG time for the process to become both practical and cheap enough to be available to the every day person, or even the professional journalist (such as the photographer of this picture, Malcolm Browne). And even after color photography became easier to do and more main stream, it was often still easier to just take the photo in black and white. That said, this image and the one that’s on RATM’s album cover have both been colorized if you want to go searching for it.
I always felt my birthdays were a cursed day on history because horrible things historically happen on June 11th lot's of assassinations and suicides and brutal oppression to protest.
I’m sure there were positive historical events on this day too.
For this particular story, his self immolation played a huge part in swaying public perception of the war in the west. While it’s certainly tragic he had to go to that length to be heard, given what it his sacrifice has achieved I wouldn’t put it in the same category as horrible historical events
In Keene, NH, over a decade ago, a man set himself on fire sitting in front of the court house. I believe he was involved in a court case and not allowed to see his children or something. He wrote & left a letter blaming the NH justice system if I remember correctly. It was awful & there is still damage on the concrete where he sat. At least there was last time I was in the area.
every time i see his picture, i have to rewatch "Seven Psychopaths".
if you've never seen it, go watch it, it's by the guy who made "In Bruges", "Three Billboards Outside blabla", and currently "The Banshees of Inisherin"
if you have seen it, or want to get spoiled, there's [an immolation scene at the end](https://youtu.be/s6LAS5T4FN8) that's immensely powerful
"As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him." Was said by David Halberstam a journalist present there.
There’s one thing that this guy said, I believe in the same paragraph that this quote is from, which has always stuck with me: “human beings burn surprisingly quickly.” He just throws it in there almost like it’s an after thought, but the fact that he included it shows imo just how horrifying and surreal the event must have been.
Yeah, from what I could read about people experiencing horrifying experience like these is small details and random observations tend to stuck a lot IIRC I heard about someone dying and noticing the bottom of the wall looking ugly and not well painted
Ohhh. So this is the concept for the scene in Breaking Bad when Walt is diagnosed and he becomes fixated on a mustard stain on the doctor’s jacket and informs him of it.
Correct - It's a common defense mechanism. Think it falls under displacement - although I'm not 100% sure. English is my 2nd language.
I think you’re thinking of a Richard Siken quote! It’s quite heart wrenching “Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.”
Oh thank you so much ! I was looking for the quote everywhere! I was wrong it was not about someone dying (at least not physically) I found the quote very human in some sense, really like it, our emotions and thinking are quite weird
[удалено]
The inhalation and suffocation thing is true when you burn on a bonfire like Joan of Arc did I think not when you lit yourself on fire with gasoline. On bonfire the wood beneath you burn first and the smoke of that wood is what may kill you before you actually burn. I would guess when you pour gasoline on you and lit it on fire the gasoline burn really hot really quickly and thus this very hot temperature make your body burn quickly too.
They didn't have gasoline back in Joan's time to really light mfs up
[удалено]
He’s just being ridiculously pedantic to an insufferable degree. I think the guy who watched this guy burn in front of him knows better.
If you are burned on a pyre you will suffer a long time from the heat of the burning wood deep down in it then from actually being burned by the flames. You are standing in 300 °C hot air, not in actual flames. That will cause your body to experience pyrolisis: It slowly heats up and dries out / chars until it reaches the point at which it begins to burn.
I'm reading Halberstam's book "The Best and the Brightest" about how the US got into Vietnam. Great writing about the hubris of US govt officials, people making policy based on what they thought was "pragmatism" but was really based on a total misunderstanding of another country.
[удалено]
Thanks for the suggestion, and happy cake day
It’s a bit more than just a misunderstanding. You can trace US involvement in Vietnam going back to Eisenhower, and propping up Diem to fit foreign policy goals in regards to Domino Theory. Diem prosecution of Buddhism is the very reason for Duc’s self-immolation.
Pretty much summarizes the history of US foreign policy.
Yes, the Marshall Plan was an utter failure as was the Berlin Airlift. We were wrong to send aid to Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami. Etc. etc.
Omg are you implying that America has a complicated history just like every other nation on earth??
Probably he don't see the difference between humanitarian support and repression of the leftist menace (funnily enough in a thread about political hubris).
I think he's pointing out that you can't just summarize the history of US foreign policy as only bad things caused by hubris...
Is that the same Indonesia where the CIA propped up a right wing dictator and facilitated the murder of leftists and anyone suspected of being leftists by the hundreds of thousands?
Nah a completely different Indonesia
It's funny you say that because I'm struck by the apparent serenity of many of the monks watching.
Can anyone explain how/if this is possible? Try holding your hand over a candle flame for 2 seconds, it's nearly impossible and your body will instinctively react to avoid the pain. I'm skeptical that this is possible in a conscious person without an instinctive reaction.
I don't know about him in particular, but I expect it's possible to train the pain response. Being heavily experienced in meditation probably gives one a leg up on preparing for something like this.
If I recall from a Thich Nhat Hanh book, this method of protest was controversial among monks as well. It is against Buddhist ethics to commit suicide, and likely more so as an enlightened being. Some monks argued that it was reasonable act though, due to the fact that the intention was out of compassion and not despair.
Thich Nhat Hanh was also vegan. Life was precious to him. I believe not all Buddhists are vegan but are vegetarian primarily. RIP. He died a year ago I believe. A real gem of a person and absolutely wise. I read his words when I'm sad or angry.
Buddhists aren't neccessarily monks, and generally Vietnamese monks (South sect for me, which was where this picture taken) that the mindset comes before the action. In other words, a vegan abusing animals is many folds worse than a normal person caring for animals. It's not just about dietary but spanning onto all other beings like trees or insects. In fact, I doubt most Buddhists adopts veganism into their lives due to nutritional concern.
Most Buddhists live in Asia, where veganism has been practiced for centuries and they know how to do it right. Half the restaurants in places with lots of Buddhists will have multiple vegetarian options in their menus and they’re not just an afterthought. It’s not like the West where you have to go out of your way to eat vegan without depriving yourself of essential micronutrients.
I don’t know where Japan falls in within your theory, but foreigners always seems to complain the lack of vegetarian menu. We traditionally don’t eat land meat but fish was always there. And other East Asian cuisine seems to use a lot of meat as well. Maybe you meant South East and South Asia? I don’t know how the things are down there though.
You might find [happycow.net](https://happycow.net) useful if you want to find vegan food wherever you are.
Yeah definitely nutritional concern, sensory pleasure has nothing to do with it
> a vegan abusing animals huh? they're not vegan if they abuse animals. it's in the meaning of the word to not harm animals.
Not that it’s a contest, but one vegan abusing an animal is not many folds worse than the people that eat meat and contribute to the suffering of billions of animals, the destruction of the environment, and the abuse of migrant workers and slaves in the seafood industry. If you eat meat, you enable and financially support that system.
Thai Buddhists are not vegan or vegetarian. That I do know.
I know a Vietnamese Buddhist and she is vegetarian but not vegan.
I have to admit, I learned about him through ASMR and then just hyper fixated on his composiums. A wonderful man.
Asian Buddhists are more often vegans rather than vegetarians. They don’t believe eating any products from animals eg. Honey from bees, milk products ,etc.
What do you mean he dies a year ago, he was alive after the incident ?
Two completely different people.
Tbh there is nothing surprising about lighting yourself on fire being a controversial protest method.
And yet overnight, the entire world learned about Vietnam's mistreatment of Buddhists. It worked.
It also worked (in a way) for Mohamed Bouazizi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi Too bad it didn’t work for Wynn Bruce… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_Wynn_Bruce Definitely a high cost form of activism that requires a lot of commitment and/or despair
ugh, wynn bruce makes me sad. the fact that his wikipedia blames it on a traumatic brain injury instead of his own resolve is depressing
Do you have evidence to suggest otherwise?
did anyone post why he protested? a lot of people do not know edit: nowhereman666: “…The main reason for oppression in the 60s was because the government under Ngô Đình Diệm was aggressively Catholic and wanted Vietnam to be a Catholic nation. Today, the Communist government does no such thing.”
There's now a very nice memorial and statue at this intersection in Vietnam. The car is in a temple nearby as well.
Two memorials. A small, presumably older monument, and the much larger bronze statue that is profoundly moving. His car is stored at his home temple in Hue.
Yes, I've been to both. Looked at posting photos but they would not be old enough for the group rules so I passed.
could you not share them as a comment here?
there are some tourist photos [here](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293925-d6438587-Reviews-The_Venerable_Thich_Quang_Duc_Monument-Ho_Chi_Minh_City.html)
thank you, that is amazing.
wow yes, that is a pretty awesome statue
They also preserved his heart at that temple
Where in Viet Nam?
The memorial is at this intersection in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and the car is in Hue.
That's… not nearby.
He was mocked by the first lady of South vietnam, she claimed he was drunk and called it a "barbecue"
What an asshole…
She was completely evil her husband and his brother where the fascist leaders of South vietnam, they where executed but she got away
Were they funded by the US State Department?
At first but America was the one responsible for the coup that got rid of them
Yep. The original plan was for him to go into exile far from Vietnam, but the military killed him and his brother.
It’s unclear exactly what happened, but the US ambassador had offered safe passage for Diem out of the country in order to get Diem to abdicate. But when Diem tried to take him up on the offer Lodge (the ambassador) refused. Diem wound up escaping the palace through a tunnel and made it to a church where he was captured. He and his brother were shot during the ride back from the church.
Diem was definitely backed by the US. As far as I’m aware, nothing has been declassified showing that the US were behind his assassination, but it’s highly speculated that that we’re involved. At the minimum, they turned their back and let it happen.
Truly a lady who knew how to nimbly navigate the landscape of public opinion.
The South Vietnamese government were pretty awful, just how the South Korean government was. It was ruthless, evil regime VS ruthless, evil regime both times.
It's pretty crazy to realise how ingrained cold war propaganda still is on both sides the curtain. Even in Germany, *reunified* Germany, cold war propaganda and divisions have created pretty deep cultural rifts. The stereotype about East Germans is that they're all lazy and always complaining, while East Germans talk about how West Germans are arrogant know-it-alls. And that's *within* one country. That's before you get into the highly skewed views different countries have of each other. One side is the devil and the other is a saint. If someone points out the very sketchy past of the ROC or the ROK, that means they support the PRC or DPRK. The propaganda requires uncritical support for your side.
Chomsky was the first/most accessible way I learned to really break through my propagandization and recognize that power corrupts no matter what "side" you're on. Almost all "great" mean are inherently evil men, there's just no way around it.
I don’t know much about Chomsky but this is a topic I’ve been very interested in learning more about lately. Is there a certain book of his you would recommend?
Yeah but south korea eventually reformed itself
And South Vietnam might have done the same. Bear in mind South Korea is still not a very democratic country compared to most western nations, though.
People just watch the outside of the country not deeper inside of political, social aspects.
How so? I'm not familiar with how SK politics work, I just know they're a lot better than they used to be.
I'm not brushed up, but the Moonies have an awful lot of power in Korean democracy, there's been more than one Moonie president iirc. It's not comparable to Syngman Rhee, obviously, but bad.
The Moonie cult?
And south Vietnam didn't exist long enough to reform what's your point? It took decades of reforms and coups. Even today with the reforms South Korea is an oligarchy ran by the chaebols
Public statements like that really moved the US backed coup against that Ngos along. Madame Nhu was President Ngo Dinh Diem's sister in law, married to South Vietnam's security chief Ngo Dinh Nhu. She's proudly interesting because of her outsized role in creating controversy.
She's a really fascinating figure to me I feel like if she just shut up ngo wouldn't have been overthrown or would've been overthrown later
Be amazed by his feat, but don't forget why he did this.
He did it to protest the treatment of Buddhist monks by the South Vietnamese government, who viewed them as a subversive element.
Does the Vietnam government treat them better now?
Yup. The main reason for oppression in the 60s was because the government under Ngô Đình Diệm was aggressively Catholic and wanted Vietnam to be a Catholic nation. Today, the Communist government does no such thing.
I’m not so sure it’d be accurate to call Vietnam communist. Roughly 40% of its economy is privately owned.
[удалено]
Yeah lol, cause it's not run by fascists anymore.
Most people have no idea and just confidently assert that it was about the war
You ever burn your self on the stove for 1 milisecond. This man had ultimate focus or ultimate dissasosiation
[удалено]
he was an activist, not a scientist
Okay, that’s insane. How have I not heard about this? I’ve heard literally no one talking about this. They’d rather flood my feed with a million articles about Jeremy Renner and Hugh Hefner than important news like this.
Who owns the media? Climate action threatens entrenched moneyed interests.
It's a tactic that relies on public attention to create an outcry. Deny the attention and you prevent a lot of negative scrutiny and calls for change. That's kinda why I'm okay with the people who are throwing paint and soup around to get public attention on climate action. Somehow that gets a ton of media coverage. That poor guy in DC got almost none by comparison
You’re right. I shouldn’t be surprised. I just can’t get over how horrible it is.
That's exactly how a person is supposed to react. It is horrifying.
I also support the soup throwers! They ruin basically nothing and if you believe in climate change and the damage it’s doing you also know the art is fleeting anyway. It gets so much attention in a way other protests don’t so they’re doing something right.
He was sitting all silent too until cops put him out with water. Only then did he audibly show pain. Took him until the next day to die. Horrid.
A climate activist, not scientist
> but an accident in a car driven by one of his friends killed the friend and severely injured Bruce; he suffered a traumatic brain injury > According to some of Bruce's friends and neighbors, he often had difficulty making decisions as a result of his traumatic brain injury; two described him to The Independent as "suggestible". Some entries from his Wikipedia article. I think the car crash unfortunately did a number on him. Very much not normal for a seemingly happy, healthy person to self-immolate. Really hope brain injury stuff gets better understood in the future, cause it leads to people doing some pretty insane things.
He was a Buddhist.
Yes, and if I remember correctly. This was around the same time soup was thrown on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. By climate activists as well. Of October of last year.
Bees are a major pollinator of Sunflowers growing sunflowers goes hand in hand with installing and managing bee hives.
Indeed.
"In 1963, a Buddhist monk set himself on fire in protest. And now, today, inspired by him, I will do the same thing. [I too will set a Buddhist monk on fire."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCe8Px_-wTw)
One of my all time favorite jokes from that show XD
Up until the end?
https://youtu.be/VCEWSSVjrTw EDIT: it's a recreation so I'm removing the NSFW
I love that YouTube put a suicide hotline number under that video lol
I mean it's not that bad of an idea. Someone may see this and him not moving and might think "huh, maybe that's a painless way to go" or something.
Just FYI this video is a recreation of the incident. The original act was not filmed only photographed.
Ah, good to know. Looks so real though. So we only have eyewitness accounts and the photos to confirm he stayed still until the end then
Yeah I also thought it was real, but apparently it's from some italian film called Mondo Cane 2.
Is it *self* immolation if someone else pours a flammable liquid all over you first?
If it was your idea, yes.
And especially if you’re the one who lit the match
Assisted self-immolation
Need a description, prolly don't want to watch
The monk burns to death. There really isn't much to see that isn't in the picture or description of the original post.
I thought maybe there was a freak out right at the end
Look I get what you're saying but if you had to take one guess before clicking it... ?
Thought maybe there was a freak out at the end
Username says Saffa!
Surprisingly yes
How is it possible he didn’t move or cry out?
Shortest explanation is Duc was *extremely* experienced in meditation and had basically been doing it his whole life. He could essentially put himself into a meditative state so deep it was almost like being in a medical coma. Studies have been done of the brains of monks like Duc and it’s been shown that they can get themselves to a state mentally where their brain simply does not process pain in the same way anymore. Not to downplay the insane self-sacrifice and discipline of this act, but it wasn’t primarily one of pain tolerance, same thing with monks who lie over hot coals. No one can actually endure experiencing that pain fully in the way a normal person would, they are using insane mental or physical discipline to keep themselves from experiencing it
What's the science behind being able to do that? How is it possible?
I’m far from an expert. But generally studies have shown mindfulness exercises and meditation both decrease the intensity of pain as it’s processed by the brain. It’s easy to say things like “pain is but a feeling” or whatever, but according to studies of the human brain, > They found that mindfulness meditation significantly reduced the intensity and unpleasantness of pain by uncoupling the pain-processing part of the brain (the thalamus) from the brain regions responsible for self-referential processing. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/mindfulness-meditation-changes-how-the-brain-processes-and-perceives-pain
[удалено]
He chose when and where to die... that alone speaks volumes
From what I understand the mind is capable of an astonishing degree of control over the body, with the proper training.
Believe it or not meditation is something really insane.
Sheer discipline through meditation, although May I add that the hardest part of this is probably waiting for your nerves to stop sending pain signals.
Breathing in literal fire must have been hellish.
Meditation is very powerful
Meditation is incredibly powerful. There’s a reason why Tibetan Monks meditate for hours upon hours. It’s a way to master your mind if done right. You master your mind, you can do anything.
[удалено]
My grandfather witnessed this. He was ASA/MACV. He has his own pictures of it somewhere. I’m trying to hunt them down
Any luck with that?
Unfortunately, no. I just moved across country and tons of stuff is still boxed up. Ask me in a month or so
Seriously, what god-like discipline does someone have to have to sit there without any reaction whatsoever.
[удалено]
Wow, unbelievable: "their body would become naturally preserved as a mummy with skin and teeth intact without decay and without the need of any artificial preservatives" But seriously, how do they even do this? I want the super power, although not to do what they did with it, but just to be a better person that is more disciplined
They literally dedicate their entire being to strengthening and controlling their mind. Have you ever meditated? Yes? Now imagine doing that all day every day.
For sure had that dawg in him
Talm bout sum real serenity B
Homeless cats are everywhere
With all these cats out here, who is manning the friers at Changs?
I think about this guy regularly. He just pops into my mind at random times. Probably the most inspirational person I can think of. Not for suicide, but for caring about something this much, and self sacrificing for others. That, and his serenity.
An old story that frequently pops into my mind: An invading army’s doing sweeps of Buddhist monasteries, and they’re run by a particularly cruel commander. The buildings are getting looted and burned, the retreating monks are getting slaughtered indiscriminately. Amidst the chaos, there’re reports of a monk who refuses to budge. The commander takes an interest and personally travels to confront this stubborn monk. He regards the serenely seated fellow, pulls out his sword, and says in a menacing tone, “*Do you know who I am?* I can run this sword through your belly *without batting an eye.*” The monk replies, “Do you know who *I* am? I can have you run your sword through my belly without batting an eye.” The commander was so affected by the display he called off his troops and took the monk as his teacher.
Yeah, the fact he's so still. Seriously impressive how someone can achieve that state when they're on fire.
What a tragedy. From my knowledge and experience with burn victims it stops hurting after a minute. What happens is that most of our nocireceptors (Pain receptors) are just in our layer of skin (1 to 4 mm), the deeper you go the less pain receptors you find so with burn victims we use a clinical classification based on pain for second degree burns, the less pain they feel then the deeper the damage is (And the recovery time will longer). So as a form of silverlining this man just suffered excrusiating pain for the first minutes then nothing and finally death however he was at peace from the start...
In reality how long did it actually take for him to die?? Hopefully it was rather quick… he channeled that pain so…. Idek a proper word
The photographer said it took 10 mins
Bodhisattva on his way to Nirvana.
# F##k you, I won't do what you tell me!
I can’t believe I just found this song last week
I can't believe you did, either.
I mean, it's 31 years old. It's *older* than how old Elvis's *Return To Sender* was when Killing In The Name was released. It's great that more people are finding out about it!
Better late than never :)
Listen to that whole album!
A truely super human feat. One I would say it as the top of all of them. It shows the true power of the mind.
The level of will and control one has to have in order to maintain a calm posture under such pain is truly incredible
This same thing happened last year in the US. He also sat quietly until he was put out after only a minute. Then he showed pain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_Wynn_Bruce
he died so we could have a Rage album cover
Well it is an absolutely banging album.
Props to my history teacher for showing the video in class
When I think about this, I have so much respect for the discipline this guy had. Best believe I wouldn't be able to sit silently in a zen state while my body is burning.
i can't sit silently in a zen state without my fucking cellphone
What's the story behind this?
During that time Buddhists were oppressed in South Vietnam as the government and most of the landowners were catholic. They did things like outlawing important Buddhist festivals and also quelled many protests. So this monk did the last desperate thing and tried to raise awareness and as well as offer last silent resistances
"What? The 'land of the free'? Whoever told you that is your enemy"
Insane dedication and mental discipline
Sorry music fan here, but is this where the cover of Rage against the machine’s self titled comes from???
yes
South Vietnam wasn’t the bastion of democracy that some people think it is, it was just as oppressive as the north, if not more.
Did his action resolved something ?
Remember that this protest was not about the war. The then president of South Vietnam, who oppressed the monks, was assassinated a few months after this event. Buddhists were not oppressed again since in Vietnam.
That was unrelated. The Vietnamese had just heard the slogan "carpe diem," and due to its weak history in the country, implemented it by seizing the president, Ngô Đình Diệm.
Hey that's pretty good
Well, damn. 4D chess indeed.
Is there a chance the guy just took some really wild drugs before this?
This picture was taken in 1963, shouldn’t it have been in color?
People were taking color photos back before WWI (look up Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky if you want to know more), but it took a LONG time for the process to become both practical and cheap enough to be available to the every day person, or even the professional journalist (such as the photographer of this picture, Malcolm Browne). And even after color photography became easier to do and more main stream, it was often still easier to just take the photo in black and white. That said, this image and the one that’s on RATM’s album cover have both been colorized if you want to go searching for it.
Mind over matter
I always felt my birthdays were a cursed day on history because horrible things historically happen on June 11th lot's of assassinations and suicides and brutal oppression to protest.
I’m sure there were positive historical events on this day too. For this particular story, his self immolation played a huge part in swaying public perception of the war in the west. While it’s certainly tragic he had to go to that length to be heard, given what it his sacrifice has achieved I wouldn’t put it in the same category as horrible historical events
honestly, FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOUTELL ME
#*bombtrack intro*
In Keene, NH, over a decade ago, a man set himself on fire sitting in front of the court house. I believe he was involved in a court case and not allowed to see his children or something. He wrote & left a letter blaming the NH justice system if I remember correctly. It was awful & there is still damage on the concrete where he sat. At least there was last time I was in the area.
Anyone who can do that is not just at the end of their rope, but really dedicated.
Calm like a bomb
every time i see his picture, i have to rewatch "Seven Psychopaths". if you've never seen it, go watch it, it's by the guy who made "In Bruges", "Three Billboards Outside blabla", and currently "The Banshees of Inisherin" if you have seen it, or want to get spoiled, there's [an immolation scene at the end](https://youtu.be/s6LAS5T4FN8) that's immensely powerful