Thích Quảng Đức

Hòa thượng Thích Quảng Đức, [tʰɪ̌c kwãːŋ ɗɨ̌k], Saigon: [tʰɪ̌t kwɐ̂ːŋ ɗɨ̌k], born Lâm Văn Tức (1897 – 11 June 1963) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Thích Quảng Đức was protesting against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Diệm administration. Photos of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm regime. Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photo of the monk's death, as did David Halberstam for his written account. After his death, his body was re-cremated, but his heart remained intact. This was interpreted as a symbol of compassion and led Buddhists to revere him as a bodhisattva, heightening the impact of his death on the public psyche.

Thích Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were implemented either slowly or not at all, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. With protests continuing, the Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched nationwide raids on Buddhist pagodas, seizing the holy heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Thích Quảng Đức's example and burned themselves to death. Eventually, an Army coup toppled and killed Diệm in November. The self-immolation is widely seen as the turning point of the Vietnamese Buddhist crisis which led to the change in regime.

The act itself occurred at the intersectionb of Phan Dinh Phung Boulevard and Le Van Duyet Street. Thích Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon gasoline can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Thích Quảng Đức calmly seated himself in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. His colleague emptied the contents of the gasoline container over Thích Quảng Đức's head. Thích Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật ("homage to Amitabha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.

The last words of Thích Quảng Đức before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left:

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 organise in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.

David Halberstam wrote:

I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. 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.

Police who tried to reach him could not break through the circle of Buddhist clergy. One of the policemen threw himself to the ground and prostrated himself in front of Thích Quảng Đức in reverence. The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk.In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeatedly declared into a microphone, "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr.

After approximately ten minutes, Thích Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated, and it toppled forward onto the street and the fire subsided. A group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be bent and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xa Loi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests." By 13:30, around one thousand monks had congregated inside Xa Loi to hold a meeting while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but a hundred monks slowly left the compound. Nearly one thousand monks accompanied by laypeople returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 18:00, 30 nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xa Loi Pagoda. The police then encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear. That evening, thousands of Saigonese claimed to have seen a vision of the Buddha's face in the sky as the sun had set. They claimed that in the vision the Buddha was weeping.

Funeral and aftermath

After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Thích Quảng Đức's death, Diệm cancelled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyen Dinh Thuan, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected that Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communique and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.

15 June was set as the date for the funeral of Thích Quảng Đức, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside Xa Loi Pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xa Loi to a cemetery 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communique, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 400 monks.