monkonfire

monkonfire
Originally uploaded by kpnil.

On June 11, 1963 a buddhist monk from Hue killed himself by fire. He sat in the lotus position without moving a muscle until his body was almost completely burned. Legend has it that when they cremated his remains his heart would not burn and it is kept in a bank in vietnam. He was considered to be a bodhisattva, "an enlightened being - one on the path to awakening who vows to forego complete enlightenment until he or she helps all other beings attain enlightenment."

"The press spoke then of suicide, but in the essence, it is not. It is not even a protest. What the monks said in the letters they left before burning themselves aimed only at alarming, at moving the hearts of the oppressors, and at calling the attention of the world to the suffering endured then by the Vietnamese. To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance…. The Vietnamese monk, by burning himself, says with all his strength and determination that he can endure the greatest of sufferings to protect his people…. To express will by burning oneself, therefore, is not to commit an act of destruction but to perform an act of construction, that is, to suffer and to die for the sake of one's people. This is not suicide."
-Thich Nhat Hnan

When I start feeling depressed and sorry for myself I consult this image and have a good cry.