In HCMC on Tuesday, the 44th ceremony to commemorate Superior Monk Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who burned himself to death as a protest against war and religious repression on June 11 1963, took place.
Many venerable Buddhist monks of the Viet Nam Buddhist Sangha attended the ceremony.
Forty-four years have passed but others, particularly those of the Buddhist faith, are still repeating the monk’s act of self-immolation.
Thích Quảng Ðức was protesting against the way that the administration of South Vietnam’s President, Ngô Đình Diệm, was oppressing the Buddhist religion.
The act itself occurred at the intersection of Phan Dinh Phung and Le Van Duyet streets in Sai Gon. After 1975, the street names were changed to Nguyen Dinh Chieu and Cach Mang Thang Tam.
After his death, his body was properly cremated. During the cremation, his shrunken heart remained intact. Therefore, it is considered holy and has been placed in the care of the Reserve Bank of Vietnam.
Superior Monk Thich Tri Quang spoke at the ceremony, “His image is embedded always in the hearts of monks and nuns around the world. He made himself a flame as a symbolic burning of the puppet administration; this gained him great admiration from Buddhist followers”.
