Writing from the Universalizing Zone,
Ralph Blickenstaff Galen, M.Div.
Content warning: images of people self-immolating (in flames)
Soon after October 7th I started to realize that a genocide was unfolding. I didn’t so much think about it as feel about it. Without thinking about it, my feelings as a war resister to the American War in Vietnam, as it is properly called, which formed my political and spiritual outlook for life, conflated with my response to what was happening in Gaza. Past trauma, which is never past, and always requiring attention and compassion, reasserted itself strongly. I know many of you are experiencing what is happening in Palestine as something very close to home.
I have been indebted to the Vietnamese Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, considered to be the modern exponent of engaged Buddhism, and have been intensively practicing in the Plum Village tradition he created. As the massacre unfolded, I turned to his first book in English, Lotus in a Sea of Fire, published in 1967 as a plan for peace in Vietnam, and which also provides a contemporary blueprint for putting an end to the genocide and securing the freedom of Palestinians. It starts with a ceasefire, of course, then the removal of American occupation forces, and reparations to restore the ravages to Vietnam.
Thich Nhat Hanh begins his book with this account:
The world first began to give real consideration to the Vietnamese problem and the role of the Buddhists only after the venerable Thich Quang-Duc burned himself on the Phan-ding-Phung Street in Saigon on June 11, 1963, to call the attention of the world public to the sufferings of the Vietnamese people under Ngo Dinh Diem’s oppressive regime. The venerable Thich Quang-Duc’s self-immolation had a far greater emotional impact on the West than on the East because of the great
difference in religious and cultural backgrounds.
On a trip from New York to Stockholm, I met an American woman doctor on the plane. She asked me many questions about Vietnam. Although she agreed with the motives behind the movement and the Vietnam war, she was quite unable to accept the Thich Quang Duc’s self-immolation, which seemed to her the act of an abnormal person. She saw self-burning as an act of savagery, violence, and fanaticism, requiring a condition of mental unbalance. When I explained to her that the venerable Thich Quang-Duc was over 70, that I had lived with him for nearly one year at Long-Vinh pagoda and found him a very kind and lucid person, and that he was calm and in full possession of his mental faculties when he burned himself, she could not believe it. I said no more, realizing then that she could never understand. She could not understand because she was unable, though not unwilling, to look at the act of self-burning from any angle but her own.
Thich Nhat Hanh later explained: When you commit suicide, [it’s because] you are in despair, you can no longer bear to live. But Venerable Quảng Đức was not like that. He wanted to live. He wanted his friends and other living beings to live; he loved being alive. But he was free enough to offer his body in order to get the message across that we are suffering, we need your help.
Photography by Malcolm Browne
President John F. Kennedy reacted that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one."
On Saturday I attended a workshop by Alex McDonald, a committed Quaker peace activist. A key takeaway from "How to Have Successful Conversations about Israel/Palestine," is that it is practically useless to debate facts if our goal is to end the apartheid occupation. It is much more likely that ideologies will shift when we appeal to the emotions that undergird them.
Photo from Talia Jane on X
The report on X/Twitter is of Aaron Bushnell, verified as being US Airforce active duty, stated “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” and set himself on fire, shouting “Free Palestine.”
We also recall a woman whose name is unknown to me who self-immolated on December 1 in Atlanta, outside the Israeli consulate. We never really know what goes on inside a person. However they got to this point in their lives, I am comfortable seeing their actions as being brave and unselfish. We hope recent events serve to uplift all the sacrifices that have been made by you and millions of our sisters and brothers who have struggled with great dignity and courage for far too long.
May all be well.
The Fire That Consumes My Brother,
by Thich Nhat Han
December 1963
The fire that burns him
burns in my body.
And the world around me
burns with the same fire
that burns my brother...
let me kneel
upon the precious ashes
of your flesh and bones.
Let me summon your young spirit from the shadows
and give it life in the form of a flower,
the first lotus of the season,
before anyone has picked it,
the first new bloom before the sun goes down.
I hear you now.
The storm screams with your cries.
Hearing you, each cell in me,
O my brother, brims with tears.
I still hear you, your appeal from heaven or hell,
and I turn to you, wherever you are.
For a moment the world's heart stops,
while Earth looks at Sky, and each one asks,
"Where is high and where is low?"
Your name in the blinking stars has been inscribed in space.
The fire that burns you burns my flesh with such pain,
that all my tears are not enough to cool your sacred soul.
Deeply wounded, I remain here
keeping your hopes and promises for the young.
I will not betray you—
are you listening?
I remain here
because your very heart
is now my own.
