3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against China

[sorcerer]

Three Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chinese Oppression On Tibetans

Three Tibetans in various regions in Sichuan province's Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) committed self-immolation on Wednesday, protesting against what they call Chinese oppression of their state.



Two monks from the Tagtsang Lhamo Kirti monastery in Dzoege county set themselves ablaze and later succumbed to the burn injuries near their monastery, Radio Free Asia's Tibetan service reported quoting sources from the region.

The dead monks were identified as Lobsang Dawa, 20, and Konchog Woeser, 23.

They staged "a fiery protest against Chinese policy in Tibet," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They died at around 6:30 p.m. local time near the main assembly hall of the monastery."

Prayers were held for the two dead monks in their monastery and their bodies were cremated on Thursday.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, a 23–year-old Tibetan woman burned herself alive in a protest against Chinese rule in Sichuan's Dzamthang (Rangtang) county, Tibetan sources said. The woman's identity and details of the incident are not known. However, according to the Radio Free Asia report well-known Tibetan poet and blogger Woeser has confirmed the woman's self-immolation in a blog entry.

In a desperate attempt to bring international attention to the Tibetan issue and force China to free Tibet, the Tibetans have been burning themselves to death in and outside China.

Six Tibetans in various regions in China committed self-immolation on Nov. 7, 2012, a day before the start of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing.

China blames the Dalai Lama for fomenting the Tibetan unrest and encouraging self-immolation, while the Dalai Lama has been stating that he denounces violence and self-immolations are a result of oppressive Chinese policies in the region.

The Dalai Lama has been living in exile in a Tibetan settlement in India since 1959 after a Chinese crackdown forced him to flee Tibet.

Despite international pressure from the U.S. and other countries, the Chinese have continued their repression of the Tibetan movement. Although more than 110 Tibetans in China and abroad have set themselves on fire since 2009 - many fatally - to protest against the Chinese invasion of their territory, China has refused to accept that Tibetans in the TAR commit self-immolation.

In a recent report, the Chinese government-backed news agency Xinhua declared that there have been no cases of self-immolation in the Tibetan region of the nation, while the Free Tibet movement blamed China of suppressing the news of self-immolations in the region, pointing to a ban on foreign media in the region.

According to a report by Xinhua news agency, "no local residents, monks or nuns in the TAR have self-immolated so far."

 

[amoy]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Against Chinese oppression, or another Tsarnaev in the making?

Those cults who encourage self immolation and champion extremism and separatism shall be outlawed, and declared as terrorist organization.

 

[sorcerer]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Three Tibetans in various regions in Sichuan province's Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) committed self-immolation on Wednesday, protesting against what they call Chinese oppression of their state.

 

[A chauhan]

Against Chinese oppression, or another Tsarnaev in the making?

Those cults who encourage self immolation and champion extremism and separatism shall be outlawed, and declared as terrorist organization.

they are not doing suicide bombings, they are sacrificing their lives for the sake of freedom!

 

[Ray]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Self immolation is not terrorism, nor extremism.

It is a mode of protest, pacifist protest without resorting to violence or destruction of public property.

Such a desperate act has merit from a Buddhist point of view. It is a deed of self-sacrifice for the good of others. The act is something similar to Buddha, who in one of his incarnations offered his body as food for a hungry tigress.

 

[Ray]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Informed Chinese would know that self immolation was acts that were done in China.

Self-immolation has a long history in Chinese Buddhism. The relevant terms are: wangshen Chinese: 亡身 "lose the body" or Chinese: 忘身 "forget the body", yishen Chinese: 遺身 "abandon the body", and sheshen Chinese: 捨身 "give up the body".

But "abandoning the body" also covers a broad range of more extreme acts (not all of which necessarily result in death): feeding one's body to insects; slicing off one's flesh; burning one's fingers or arms; burning incense on the skin; starving, slicing, or drowning oneself; leaping from cliffs or trees; feeding one's body to wild animals; self-mummification (preparing for death so that the resulting corpse is impervious to decay); and of course, auto-cremation.[9]

The monk Fayu 法羽 (d. 396) carried out the earliest recorded Chinese self-immolation.[10] He first informed the "illegitimate" prince Yao Xu 姚緒 – brother of Yao Chang who founded the non-Chinese Qiang state Later Qin (384-417) – that he intended to burn himself alive. Yao tried to dissuade Fayu, but he publically swallowed incense chips, wrapped his body in oiled cloth, and chanted while setting fire to himself. The religious and lay witnesses were described as being "full of grief and admiration."

Following Fayu's example, many Buddhist monks and nuns have used self-immolation for political purposes. Based upon analysis of Chinese historical records from the 4th to the 20th centuries, Benn discovered, "Although some monks did offer their bodies in periods of relative prosperity and peace, we have seen a marked coincidence between acts of self-immolation and times of crisis, especially when secular powers were hostile towards Buddhism."[11] For example, Daoxuan's (c. 667) Xu gaoseng zhuan 續高僧傳 "Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks" records five monastics who self-immolated on the Zhongnan Mountains in response to the 574-577 persecution of Buddhism by Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou (known as the "Second Disaster of Wu").[12]

While self-immolation practices in China were based upon Indian Buddhist traditions, they acquired some distinctively Chinese aspects. An "unburned tongue" (cf. Anthony of Padua), which supposedly remained pink and moist owing to self-immolation while chanting the Lotus Sutra, was based on the belief in Śarīra "Buddhist relics; purportedly from a master's remains after cremation".[13] "Burning off fingers" was a kind of gradual self-immolation, often in commemoration of relics or textual recitations. The Tang Dynasty monk Wuran 無染 (d. c. 840) had a spiritual vision in which Manjusri told him to support the Buddhist community on Mount Wutai. After organizing meals for one million monks, Wuran burned off a finger in sacrifice, and eventually after ten million meals, had burned off all his fingers.[14]

Xichen 息塵 (d. c. 937; with two fingers left) became a favorite of Emperor Gaozu of Later Jin for practicing finger burning to memorialize sutra recitions.[15] "Buddhist mummies" refers to monks and nuns who practiced self-mummification through extreme self-mortification, for instance, Daoxiu 道休 (d. 629).[16] "Spontaneous human combustion" was a rare form of self-immolation that Buddhists associated with samādhi "consciously leaving one's body at the time of enlightenment". The monk Ningyi 寧義 (d. 1583) stacked up firewood to burn himself, but, "As soon the torch was raised, his body started to burn 'like a rotten root' and was soon completely consumed. A wise person declared, 'He has entered the fiery samādhi." [17]

Jan Yun-Hua explains the medieval Chinese Buddhist precedents for self-immolation.[18]

Relying exclusively on authoritative Chinese Buddhist texts and, through the use of these texts, interpreting such acts exclusively in terms of doctrines and beliefs (e.g., self-immolation, much like an extreme renunciant might abstain from food until dying, could be an example of disdain for the body in favor of the life of the mind and wisdom) rather than in terms of their socio-political and historical context, the article allows its readers to interpret these deaths as acts that refer only to a distinct set of beliefs that happen to be foreign to the non-Buddhist.[18]

Jimmy Yu has shown that self-immolation cannot be interpreted based on Buddhist doctrine and beliefs alone but the practice must be understood in the larger context of the Chinese religious landscape. He examines many primary sources from the 16th and 17th century and demonstrates that bodily practices of self-inflicted violence, including self-immolation, was ritually performed not only by Buddhists but also by Daoists and literati officials who either exposed their naked body to the sun in a prolonged period of time as a form of self-sacrifice or burned themselves as a method of procuring rain [19] In other words, self-immolation was a sanctioned part of Chinese culture that was public, scripted, and intelligible both to the person doing the act and to those who viewed and interpreted it, regardless of their various religion affiliations.

During the Great Schism of the Russian Church, entire villages of Old Believers burned themselves to death in an act known as "fire baptism".[20] Scattered instances of self-immolation have also been recorded by the Jesuit priests of France in the early 17th century.[citation needed] However, their practice of this was not intended to be fatal: they would burn certain parts of their bodies (limbs such as the forearm or the thigh) to symbolise the pain Jesus endured while upon the cross.[citation needed] A 1973 study by a prison doctor suggested that people who choose self-immolation as a form of suicide are more likely to be in a "disturbed state of consciousness", such as epilepsy.[21]
I

Self-immolation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Therefore, it is neither extremism or terrorism.

 

[mylegend]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Self immolation is a form of suicide. Suicide by its own definition is a form of murder(the killing of self). Catholic church for instance forbid suicide based on the verse "Thou shalt not kill. "

Even in Buddhism. Suicide is consider as immoral. That is due to Buddhism preach to abandon desire because it is source of all misery. (suicide) can be either right or wrong depending on the state of mind of the person who suicides: the presence of desire makes it wrong, and the absence of desire makes it right.

So suicide is only right for Buddhist when the person has no desire. If they have desire to end Chinese rule, they are violating their own principle.

Self immolation is not terrorism, nor extremism.

It is a mode of protest, pacifist protest without resorting to violence or destruction of public property.

Such a desperate act has merit from a Buddhist point of view. It is a deed of self-sacrifice for the good of others. The act is something similar to Buddha, who in one of his incarnations offered his body as food for a hungry tigress.

 

[amoy]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Ok, the root cause is now identified. That spiritual opium imported from India is poisoning Chinese minds and incompatible with Chinese culture (un-China)!

As I said long time back - dump the cultural trash back (dharma or karma, samsara or nirvana ,whatever) to India.

What is Chinese traditional belief? See what Confucius teaches - 身体发肤，受之父母，不敢毁伤，孝之始也。立身行道，扬名于后世，以显父母，孝之终也。

The first part literally to the effect -
"I dare not hurt my body, hair and skin which were from my parents. Such a (mentality) is the beginning of filial piety (Xiao)".
......................... "Xiao Jing" (Principles of Filial Obedience )

Enough is enough, time to put an end to the Un-Chinese nonsense like "self emolition"!

 

[mylegend]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

I must agree with you, Buddhism has done so much damage to China in the Chinese History. The monks do not work for a day in their life, pay no taxes, and base their living as biggest land lords. They instill pessimism into the original more progressive Chinese culture. They told the Chinese not to fight the mongol and helped Mongol to justify their slaughters and massacre. Buddhism have done great job helping nomads invader securing their rule to abuse the natives.

Another point I want to bring is most of modern Chinese Buddhists are basically idol worshiper, they have never read any religious classic and yet they call themselves Buddhists, how funny.

Ok, the root cause is now identified. That spiritual opium imported from India is poisoning Chinese minds and incompatible with Chinese culture (un-China)!

As I said long time back - dump the cultural trash back (dharma or karma, samsara or nirvana ,whatever) to India.

What is Chinese traditional belief? See what Confucius teaches - 身体发肤，受之父母，不敢毁伤，孝之始也。立身行道，扬名于后世，以显父母，孝之终也。

The first part literally to the effect -
"I dare not hurt my body, hair and skin which were from my parents. Such a (mentality) is the beginning of filial piety (Xiao)".
......................... "Xiao Jing" (Principles of Filial Obedience )

Enough is enough, time to put an end to the Un-Chinese nonsense like "self emolition"!

 

[sorcerer]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Self immolation is a form of suicide. Suicide by its own definition is a form of murder(the killing of self). Catholic church for instance forbid suicide based on the verse "Thou shalt not kill. "

Even in Buddhism. Suicide is consider as immoral. That is due to Buddhism preach to abandon desire because it is source of all misery. (suicide) can be either right or wrong depending on the state of mind of the person who suicides: the presence of desire makes it wrong, and the absence of desire makes it right.

So suicide is only right for Buddhist when the person has no desire. If they have desire to end Chinese rule, they are violating their own principle.

Three Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chinese Oppression On Tibetans

So you are agreeing to the fact that Chinese Rule=Chinese Oppression?

 

[Ray]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Self immolation is a form of suicide. Suicide by its own definition is a form of murder(the killing of self). Catholic church for instance forbid suicide based on the verse "Thou shalt not kill. "

Even in Buddhism. Suicide is consider as immoral. That is due to Buddhism preach to abandon desire because it is source of all misery. (suicide) can be either right or wrong depending on the state of mind of the person who suicides: the presence of desire makes it wrong, and the absence of desire makes it right.

So suicide is only right for Buddhist when the person has no desire. If they have desire to end Chinese rule, they are violating their own principle.

Your interpretation.

I gave the interpretation with links.

The act of self immolation of the Buddhists is no fort self, but for community good.

Buddha himself was ready to give himself up for a hungry tigress!

 

[Ray]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Ok, the root cause is now identified. That spiritual opium imported from India is poisoning Chinese minds and incompatible with Chinese culture (un-China)!

As I said long time back - dump the cultural trash back (dharma or karma, samsara or nirvana ,whatever) to India.

What is Chinese traditional belief? See what Confucius teaches - 身体发肤，受之父母，不敢毁伤，孝之始也。立身行道，扬名于后世，以显父母，孝之终也。

The first part literally to the effect -
"I dare not hurt my body, hair and skin which were from my parents. Such a (mentality) is the beginning of filial piety (Xiao)".
......................... "Xiao Jing" (Principles of Filial Obedience )

Enough is enough, time to put an end to the Un-Chinese nonsense like "self emolition"!

As usual with the Chinese, when in knots, deflect!

The imported spiritual opium has sustained China for centuries. Should have dumped earlier.

Confucius also said

"Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself" (Analects 12.2)

China is wiping out the Tibetans and replacing it with Han ideology. Now, if you are such a hero worshiper of Confucius, the why wipe Tibetan identity, when you don't do it to the Han Identity?

May I remind you what Confucius said - Look at nothing in defiance of ritual, listen to nothing in defiance of ritual, speak of nothing in defiance or ritual, never stir hand or foot in defiance of ritual." (Analects 12.1)

So why defy the Tibetan rituals?

But then you must since it is as dangerous to China as the Falun Gong, right?

Confucius's social teachings is that people should follow the Five Virtues and love one another and treat each other with kindness

 

[amoy]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

May I remind you what Confucius said - Look at nothing in defiance of ritual, listen to nothing in defiance of ritual, speak of nothing in defiance or ritual, never stir hand or foot in defiance of ritual." (Analects 12.1)

Sorry Confucius. I haven't followed your teachings today since I've looked at too much nonsense such as justifying and defending "self immolation" in defiance of ritual.

 

[Ray]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Sorry Confucius. I haven't followed your teachings today since I've looked at too much nonsense such as justifying and defending "self immolation" in defiance of ritual.

Another irrelevant deflection since the truth is bitter!

Learn to face facts and not bulldoze to deflect with tripe!

 

[Ray]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Sorry Confucius. I haven't followed your teachings today since I've looked at too much nonsense such as justifying and defending "self immolation" in defiance of ritual.

Another irrelevant deflection since the truth is bitter!

Learn to face facts and not bulldoze to deflect with tripe!

Confucius has been abandoned long ago to the altar, first called Mao and Communism and now, to Deng and Capitalism under labels that are aimed to be deceitful!

So, one wonders when you believed in Confucius, except to score a brownie!

I wonder if you have forgotten that the Chinese Communist Party had condemned Confucianism as a reactionary philosophy.

Has the new party line given to the Chinese is that he is no longer a purveyor of reactionary philosophy?

I love the way the Chinese backflip with such ease rubbishing whatever they said before, even if it were a minute ago, to suit the flavour of the moment!

And with no accountability or morality or a sense of shame to display such snake like dexterity in changing direction!

 

[amoy]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Another point I want to bring is most of modern Chinese Buddhists are basically idol worshiper, they have never read any religious classic and yet they call themselves Buddhists, how funny.

Ya idol worshipping how eccentric!

That's what they worship

It's time for our own cultural renaissance. No more such "exotic", ridiculous and vicious stuffs, leading to such an extreme as "immolation" totally incompatible with our traditions.

 

[amoy]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Another irrelevant deflection since the truth is bitter!

Learn to face facts and not bulldoze to deflect with tripe!

Confucius has been abandoned long ago to the altar, first called Mao and Communism and now, to Deng and Capitalism under labels that are aimed to be deceitful!

So, one wonders when you believed in Confucius, except to score a brownie!

I wonder if you have forgotten that the Chinese Communist Party had condemned Confucianism as a reactionary philosophy.

Has the new party line given to the Chinese is that he is no longer a purveyor of reactionary philosophy?

I love the way the Chinese backflip with such ease rubbishing whatever they said before, even if it were a minute ago, to suit the flavour of the moment!

And with no accountability or morality or a sense of shame to display such snake like dexterity in changing direction!

How funny! An Indian questions why a Chinese believes in Confucius?!

Then why do u work your guts out to defend a human being burning himself? Just thinking of it sends a chill down one's spine.

To call a spade a spade, so I would call this part ultra nonsense

The act of self immolation of the Buddhists is no fort self, but for community good.

Buddha himself was ready to give himself up for a hungry tigress!

That just proves my point spiritual trash imported frm India is against humanity and corrupts Chinese minds!

 

[sorcerer]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Ya idol worshipping how eccentric!

That's what they worship

It's time for our own cultural renaissance. No more such "exotic", ridiculous and vicious stuffs, leading to such an extreme as "immolation" totally incompatible with our traditions.

Exactly..you are not supposed to do Immolation in China... The CPC will do it to you with their iron hand rule and suppression.
To understand that you have to wake up and smell coffee..not communism.

 

[Ray]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

Ya idol worshipping how eccentric!

That's what they worship

It's time for our own cultural renaissance. No more such "exotic", ridiculous and vicious stuffs, leading to such an extreme as "immolation" totally incompatible with our traditions.

Idol worship has to be understood.

It is the same thing as ancestor worship that you hero Confucius advocated.

It is only those who are of very high intellect who can delve in the ethereal.

For the common man, who in those days, were illiterate, a symbol was required to concentrate one's feeling.

Hence, idols and symbols came handy.

Every religion including those who abhor idolatry have symbols call them idols if you will.

The Cross or the Kaaba, towards which one has to prostrate.

For the Chinese it was Ancester worship or 敬祖; (jìngzÇ”), the yin component, po (é­„), is associated with the grave, and the yang component, hun (é­‚), is associated with ancestral tablets"‰.

When Mao came, he was the God figure and you all worshipped him.

And now you all are running to find God becoming the fastest growing Christiandom in the world, though never forgetting that Money is your REAL GOD!

So., as the Americans say - don't get cute!

 

[Ray]

Re: 3 Tibetans Commit Self-Immolation In China Protesting Against Chin

How funny! An Indian questions why a Chinese believes in Confucius?!

Then why do u work your guts out to defend a human being burning himself? Just thinking of it sends a chill down one's spine.

To call a spade a spade, so I would call this part ultra nonsense


That just proves my point spiritual trash imported frm India is against humanity and corrupts Chinese minds!

What is so funny?.

Confucius cannot be read by others? THe CCP has declared it as national secret?

And then find self assumed Confucius followers talking big with hollowness in Confucius' teaching?

The same burning practice was in China. How come it was condoned then?

It is just that the Tibetan refuse to become Han, that you all are burning with anger that inspite of all Han being conditioned by Pavlovian Dogs,. the Tibetan are rebellion from turning out be be conditioned as the Pavlovian Dogs!

Actually the trash comes out of China as all know - cheap trashy stuff including cheap trashy imitation of quality western, Korean and Japanese and even Indian products!!