Powerful Acts

I came across this photo a few years ago and at the time I thought - yeh ok and never really thought about it again.

I dont know maybe wiser/older/whatever when I look at this photo now I go - wow.

How much self control would something like that take? Who among us really could say that we have conviction enough to do something like this.

Suicide is dumb and I'm sure he could have come up with a better idea on how to effect the religious freedom of his country some other way....however you still have to look at this as an example of pure self control and go wow.

http://worldsfamousphotos.com/burning-monk-the-self-immolation-1963.html

June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from Vietnam, burned himself to death at a busy intersection in downtown Saigon to bring attention to the repressive policies of the Catholic Diem regime that controlled the South Vietnamese government at the time. Buddhist monks asked the regime to lift its ban on flying the traditional Buddhist flag, to grant Buddhism the same rights as Catholicism, to stop detaining Buddhists and to give Buddhist monks and nuns the right to practice and spread their religion.
While burning Thich Quang Duc never moved a muscle.

Photographer: Malcolm Browne

I currently have this as my desktop background photo this week as a reminder that playing on the court takes real effort and most of what we do each day is pretty much just floating along.


Cheers,
Dean
P.S. I warn you going through all of them is a little tough but you check out other photos of the year at this link.
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=blogsection&id=15&Itemid=115&bandwidth=high