TWO TIBETANS SET THEMSELVES ON FIRE IN PROTEST

2 TIBETAN FORMER MONKS SET THEMSELVES
ON FIRE IN LATEST PROTEST AGAINST CHINA

Beijing (AFP) - Two Tibetan teenagers set fire to themselves near a monastery in southwestern China, the latest in a spate of self-immolations this year that represents a fresh challenge both to Chinese policies and to the nonviolent Buddhist ethics of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader.  Choepel, 19 years old, and Khayang, 18, set fire to themselves in the center of the town of Aba in China’s southwestern Sichuan province shortly before midday on Friday, according to Free Tibet, a London-based campaign group, and the International Campaign for Tibet, or ICT, which is based in Washington. Many Tibetans go by one name. Both groups were trying to verify the fate of the two.

In a separate account, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency early Saturday identified the two as Tenzin, 20, and Thongan, 19.  Xinhua said the two monks were slightly injured and were being treated in a hospital, and said police were investigating their motives. Xinhua’s account couldn’t be confirmed Saturday.  The teenagers were former monks at the Aba-based Kirti Monastery, according to the two groups and Xinhua. The monastery has been a focus of protests against the Chinese government over the past three years. There have now been seven self-immolations in the area this year, including one Monday, according to the two groups. Xinhua has reported some, but not all, of the recent self-immolations.

Two Tibetan teenagers, Choepel, 19 years old, and Khayang, 18 and then two other former monks, 18-year-old Thongan and 20-year-old Tenzin, set themselves on fire in southwest China, in a new self-immolation protest against the Chinese government.  Aba county has been the scene of numerous protests in past years against the Chinese rule.  Tibetan Buddhism doesn’t permit suicide, and doesn’t condone violence.  Self-immolation is generally a great sin because we interfere with the laws of karma by doing it.  Mother Sati's case is different.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?  

Satī concentrated all her meditation on the holy lotus feet of her husband, Lord Śiva, who is the supreme spiritual master of all the world. Thus she became completely cleansed of all taints of sin and quit her body in a blazing fire by meditation on the fiery elements. ... When one becomes free from all bodily relationships within this material world and simply places himself in the position of an eternal servant of the Supreme Lord, it is to be understood that all the contamination of his material attachment has been burned by the blazing fires of transcendental ecstasy. It is not necessary for one to manifest a blazing fire externally, for if one forgets all his bodily relationships within this material world and becomes situated in his spiritual identity, it is said that one has been freed from all material contamination by the blazing fire of yogic samādhi, or ecstasy. That is the topmost perfection of yoga.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam - Canto 4: “Creation of the Fourth Order”  
Chapter 4: “Satī Quits Her Body” - Verse 27 - Bhaktivedanta VedaBase