When Hunger Overthrows Dignity

The screech of iron dragging across cement echoed through the stifling air. The man sat huddled in the corner of the room, trying to cover his ears, but the sound pierced through, piercing through skin and bone already calloused by years of imprisonment. He shuddered slightly, not from the cold—the midday Saigon heat was sweltering—but from hunger. It gnawed from the depths of his stomach, spreading through his muscles, making his hands tremble with sweat running cold.

The man, named Minh, was a young professor of literature at a prestigious university in Saigon before his arrest. He once lived a full life: giving lectures before crowds, morning coffee rituals, cherished books on wooden shelves. Colleagues admired him, students respected him. Entering prison, he tried to maintain the demeanor of an intellectual: his prisoner's uniform was stained but neatly smoothed, his voice calm, his gestures refined. But as time passed, the meager meals were only enough to prevent fainting, and hunger slowly gnawed everything away.

"Aren't you eating your share?" The voice of his cellmate, a disabled former South Vietnamese soldier, spoke up as he saw Minh leave half his bowl of rice untouched. "I can't swallow it," Minh rasped, his eyes gazing at the small window high above. The man continued, "Try to eat, professor. If you look down on their food here, you'll die." Minh didn't answer. He just shook his head, leaning against the wall with eyes tightly shut, avoiding the smell of pig feed rising from the bowl. But deep down, he knew he couldn't resist for long. That night, hunger tormented him, his insides churning. Lying on the cold ground, slick with sweat, he dreamed of the bowl of white porridge his mother made when he was a child. When he woke, tears streamed down his cheeks.

The next day, the rice ration was distributed. Three bowls of dry rice, doused with thin salt water, with a few strands of withered morning glory. Without a word, all fifteen people in the room stared at the bowls. The guard placed the tray down and coldly turned away. "Divide it equally, one share each as always," the oldest man in the room said, stepping forward slowly. But this time, grumbling erupted: "Why is my share smaller than this morning?" "Are you skimming from my rice?" In a flash of chaos, Minh's hand automatically shot towards the nearest bowl, grabbing a fistful of cold rice and stuffing it into his mouth, heedless of the other bowls being fought over by other hands. A man, thin as a stick—formerly a low-ranking civil servant—was chewing greedily while punching the person next to him to grab a bowl of sugar. Tears, mucus, and rice were scattered everywhere.

The door pounded violently. "What are you all doing in there?!" the guard outside screamed. The door opened, revealing a chaotic scene: people were growling, snatching, even scooping rice from the ground. Minh stood frozen in the crowd, his mouth still full of rice, eyes wide open, unable to believe what he had just done. He collapsed to his knees, covering his face and weeping—a man once proud of his culture and refinement, now reduced to a wild animal. He recalled his lectures on dignity and self-respect, now all vanished into smoke under the pangs of hunger.

After that day, Minh no longer despised the bowls of coarse rice. He ate like the others—slowly, bite by bite, but always saving some for the weaker ones. He understood a truth that years of schooling never taught: body and mind cannot be separated. A body worn to its extreme, no matter how educated the mind, will be overpowered by the survival instinct. Not because people are evil, but because every cell in the human being is screaming to live.

Many years later, when peace returned, Minh was freed. He no longer stood at the lecturn with his former elegance. He lived quietly, writing pages about the raw truth of humanity. When asked why he dared to write about those dark corners, Minh only smiled: "I have seen with my own eyes how cheaply people can be valued when hunger torments them. And I know, to preserve one's dignity, one must keep body and mind from falling into desperate straits. I am not ashamed that I once fell; I would be ashamed if I did not learn a lesson from my own collapse."

**The Meaning of the Story**

Body and mind are one unified whole. Hunger, suffering, and illness can distort the human spirit. Therefore, in practice, one cannot only cultivate spirituality while neglecting the body; one must care for both and understand that the survival instinct is a crude but incredibly powerful force. Only with enough mindfulness and stable concentration can we prevent it from pulling us away from our dignity and morality.

*Compiled from a dharma talk by Venerable Thích Chân Quang*