Pali Buddhism by Frank Hoffman Deegalle Mahinda

Author:Frank Hoffman, Deegalle Mahinda [Frank Hoffman, Deegalle Mahinda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780700703593
Goodreads: 13752445
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1996-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

6

Suicide and Emotional Ambivalence: An Early Buddhist Perspective

PADMASIRI DE SILVA

There are three important strands of concern about ‘suicide’ in the current discussions of the subject across philosophy and religion. First is the concern with ‘altruistic suicide,’ initially portrayed in the pioneering work of Emile Durkheim.1 Second, there is the current debate about the unresolved moral problems concerning the ‘value of life.’ Biomedical technology has made it possible for people to prolong their lives, where in the past they would have died; some times these patients are ill and agonized by suffering and wish that they put and end to their lives.2 Thirdly, as different from the task of making moral assessments about suicide, there has been a great need to understand its causal matrix, both the psychological forces and the social fabric which may contribute to the emergence of suicidal behavior. The attempt to understand suicidal behavior or its prototypes appears to me as important a task as attempting to define and classify or make moral and legal assessments of suicide.3 It is a characteristic feature of the discourses of the Buddha that reflections on the human mind intertwines closely with reflections concerning the ethical and existential concerns of human beings. Logical boundaries between ethical issues and psychological issues need to be observed when the context demand so, but in this paper, I am exploring the psychological and existential aspects of suicide, and apart from its intrinsic interest, it may illuminate issues in the adjacent territory.

Suicide in early Buddhism

A basic position that Buddha takes about suicide is that a man or a woman cannot escape the sufferings which are the result of the former deeds by suicide. The image of ‘eternal sleep’ after death has nourished annihilationist delusions of suicide. It is a false escape route. The following is found in one of the Buddhist texts:4

A monk who preaches suicide, who tells man: “Do away with this wretched life, full of suffering and sin; death is better,” in fact preaches murder, is a murderer, is no longer a monk.

The person who attempts to commit suicide or commits suicide fails to see that the tribulations of life to which he is subjected are best understood in terms of the law of dependent origination and kamma. One cannot offset by violent means the implications and the consequences of kamma. It is the same point which is used by the Buddha for attempts to commit suicide due to religious motives, for example the impatience to attain nibbāna. A person who is under the spell off the craving for non-existence (vibhava-taṇhā) cannot attain nibbāna. A very fitting metaphor, likens this to a person who tries to pluck an unripe fruit:

He shakes not down the unripe fruit,

but awaits the full time of its maturity.5

The well known Pāyāsi Sutta presents the views of a heretical nature that there is no other world after death and that if this truth is well known to wanderers and Brahmins, they would put an end to their lives:

If these good

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