Expert: John Willemsens aka Advayavadananda - 6/15/2004

Question
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Followup To
Question -
Hi: Can you tell me what buddhists think about suicide (how they consider it)?
thanks!
Answer -
Dear Rita,
It is a common mistake to believe that there is only one Buddhism. This is not the case. There are many different schools, with different points of view about e.g. the sanctity of life, abortion, suicide, euthanasia, etc., and about rebirth and reincarnation. I would suggest that you first search the internet for 'suicide buddhism' to get a general idea of what is being said about the issue in Buddhist circles and that I try to answer any specific questions you might have after that.
Kind regards,
Advayavadananda.

-------->>> HI: I Read 3 articles about suicide and buddhism.... 2 articles said that, according to buddhism, suicide will lead to more suffering, and that our cycle in samsara will increase... but the other article said something about suicide because of an inportant reason.... that if there is another reason (for example: defending an idea, or... suicide becasue of helping others...)there, those reasons are accepted... so... I think that in some way suicide will be part of that person's kama, as a wrong action! but, what about what the 3rd article said? if someone suicides becasue of a "valuable" reason, will that damage his karma?
1000 THANKS!

Answer
Hello Rita,
The following is from the QandA section of our website:
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Traditional Buddhism presupposes that the human being is composed of some five skandhas or clusters of which the rupa skandha disintegrates and dissolves and the arupa skandhas cease to occur completely at death. According to Advayavada Buddhism there is further no human rebirth other than by sexual reproduction and the so-called new life that is produced in this manner is again, or yet, formally composed of some five kandhas or skandhas. Sexual reproduction is by definition a karmic activity. Karma is, in Advayavada Buddhism, how dependent origination or pratitya-samutpada operates at the sentient level, including human choice and responsibility. Karma is neither the cause nor the effect, but the event as such. In the case of human rebirth, the event is the division or concatenate multiplication of the mother after fertilization of her egg or eggs by the father and the birth of the so-called new human being. And the main karmic activity involved is the wondrous event of physical love. The genetic and social factors transmitted to and inherited by the so-called new human being are all fully reflected at birth with minor changes or variations in its own set of skandhas. There are no so-called karmic seeds in the vijñana cluster that will ripen as yet in this or a future life, as is implied in the Yogacara vipaka theory. There is no evidence at all of an alaya-vijñana or store-house consciousness that might contain and carry such seeds forward into the future, nor of a patisandhi-viññana, the connecting consciousness encountered in Theravada ontology, nor of any other form of re-incarnation, transmigration, or of afterlife or resurrection. Instead, everything is already there in the skandhas or clusters of the so-called new being produced by the parents, geared and ready to grow into an adult human being. Modern scientific investigation in the field of genetics must yet supply many answers. The kandhas or skandhas theory is but a very rudimentary presupposition of the actual process of heredity and mutation. Biophysics must in fact yet uncover how a living organism, indeed any biological system, can generate, copy and eventually transmit its data.

But we can safely state that from the moment of conception onwards everything that happens in the whole of existence, including, though not primarily, what this so-called new human being does or does not do itself, will affect it accordingly in its further life. This includes the mechanical action of switching on or off of a light: if somebody trips over a chair in the dark and breaks his or her neck, this is most certainly the result of how dependent origination operates at the sentient level, the result of karma. This event will at the very least modify to a considerable extent the structure and relative arrangement of this particular conventional set of skandhas. Also his or her cetana (will or volition), which formally forms part of the human being's samskara (forces) cluster, will no doubt be affected by the challenge in accordance with its intensity and the endurance the person can muster. Karma, we must stress, is, in our view, pratitya-samutpada or dependent origination at our sentient level, including human choice and responsibility - it is the immanent universal dynamic principle of existence as it also operates incessantly within the human being, in the relations between all sentient beings and in their interaction with the environment. Wholesome human activities are those that are in agreement with the overall otherwise indifferent pattern and direction of existence. It is, indeed, for this reason that they are experienced by us as such. You will no doubt agree that there cannot be two sets of rules at play, one for totality and one as devised by humankind itself for its own affairs only.
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As you see, Rita, our understanding of karma (that it is merely dependent origination at the sentient level) is different and, as a result, also our opinion about suicide, euthanasia, etc.
Kind regards,
Advayavadananda.
http://www.advayavada.nl