Thank you, Bhante. 
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Curious to hear Ajahn @Brahmali’s take, as he previously defended “compassionate” suicide, thus:
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Yes, it’s unfortunately a meme of self-sacrifice found in Mahayana literature in various forms. Bodhisattvas are often depicted mutilating themselves or throwing their lives away as acts of devotion in the grander scheme of countless rebirths, which makes the present life something inconsequential. What originally may have been fictional hyperbole was taken by people literally and acted out in real life. As the article you site documents, it’s been happening for a long time.
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Even in the suttas, it appears the Buddha only allowed suicide due to illness if someone was “blameless”, which I take to mean an Arahant.
I don’t think the Buddha condoned suicide in any other situation.
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Thank you, Bhante.
May Wynn find an end to suffering sooner rather than later.
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This is getting off topic, but if I may point out that this is an interpretation. There’s nowhere the Buddha actually says he “allows” anything like this.
It’s equally possible to read the text as saying that, in certain extreme cases, namely in the case of a terminally ill patient suffering extreme pain with no hope of recovery, the act of taking one’s life is blameless, and hence it is possible for an arahant to do it. And in fact that is what I think it means.
There’s nowhere else, I believe, that the Buddha “allows” an arahant to do something that others may not do. It’s not how Buddhist ethics works. Something is right or wrong because of the quality of the act, not because of who performs it; a person is shaped by their deeds, deeds are not shaped by the person.
This is how the Sutta (SN 35.87) frames it. The phrase is:
Anupavajjaṁ channo bhikkhu satthaṁ āharissati
The mendicant Channa will slit his wrists blamelessly
“Blameless” acts as an adverb here, it applies not to the person but to the act.
We’re not supposed to carve out special exceptions to excuse the actions of arahants that are unacceptable for ordinary folks. On the contrary, the actions of an arahant are supposed to set an example of the highest conduct, something to aspire to. And I think these texts act as an implicit acceptance of the fact that even such a fundamental precept as that against taking life has its limits. Yes, it’s hard to know exactly what those limits are, and no, a couple of brief references in 2,500 year old spiritual texts are not going to give us all the answers.
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Indeed. It’s the act of taking up a new body that is considered blameworthy in that sutta. If you can get reborn as a deva and achieve nibbāna from there, that’s also blameless I suppose. So not just arahants.
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You might want to see some doomsday Christian cult who committed mass suicide because they believe that the end of the world is near. There’s massive disowning of the cult, sane people are moved to not want to join in. And it paints a picture for those outside of Christian to say: religion is what compels otherwise good, rational people to do stupid things.
While this does exist in Mahayana texts, it is generally in non-political contexts, such as offering a body part to a Buddha or offering one’s body to an animal to eat as the Buddha does in some Jatakas. I don’t think that its usage in political protest really appears in classic Mahayana texts. I know that the practice of burning a finger or a body part did exist in pre-modern Chinese Buddhism, but again, this wasn’t done for political protest reasons often as far as I am aware. Wikipedia says that five Chinese monks self-immolated in China during the Buddhist persecution of Emperor Wu but it doesn’t cite sources…
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I don’t recall saying it was?
I have compassion for Wynn Bruce and do hope he finds peace in one of his future lives. But I do agree with Ven. Sujato that this was a fundamentally unwholesome and unhelpful act that should not be encouraged. It bothers me that ppl on twitter and reddit seem to be apologizing for this act and saying this is condoned by Buddhism, usually in reference to Thich Nhat Hanh.
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Burning yourself alive for attention is ego trip + mental problems
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The individual who commited self-immolation was probably thinking this was a noble sacrifice in order to attract attention to a worthy cause but in reality he was deluding himself with this in order to conceal the real emotions that most of the time accompany the act of suicide: fear, anger, pride, restlessness, desire, etc.
Violence is violence and there’s nothing noble about this.
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you didn’t, I didn’t mean to imply this in my post above.
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Something I probably should have said is that Mahayana texts rarely depict what we would today call self-harm as self-harm. It’s usually under the rubric of dana. In their way of thinking, the physical body is in reality no more than another material possession, which I think did begin in Jataka literature. There are a couple stories about a King Shibi, which can be found in the Dazhidulun, that come to mind. So, it’s a sort of supermundane form of giving. But there’s plenty of stories illustrating this idea, self-immolation (burning oneself like incense or a lamp) being one of them. They get a bit grotesque at times, so I won’t recount them here. It’s probably something that in modern times is overlooked in favor of philosophy. In ancient times, though, I think they play a much larger role. In those days, it was religious ideologies that captured cultural imagination rather than political ones.
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Right, good point. The fervor with which people will act to ensure … the political outcomes they want in their region? It’s so small-minded. To give up everything, to hurt so many people, for what? A decision in an EPA case? Racist posturing against halal slaughter?
I am only just learning of how prevalent self-immolation is, and how disturbingly similar the patterns are across cultures.
in Sri Lanka:
Seventy nine percent of the victims were females and 72% were in the 15-34 years age-group. Most had marital problems. The majority were Tamils, but Muslims were fairly well represented(*). … Social make-up and poor problem-solving ability may be contributing factors
(*) Note, this study was in Batticaloa, where it’s only 1.1% Buddhists.
in Nepal:
patients with intentional burns were more likely to be female (79 vs. 48%), married (84 vs. 67%), younger (25 vs. 30 years), have more extensive burns (total body surface area, %: 55 vs. 25) and higher mortality (60 vs. 22%). Intentional burns were more likely to occur at home (95 vs. 67%), be caused by fire (96 vs. 77%), and kerosene was the most common accelerant (91 vs. 31%). A primary psychosocial risk factor was identified in the majority of intentional burn cases, with 60% experiencing adjustment problems/interpersonal conflict and 32% with evidence of a pre-existing psychological condition.
in Iran:
the majority were female (63.2%) and married (66.3%). Most of the patients were from rural areas (58.3%) with an education level of under diploma (63.2%). Of the patients in our study, 22 (8.7%) had comorbid systemic diseases and 115 (50.5%) had psychiatric disorders.
Young women, poorly educated, suffering emotional distress due to unhappy marriages, and—reading between the lines—a history of abuse and domestic violence. It’s so horrible.
Make no mistake: this will happen again. It’s no one-off. The next Buddhist self-immolator is already having suicidal ideation. And they are listening to the voices in the Buddhist community—maybe even on this very thread—who are telling them it is a noble and heroic act of self-sacrifice, the courage of the bodhisattvas. And this will encourage them to act on their impulses. In coming years we will see this again and again.
I am begging everyone to refrain from attributing spiritual meaning or an important message to any act of suicide.
Meanwhile, the YouTube algorithm, in its unfathomable glory, gave me this. Wynn Bruce, I wish you were here.
(Description for those who don’t want to click)
Over 120 voices came together today as a #Flashmob in Heuston railway station Dublin, Ireland for World Suicide Prevention Day - 10 September 2018 “Working together to prevent suicide”. All were brought together by Music Director Andrius Kozlovskis.
The top comment:
The man playing guitar on the left side was my father, Martin O’Hara. Shortly after this event he was diagnosed with cancer, and very recently after a long hard battle, dad has passed away. So this was one of dads final performances. It meant the world to him that people took the time out of their day to slow down and listen. It also meant the world to him when I told him how many of you people online have resonated with this moment. To slow down that day and stop to listen to those performers and singers was an effortless decision for any passers-by, but it meant a great deal more to him and I, it really was an honour. And dad died with that pride and peace that you gave him, so on his behalf, thank you so much for listening.
Life is precious. Don’t ever forget that, and never doubt that you are valuable and your life has meaning. Even if you can’t see it, others can. Be patient, live a life of goodness, and happiness will come to you when you least expect it.
And finally, if you need a bit of happiness, Bhante Buddharakkhita has you:
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from the D&D staff
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Who is doing that? Are there actual Mahayanists telling people to be heroic bodhisattvas?
As someone who has had far more personal experience with this issue than anyone should in one life, my experience is that it’s mainly personal life - family, relationships, traumatic events - that drives the problem. The lack of emotional support in modern society is big part of it, too. What someone says in a religious text doesn’t have that much to do with it. If it does, then we’re showing up way too late in the process. If you’d like to help with this issue, I’d suggest contacting your local mental health institutions and get involved in the community. That goes for anyone reading. Writing posts on a forum isn’t going to help that much. It’s an “in real life” issue, not a media or internet issue.
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For what it’s worth:
Ascetic practices like this definitely are found in Jatakas, and made their way into Mahayana sutras. They caught on in China among monks and laypeople who took the sutras very literally. But when Chinese monks went to India, they were told that while Gautama did those things as a bodhisattva (i.e. in the Jatakas), it was not necessary to do those things anymore.
Nevertheless, there are still some Chinese monks who are missing a finger or two, even in the 21st century. Old habits die hard, and old beliefs may stick around for centuries.
Maybe the fundamental issue is that to some extent, the Jatakas may reflect pre-Buddhist value systems, and the types of asceticism the Buddha himself did away with. And Mahayana Buddhism drew upon the Jatakas, and also provided space for influence from Jainism, Brahmanism, and other traditions.
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