my very limited take on two important questions

[JohnsonCM]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

I feel like I need to clarify a few things here, because it seems like the take away from what I said was that a person who commits suicide should be regarded as a selfish person with no thought to the pain they were experiencing. This is not so. In my mind there is a difference between selfish and "self"ish, and I am refering to the latter. When I say suicide is a selfish act, I am saying that it is done because the self has an idea of what will satisfy its desire for release or peace, and that idea is to self destruct. I am not saying that we should not have compassion for those with depressive issues and other mental illnesses, and the first thought I have when someone commits suicide is a heart rending saddness that that person must have been hurting so bad that death seemed the only answer.

It's like Jundo said, that trickster the self is behind it. A person who is in emotional pain can find freedom in the Way instead of in death, but their delusions keep them from seeing that. When a person is depressed (clinically) they almost HAVE to be selfish out of necessity, because they are trying to cope with an ever present feeling of depression and they need to be constantly vigilant and dealing with it, lest it get the better of them. It sometimes takes all of your focus just to be able to maintain a sembalance of a normal life.

What I am saying is this: Suicide is usually an act that is "self" oriented. The victim is killing them "self" in order that they no longer have to experience the emotional pain they feel. They want it to stop, they want to stop feeling they way they do. Not many people commit suicide for someone else. That is all I am saying. As for mental illness, yes it is a factor, sometimes a big one. I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder with a Specific Phobia, and I know how devious and insidious such things can be, how they can control your life. However, there is help for that. I went to the doctors and took the meds, not just for my sake but because my family suffered right along with me. For a while, I refused to do either, thinking that I could handle it, that I was in control, I was catering to the ideas my "self" had formed. And it was selfish of me not to have sought that help. In the end, my selfishness nearly cost me my marriage, my job, my children, and my life. If not for a strange twist of fate, I might have succeeded. But then I came to study the Way and realized that there was medicine for my problems, both chemical and spiritual. I came to see what my "self" was doing and then how empty the idea of "self" is. I found what I was looking for through practice, a measure of peace, and now since I am still here, I can share that with others, be a better husband and father, and do some good in this life.

[Geika]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Suicide just happens... and there are so many reasons for it. Sometimes, perhaps, the act can be classified as "selfish--" but it doesn't really matter, because no two suicides are the same.

[Taigu]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Ok, I shall put it another way: for Taigu and for now, suicide is out of bounds. As a good little catholic boy, I was taught that suicide was bad, selfish and... bring everything you want into the mix, I was told that it was not good. The stupid head I am doesn't buy into this moralistic rubbish anymore. If suicide is out of bounds, it is not because a religious teachings or a book tells me so, it is just because I love this life as it is with ups and downs, the whole lanscape is just wonderful. Just. Shikan.
I am the worst father ever, the most stupid partner and I have no intention to improve ,Christopher.
Let's put it another way: I have lost my marriages, my kid and my life. Everybody will tell you that I have also lost my brilliant accademic future...
Cannot care less. The only that hurts is that my daughter doesn't really understand yet.

Compassion, Christopher, does not pick up this and chooses that, compassion is unconditionnal. It is a ground one cannot measure. It swallows you up. From head to arse.

Sit. And sit again. Stop judging others and yourself.

Make peace. Don't care anymore about being good or fear being bad.

Drop theology, Buddhology ,

selfology

... drop the action of dropping itself.


What is in front of you then is so simple.

With you in all this



gassho


Taigu

PS: thanks Amelia

[Rimon]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Wise words to finish the year

Thank you, Taigu

[JohnsonCM]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Ok, I shall put it another way: for Taigu and for now, suicide is out of bounds. As a good little catholic boy, I was taught that suicide was bad, selfish and... bring everything you want into the mix, I was told that it was not good. The stupid head I am doesn't buy into this moralistic rubbish anymore. If suicide is out of bounds, it is not because a religious teachings or a book tells me so, it is just because I love this life as it is with ups and downs, the whole lanscape is just wonderful. Just. Shikan.

I completely agree with you. I am not trying to say that suicide is good or bad. I cannot speak for another to say whether they pain they feel is enough to justify their own death. I am also not trying to place a religious ideal over the whole thing. ALL I am saying is that suicide is usually an act that is completed to satisfy the self (the Buddhist idea of "self"). The problem is that these folks cannot get out of their own way enough to see the whole landscape of life. As I said, I differentiate between selfish (where my child will not share a toy with his brother because, and I quote, "It's mine!") and "self"ish (where a person is bound to thier delusions and attachments, likes and dislikes, and is led about by the nose by this "self").

Compassion, Christopher, does not pick up this and chooses that, compassion is unconditionnal. It is a ground one cannot measure. It swallows you up. From head to arse.

Sit. And sit again. Stop judging others and yourself.

Make peace. Don't care anymore about being good or fear being bad.

Compassion is truly something one cannot put on and take off like a coat, I agree. Compassion is the blood in our veins, the ocean in which we swim, and the water that we drink. I would never suggest that compassion does not extend to those who take their lives, nor to those left behind. I would say that there is no more judgement in my statements above then there would be in saying that the wind is blowing or the sky is blue today.

The basis of my comments is this (perhaps I should avoid being so wordy in the future, it tends to obscure my meaning, but then using words to describe the dharma is like painting a flower on paper - no smell, can't touch the petals or watch it sway in the breeze)

Suicide - usually - happens because the "SELF" is in pain. The "SELF" hates the way things are, sees no way out of the pain it feels, and focuses on the negative aspects of life on an almost personal level. The "SELF" drives the person to kill themselves believing that it is the only way to find peace.

Drop the "SELF". If you can get out of your own way, you can see things as they are, and perhaps find the peace you thought you were missing before. Once you realize the "SELF" is empty, you can appreciate the whole landscape of life for being perfectly what it is, good times and bad, ups and downs, hills and dales.

I am not saying a person should be villified for committing suicide, I feel that compassion should encompass all beings, and who knows the depths of suffering that person might have felt. However, I do feel that the culprit in this is the "SELF" and its desires, attachments and delusions - hence the "SELF"ish part.

I will, however, sit with your words and practice, Taigu. Thank you.

[Andao]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Thank you for the wise answer Taigu, with questions like that, even on misplaced word can make all the difference and your answers are very clear.
Gassho

[Geika]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

If suicide is out of bounds, it is not because a religious teachings or a book tells me so, it is just because I love this life as it is with ups and downs, the whole lanscape is just wonderful. Just. Shikan.

We must leave it anyway, at some point, so why leave it early?

Sit. And sit again. Stop judging others and yourself.

_/_ Thank you for the advice.

PS: thanks Amelia

_/_

[Geika]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

The problem is that these folks cannot get out of their own way enough to see the whole landscape of life.

I don't think we can presume to know the depth of each person who is suicidal or has committed suicide.

...(perhaps I should avoid being so wordy in the future, it tends to obscure my meaning, but then using words to describe the dharma is like painting a flower on paper - no smell, can't touch the petals or watch it sway in the breeze)

From the book, Eat, Pray, Love:

"Say it like you eat it."

[JamesVB]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Because your life touches all others in innumerable ways.

[Martin]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Well. I have watched someone I cared for die. She was in such pain. There was nothing there but pain. All she was, was pain. Medication didn't help. She - her "selfish self", if you like - wanted an end to her suffering. So did her family. They were in such pain watching and feeling her pain. If she could have gone, she would have. If they'd dared to help her go, they would have. If I'd dared to help her go, I would have. She couldn't. They didn't. I didn't.

I make no wider judgements about suicide, or assisted suicide, and I can't know whether someone "should" or "should not" live on or choose release in any given situation. These "shoulds" all seem to me to be ideas we like to hold about someone else's life, when we can't know the reality. I only know that in that hospital ward, compassion would have led me to release the suffering, and fear, selfish fear of the consequences for me if I had acted on that compassion, held me back.

Gassho

Martin

[JohnsonCM]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Well. I have watched someone I cared for die. She was in such pain. There was nothing there but pain. All she was, was pain. Medication didn't help. She - her "selfish self", if you like - wanted an end to her suffering.

OK, I'm going to say it again here. There is a world of difference between "selfish" (the old, mine, I want, you can't have 'cause it's mine, etc) and "Self"ish. In the way I am using the word (emphasis added) I am saying that MOST suicides are the result of the SELF (you know, the Buddhist Idea of self that doesn't exist. We talk about dropping it all the time, but it seems that in this discussion we are running into some difficulty with the concept) deluding the person into believing that suicide is the only way out. I'm also going to quote myself here:

That does not mean, however, that I don’t understand abortion. I can understand being a parent and feeling that you cannot give them what they need, so much so that bringing that child into the world might become an act of cruelty, just as much as having the child and asking its mother to simply give him or her away to a complete stranger would be. Or the cruelty of causing a person in constant and extreme pain to continue to exist, knowing that they will be in that pain until they pass away, because I might believe that taking a life is wrong.

I am not judging those who commit suicide. I cannot know their reasons for it, I cannot feel their pain emotionally or physically. I do believe that many of them could be saved from it, if they were able to get out from under the control of the "Self" and could see the dharma more clearly, for then they might not feel that death is the only way to peace. In any case, my one and only reaction to suicide is saddness at the loss of a life, so dear to everyone, and compassion for those who are most affected by it, including the one who committed suicide, because their suffering must have truly been unbearable.

[Shonin]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Christopher, I understand you, if that's any consoloation.

_/_

[JohnsonCM]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

Christopher, I understand you, if that's any consoloation.

_/_

Thanks. I don't want to be taken wrong, and I'm glad you get what I'm saying here. Sometimes it seems, especially in the sensitive conversations like this one, that when someone mentions it in the same Zen Buddhist language context that we do everything else, that we suddenly forget everything we've learned. Words are only words, don't mistake the finger for the moon. The teachings don't stop being the teachings because we are emotionally connected to the subject.

1000 bows, Shonin

[Omoi Otoshi]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

I just read this thread and decided to empty my head. Sorry for the wall of text. It's mostly delusional rambling, but who knows? There may be some grain of truth in there somewhere!

When we are balanced, I believe we all feel in our hearts that suicide is against our purpose, our nature, that it is something we should not do. It is also part of the precept of not killing.

We find it sad that someone chooses to end their life prematurely, when we wish they could have instead opened their true dharma eye and seen through the mental constructions and delusions that cause them their misery, and shatter the bonds of the greed, anger and ignorance that torments them. It is only in life that we can manifest life and our universal selves through life.

We can make up all kinds of reasons why we should not kill ourselves. We were born to live, life is a precious gift, we hurt the ones we love, my life could be important to others in ways that I don't understand etc. But few people choose to commit suicide. They do it because they see no other way out. When all psychological barriers have broken down, there's nothing to stop the dark thoughts. It is an act of desperation, not of free will.

The body and mind of the ordinary self is killing itself to escape from a world of suffering, but I don't think we can say it is out of selfishness. (UNWARRANTED ZENNISMS ALERT ) It is neither selfish nor unselfish. It is both selfish and unselfish. Neither is it irrational nor rational. It is both irrational and rational. What looks completely irrational for the outside observer may be rational for the person about to commit suicide. What may seem more rational to the outside observer, for example the serial killer or child molester who can't stop what he is doing and instead commits suicide, is in other ways completely irrational. Seppuku seems completely rational for the samurai, but may be an irrational act of self-delusion to the modern Zen practitioner. He acts selflessly to clear his name and the name of his family from dishonour. Or does he commit suicide only to satisfy his big ego, even though he is killing that same ego in the process?

What about the person who kills himself slowly, by being self-destructive or irresponsible. Someone who smokes, eats unhealthily and drinks excessively, for example. Is it less bad to kill yourself slowly than quickly?

The question of suicide came up one time and Brad's response was that even though a person may think that suicide will end suffering (specifically their own) Suffering is not diminished or ended, it is now experienced by others: all those associated with the person in various capacities: the world doesn't have less suffering in it, it is just spread out over more people.

This is a good argument for not killing oneself, for the few people that are interested in a lesson in philosophy when they are about to shoot themselves in the head to escape their unbearable suffering... :roll:

And there are times when the family suffers less after their loved one has committed suicide than before, even though they miss that person dearly and wish it had not happened. When both the person who killed himself and the people around him have been tormented so severly and for so long, those around him may very well feel relief when he is finally at rest. They may also feel that now at least they don't have to worry anymore about what is going to happen. This can lead to feelings of guilt and more suffering, but it doesn't have to.

If I was a serial killer let's say...and I couldn't stop myself and I wanted to protect others
Killing myself may be a kindness to all beings...

Maybe this is one situation where the precept should not be followed, where the death of one person can save many others. Even Dalai Lama says that war can sometimes be justified (but he would rather chase away the mosquito that lands on his arm than kill it). But who are we to judge? Can we see all the consequences of the actions of ourselves and others? Then we are gods. Or at least Buddhas. I think until we fully realize our own Buddhahood, we should refrain from judging others before we have walked in their shoes and instead try to be compassionate.

Are there truly altruistic suicides? Was Thich Quang Duc's suicide the turning point that put an end to the oppression of buddhists in South Vietnam? Or had the tide already turned and was the immolation instead the culmination of the people's resitance? In other words, was it the key to change or a symbol of that change? Was killing himself the life's mission for this monk? Or did he do it to promote his own ego by becoming a martyr? Was he influenced at all by the previous cases of immolation by Vietnamese monks? Or did he just break after years of oppression and suffering and looked at suicide as his only way out? We will never know and we can never judge. We can only show compassion for the man and remember the good things that followed his sacrifice.

All I know is that speculation has nothing to do with the experience of another
I can not tell someone else what they should do.
After it is done, I cannot second guess what would have been better
Only my own feet in my own shoes can go their own way even if the way is unknown/unknowable
I cannot know in advance what is a fitting and true action: in that moment only

I think there is great wisdom in these words. I always look forward to reading your posts. Thank you!

Why is depression and mental illness so much more taboo than physical illness? Why is dying from depression so much worse than dying from heart disease? From research we now know that suicidal patients show prominently low levels of Serotonin in their brains. In mild cases, behavioral therapy is just as effective as pills and I'm sure Zazen can be very useful too in breaking negative patterns of thought and learning to see through some of our delusions. In more severe cases however, we are just not susceptible to therapy or other people's opinions. We need to normalize the Serotonin and Norepinephrine levels before we have a chance to reach the person. In some circles, including Zen circles, "happy pills" have a negative reputation and even persons with great authority such as Roshis (not Jundo or Taigu! :wink: ) have been known to recommend against medicating against depression. Please don't do this or you'll have a sh*tload of bad karma coming your way when someone kills himself! :evil:

We don't have to think of suicide as good or bad, as a matter of fact I don't think we should.
We only need to view suicide as something not-to-do.
We live and love, we don't take our life.
We suffer and die, we don't take our life.
We wash the dishes, we don't take our life.
If the circumstances still make us take our life, we probably didn't see that we had a choice.

Gassho,
Pontus

[disastermouse]

Re: my very limited take on two important questions

This is an interesting topic. I haven't had enough time to read all the replies, so if someone else brought this up, forgive me.

The biggest argument against suicide is that it's a category error to prescribe a situation/circumstance change (death) to a problem that transcends situations/circumstances (dukkha). It's not solely your circumstances that cause your suffering, it's the interaction of those circumstances with one's fundamental ignorance. If circumstances change but ignorance remains, how can there be an enduring situational solution to dukkha?