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A Response to Damien Keown's Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Buddhist Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Peter Harvey
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Extract

In his article, Keown articulates what I see as a basically valid reading of the implications of the texts of the Pali Canon on the issues at hand. I particularly like his formulation, ‘to deny death and cling to life is wrong, but equally wrong is to deny life and seek death.’ As the aging Arahat Sariputta says in the vv. 1002-03:

I do not long for death; I do not long for life; I shall lay down this body attentive and mindful.

I do not long for death, I do not long for life; but I await my time, as a servant his wages.

Keown focuses a fair amount of his discussion on the suicide of a few near Arahats. Though I broadly agree with his analysis of these cases, they do pertain to rather rare and exceptional types of people, while for the ordinary person, various central Buddhist values and considerations straightforwardly make it clear that suicide is highly inadvisable. While Buddhism emphasizes that there is much suffering in life, this can, paradoxically, help dissuade a Buddhist from giving in to despair. If suffering of various kinds, gross or subtle, is to be expected in life, then there is less reason for a person to take particular problems so personally—as if the world is conspiring against him or her.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , 1998 , pp. 407 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1998

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References

1. Keown may perhaps be criticized for relying exclusively on Theravāda sources, though he makes a good case for doing so. One might also add that he focuses on material in the Theravāda collection that was broadly shared by the various early schools, and was mainly augmented rather than rejected by the later Mahāyāna tradition.

2. Rinpoche, Sogyal, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying 310, 376 (Rider, 1992)Google Scholar.

3. k12, 149a; II Le Traité de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse de Nagarjuna at 740 (du Muséon, Bureaux, Lamotte, E., trans, 1949)Google Scholar.

4. Demiéville, P., ‘Le Bouddhisme et la Guerre’, Mélanges. Vol. I, pp. 347-85, at 350 (Paris, L'Institu des Hautes E'tudes Chinoises, 1957)Google Scholar.

5. Mullin, G.H., Death and Dying: The Tibetan Tradition 149 (Arkana, 1987) (translated texts plus introductions)Google Scholar.

6. Compare Bapat, P.V. & Hirakawa, A., Shan-Chien-P'i-P'o-Sha, a Chinese Version by Sanghabhadra of Samantapasadika: Commentary on Pali Vinaya translated into English for the first time at 327 (Poona, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1970)Google Scholar.

7. 49a; Dayal, H., The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature 175 (Motilal Banarsidass, repr 1970)Google Scholar.