Suicide in pursuit of a religious agenda is usually associated with Islam or Christianity, but religious martyrdom can be found in most if not all religions -- including even Buddhism. One difference, perhaps, is that Buddhists aren't known for suicide attacks that kill others as well as the actor. Nevertheless, the essential elements to justify martyrdom exist even within Buddhist ideology and history.
In Buddhist Warfare, Michael Jerryson writes in his introduction:
Suicide as a form of martyrdom for political purposes is particularly controversial within Buddhist circles. Some of the most well-publicized examples of this type of Buddhist suicide occurred during the U.S. war in Vietnam, when Vietnamese monks immolated themselves, sacrificing what they regarded as their impermanent bodies to trigger a change in social consciousness. While their intentions were nuanced by a unique context, monastic suicides are not uncommon in the Buddhist traditions.
One infamous example of monastic suicide occurred following the Buddha's lecture on detachment and meditating on the loathsomeness of the body. Shortly after the lecture, the Buddha went into seclusion for fifteen days and then returned to find that over a hundred monks were dead, either by suicide or by asking a local recluse, Migalandika, to kill them. In this instance, only those who deprived others of life were condemned to excommunication.
Suicides abound in the Buddha's birth stories (Skt. jÄtaka), when the Buddha sacrifices himself for the greater good; they also exist in the biography of the historical Buddha, SiddhÄrtha Gautama (PÄli: Siddhattha Gotama). It is said that Siddhartha was fully aware of his eventual demise when he accepted ill-prepared pork.
Suicide is a complex subject, but whether religious or secular one commonality is surely this: suicide is always an option whenever and wherever people come to feel that the alternatives to life are better than life itself. Whether the "alternative" is heaven or just nothingness, for some reason a person comes to the conclusion that life itself pales in comparison.
In a secular context this may be more likely to occur when someone suffers from a fatal disease that comes with a lot of pain. There don't seem to be a lot of wholly secular reasons to downgrade the value of life; religion, in contrast, can offer a host of reasons to downgrade life in comparison to some alternative or alternatives that religion also happens to promote. In this way, I think that religion will always be a bit more dangerous than the average secular ideology because it's so much easier for religion to offer a reason for disregard life -- whether your own or the lives of others.
No comments:
Post a Comment