--- Ong Yong Peng <pali.smith@...> skrev:

> In a way, this attitude is built into many Asian
> cultures, and the
> samurai's culture is quite an extreme example of
> Buddhist influence.
> But, then, the samurai is a warrior, a person who
> should have been
> through the worst of life, even though his function
> to kill has
> deviated from the Buddhist value of compassion.
> Also, do not associate
> a samurai with a Jihadist or Crusadist suicide
> bomber. A samurai is
> just like an elite soldier you find in your
> country's military.

And perhaps somewhat similar to vikings - violent for
certain, but not in order to convert others to their
own religion.

Of course, Japanese culture has a special tradition of
"honorable" suicide - harakiri or seppuku; but I don't
know its historical origins. It certainly is not
recommended by Therarada Buddhism. Perhaps a Shinto
idea? (It may have some parallells in Pre-Christian
Nordic tradition as well.)

On the other hand, not recommending suicide does not
necessarily mean condemning those who practice it, as
was done for many centuries in the West, with the
"self murderers" entombed first in the forest, and
later at the north (and "evil") side of church. I
think the basic idea there was that only God can give
life, and only God may take it (that later part was
not always practiced by kings), so taking your own
life was doing something only permissible to God, and
therefore an "unforgivable" sin. Such a theory, of
course, could have no basis in Buddhism.

In Buddhism, there is a special case of Arahants
deciding not to go on living although they may be able
to do so. In the Mahaparinibbaanasutta, the Buddha
himself is told to have made such a renounciation some
months before his death, and it seems that he ate his
last meal knowing it to be poisonous. Whether this is
to be called "suicide" is peerhaps a matter of
definition, but Arahants don't make kamma anyway -
their personal problems are already permanently
solved.

Gunnar







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