[Buddha-l] Buddhist Bioethics

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Hugo schreef:

>Hello Erik,
>
>On 8/26/05, Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>  
>
>>Well, appearently the messages are contradictory like in any decent
>>religion. I had the Channovadasutta in mind (Majjhimanikaya 144). Channa
>>is suffering from a disease and the Buddha accepts his euthanasia. There
>>are articles about suicide in Buddhism at
>>http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/suicide.html
>>    
>>
>
>I skimmed through the above link and found this:
>
>" By taking the key term anupavajja in the way suggested by the
>commentary, which I think fits the context well, the Buddha's
>concluding remark becomes not an exoneration of suicide but a
>clarification of the meaning of an ambiguous word in a context which
>has nothing to do with ethics."
>
>  
>
>>Kaccano (or Kaccayana) tells the Buddha that he
>>wants to return to his homeland (near Mumbai). And the Buddha warns him
>>for attacks at his person. Kaccano answers that he would'nt mind because
>>if that would happen he would have met his arhantkiller.
>>    
>>
>
>I don't see how that is an approval for suicide.
>
>  
>
It is not. But it suggests that at least some arhants didn't mind to 
lose their lives. Suicide in itself of course is not something one would 
recommend. It's absurd to say that suicide is always good, but that 
doesn't mean that there's no case where it can be accepted as the lesser 
evil. It can be a sacrifice to save the lives of others, but is also can 
be a way to rum away from problems. I think this is also the case with 
euthanasia. I'm not convinced by the article and I don't share the 
authors positive opinion about Christianity, because he's not aware of 
the differences between Catholicism and different Protestant churches on 
this point.  I think there's reason enough to suspect that in some 
circles suicide was considered an option in extreme circumstances. By 
the way I think that it's useless to construct an apodictic statement 
that represents THE point of view of Buddhism. I think one should be 
open to the discussions and disagreements between different groups and 
schools.
The startingpoint of this discussion was, if I remember well, the 
question whether there are Buddhist arguments in favour of euthanasia. I 
think there are some, but maybe they're not convincing enough for everybody.
If your read http://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/geth0401.pdf you see that 
intentionally killing always seems to leave bad karma, but I would add 
there can be a reason to accept this bad karma out of compassion.

-- 


Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms