Suicide selfish or selfless? (tradition, blood, hell, God, heaven)

[ALifetimeToWaitFor....]

Now this idea is purely Buddhist but I wanted to get other viewpoints as well.

I was just standing smoking a cigarette and watching a lightning storm on my balcony. I was watching the mosquitos gather under the lights and knocking into them over and over again. Now there is little the bug can do to gain good karma to help others or free it self from suffering. The light to me is the bug's desire to get back to the light, to the truth and to get out its current state as to not cause more suffering. Essentially commiting suicide. Another option would be to feed it self to another creature, but that would in turn cause bad karma for the other creature in taking life and in turn cause bad karma to the bug for causing that bad karma. Now for a human to do this would be wrong in this train of thought because of the potential for accummulation of good karma, but for lower life forms such as carnivores and others that are almost incapable of acquiring god karma. Would this be the best option?

[Jaymes]

The best option IMO would be for the mosquito to just be a mosquito Suck blood, lay eggs, die, move on (or not).

[finalfrogo]

Originally Posted by TimetoWasteTimeToWait

Now this idea is purely Buddhist but I wanted to get other viewpoints as well.

I was just standing smoking a cigarette and watching a lightning storm on my balcony. I was watching the mosquitos gather under the lights and knocking into them over and over again. Now there is little the bug can do to gain good karma to help others or free it self from suffering. The light to me is the bug's desire to get back to the light, to the truth and to get out its current state as to not cause more suffering. Essentially commiting suicide. Another option would be to feed it self to another creature, but that would in turn cause bad karma for the other creature in taking life and in turn cause bad karma to the bug for causing that bad karma. Now for a human to do this would be wrong in this train of thought because of the potential for accummulation of good karma, but for lower life forms such as carnivores and others that are almost incapable of acquiring god karma. Would this be the best option?

What option do you refer to? I'm confused...

I don't believe that by gaining good karma, a being can become a greater being in the next life and by gaining bad karma a being will suffer in the next life because:

a) an simple animal (mosquito) doesn't have much decision over what it does. Simple animals just don't have sufficient willpower.

and

b) people can't be held responsible for things they did in previous lives.

To me, Karma is just the law of Cause of Effect naturally embedded into existence. You do something negative, you receive negative consquences, no matter how subtle they are. You do something positive, you gain positive consquences.

[ALifetimeToWaitFor....]

I am ascribing to the Tibeatan philosphy of rebirth I don't what the other traditions have to say, but in the Tibeatan tradition it says that there two kinds of karma. The first being the law of cause and effect. The second being the cycle of rebirth and the freedom of suffering into different plains of suffering. The one is very apparent in our day to day lives, but the second is very ambiguous in the fact that it allows to travel to different channels of life. The plain of the God's, the place of becoming, nirvana, etc. Based on your karma, according to this tradition, and type of karma you either descend into lower life forms or to the various stages of hell or up through the life forms to a higher level on conciousness being the heavens.

To which tradition to you ascribe to or do you draw on mutiple and tell me how they view karma in a relation to rebirth? Or what do you draw from Buddha scripts do you get your information from? If from none are you simply making your own opinions?

[ALifetimeToWaitFor....]

The option would be not to cause suffering and be selfless in a way to promote good karma.

[ChrisP]

Originally Posted by Jensa

The best option IMO would be for the mosquito to just be a mosquito Suck blood, lay eggs, die, move on (or not).

Unfortunately that makes too much sense for most people.

Search Suicide in thread titles and you'll find my views well documented and argued.

[cardero]

Suicide selfish or selfless?
Suicide is a bold testament that one is finished with this physical existence.

[michel]

Originally Posted by TimetoWasteTimeToWait

I am ascribing to the Tibeatan philosphy of rebirth I don't what the other traditions have to say, but in the Tibeatan tradition it says that there two kinds of karma. The first being the law of cause and effect. The second being the cycle of rebirth and the freedom of suffering into different plains of suffering. The one is very apparent in our day to day lives, but the second is very ambiguous in the fact that it allows to travel to different channels of life. The plain of the God's, the place of becoming, nirvana, etc. Based on your karma, according to this tradition, and type of karma you either descend into lower life forms or to the various stages of hell or up through the life forms to a higher level on conciousness being the heavens.

To which tradition to you ascribe to or do you draw on mutiple and tell me how they view karma in a relation to rebirth? Or what do you draw from Buddha scripts do you get your information from? If from none are you simply making your own opinions?

I am going to be (as usual) controversial with this one.

It is a subject about which I know the arguments, because I have been through them.

I believe in reincarnation; I believe that each incarnation has a purpose - to learn part of all that we need to learn, ultimately to become 'Good'.

Suicide, IMO, is a cop out (On the lesson of that incarnation). What that lesson is, goodness knows.

All I know is that I have genuinelly tried to kill myself three or four times. Because I am such a fumbling fool, I have been foiled each time. Strangely enough, on all four occasions, it was pure happenstance that I was found "early enough"; believe me, I ought to have succeeded on each occasion.

Why did I di it ? Because my quality of life is 'zilch'; I know that I can find people who have suffered far more than I, and have had to put up with more pain than I, but that's not the point; I had had enough.

Sure, I believed that by comitting suicide, I was 'enrolling' myself into another lifetime of learning whatever it was I was here to learn. Actually, it has also occurred to me that this life may have been about learning to commit suicide ...I joke, but the thought has crossed my mind.............

On the first two occasions, I wanted to die because I could not stand living. I won't go into the circumstances, but the way I felt must have been pretty awful consuidering I was thinking "I'm going to have to do this all again, because I flunked the exam".

On the last two occasions, the motive was selfless; sure, I couldn't stand life any more than before, but I had other reasons.
My sons were teenagers; my wife was still young and pretty enough to find herself a new 'man' which could give her the opportunity of having a much better quality of life than the one I could offer her.

I was going to die, to give her the opportunity to move on; there were no debts, I had provided for them, but I realised that my life (for those near to me) was pretty depressing. I hate most of the things people like to do; I cannot socialise, hate holidays, and am generally the sort of person you don't want to have around........

O.K, so both these attempts were foiled, and I have had it drummed into me that for me to kill myself would make those around me feel bad (sorrow, guilt, whatever.......); I am not allowed to kill myself, because that is "not done".

I live because I have to..........but, to be frank, there are times when I resent it greatly; especially when I am permanently being told I am not a good husband, and make the lives of those around me less happy than I ought to.