The Suicide of Saburo Tememori
Reminded me of parallels here (though context may be different):
The Story of Vakkali Thera & 2. Channa Thera
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/suicide.html
Various attempts, for the most part along similar lines, have been made to explain why suicide is prohibited for the unenlightened but permitted for the enlightened. In 1965 Lamotte wrote:
'The desperate person who takes his own life obviously aspires to annihilation: his suicide, instigated by desire, will not omit him from fruition, and he will have to partake of the fruit of his action. In the case of the ordinary man, suicide is a folly and does not achieve the intended aim.'
This situation is compared with the suicide of an enlightened person:
'In contrast, suicide is justified in the persons of the Noble Ones who have already cut off desire and by so doing neutralised their actions by making them incapable of producing further fruit. From the point of view of early Buddhism, suicide is a normal matter in the case of the Noble Ones who, having completed their work, sever their last link with the world and voluntarily pass into Nirvaa.na, thus definitively escaping from the world of rebirths (1965:106f).'
As the title suggests...and those accounts...what do you think?
