‘Uma left her body today. I am the most unfortunate
father.’ Didn’t make sense. It was one of many text messages, so I
skipped to the next and the next. Once I
had responded to all the messages (after figuring out who had sent each of
them), I returned to this cryptic sms. Took
me a while to understand.
‘Uma’ was ‘Uma Shanthi’, a 9 year old girl I had first
encountered two years before. She
suffered from a rare congenital ailment called Goldenhar Syndrom where victims
suffer muted development in one side of their bodies, head to toe, external and
internal. Uma could not speak. She needed a tube to help her breathe. She couldn’t talk. The only person she was attached to was her
father whose face she would lick quite often; ‘aadaraya pennanne ehemai,’ her father explained that this was how
she expressed affection. Her mother had
left them a long time before. The father
couldn’t afford to sleep much because he feared that she would pull out the
tube. Tough life.
She had died, I understood. I called. The funeral was over, he said.
Two weeks later, he called, seeking an opinion. He wanted to know what I felt about someone
who had no aim in life committing suicide.
I am no counselor but this is what I said (in translation):
‘I subscribe to a Buddhist view of things and
processes. Until the final emancipation,
we are all prisoners of the ata lo dahama
(joy-sorrow, profit-loss, fame-infame, praise-blame), so death is not a
release. Come and see me now.’
So he did and we talked long, about his daughter, about
life.
‘She did not die, for she lives in you in the things she
gave and the things she changed in you.’
‘Yes, and she cannot have gone to a bad place, for she could
never have harboured any ill feeling towards anyone,’ he replied.
Strangely, not too long after that, my brother Arjuna, the
Buddhist scholar in the family, had held forth on ‘suicide’ to my wife
Samadanie. Here’s the gist:
‘The human form is important in comprehending the truth and
working towards emancipation. Suicide
amounts to a rejection of the human form, a rejection of this necessary vessel
to cross the river of sufferance. It is
unlikely that rejection gets rewarded in yet another opportunity and so suicide
could very well result in that individual being forced to take up residence in
another creature form.’
Made sense.
So what constitutes ‘rejection’? Suicide and suicide alone? Perhaps it is all things that have the
potential of causing harm to the body; for example, bad habits that lead to
disease or compromise the smooth functioning of the organs. That line of thinking took me to a line from
the Dhammapada: Arogya parama labha (Good health is the most profitable
thing). And another: Appamado amatha padang (don’t
procrastinate).
My friend, that day, confessed, ‘I’ve wanted to tell you
something and I called several times to do so but each time I cut the line; I
am addicted to heroin.’
‘I know,’ I said and we then talked about
rehabilitation.
‘I don’t know how to thank you, how to repay you’ he said as
he left.
‘Maybe it’s me who is doing the repaying and anyway what’s
all this talk of payment and repayment, we are brothers after all.’
We don’t know way out.
We have to light our own lamps, be our own lamps. We have directions, we have a map, but if we
are not healthy and if we let emotion cloud reason then the chances are we’ll
take a wrong turn and even convince ourselves that we picked wisely.
Talking to Pradeep and listening to my wife recount her
conversation with my brother convinced me that suicide does not make
sense.
Two days ago, an elderly and well-known lady called me and
in the course of the conversation she told me that she felt suicidal.
‘Old age.’
Yesterday the father of a close friend hanged himself. He had been ill. I worry about my father, who is also very
ill. I reflect on the Buddha’s
teachings: birth, decay and death. And I
reflect on the eight-fold path.
Right View and Right Intention (Wisdom); Right Speech, Right
Action and Right Livelihood (Ethical Conduct); Right Effort, Right Mindfulness
and Right Concentration (Mental Development).
I return to the wonderful verse of the Ven. Veedagama Maithriya
Haamuduruwo in the Lo Weda Sangarawa,
‘kumatada kusalata kammeli vane?’ (and why be slothful in the matter of
being virtuous?).
Today is Saturday morning.
I am yet to write the editorial and my weekly political comment for The
Nation. I feel empowered. Thanks to suicide thoughts.
Sabbe Satta Bhavantu
Sukitatta (May all beings be happy).
‘
4 comments:
we muslims are absolutely forbidden suicide...
then what about suicide bombers, you may ask?
that isnt suicide by islamic definition; merely a conveyance of the bomb; what remains totally forbidden is to kill a non combatant..
when you heroically take on impossible odds as did the muslim armies of yore, you are a hero whether you die or survive..not a suicide cadre.
the minimum odds against the early muslim armies 630 CE , was 3:1 ; the max i know of was 35000: 1 million (during conquest of d Persian empire)
I call myself a christian. My religion says that suicide is a sin. I do not believe that. I do not think any religion or philosophy has the right to condemn a person who takes his/her own life, for whatever reason. It would be a completely personal decision;obviously only the person involved would know the outcome.
I read a long time ago that 'suffering only shows us the uselessness of suffering'.
Suicide is the bravest action of a COWARD. When a person commits suicide, it primarily depicts the failure of society and secondarily, the failure of the state.
fame-infame? really? lol
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