What are Buddhist perspectives on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide?
General Reference (not clearly pro or con)
The Dalai Lama, Phd, Spiritual and Political leader of Tibet, was cited by the Agence-France Presse in a Sep. 18, 1996 article titled "Dalai Lama Backs Euthanasia in Exceptional Circumstances" regarding his position on legal euthanasia:
"The Dalai Lama boosted the spirits of supporters of legalised euthanasia here Wednesday, saying mercy killing was permissable in certain exceptional circumstances under Buddhist philosophy...
Asked his view on euthanasia, the Dalai Lama said Buddhists believed every life was precious and none more so than human life, adding: 'I think it's better to avoid it.'
'But at the same time I think with abortion, (which) Buddhism considers an act of killing ... the Buddhist way is to judge the right and wrong or the pros and cons.'
He cited the case of a person in a coma with no possibility of recovery or a woman whose pregnancy threatened her life or that of the child or both where the harm caused by not taking action might be greater.
'These are, I think from the Buddhist viewpoint, exceptional cases,' he said. So it's best to be judged on a case by case basis."
Roy W. Perrett, PhD, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, wrote in an Oct. 1996 article titled "Buddhism, Euthanasia and the Sanctity of Life," published in the Journal of Medical Ethics,:
"Trying to make plausible general descriptive claims about Buddhism's attitudes to euthanasia presents us with a number of difficulties. Firstly, there is the relative paucity of explicit Buddhist discussions of this or other bioethical issues. Accordingly, most of the burgeoning secondary literature in this area is reconstructive or speculative to varying degrees. Secondly, there are many schools of Buddhism and no central authority on matters of precept or practice…
Buddhists (like most bioethicists, secular and religious) probably generally oppose involuntary euthanasia. But there are Buddhist traditions sympathetic to both voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia, under certain conditions.
Since voluntary euthanasia often amounts to assisted suicide, it is important to recognise that Buddhist attitudes to suicide have always been much less harsh than Christian ones. Suicide from despair has been seen in Buddhism as a prudential error since, given their unresolved karma, suicides will just be reborn in situations similar to those they were seeking to escape from."
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) wrote in the Religion & Ethics portion of its website, in its section on "Religions" under the topic heading of "Euthanasia" (accessed May 11, 2007):
"Buddhists are not unanimous in their view of euthanasia, and the teachings of the Buddha don't explicitly deal with it.
Most Buddhists (like almost everyone else) are against involuntary euthanasia. Their position on voluntary euthanasia is less clear...
The most common position is that voluntary euthanasia is wrong, because it demonstrates that one's mind is in a bad state and that one has allowed physical suffering to cause mental suffering. Meditation and the proper use of pain killing drugs should enable a person to attain a state where they are not in mental pain, and so no longer contemplate euthanasia or suicide.
Buddhists might also argue that helping to end someone's life is likely to put the helper into a bad mental state, and this too should be avoided.
Avoiding Harm
Buddhism places great stress on non-harm, and on avoiding the ending of life. The reference is to life - any life - so the intentional ending of life seems against Buddhist teaching and voluntary euthanasia should be forbidden…
Euthanasia as Suicide
Another difficulty comes if we look at voluntary euthanasia as a form of suicide.
The Buddha himself showed tolerance of suicide by monks in two cases. The Japanese Buddhist tradition includes many stories of suicide by monks, and suicide was used as a political weapon by Buddhist monks during the Vietnam war.
But these were monks, and that makes a difference. In Buddhism, the way life ends has a profound impact on the way the new life will begin.
So a person's state of mind at the time of death is important - their thoughts should be selfless and enlightened, free of anger, hate or fear. This suggests that suicide (and so euthanasia) is only approved for people who have achieved enlightenment and that the rest of us should avoid it."
Religionfacts.com, an educational website focused on the world's religions, wrote the following in a Nov. 9, 2005 article titled "Euthanasia and Buddhism":
"Worthy of mention in the context of euthanasia and suicide is the samurai tradition of seppuku, a form of ritual suicide. Most samurais were Zen Buddhists, and their general philosophy was one in which length of life was regarded as far less important than honor. Seppuku was practiced by samurai 'to avoid the dishonour of capture, show loyalty to one's lord by following him into death, protest against some policy of a superior, or atone for failure.' Involuntary seppuku was also the means of capital punishment for the Samurai class.
To commit seppuku, the samurai would first quiet his mind, then slit his stomach open from right to left with a ritual knife. This violent method served to demonstrate the samurai's strength and courage, but would lead to a long, painful death. Thus the ritual seppuku usually included a second samurai, an attendant, who would mercifully behead the one practicing seppuku shortly after he had slit open his own stomach (or sometimes even as he reached for the knife). Not only the merciful actions of the second samurai, but the practice of seppuku itself has been compared to the modern-day practice of euthanasia...
Another significant case of self-killing in Buddhism occurred in 1960s Vietnam. On June 11, 1963, in response to the anti-Buddhist practices of the Catholic government, an aged Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc got out of a car in the middle of a Saigon street, assumed the lotus position, poured gasoline over himself, and lit himself on fire. Witnesses report that he never moved or made a sound. Meanwhile, monks and nuns handed out pamphlets calling for the government to treat all religions with charity and compassion. Several other monks also burned themselves to death shortly after this event."
