* * * * * sensitive subject matter | reader discretion advised * * * * *
Part I:
Lion’s Roar | Brad Warner | Why I Didn’t Attempt Suicide | June 15th 2018
Brad Warner on the time he considered suicide – and the different kind of death he chose.
I didn’t really know Tyler, but a lot of my friends did. And they were pretty sad when he killed himself last year.
That led people to ask me – not for the first time – the Buddhist view on suicide. I gave the same answer I give when I’m asked about the Buddhist view on abortion; I don’t really know. That says a lot about Buddhism. Imagine a person who had studied and practiced Catholicism for nearly thirty years, not knowing what the Church’s position on suicide or abortion. It just wouldn’t happen, because these are very hot issues for Catholics. That I don’t have a ready answer to the question tells you that these are not hot issues for Buddhists in the Zen tradition.
The very prominent suicides by self-immolation that have been carried out by certain Buddhists in Vietnam, Tibet, and elsewhere, have led some people to the conclusion that Buddhism sees suicide as a noble act. This isn’t true. Suicide is generally frowned upon by Buddhists as something to be avoided, because it tends to lead to a less auspicious rebirth. It’s not believed that one is condemned to hell forever for killing oneself, the way the Catholic tradition has it, but one is setting up conditions that will make one’s next birth more difficult than the life one chooses to end prematurely, because committing suicide causes so much pain and suffering to those who know and love the person who commits the act.
I take all that stuff about rebirth with a grain of salt. Even if we really do get reborn after we die, how can anyone say what sort of next life a person is likely to have, knowing only the fact that the person killed himself. There’s a lot more to any individual’s life than just how it ends. For those who believe in rebirth, the entirety of the person’s life determines how he or she will be reborn, not just the last thing the person does.
When dealing with someone’s suicide, vague speculation about rebirth doesn’t really help. It’s a way to avoid the real question, what do we do when faced with the fact that someone we cared about has killed himself. No one ever knows the right thing to do or say when something like this happens. It’s more important just to be supportive. Discussing what sort of next life the person is likely to have isn’t supportive.
If you had asked me before that spring day in 1992, I would have told you it was absolutely impossible for me to do any of the things I’ve done since that day.
I came precariously close to killing myself one sunny day in the spring of 1992. My life was shit. I was living in a decrepit punk rock house in Akron, Ohio. My girlfriend had dumped me. I had no money, no skills, no prospects. I’d released five records on an indie label that had gotten some good press but gone nowhere in terms of sales. My dreams of making a living as a songwriter and musician were obviously never going to come true. I felt like all I had to look forward to was eking out a meager existence in the muddy Midwest.
I put a bunch of rope in the trunk of my car and drove out to the Gorge Metro Park, just down the street from where I lived. My plan was to carry that rope out as far away from people as I could, find a sturdy tree, and do the deed.
But when I stepped out of my car I saw some kids playing in the field right near the parking lot. I realized that I could never find a spot far enough off the path where there wasn’t some chance a little kid out for a hike, or a young couple looking for a make-out spot, or an old man with a picnic basket and a picture of his late wife, might find me. Then I thought about my mom and how bummed out she’d be if I killed myself. And I thought about Iggy, a friend who’d killed himself about ten years earlier, and how I was still not over that. I put the rope back in the trunk and went home.
That day changed me forever. I decided to live. But I also decided that I was no longer bound to anything that came before that day. I decided that conceptually I had killed myself. Now I could do anything – absolutely anything at all.
All the greatest things that have happened to me in my life have happened since that day. Things have been so incredible since then, that I sometimes wonder if I’m the main character in some weird, existentialist movie, and that there’ll be a twist ending in which the audience will realize that I really did kill myself that day.
If you’re contemplating suicide, my advice is, go ahead and kill yourself. But don’t do it with a rope, or a gun, or a knife, or a handful of pills. Don’t do it by destroying your body. Do it by cutting off your former life and going in a completely new direction. I know that’s not easy. I know it might even seem impossible. If you had asked me before that spring day in 1992, I would have told you that it was absolutely impossible for me to do any of the things I’ve done since that day. It took a lot of very hard effort before things started to change even a little bit. But when they did, they really did.
Maybe that’s not where you’re at, though. Maybe you’re just stuck there trying to figure out how to respond to the news that someone you cared about decided to end her own life. Maybe you just want an explanation. Maybe you just want things to be like they were before. Maybe you wish you had done something different, said something different, been somewhere where you could have prevented the act of suicide.
You’re not alone. Everyone who has ever known someone who killed themselves had the same questions and second-guessed themselves the same way. But know that those are just thoughts. They don’t necessarily mean much. The human brain likes to organize things. It tries its best to make sense of whatever it encounters. But some things just don’t make sense. We don’t like that; but it’s the truth.
It’s hard to let go of these kinds of thoughts. But it’s the only way to deal with them. They don’t lead anywhere. They don’t help. Letting go is easier said than done. If you find that you can’t let go even though you want to, then just let go of letting go. Accept the fact that you can’t let go as it is and do something else, anyway. Whatever you do is probably fine. See a movie, take a walk, watch the ducks, go to work. Decide to live, and you can do anything – absolutely – anything at all.
Part II: koan
The ninth-century Chinese Buddhist monk, Linji Yixuan, told his disciples, “if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha.”
Commentary: one should reveal Buddha nature that resides within (the self), rather than seek an external Buddha for liberation. The idea of killing the Buddha is a reminder that enlightenment does not exist outside the self. Each person has its own inherent Buddha nature; a person sits meditation, in part, not to obtain Buddha nature, but rather, to allow Buddha nature to be revealed (on its own).
One of the sixteen Buddhist precepts is that a disciple of Buddha does not harm or kill, but rather, cultivates life. In this case, we don’t “kill the Buddha” but rather, “kill” the idea that enlightenment is external to the self. In a similar manner, Brad Warner suggests, don’t “kill the body” but rather, “kill” one’s former life and pursue a new direction. This certainly, was one of the intentions for me to step away from being CFO three years ago. The experience, however, has not un-folded as anticipated; doubt that I am any more content.
Part III:
Sometimes asked if I still meditate, without the stress of being CFO; yes I do. Like diet and exercise, meditation is part of my life; meditate likely out of need, or desperation. The thing about meditation, is that a person has to do the work; a person has to do the practice; it’s not something that a person may buy on-line.
After waking each morning, meditate for thirty to sixty minutes; recite the Heart Sutra (emptiness teaching), followed by three to nine prostrations. Recite the meal chant and gratitude practice before eating. In the evening, recite the refuges and three prostrations. Would like to perform 108 prostrations, consistent with the monthly full moon ceremony.
In 2011, visited India for a month on 30-day rail pass. Learned about Gandhi before departing. He used to meditate an hour each morning. One day, Gandhi’s attendant suggested that it was a busy schedule, and there would be no time for meditation. Gandhi responded, since it is a very busy day, then I should meditate two hours.
Recall this anecdote, because as I travel Mexico, it’s clear that my mind is agitated. One value of meditation, is that it allows time for thoughts to settle, to return to the breath, like turbid water settling in a pond. Likely, I should be meditating more, not less.
Five years ago, shared a dharma talk at Houston Zen Center about suicide. Five years later, surprised that I’m still wrestling with this demon; the shit storm raging in my head. Abiding in dysthymia [NB: dysthymia is chronic, low-grade depression; sometimes referred to as functional depression], self-hatred, and suicide ideation. Perhaps, in time, it’s possible to make friends with dysthymia, self-hatred, and suicide ideation, like making friends with a schoolyard bully.
Hatred destroys the vessel in which it is contained.
Destroys you. Kills your soul. Leaves you lifeless. Damaged goods.
Recall studying Thoreau in high school and university; he suggested that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Maybe this isn’t true; maybe this only applies to me, and perhaps, a few others.
Would it be better if I get a job, appear “busy,” and satisfy society’s norms and expectations. Return to a mind-numbing routine, without the time or energy for “mental masturbation.” But maybe this is what I’m supposed to be doing; maybe I am where I am supposed to be. “Sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, we find ourselves.” Life repeats the lesson until the lesson is learned. in Zen Buddhism, obstacles and hindrances don’t block the path; obstacles and hindrances are the path. Shunryu Suzuki, founder of San Francisco Zen Center, suggested, “the difficulties that you experience…will continue…for the rest of your life.”
Over the past two decades, recognize that I hit a new bottom, a new low, each time that I “cycle.” Often surprised to keep crashing through to another layer below, scaling the depths of hell, like a “bad” action movie. When will it end; maybe never. Can’t run away, can’t escape, can’t outrun. None of this is neither good nor bad; face reality head-on.
There is an LGBTQ campaign suggesting that “it gets better.” But, maybe it doesn’t.
Do I make peace. Do I find equanimity. Do I accept reality. Do I stop resisting dysthymia, self-hatred, and suicide ideation. It is David Brooks who suggests that people don’t emerge healed from suffering, but rather, people emerge different from suffering.
Would like to put down the heavy backpack; the burden of self-hatred and suicide ideation. How does a person let go of letting go.
When going through hell, don’t stop (Winston Churchill).
Part IV: poem
In 1996, I was in the Marine Corps, and transferred to Okinawa Japan. My twin brother, Brett, introduced me to Raymond Carver, with a collection of short stories, Where I’m Calling From. Carver is credited with revitalizing the American short story. The poem below, titled, Late Fragment, is from Carver’s last published work, A New Path to the Waterfall.
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
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