Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!cca!z
From: z@cca.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: Re: More info
Message-ID: <4893@cca.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-Jun-83 15:40:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: cca.4893
Posted: Thu Jun 16 15:40:07 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Jun-83 00:10:52 EDT
Lines: 15

As a practicing Buddhist for the last eight years, I would like to take
great exception to Alan Wexelblat's article referring to hara-kiri.
Nowhere in any Buddhist sect is it recommended that one commit suicide
under any circumstances.  Instead, Buddhists view suicide as being
equivalent to murder.  All Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and the
effect of committing suicide is just to create far worse conditions for
one's next life.  Instead, it is recommended that an evil person do what
he can in this life to atone for his evil karma and therefore avoid a
miserable rebirth.

This is not to say that hara-kiri was not practiced in Japan for the
reasons described; it is merely to say that those reasons came from
indigenous Japanese culture, not Buddhism.

	Steve Zimmerman