This could be compared with the baptism or christening of a child into the Christian or Catholic faith. A local vicar told me “Baptism is not to be regarded merely as a ceremony devised for the Christian naming of infants. It is a sacrament, in which the children are brought publicly to be Baptised, and to be received into the Church of Christ; and in which they are brought into the Spiritual Presence of God, in order that they may receive His Holy Blessing. It is a service of consecration and dedication, of faith and thanksgiving and worship of God”. From this we can see that in many religions the act of bringing a child into the world and naming the child is very important and similar. Both ceremonies symbolise the child being accepted into the religious community and naming the child under Gods eyes.
The next major right of passage is for Jews a Bar or Bat Mitzvah which can be compared to a confirmation as they both symbolise a child becoming an adult in Gods eyes, and showing they are ready to take responsibility for their actions. It could also be said the equivalent of this for Buddhists is entering into the monasteries, although a more server way to show your faith, many children enter in to the monasteries at young ages to train to become monks.
Bar/Bat Mitzvah means Son/Daughter of the commandments and these services take place when the child is 13 years old for a boy and 12 years old for a girl. At this point the children are not obliged to observe the commandments, but they are encouraged to, to learn the obligations they will have as adults. This service gives them the right to take part in leading religious service, to count in a minyan, to form binding contracts, to testify in a religious court and to marry (although they still like the child to be 18 or older to marry). The Bar/Bat Mitzvah is the celebrants first aliyah. It takes place during the Shabbat service after the child’s birthday. The celebrant is called up to the Torah to recite a blessing over the weekly portion. It is common for the celebrant to learn the entire haftarah portion, including traditional chant, and recite that. They read the entire weekly torah portion, or lead part of the service, or lead the congregation in certain important prayers. They will then make a speech saying “today I am a man/woman” and the father thanks God for removing the burden of being responsible for their son’s/daughter’s sins.
As I said one of the most important things in the life of a Buddhist would be to become a monk. Becoming a Buddhist monk dates back thousands of years and the service itself is very similar. First ill tell you the history behind the ordinations. The Buddha ordained the first monks himself, granting permission for them to leave their homes and join the order. Ordination was by a simple command to come and hear the dharma and make an end to anguish. As monks began to travel the country they ordained suitable candidates by shaving the candidates head, the wearing of the distinctive yellow robe, and by hearing a declaration of the Three Jewels of Buddhism. The Buddha encouraged would-be initiates to leave their homes and traditional Brahmanic roles in order to devote their future lives to the search of personal truth. They would henceforth live within the protective community of the Sangha, rather than the household, and would forsake their former religious rituals and family expectations.
Now the candidate for ordination has his head and beard shaved off, during which time he should meditate upon his departing hair as a lesson in impermanence and humility. He is bathed with water as a symbol of purification, and has the requirements of his monastic life prepared, such as robe, bowl, sandals, umbrella. These are usually donated by the family. If the ordination is to full monkhood, the candidate will have previously been examined in his knowledge of the Buddha’s teachings and the monastic rules. The ordination requires the presence of at least five monks of good standing, and takes place within the sima (boundaries of the monastery), marked out in a special ceremony. The candidate is usually presented for ordination by his tutor as sponsor. He kneels in front of the presiding monk wearing the white of a layman and carrying his yellow robe. He asks permission to wear the yellow robe and become ordained. His alms bowl is solemnly strapped to his back and he is examined on certain traditional points as to his suitability to join the order.
I wish to look at the sanctity of life and how this effected by suicide and euthanasia. Although suicide is condemned wrong in most religions, must we believe that those who have taken their own lives suffer the eternal punishment of God? Nothing in the scriptures drives us to this conclusion, in fact there are seven or so suicides reported in the scriptures, none of which seem to be condemned by God. Most familiar are Saul, Samson and Judas. Saul committed suicide to avoid dishonour and suffering at the hands of the Philisteins. He is rewarded by the Israelites with a war hero’s burial, there being no apparent disapproval of his suicide (1 Sam. 31:1-6). And while there is no hero’s burial for Judas Iscariot (Matt. 27:5-7), scripture is once more silent on the morality of this suicide of remorse.
Lets look at Samson’s suicide, this has posed a grater problem for Christian theologians. Both Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas wrestled with the case and concluded that Samson’s suicide was justified as an act of obedience to a direct command of God. Saint Augustine was the most prominent and influential opponent of suicide. Early church synods declared that bequests from those who committed suicide ought not to be accepted, and throughout the medieval period, proper Christian burial was refused to those who committed suicide. Saint Thomas Aquinas believed that suicide was a mortal sin. Dante placed those who committed suicide in the seventh circle of the inferno. Luther and Calvin, despite their abhorrence of suicide do not suggest that it is an unpardonable sin. John Calvin is perhaps the most helpful on the issue, concluding that blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is the only unpardonable sin (Matt. 12:31), and suicide need not be viewed as blasphemy. The view that suicide is unforgivable seems to lie in the medieval church and its distinction between mortal and venial sins.
We must understand suicide as free and uncoerced actions engaged in for the purpose of bringing about one’s own death. It is easy to grasp the church’s clear teaching throughout the centuries that suicide is morally wrong and ought never to be considered by a Christian. Life is a gift from God. To take one’s own life is to show insufficient gratitude. Our lives belong to God, we are but stewards. Suicide, the church has taught, is ordinarily a rejection of the goodness of God, and it can never be right to reject God’s goodness. But these questions need to be answered first to decide whether or not the suicide was meant as a rejection of God. “Did the individual aim at removing himself from God’s goodness by suicide? Was this an act of suicide directly aimed at saying no to God? Or was it rather a tragically misguided attempt at saying yes to God? Every suicide is not a rejection of God’s goodness, Indeed, in many cases suicide is mistakenly chosen to bring one nearer to God. We cannot say that such a motive for suicide is correct. Nor can we say that a person who makes this tragic mistake has removed herself forever from the grace of God.
Buddhist have the same kind of view. To take ones own life is wrong because killing yourself causes suffering to yourself and others therefore continuing the causal chain of suffering. Which will mean rebirth into the next life in a lower realm than this, which is counterproductive in their mission to evolve to enlightenment and final nirvana.
Next I will focus on euthanasia, I would like to state that the majority of my facts on this subject have come from a lecture given by Lawrence. M. Hinman in a university in America. Although the facts are based on American statistics it is still shocking to see, for instance 85% of Americans die in some kind of health-care facility, and of this group 70% choose to withhold some kind of life-sustaining treatment, this could be classed as a form of passive euthanasia. What’s scary is that this is actually 60% of the whole American population.
Euthanasia means “a good death” or “dying well” but what is a good death? People have said a good death is peaceful, painless, lucid and with loved ones gathered around. But the argument against passive euthanasia is that does passive euthanasia sometimes cause more suffering? By withholding life-sustaining it sometimes means that pain relief is withheld, cause pain not only to the patient but also the family, this would go against utilitarian ethics idea of the “greatest good for the greatest number”. Although in the long rung this may be different because the pain caused at the start may be outweighed by the end of long term suffering for the patient and the end to seeing a loved one suffering for the family.
The main question that we must ask ourselves is what is the Sanctity of life? Christians say life is a gift from God and life is “priceless”. And also that we must respect our lives and not cause unnecessary pain or suffering. In this argument there are a number of other questions which can only be answered by personal opinion. Do we have a right to die? Do we own our own bodies and our lives? If we do own our own bodies, does that give us the right to do whatever we want with them? Isn’t it cruel to let people suffer pointlessly?
Ethically we can look at this from two main model points of view, a utilitarian model, which emphasizes consequences or a Kantian model, which emphasizes autonomy, rights and respect. If looking from a utilitarian point of view there are four main points brought up. Morality is a matter of consequence, we must count the consequences for everyone, everyone’s suffering counts equally and we must always act in a way that produces the greatest overall good consequences and least overall bad consequences. If we go back to the question what is a good death? Jeremy Bentham is a hedonic utilitarian and answers this by saying a good death is a painless death. John Stuart Mill on the other hand is a eudaimonistic utilitarian and says a good death is a happy death.
A Kantian model states that people cannot be treated like mere things and the key notions lie in autonomy and dignity, respect and rights. Kant felt that human beings were distinctive, they have the ability to reason and the ability to decide on the basis of that reasoning and autonomy for Kant is the ability to impose reason freely on oneself. So taking this into consideration it could be said that if you have reasonably thought about euthanasia and come to the conclusion that it is the best option for you then it is. Kantians emphasize the importance of a patient’s right to decide. Utilitarians look only at consequences. Human beings have the ability to make up their own minds in accord with the dictates of reason, they have certain rights and we have a duty to respect that right. To some up, many of the ethical disagreements about end-of-life decisions can be seen as resulting from different ethical frameworks, especially Kantian and utilitarian.
