Tuesday, June 26, 2012
When this question came up, the dilemma was clear. OK, killing is bad, killing a monk is really bad, but what about a monk committing suicide? This was tricky ground. The obvious answer was that this was not good behavior. Perhaps setting yourself on fire as a protest was a bit better, than for no reason at all, but still not in alignment with the 5 precepts.
Related to monks setting themselves on fire, there was a video narrated by a professor in which he described a monk who was in such a deep meditation he set himself on fire in the half-lotus position and held the position until he keeled over dead 3 minutes later. Great visual?! The explanation behind this amazing feat, was that he did not see himself as “being on fire”, so much as he had “become the fire.” It was disturbing and fascinating at the same time.