This post is an amateur meditation on two delusions: Buddhist antinatalism, and anti-Buddhist charges of "annihilationism" and "death cult". These may seem quite disparate topics, but it will soon become clear that they spring from similar errors in thinking.
To explain the former: many Western Buddhists seem to take it for granted that, since reproduction continues the cycle of death and rebirth, the reverse must follow: that non-reproduction stymies the cycle of death and rebirth. This is the reason many Western Buddhists take up the antinatalist stance.
As for the latter: anti-Buddhists argue that, since "all life is suffering" (a very slipshod version of the First Noble Truth, dukkha-sacca), a good Buddhist may end suffering, and thus attain "nirvana", by simply committing suicide.
What are death and rebirth?
I get the impression that both these delusions come from a lingering Christian
bias to Western thought. Christians have taught for centuries that
individual lives begin with birth, and therefore that no birth means no
life. This underlies the Christian pro-natalist doctrines and
initiatives; most salient in my own memory is Saint Augustine, who
declared "any woman who does not give birth to as many children as she
is capable is guilty of murder". To the Bishop of Hippo, the Buddha
would rejoin that he need not worry, for birth is as inexorable as death. Conversely, the Christians have taught that death is the end of life (one's experiences in Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven are after life, you see). This likewise underlies the Christian prohibition on suicide. It seems that Christianity has passed both these doctrines down to its opposing schools of thought in the West, and they have been adulterated into the aforemention delusions.
Let us briefly explain the Cycle of Death and Rebirth, saṃsāra. All things—people, animals, plants, angels, demons, rocks, planets, stars, etc—are in material and immaterial continuity. The material continuity is known to us as the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy (nothing can be created ex nihilo and nothing can be destroyed ad nihilo), and the immaterial continuity is known to us as the Law of Karma (all actions have consequences). Buddhists and other dharmists observe that the material and immaterial components of this world's aggregates—again, people, animals, etc—are inexorably bound to dissolve (death, jarāmaraṇa) and later re-assemble into different aggregates (birth, jāti), practically never reforming the same aggregate as before. Therefore "death" describes, not just a body whose heart stops beating, but also the falling of a tree, the smashing of a crystal, the erosion of a mountain, a supernova, etc. Similarly, "rebirth" describes, not just the formation of a fetus inside a womb, but also the sprouting of a tree, the formation of a crystal, the rising of a mountain, the birth of a star, etc.
Let us imagine, then, that the Antinatalist Utopia is established on Earth. All humans, willingly or by force, agree to stop reproducing. After some time, the final generation of man perishes, leaving all the rest of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms to continue on without them. The problem should be immediately obvious, even without understanding death-and-rebirth as explained in the preceding paragraph. All the horses, groupers, sunflowers, E. Coli, etc. will continue to reproduce, and mineral (to say nothing of celestial) bodies will continue to deposit. The mass from all the human corpses will not disappear either—they too shall inexorably disappear into the soil and oceans, fertilizing the continued reproduction of the aforementioned lifeforms. Human karma will likewise remain undestroyed, continuing on in this realm and in the others. Seeing the futility of a fully realized antinatalist political project, it seems all the more futile when one man decides to abstain from reproducing. The mass of his body will dissolve and reappear in other beings, and his karma will likewise continue to manifest in other beings. We may apply a similar logic to those who equate nibbāna, the end of conditioned existence, with suicide, the voluntary dissolution of a particular aggregate.
What prevents death and rebirth?
The possibility of liberation from death and rebirth is confirmed by the Third Noble Truth (nirodha-sacca) and detailed by the Fourth (magga-sacca). The former explains that the cessation of suffering, death, rebirth, etc. is accomplished by the renunciation of craving, taṇhā, while the latter explains how this renunciation is carried out: the Noble Eightfold Path (ariyāṭṭaṅgikamagga). Observe two characteristics of the Path:
- It is ascetic. The Pāli term is tapas, meaning "burn" or "glow hotly", but the point here is that nibbāna can only be reached by vigorous striving. The Buddha explained that a successful ascetic must have viriya, energy, related to the Pāli term vira (hero, man) as well as, more distantly, the Latin vir (man) and virtu (manliness, virtue); this is the quality that led Julius Evola to deem pre-sectarian Buddhism "essentially aristocratic". Obviously, non-reproduction and suicide do not require striving nor manly energy. It might be said that celibacy itself requires some energy, since that involves the renunciation of craving, but it goes without saying, especially today, that one may indulge in lust without producing offspring. As for suicide, most who attempt it do so out of depression, the opposite of vigor or energy. We can see then that it is a great delusion to think that intense asceticism is equivalent to an abstinent couple or a bullet through the brain.
- It is transcendent. One of the folds in the Eightfold Path is Right Contemplation (samadhi). This is quite poorly understood in the West, thanks to the distorted views provided by luxurious meditation centers, recreational yoga classes, and some psychologists (this is not to imply that these institutions have malicious intentions). Buddhist meditational practice, jhāna, quite clearly goes beyond the material realm, to say nothing of the immaterial and even supra-immaterial realms. There are nine contemplations, the first four of which are in the realms of form (rūpa-loka) and the latter of which are in the realms without form (arūpa-jhāna). It is worth reiterating here that to undertake these contemplations requires, again, vigorous striving and energy; it is quite a bit more difficult than merely sitting down and counting one's breaths or listening to white noise. The point here, however, is that this means of attaining liberation sets its sights far beyond the material realm: the realms of infinite space, of infinite consciousness, of infinite void, and of neither-consciousness-nor-unconsciousness are the realms beyond form, for example. To think, then, that antinatalism ceases the cycle of death and rebirth, is to think that all the mass and karma that would have become the antinatalist's children will automatically ascend into these higher realms and become liberated—an obvious absurdity. Likewise, to think that the act of suicide results in "the end of dukkha" would require that a cyanide pill has such magical properties as to launch one straight through the higher jhāna.
Having destroyed the antinatalists and annihilationists with facts and logic, I shall now briefly consider the actual Buddhist ethics regarding antinatalism and suicide.
What of the condom and the noose?
As regards reproduction, it is already clear now that to engage in it does not support the cycle of death and rebirth, any more than to abstain from it stops the cycle. A monk must obviously abstain from child-rearing, first because he is striving to be free of craving and must therefore abstain from sex altogether, and in the second place because he is striving to be free of attachment, and a child (to say nothing of a wife) is obviously a very strong bond. As for lay Buddhists, those who strive to either cause fortunate rebirths or else to attain liberation in ordinary, non-monastic life, child-rearing is not prohibited. A child may be raised to follow the dhamma and thus create more good karma, or he may himself become a monk and pursue liberation as well. Furthermore, a family may be a good environment for the development of benevolence and kindness (metta), a critical trait for liberation.
As regards suicide, the Buddha does not prohibit it like the Christians do, though it is not recommended either. Monks who encourage suicide are to be punished and disrobed, and a monk who commits suicide himself is said to deprive the world of a good teacher. Nevertheless, the Pāli Canon furnishes us with the Godhika Sutta (Saṃyutta Nikāya 4.23), telling us of the eponymous monk who, reaching but failing to sustain tranquility multiple times, commits suicide and thereby attains parinibbāna; the Buddha praises Godhika for having no attachment, not even to life. Unsurprisingly, then, Buddhism provides a middle path, neither blanket-condemning suicide nor recommending it full-throatedly.
Thus conclude my considerations on antinatalism and suicide.
