Thoughts of Suicide

It is mentioned in the texts that there are evil beings who influence a person to fight and quarrel ignorantly and mindlessly. These beings shoot the five arrows of delusion, which also distract people.

1. The first arrow of delusion causes a practitioner to make mistakes, which causes him or her to quarrel with others.

2. The second arrow of delusion is distraction; an example is instead of practicing Dharma, it influences the mind to be distracted in drowsiness and sleep, also by the pleasures of this life, maybe food, sex, and so forth—this life's comforts and sense pleasures.

3. The third arrow of delusion interferes with the practitioner’s mind by making him or her extremely attached, for example, to sexual pleasures. Even devas manifest as a woman or man and make the practitioner manifest desire and lose the drop. It infects the mind to remember eating, drinking, dancing, singing, and attachment to those things, also to family members and friends, and it makes you delay your Dharma practice.

These black beings influence like that, by shooting the arrows of delusions in so many ways to make you abandon the celibate life and make your life impure and stained. Also, when maras influence the nagas and evil harm-doers, it can result in taking the life of a practitioner or giving harm to the body, causing sickness, and causing obstacles to arise to the practitioner’s meditation, such as ugly or terrifying forms appearing, uninteresting sounds, or distracting sounds. With so many things and in so many ways they try to distract the meditator to make him or her lose their meditation.

Sometimes the maras can manifest as Buddha to interfere with the practitioner. They can manifest in Buddha's form and harm the person by causing the person to feel pride in his or her mind.

4. The fourth arrow of delusion is changing the cognition of the object, changing the idea of the object. For example, maras influence the mind to think that something which has a suffering nature is pleasure, so that it becomes a basis for the mind to be attached.

Before, the person had no idea that this was a nice object, then suddenly the thought arises and changes toward the object. It can also change the cognition regarding reincarnation, karma, liberation, or the path to enlightenment. The person’s thinking changes, thinking that there is no such thing, no karma, no liberation, no path, etc.

Suicide is a result of the negative karma from criticizing people. Previously created negative karma ripens on the base of that negative karma, then these maras influence your mind and make the thought of suicide arise. It is not your own thought, somebody else influences it. It is harm to you by these maras based on your negative karma.

For example, when I went on the second pilgrimage that I made in Tibet, when we went to the Nepalese border, we were passing in front of a big mountain and it was snowing. There were two trucks before us. One went off the road, then the next one went off the road, then our truck also went off the road. The drivers were not drunk. Western cultures that do not accept spirits may find this interesting, as the drivers were not the cause, and it was not that they didn't know how to drive.

Some cars that came after us could not drive through, so we had to pull them through. We fastened a belt between the cars. There was a powerful spirit there that was harming and influencing the drivers’ minds. Then the driver has no control. That is why even though it was a wide road, everyone slipped off the road. It was not just one car. When it happened in our car, a few people were OK, Geshe Lama Konchog and myself were OK, but some people suddenly got sick, had headaches, their eyes went crooked, and their faces changed. With one student, a Tibetan nun, her face changed suddenly and her eyes crossed. Many people in the car at the same time got sick. Then I tried to put my protection on them and make a prayer, but it only lasted a short time.

It is common when you are traveling in certain places for cars to go off the road. In some places there are mischievous spirits who try to harm. There are certain spots where many accidents happen. There is a place in Tibet between Phagri and Domo, with a monastery called Pema Choeling; it is a branch of Domo Geshe's monastery. It is a very beautiful monastery, which has many animals and nomads. It has plenty of cheese, butter, and dry meat in the shrine room. Usually, in a Tibetan monastery, above the gompa in front there is a big row of statues, but in this one there are shelves filled with big circles of butter. In the outside area, in the kitchen, on table tops, and outside the door there are clay pots filled up with curd. In the middle there is very nice green yard and water. On the other side of that there is a main road going to Domo, Sikkim, and India. In this place is a protector called Namka Barzin. In his past life he was a Mongolian geshe who died with anger. Then he was born as a spirit, and that spirit is situated on that hill. There is a stone house for the spirit, as a place to stay.

In the past, when I was in Tibet, anybody who came by that place on a horse had to get off, otherwise the horse became disturbed and the person might be injured or blood might come out of his or her mouth. In the beginning, this even happened with the Chinese. Because it often happened, some people knew they had to get off their horse because the spirit disturbs the horse and then the person falls down and vomits blood. People who know the story don't ride their horses there, they get down and walk for a minute, and then after that it is OK. That is also due to people’s negative karma—it ripens. It can also influence a pilot’s mind in an airplane; it can make them fly in the wrong direction and then have an accident.

The essence, the conclusion, is, when the thought comes to harm oneself or harm others, you should think: “This is my mind.” You should remember that this is thinking influenced by others, who are trying to harm you, and therefore not follow these thoughts influenced by them. Otherwise, there is a risk of harm to yourself, to end your most precious human rebirth, through which one can achieve all happiness, whatever one wishes, the happiness of future lives, liberation, and enlightenment.

Not only does it destroy one’s happiness, up to enlightenment, it also makes one stop causing happiness in this life for others, also prevents causing others’ happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara, and the ultimate happiness: full enlightenment. That means it harms all sentient beings because it destroys the human body, which has all the opportunities to benefit others.