This blog has gotten hits from two cryptic google searches: "suicide due to failure karma" and "suicide with least karma". Obviously I have no idea what was on these people's minds, but I'm intrigued enough to reflect and comment.

The most logical interpretation of "suicide due to failure karma" to me is, "what karma is attached to a suicide committed as a result of (some perceived personal) failure?".

And I think "suicide with least karma" might mean, "what kind of suicide has the least karmic effect?".

As always, I strongly disagree with any notion that karma is some moral model. It's not "what goes around comes around". Karma is just about mental imprints in our own consciousness (causes) that perpetuate themselves due to whatever effect they have on us (effects). Any irony or morality attributed to the concept of karma is all human projection.

And my favorite quote regarding karma is, "every moment is a karma creating moment; every moment is a karma manifesting moment". Everything any entity does relates to karma. Just being is karma because just the sensation or idea of being here, experiencing reality through our perceptions, perpetuates and maintains a concept that what we are and experience is reality.

Insects, animals, bacteria, humans – anything that lives in any perceived reality on this planet – perpetuates their own being as a result of karma. As sentient beings, any and every thought and experience is karma, both manifesting and creating.

To break out of the cycle of samsaric existence and the relentless cause and effect of karmic being, i.e. enlightenment, is to fundamentally break any idea or concept of one's being or any being that leads to continued ideas of perceived being or the reality of perceived being.

So regarding "what karma is attached to a suicide committed as a result of some perceived personal failure", I'd say it depends on one's own mental state, which includes "perceived personal failure". Actually, that might be the key karma involved.

No one is in fact a failure. Failure is a personal decision and judgment upon one's life. So as intense an experience as suicide may be, that perceived perception of failure may be very strong karma (or attachment), that can carry over to future existences.

If a person is concerned about karmic effects, I would advise against committing suicide. Karmically, a being would gain far more by confronting those negative issues and dealing with them and understanding them and how they relate towards being.

Regarding "suicide with least karma or least karmic effect", that's interesting to me because I do agree with the notion of greater or lesser karmic effect. Every thought, speech or act has karmic effect, but to lesser or greater degrees.

To that, though, I would state my belief that karma is personal. For any karmic creating moment (meaning all moments), there is a ripple effect, but the most important effect is on oneself. How anyone's actions create a reaction in other people is those other persons' karma.

Karma isn't some objective mechanism that decides between morally good or bad. So a suicide with the least karmic effect is one in which one truly realizes the essence of being, that nothing whatsoever should be clung to.

To the degree a being is attached to perceived reality, one's karma is affected by one's suicide. And very few suicides are committed with a true understanding of reality. Thich Nhat Hanh has argued that monks who have immolated themselves for political/humanitarian causes committed suicide with that true understanding of reality.

They're not martyrs, just examples of realization. They understand that in the ultimate dimension nothing should be clung to, including their own being.

But a strong humanitarian message can be conveyed to alleviate other people's suffering in the physically manifest reality by such an intense act. That sort of selflessness is required for a suicide with little negative karmic effect.

So suicide with the least karmic effect depends on the individual. If there is attachment, there will be varying degrees of karmic effect. If there is some degree of non-attachment, there will be lesser degrees of karma.

And quite honestly, most people contemplating suicide do not have that degree of non-attachment, so if Buddhism is some sort of guide to these people, I say don't do it. Work it out. Make it work.