When I started looking into it, I was shocked to find out that overall, suicide ranks as the eighth leading cause of death in the U. S.: 30,000 Americans die by their own hands every year. (By comparison, some18,000 die from homicide annually.) Teen suicide rates in the U. S. have tripled since 1970.

    Disturbingly, according to the World Health Organization, worldwide suicide statistics indicate an upward trend as well. Since so many people are suffering from suicidal ideas -- with suicide bombers becoming horrifically commonplace -- I wanted to examine the phenomena of suicide, and particularly adolescent suicide, from the perspective of a Western Buddhist.

   My novel, "The All Souls' Waiting Room" is autobiographical -- with a healthy layer of fantasy folded in -- but basically gives an accurate depiction of my long-ago teenage despair. There were many reasons behind my first attempt at suicide, the most immediate of which were failing an important test, the rejection of a boy I liked, feeling unattractive, unlovable, and unwanted.

    When I was a teenager, unbeknownst to me, I had all the known risk factors for suicide: my parents were divorced, I had experienced early childhood abuse, lived with an alcoholic single parent, and had literally no family network. I was isolated from my peers, got into substance abuse, we were pretty poor, you name it, I had it going against me. Moreover, I grew up in New York City during the Cold War of the 1950's, not exactly a time of peace and light. On top of it all, my mother belonged to a group of unconventional free-thinkers who were persecuted for their beliefs during the witch-hunt years of the McCarthy era.

     I was also, however -- and I have a theory that this holds true for many suicidal people, particularly adolescents -- highly intelligent, creative and idealistic. In my case, it was a combination of stressors that put me over the edge: feelings of personal failure, rejection, and depression.

     Luckily, I didn't succeed in killing myself, even after two attempts. (About a third of all suicide victims have made a previous attempt to take their own lives.) There are thousands of deaths from teen suicides yearly in the U. S.; different sources give the totals between 4,000 and 10,000.

    Whatever the number, it is too many.

    Some of the reasons given for the increased youthful suicide rates are family splintering, more drug and alcohol abuse, access to guns, and increased competition at earlier ages. These are some of the specifics, but I would add a few more: environmental degradation, overpopulation, the daily news and a deepening sense of despair about the future.

    While these are undeniably dark times, they are potentially the most fulfilling as well.

    It is ironic that at the same time external conditions seem to be worsening, there is also, partly because of the pressure to transform, more hope than at any other time in our collective human history.

Ancient paradigms about the meaning and purpose of human existence, shunted aside in our rush to modernism, are once again coming to the fore.

    From a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, the 12th century Indian mystic-saint Guru Padmasambhava, predicted that in the time of Kali Yuga [i.e., the present] the dharma, or teachings of the Buddha, would spread everywhere to help suffering beings.

    And no one needs to convert to Buddhism, by the way, to benefit from its wisdom. You can be a good Christian, a good Jew, a good Hindu, or a good Muslim; Buddhist teachings can be helpful to anyone, of whatever faith, anywhere in the world. That's why I've chosen the Web to publish this essay. It seems in keeping with Padmasambhava's prophecy, modern technology coupled with ancient wisdom and compassion.

    To my mind, the relatively recent increase in the adolescent suicide rate is particularly alarming. With everything in the world to live for, why are more and more young people choosing to check out? Is there any relationship between the glorification of violence in our mass culture and self-murder, or violence turned in on itself?

    Too many young, bright, and sensitive people apparently feel as if there is nothing to live for, no way to make a meaningful life in a world that seems to value war over peace, competition over cooperation, triviality over substance.

    And yet suicide is never a viable option for opting out of life's inevitable pain and suffering. In Buddhist terms, it just gets you out of the frying pan and into the fire.

    Young people who even think about, much less attempt suicide are the canaries in the coal mine of our materialistic, militaristic, nihilistic mass culture. A healthy society would not have so many young people -- at younger and younger ages -- trying to kill themselves.

    National Suicide Awareness Week is in early May. Will America hear the cries of those caught up in the deadly scourge of suicide? Suicidal children are saying we're on the wrong track. We can deny or repress the message, but that won't change the situation. We need a new perspective, new answers.

    Most Westerners know that suicide is considered a mortal sin in Judeo-Christian terms. Buddhism has no concept of sin, but it does have one of negative karma -- something that we have control over creating or not.

    Suicide, assisted suicide and euthanasia are all topics explored by Peter Harvey in his excellent book "Introduction to Buddhist Ethics," but I will confine myself mostly to a discussion of suicide, particularly as it relates to young people, since this is my area of special concern and first-hand experience.

    According to Harvey, it's important to understand that Buddhism is both "pro-life and against attempts to legislate individual morality." This means we don't make decisions for others, or judge them for what they do. However, there are certain things a Buddhist will take as given, since the Buddha's followers generally believe in karma and rebirth.

    Karma, simply put, means "action." Positive results follow from positive actions, negative results follow from negative actions. This is virtually the same as the Biblical injunction, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

    Rebirth means that our consciousness continues after death, taking form in other lives.

     Thus, says Harvey, "while death means an end to the physical body, it does not mean an end to the mental continuum." This is both good and bad news. (One of my esteemed Tibetan Buddhist teachers, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, said more than once, "Unfortunately, there is no death.")

    The potentially good news is we don't die in the total oblivion, lights-out sense. The potentially bad news is that "whatever habits and traits one has cultivated, both positive and negative, will 'spill over' into another life."

    While this is rather sobering, there is another Buddhist encomium that can be even more so, especially for Westerners.

    "We don't necessarily gain rebirth as a human being after we die; having two human incarnations in a row is said to be very rare." The human is only one of six realms (the other five are hell realms, hungry ghost, animal, jealous god, and god realms).

    Our human realm, even with all its faults and foibles, is unquestionably the most favorable for spiritual development because it alone has the right mixture of suffering (for motivation) and freedom to act on this inspiration. This is why the term "precious human rebirth" is used. The other realms don't have the right "mix."

    But --another proviso -- not even all human rebirths have the necessary ingredients to be considered "precious." One needs incredible amounts of positive karma to be able to follow the path to liberation. If you have the chance and you blow it, well . . . it's analogous to landing on a jewel-encrusted island and leaving empty-handed.

    Thus, "by not caring for, or killing one's own body, one acquires negative karma," Harvey writes. (I would just interject here that there's a saying in Buddhism that the only good thing about negative karma is that it can be purified.) "Learning to have compassion and loving-kindness for oneself, overcoming ill-will (associated with a craving for annihilation) to aspects of one's existence" is a major part of the path.

    Everybody dies. Yet how we die can determine a lot about our future lives. The ideal Buddhist death is "to die without anxiety regarding those one leaves behind and in a conscious state which is calm and uplifted" -- rarely the case with suicides. One must learn one's lessons and live out the karma of this particular life; a self-enforced death cuts short the process. Dying gives us "the opportunity for reflection, so as to see clearly the error of attachment to anything which is impermanent, be it the body, other people, possessions, or worldly achievement."

    From a Buddhist perspective, the meaning of life is to become enlightened, so that one can then be of ultimate benefit to all sentient beings. This is not possible without a body as a vehicle, therefore the body is precious, because it will bring one to the highest happiness: freedom from suffering.

    Also, destroying the body negates the possible good we could do for others. Harvey adds that "as suicide is sure to bring grief to friends and relatives, on that basis alone it should be avoided." This is because it breaches the first precept, that of non-harming. (The five precepts of Buddhism, the basis for a happy life, are non-harming, not stealing, not lying, no sexual misconduct, and no intoxication.)  This last is especially important in that it clouds the mind.

    [Sign seen at a hot springs in Utah:  "You're not rebelling by

getting drunk, that's just the way they want you."]

    Japanese Theravada Buddhist Taniguchi states it quite bluntly: "If one chooses to die...one must be motivated by aggression towards one's state of suffering, or be passionately attached to pleasant states, or be deluded that death is a way to avoid suffering." [Italics mine.]

    Peter Harvey adds, "While Buddhism emphasizes that there is much dukkha [suffering or dissatisfaction] in life, this can, paradoxically, help dissuade a Buddhist [or others, I would argue] from giving in to despair. If dukkha is to be expected in life, then there is less reason to take particular problems so personally . . . "

    I know this was one of my problems when I was an anguished teenager, long before I encountered the Four Noble Truths (the truth of suffering; the truth of the cause of suffering; the truth of the cessation of suffering; the truth of the path [to the cessation of suffering] .)

    While it was clear to me that life was suffering in one form or another, I thought my suffering was my fault, that I had somehow brought it on by my own behavior. Since I didn't see how I could change anything, I thought suicide was the only way out. However, in Ven. Thrangu Rinpoche's words, "Once one is aware of how suffering takes place, then one can begin to remove the causes of suffering."

    Life isn't perfect, nothing is, but no matter what we think, no matter what our situation, it is livable.

    Professor Michael Nagler's brilliant and inspiring book, "Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future," (see my review on www.commondreams.org, 3/9/02) starts off by saying that the rising numbers of youthful suicides in America proves that things have gone terribly wrong.

    While the mass media commonly says "there are no answers," Nagler disagrees. "The reason a young person ends his or her life . . . [is] because life has lost its meaning for them -- they cannot imagine a future with any hope or purpose." While there are obviously many layers to such a complex issue, I would add that they cannot see a future they want to participate in.

    This was definitely my state of mind when I tried my premature jump off the infernal wheel of incarnation. What I needed then was hope for a meaningful life, a purpose in being, a way of living that allowed me to be whoever I uniquely was (kids who are different are at higher risk for suicide, especially gay, lesbian, and minority youth) and express my truths. I needed a higher goal than just getting through school, getting a job and making money.

    Idealistic young people need high ideals, ways of channeling their positive energies into constructive outlets instead of merely shopping at the local factory outlet, they need to do things that make contributions to society, that elevate their self-esteem and give them tangible emotional satisfaction. The one thing we can always do, no matter what the situation, is help each other. No matter what else prevails, helping others redeems our lives. This is the main tenet of Buddhism, for only by helping others do we truly help ourselves -- out of our selfishness, our egoism, our indifference.

    While anti-depressants are helping many people, young and old, they don't work for some and occasionally even exacerbate mental problems. Yet there are many other proven antidotes to suicidal depression, psychotherapy being one of them, which is now available almost everywhere. A very promising new form of therapy called DBT, for instance, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy, combines different effective methods into a holistic program.

      Often, seemingly simple things like family support, decent grades, and getting enough sleep -- and exercise --- can have powerfully positive results in attitudes about living. Many teenagers don't value the importance of eating well. I know I didn't, but my habit of bingeing and then fasting did drastic things to my brain chemistry and subsequent moods. Ironically, if I'd thought of my body as a vehicle I might have treated myself better. Everybody knows cars won't run well on bad gas -- or at all if the tank is empty.

    Especially important is substance abuse counseling, since almost 90% of all suicides are associated with some form of misuse of drugs or alcohol.

    I would also emphatically add, Bypass the mass media. Its values, images, and sheer deadening volume are, I believe, inimical to a sane and healthy life anymore. After 9-11, for instance, psychotherapists were advising parents who didn't want their kids to be traumatized to keep children away from the tv and get them involved in something constructive. I would argue the same -- for all of us.

    Also bypass the metaphorical land mines that are buried in our shared landscape -- from the supermarkets with their rows of over-packaged, processed, fake food to the air-brushed images of celebrities we compare ourselves to, to heavily-biased infotainment "news" we accept as truth. It is possible to survive and even flourish, you just need to pick your way carefully and mindfully through the sometimes toxic, often seductive rubbish heap of the modern world.   

    I know that in my case, I could really have used some meditation training. I needed some way of seeing the temporary, impermanent nature of thought, some way of freeing myself from negative, self-destructive ideas. It's not very difficult to learn how to tell harmful thoughts from positive ones. As Tibetan Buddhist nun Ani Tenzin Palmo said, "The main benefit of meditation is being able to choose which thoughts to follow." Plainly, too many young people are following their darkest, most desperate ones.  This is changeable!

    From a Buddhist perspective, we are all on our way to buddhahood (admittedly some sooner than others, but that's another story).

    Would that all beings knew how precious their lives are, how precious they are, how precious is this sometimes painful, sometimes exquisite opportunity for growth and liberation called life.