[barsikjal]

when we think about suicide, we think about cases in which people kill themselves out of depression and despair and hopelessness. however my question regarding this topic is, would the same karmic implications apply in cultures in which suicide is routinely practiced and even encouraged?

in japan for instance, suicide is deeply rooted in the history of the culture (as with ritualized hara-kiri and so on) and is often glorified in subtle ways. thus the japanese have a high suicide rate. people kill themselves to preserve their honor after losing jobs, failing exams, and so on, a practice which at least dates back to the ancient samurai. how would the karma affect a japanese person committing suicide under this pretext, as opposed to somebody in the united states in which suicide is mostly discouraged?

what about kamikaze pilots who crashed into enemy ships? what about said ancient samurai who killed themselves rather than fall into enemy hands? what kind of karma was generated by these suicides?

also, if you were incarnating in a culture in which you would be expected to die with your spouse, even if by suicide, would that create bad karma? my guess is you would know ahead of time before incarnating that this would be expected of you and you would be likely to do it and it would be planned out, hence no negative karma.

what about when socrates ingested hemlock? did he have to reincarnate and somehow face that same situation again later? what if he had chosen death at somebody else's hands?

who is the big cosmic judge that would work out how all of this karma would be resolved? and how would he/she do it? i think he/she would have a tremendous headache. but i somehow doubt that in every case of suicide across the world you'd have to reincarnate and do it all over again, or that all the "normal" rules would apply. any thoughts?