Ben wrote:In my mind, Venerable Nanavira's suicide calls into question his claimed attainments.
Yes, I think so too. Nanavira Thera never suggested suicide. Reading the whole correspondence makes it comprehensible to me. As he quoted:
If anyone is going to commit suicide—not that I advocate it for anyone—it is a great mistake to do it when one is feeling at one's most suicidal. The business should be carefully planned so that one is in the best possible frame of mind—calm, unmoved, serene—when one does it.
and
The ravages of amoebiasis play havoc with the practice of mental concentration, and if I cannot practise mental concentration I have no further use for this life.
It makes sense to me that someone whose body is not appropriate to achieve the goal of liberation from suffering wants to get rid of his useless body. In his mind he attained sotapatti and could be sure to reach nibbana within seven lifes. Nanavira was absolutely aware of the consequences of suicide and what the Buddha taught about it. Once again Nanavira (Letter 47):
And the Buddha himself warns (in the Mahāsuññata Sutta—M. 122: iii,109-18) that one who becomes a layman after following a teacher may fall into the hells when he dies. There is no doubt at all that, whatever public opinion may think, a bhikkhu is probably worse advised to disrobe than to end his life—that is, of course, if he is genuinely practising the Buddha's Teaching. It is hard for laymen (and even, these days, for the majority of bhikkhus, I fear) to understand that when a bhikkhu devotes his entire life to one single aim, there may come a time when he can no longer turn back—lay life has become incomprehensible to him. If he cannot reach his goal there is only one thing for him to do—to die (perhaps you are not aware that the Buddha has said that 'death' for a bhikkhu means a return to lay life—Opamma Samy. 11: ii,271).