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Jainism in a Global Perspective
life forms on this planet. When considered as a whole, our home planet is the most highly differentiated reality that we know about in the entire universe. From humanity alone have arisen multiple modes of expression that change over time. One need only recall that, when Mahāvīra delivered his first sermon, his congregation was called Samavasarana; that is, "...an equality of religious opportunity for all creatures, great and small, animal and human-animal."10 within this equality of religious opportunity, the differentiation of reality may be fully celebrated. The practice of ahimsa deepens awareness that
Reality is not some infinitely extended homogeneous smudge. Each articulation is unrepeatable and irreplaceable at whatever level, from the subatomic to the galactic, from the iron core of the earth of the flower, from the eagle in flight to the human persons who walk over the land. Each of these is a unique expression of the total earth presence."
In human form differentiation is expressed in terms of self-reflexive awareness of one's own uniqueness as part of the life of the Earth. Conversely, the story of the Earth's being is also the truth of one's own being. This awareness of relationship, even kinship, with all of Earth's creatures strengthens the intention to attend to Earth's unfolding story and to care for its ways.12 At the most elemental level, then, the truth of ahimsā is realized if one commits violence toward the Earth or any of its creatures, one commits violence against oneself. Seen in this light, a narrowly anthropocentric orientation toward life is little more than a denial of the reciprocity that obtains between humanity and the highly interconnected, subtly interactive lattice that makes the biosphere habitable. A life committed to non-violence is a life committed to creating that place a querencia within which the panoply of all life forms is respected and within which all liberated creatures attest to the truth of their being.
A second value realized through the practice of non-violence is subjectivity. Since, for Jains, soul (Jīva) is virtually synonymous with life, subjectivity is manifested as the inner feeling that accompanies the Jaina vision of nature. In other words to practice non-violence is to ensoul all beings with interiority, depth, spontaneity, and creativity. Following the seventeenth century revolution in Western science, however, souls were "withdrawn" from animals, plants and from the human body. All that
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