Jain Spirit 2000 03 No 03

SR No.: 528983
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 66
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, UK_Jain Spirit, & UK
File Size: 14 MB

Page 49

GERARD CLOT, PARIS
ENVIRONMENT
The Jain temple at Ranakpur in Rajasthan, India is a remarkable example of tranquility created with the greatest patience.
SLOW DOWN
Patience has always been a central tenet of Jainism. Donella Meadows reminds us of the importance of slowing down
48
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Those of us who think the world needs saving from environmental destruction, rapacious greed, decaying morals, drugs, crime, racism, whatever-keep very busy crusading for our favourite remedies. School vouchers. Carbon taxes. Campaign reform. The Endangered Species Act. A lower capital gains tax. Strong regulation. No regulation. You know. That long list of mutually inconsistent Holy Grails with which we like to hit each other over the head. There's one solution to the world's problems, however, that I never hear frenzied activists suggest : slowing down.
Jain Spirit March May 2000
Slowing down could be the single, most effective solution to the particular save-the-world struggle I immerse myself in - the struggle for sustainability, for living harmoniously and well within the limits and laws of the Earth.
Suppose we weren't in such a hurry. We could take time to walk instead of drive, to sail instead of
fly. To clean up our messes. To discuss our plans throughout the whole community before we send in bulldozers to make irreversible changes.
We could cut our energy and material use drastically, because we would get the full good out of what we use. We wouldn't have to buy so many things to save time. Have you ever wondered, with all our time-saving paraphernalia, what happens to the time we save? We wouldn't make so many mistakes. We could listen more, and hurt each other less. Maybe we could even take time to reason through our favourite solutions, test them, and learn what their actual effects are.
Suppose we went at a slow enough pace not only to smell the flowers, but to feel our bodies, play with children, look openly without agenda or timetable - into the faces of our loved ones. Suppose we stopped gulping fast food and started savouring slow food, grown, cooked, served and eaten with care. Suppose we took time each day to sit in silence. I think, if we did those things, the world wouldn't need much saving.
A friend in India tells me that the onslaught of Western advertising in his country is a cultural blow, not so much because of the messages of the ads, but because of their pace. The stun-the-senses barrage of all TV programming, especially ads, is antiethical to a thousand-year-old tradition of contemplation. I can imagine that. I have been driven crazy by the slow pace at which things get done in India. Don't these people know that time is money? What they know, actually, is that time is life, and to go zooming through it is to miss living.
Slow... do wn. Do that first. Then quietly, carefully, think about what else might need to be done.
Donella Meadows is a Professor of Environmetal Studies at Dartmouth College, USA.