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CONDUCT
C07- Jain Ethics and the Environment
Summary • Ahimsa supersedes all concepts, ideologies, rules, customs and practices, whether they are traditional
or modern, eastern or western, political or economical, self-centered or social. Non-violence is guarded by truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity and non-possessiveness. Anekäntaväda stops the violence of thought and speech. Anekäntaväda is also called the intelligent
expression of Ahimsa. • Aparigraha (non-possession) stems from respect for other lives and the environment. 03 Survival of Life vs Ethical Living It is not possible to sustain human life with absolute non-violence and absolute non possession. To live a life, one needs food, minimal clothes, and shelter. Hence, the destruction of living beings are unfortunately essential for human survival. The goal of Jainism is to live our human life with minimum violence to other living beings and the environment. Principle of Minimum Violence for Human Survival: A living being with all five senses (animals, birds, and fish etc.) feels maximum pain and their destruction involves greater violence. Killing many-sensed beings has greater negative impact on the environment. A living being with one sense (plants, vegetables, water, air, earth etc.) feels minimum pain and its destruction involves minimum violence and produces a minimum negative impact to the environment. Hence, Jainism advocates vegetarianism and is against raising animals for food for ethical, spiritual, and environmental reasons. 04 Ethical Living and Dairy Products Violence in the Dairy Industry
All Jains believe in vegetarianism and most Jains are vegetarians. Hence it is of no value to the Jain community at large to discuss cruelty to animals and death inflicted by the meat industry. However, a majority of Jains consume dairy products. Because animals are not directly killed during the milking operation, these Jains justify that their consumption of dairy products is not in violation of the fundamental principle of Ahimsa. This may be true in olden times for the following reasons: For our survival, a cow's milk was essential because crop production was not enough to feed the entire human population. The cows were taken care of as if they were family members, and only excess milk was consumed, after cows had fed their calves. Today, the output of modern agricultural production is such that it can feed the entire world several times over. Also, the dairy industry is commercialized. Dairy cows are treated as milk producing machines. It inflicts terrible cruelty on cows. As there is a huge demand for dairy products, modern dairy industries have to raise animals on a mass scale. Raising large numbers of animals for food creates a significant ethical problem and environmental imbalance because it involves a significantly greater use of natural resources than for the equivalent amount of plant food. The cruelty to animals and the impact on the environment by this industry is unimaginable. The following list summarizes some of the violence (Himsa) inflicted on animals used in the production of dairy products. These problems exist in large factory farms of the U.S. or Europe as well as in the small dairy farms in India (or anywhere else in the world). I speak from experience; have visited several large dairy farms in USA and many small dairy farms in India and observed these practices.
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Compendium of Jainism - 2015
