ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 03

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 179

B.5.14.3
Bio-ethics: traces and foundations in Jainism
Dr. Shugan C. Jain
Preamble The field of bioethics addresses a broad spectrum of human inquiry, ranging from debates over the boundaries of life (e.g. abortion to euthanasia) to the allocation of scarce health care resources (e.g. organ donation, health care rationing), to the right to refuse medical care for religious or cultural reasons, to the role of medical practitioner, society, family and the recipient of medical attention and care along with their timing. New developments of biology, biotechnology, medicine, life sciences, politics, law, information and communication technologies focus on the enhancement of body faculties, beginning and end of present life, reproduction of special features of body and enjoying a healthy body. But these developments are sans any reference to the soul which resides in the body even though UN definition of health includes physical, mental and spiritual wellness.
Jains believe in duality of existence comprising sentient (līva) and insentient (ajīva). All sentient beings called living beings want happiness and are scared of death even though it is inevitable. Insentient beings are five in number with matter (pudgala) being the active one and the other four inert and support the activities of living beings and matter. Every living being is a combination of empirical soul (sentient) and matter in the form of karmas and matter/physical body it owns. Associated karmas (matter) affect the realm of living being's existence; its shape, size, type of body features and dispositions of the soul itself at various stages. The soul can perform all spiritual development activities as long as the body in which it exists is healthy. Similarly the state of individual body depends on the state of the soul which resides in it.
Soul tainted with emotions (kaşāyas) cause many mental and physical problems. Freedom of soul from these emotionsand meditating on itself can cure many or all of physical ailments and ultimately make itself free from the need to even have body associations. In 1974 Robert Adera, psychologist at University of Rochester discovered that immune system, like brain, could learn and hypothesized that biological pathways that make the mind, the
Jabalo nahi śiva lahuń tabalo dehu yaha dhana pāvanāl
Satsanga sudhacarana śrutabhyasa atama bhāvanāll Santipatha by Jugal Kishor Mukhtar 2 Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, page 190
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STUDY NOTES version 5.0