JAINA Convention 1993 07 Pittusburgh

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

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directly or indirectly, is the worst of all toxins, the first and last violation of every ecological principle.
Those "few minutes" of psychologi- cal impasse, passion, disinterest, appetite, laziness, are the same few moments that it takes to vent rage, to murder someone, to inflict every pain known to the human arsenal. Those few moments - repeated in so many variations - have resulted in over two hundred million murders in just the twentieth century alone. Two hundred fifty-thousand battles fought since the time of the Renaissance. To temper that killer in man and woman, and the subsequent killing fields, is to grope with those few moments where conflict begins. A twominute theory of psychoanalysis: if you can check the temptation, the cigarette of oblivion, then you are on you way to wiping the slate clean, beginning fresh, re-shaping the world around you accord- ing to the gentleness of Jainism.
Two minutes of unthinking, unfeel ing behavior: Whether in the eating of a hamburger, the casting of a fishing line, or more subtly, in the habit, let's say, of taking one's children to a circus to view animals who in fact have been reduced to insanity and pain. Two minutes of our own insanity, in the breeding of captive animals who were meant to be free, or worse - the abandoning of those pets to certain death - in the reining, or worse, the racing of horses; the killing of insects in a frenzy of vindictiveness, as opposed to more patiently removing them without injury. I could go on and on. The litany of transgressions cascades with numbing ubiquity. And it all comes down to the collaboration - mindful or not - with atrocity, carried out by or on behalf of humans, and committed against other living creatures - whether around the dinner table, on the job, on the farm, the ranch, in the street, at the grocery store, in one's financial investments, or in the clothes one wears. Not only one's investments, but even one's donations must be scrutinized. Many
medical foundations, for example put their so-called "charity" dollars towards aniinal research. Animal torture, in other words. Nearly every major univer- sity promotes an image of its biomedical laboratories as "state of the art." I will not attempt to describe the horrors I have witnessed in such places. The literature of the Holocaust evokes in some ways a more precise and descriptive analogy
Such is the forlorn syndrome of "two minute" human aggression upon which Jainism - and the whole scientific and social phenomenon of ecology - has arisen. These two historical impulses are virtually synonymous in my mind. Jains are more than familiar with this environmental approach to life, one of the guiding principles of their faithahimsa. But elsewhere in the world, the concept, and its potential, are foreign and largely overlooked. The United States Congress, for example, heaps this nation's unaccountably vast labyrinth of transgressions towards animals under the hopelessly feckless "Animal Welfare Act" of 1964 and lets it go at that. Most animals have no protection whatsoever in America. And it's even worse in most other countries. By some estimates, nearly one thousand species of plant, animal, and insect per day are going extinct throughout the world. As much as a third of all species on Earth in this century alone may have already been wiped out, forever.
Jains believe that they are accountable to nature, and by spiritual and biological inference, to themselves, to their families, their community, and to the vast menagerie of life forms which coinhabit this planet with them. Jainism's accessible genius is this total embrace of the earth - so ancient, so contemporary. One truth being equal to all truths, one organism being equal to all organisms, one square inch of land equal to all land, and all pain requiring serious consideration, any aspect of Jainism thereby reflects the whole. This is its imperative
and homeostasis; its first ring of truth. As grounds for a viable ecological contract, Jainism has achieved perfect pitch. It is true that Jainism has not altogether stopped violence in the world, though it has gone a considerable way, I think, towards doing so. But there is much more work ahead.
It is the unique ideal of Jainism that I have herewith endeavored to convey, a sublime message, rather like a telegram from the earth herself, conveyed through the medium of Jainism. In no other religion have thought and action been so intricately merged, a unity of behavior, and an environmental code of ethics that permeates every aspect of Jain life.
A few years ago, I found myself seated beside one of the venerable leaders, or acharyas of Shvetambara Jains. At the time, this hallowed gentleman was ninety-two years old, propped up in bed in the rear room of a large suburban way-station for pilgrims. He had traveled much of his life from village to village. Infirm, he was at that time carried by his many monk compatriots. In a few days, he and the hundreds of other monks in his company would be back out on the road, sleeping at other such urban campsites, giving vows to their multitude of lay adherents.
I'll never forget his pained, sincere description of his faith (herewith, an exact transcription):
"In all life, whether it is the human, animal kingdom, or other kingdom, no one would like to suffer. You would not like to suffer. You would not like to suffer by other's bad deeds. Neither we would like to suffer. So all the life - whether insect, animal kingdom or other kingdom, nobody would like to suffer. Even when we walk we can't," (he paused, trying to be precise, to clarify) "we have to walk by looking on the ground. We cannot cook. We cannot keep any money. We have to go out and beg from different houses and acquire only a small portion of the food prep ared for themselves that they should
"Jainism is really neither Hinduism nor Vedic dharma. It contributes to the advancement of Indian culture and study of Indian philosophy."
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Prime Minister of India (1947-64)
7TH BIENNIAL JAINA CONVENTION - JULY 1993
Jain Education Intemational