Jain Spirit 1999 10 No 02

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 50

ENVIRONMENT
MEDITATION IN A TROUBLED WORLD
.
Michael Tobias
Photo: Chandu Shah
any people understand medi-
tation as something that we do in a quiet room through silence and inaction. In this article, Tobias makes a much wider interpretation of meditation, drawing on the Jain scriptures and lifestyle to demon- strate that meditation is really a connection with the inner spirit which can be manifested in many different ways. In particular, he argues that sincere ethical action is itself a meditation.
brink. In October 1998, a distinguished panel of scientists in Britain - following a 20-year survey of changing biological patterns on Earth - declared that as much as 60% of all life may well become extinct sometime in the next century. And in August 1999, at a meeting of scientists in St. Louis, the President of the International Botanical Congress, Peter Raven, declared, "We are predicting the extinction of about two-thirds of all bird, mammal, butterfly and plant species by the end of the next century, based on current trends. This was not sudden news, but confirmation - long in coming - of a planetary crisis that must strike human contemplation with shock and despair, begging the question: What is the worth of contemplation, after all, when the world around us, upon which we exclusively depend for our lives, is breaking point?
Recently in Pasadena, California, an Amorphophallus titanum bloomed for two days, only the 11th time the 'titan', or 'putrid flower', as it is lovingly known, has ever blossomed in the United States. Over 10,000 people swarmed the Huntington Library and famed gardens to catch a glimpse of the gorgeous, six-foot tall plant. It is an astonishingly proud flower, honed at least since the time of the Upper Cretaceous System 115 million years ago. Flowering plants, these days, are known to be on the
Contemplation, or meditation if you prefer, has long served numerous purposes that might best be described as purposeful, or pragmatic. The perceptive capacity, easily identified in Homo sapiens - that ability to think about thinking, ahampratyaya and alocana, in Jain tradition - gives us a certain grace under fire, as it does for blue whales, elephants, penguins or mountain gorillas. It is simple restraint that makes for the personality of non-violence in these species. In a world of noise and chaos, meditation endorses silence - it gives us the strength to forge ahead. It is a unique language that we develop to communicate with our own soul.
However, you can not meditate alone. No man is an island. Hence meditating near an abattoir would be a totally different experience from meditating atop a mountain. The quality of our external environment directly influences our internal meditation. In fact, there is no division between the internal and the external. Jainism recognises this fundamental interdependence of all life.
October - December 1999. Jain Spirit 49