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PHILOSOPHY
three to six months of torture. In some cases, families want to do everything possible [to keep the person alive)... Elderly people lying there so helpless with feeding tubes are a horrible sight. In general, in India people do not suffer this way."
like an autumn leaf from the parent tree, effortlessly and tranquilly. It was a benign and calm departure, well-timed and appropriate. He breathed low; then he breathed no more. He went somewhere else, with active volition. He had practised the art of dying well." One cannot help but notice the similarity between Nearing's passing and that experienced by Mrs. Bhade.
“THERE IS AN END TO LIFE. THIS IS THE FIRST STEP. PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THIS... WHEN YOU ARE BORN, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE."
is to make people comfortable and that in many instances the prolongation of life with medical technology does not increase a person's comfort. In advocacy of fasting, he stated, "Fasting helps give up the attachment to this life. Desires decrease through fasting." Dr. Bhade's statements evoke basic
Jain cosmology. Desire, including the desire to live, can be an obstacle to one's ultimate happiness. By attenuating desire, one prepares to let go. By entering death in a process of conscious prayer, the transition, according to eyewitness accounts, becomes painless. Not all Americans choose to use extraordinary means to extend life. Scott Nearing, best known for his advocacy of simple living in the classic he co-authored with his wife Helen, Living the Good Life, chose an unconventional life. A pacifist and a communist, he retreated to a homestead in rural New England after he was dismissed from his professorship at the University of Pennsylvania due to his staunch opposition to World War I. With Helen he developed a maple sugar farm in Vermont and eventually settled on the coast of Maine. The two pursued a life of learning and subsistence, and managed to survive for several decades largely independent from the needs of the
external economy. They grew their own food, built their own houses and lived healthily on a vegan diet. In his 99th year, Scott Nearing lost his physical mobility. After several months of near-total debility (LaConte), he decided to stop eating. In her book Light on Aging and Dying, Helen Nearing describes the process as follows: "He drifted away and off,
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The Jain philosophy of life and death places the human in the centre of the universe. Only from human birth may one ascend to kevala, the realm of ultimate meaning and liberation. For the Jains, the key to entering this realm lies in the purgation of karma through the observance of non-violence. Through observance of a carefully constructed code of behaviour, both lay and monastic Jains aspire to cleanse themselves of karma and advance from the lower rungs of existence (gunusthana) toward liberation. Fasting on a regular basis, particularly during the Paryushan observances of late summer, helps advance a person in this spiritual quest. At the end of one's life, the final act of expiation, the final sacrifice of one's body and karma involves the manner of one's death with the ideal passing taking place consciously, at the conclusion of a successful period of fasting. By contrast, the drive to extend human life in contemporary medical practice rather than allowing for a letting go, enforces a holding on to life that, for some, can be quite painful and distracting. In such circumstances, the inevitable passing into death becomes an arduous ordeal. The Jain attitude and approach to death, although controversial, provides an alternative non-violent approach to the ultimate rite of passage.
Christopher Key Chapple is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he teaches religions of India and Jainism. He has published twelve books, including Jainism and Ecology' and 'Reconciling Yogas: Haribhadra's Array of Views on Yoga'.
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Dr. Bhade, for religious, practical and economic reasons, would support a greater awareness of the advantages of fasting to death. At the onset of our conversation he stated, "There is an end to life. This is the first step. People need to understand this... When you are born, you are going to die." He
suggests that the role of the physician Jain Education International
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