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JAINISM
113 are pitying the criminal in his reapings, and so, if you see a person beating a horse or doing any cruel thing, you can pity him for the future suffering which he is generating. You can pity the lane, diseased-dog in his suffering, which is his reaping of past criminal acts; why not pity the being in his causing acts as a criminal? Also, a cruel person, or an immoral person, or a drunkard, or a liar, is a person with a diseased mind; and we should pity mental disease equally with bodily disease.
The next step in the process may be to meditate on Adeptship, that is, those in whom the eighteen faults (see page 49), previously mentioned, are absent, and on perfection, or those who have already accomplished their complete development and are living a right life: “I shall be entirely satisfied when I reach Masterhood.”
The idea is that, by this process, practised, if possible, daily for some forty-five or fifty minutes without interruption, resulting in equanimity, we get illumination or self-realization.
As a help to becoming what we ought to be, or, at any rate, to prevent us from acquiring unnatural energies or characteristics, the layman may use the following twelve reflections (anupreksha):---
(1) There is nothing unchangeable in this world; everything is transient or subject to alternation. We should not, therefore, attach too much importance to it, and should regard it as transitory (anitya).
(2) In this world of misery, disease, old age, and death, there is no other protection, refuge, or help than our own practice of the truth. Others are powerless; as we sow, so we reap (asarana). Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org
