Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts

Oct 10, 2019

Jainism view on having a Pet...

Q9. Is it acceptable in Jainism to have a pet?
First, let’s talk about the basic tenets of Ahimsa relevant for this question. Once we understand and internalize the basic principles, we need to use our own wisdom to apply them in our current environment:
-        Ahimsa means to not hurt any living beings, including animals, through our thoughts, words and actions
-        Ahimsa means to respect all living beings and have compassion towards all living beings
-        Ahimsa means to let the living beings live in their natural habitat
-        Ahimsa means to not use animals, directly or indirectly, for our physical, emotional or any other needs
Jainism advocates following path of minimum violence for lay-people (Shravak and Shravikas), which implies using only one-sense living beings for our healthy survival and not hurting any movable two sense and higher living beings.
When it comes to having a pet, there are few basic questions: Why do you want a pet? How/where are you going to get the pet from? And other considerations like what would you feed the pet, environmental impact, companionship of same species?
Why do you want a pet?
The reasons for owning a pet can range from companionship, therapy, want to give a shelter to an animal, just because all my friends have it, it is becoming a trend now etc.
Whatever the reason might be, adopting a pet animal and bringing it inside a house restricts their freedom and deprives them of their natural habitat and companionship of its own species. Animals aren’t meant to be used by humans for their needs. Domestication of animals started only because of humans.
Buying a pet from a pet store / puppy mill
There is a lot of violence in pet breeding industries. For example, the state of Kansas is the largest puppy breeder in America. For every 1 puppy to put into market, 3-4 puppies are killed which are non-sellable.  
The pet industry also causes other kinds of violence to the animals that it sells. They separate the mothers from their litters shortly after birth, causing emotional anguish that may be out of sight to the pet owner, but very real, nonetheless. They also generally neuter or spay the animals. Even though this is done for the good intention of preventing more unwanted animals, it still causes violence and prevents them from having normal reproductive functions. As a result, if you buy animals from pet store, breeder or any commercial sources, then you are becoming a direct contributor towards such violence and this would be harmful to your spiritual growth even if you are treating that animal kindly with shelter, food, and companionship.
Rescuing a pet or using a pet as a guide/therapy/service animal
For Example, a neighbor is moving, he can’t find a home for his pet dog and he offers you to take care of it or he will put the dog to sleep. In this example, if you are willing, capable and you can take care of the pet then you are saving a pet’s life and you are having a pet out of compassion.
Another example is adoption of abandoned animal from shelter that in returns provides valuable companionship and possibly even support for an older or special needs person.
These are few such justifiable scenarios in which you may be saving a life and preventing violence.  However, you want to be mindful of directly/indirectly not promoting use of animals for human needs.
Feeding pet animals
Among the two most popular pets, dogs and cats, both are generally carnivorous. By keeping a pet, you obligate yourself to feeding the animal its preferred and natural diet. Often that will lead the owner to feed the pets non-vegetarian food, which, in turn, makes the owner complicit in supporting the entire meat industry, not just the portion eaten by the animals. This is because the meat industry uses the by-products of slaughter that are not suitable for human consumption for pet food, effectively subsidizing the cost of animal agriculture. By keeping a pet that requires non-vegetarian food, one is effectively engaging in the killing of cows, pigs, chickens, and fish to support their need for a pet.
If you decide to feed your pet vegan or vegetarian food, then it is very important to make sure your pet gets regular vet checkups to make sure they are getting the nutrients they need. For example, it is typically said that cats have to be carnivorous due to their need for taurine and arginine, which are not normally found in plant-based foods. Taurine and arginine aren’t just desirable for cats, but they are essentially because without enough taurine cats will go blind. Fortunately, Taurine and arginine can both be synthesized from vegan sources, and so these are typically found in vegan cat foods, including the brands WysongBenevo, and Ami. This is just one example but if you keep a pet, then you have to do the due diligence and research in determining their nutritional needs and alternatives.
Pets also have an adverse effect on the environment. A recent study by UCLA found that dogs and cats are responsible for 25 to 30 percent of the environmental impact of meat consumption in the United States. Furthermore, they can also carry disease, pollute waterways, and coastal zones through runoff from areas with feces, and have adverse effects on wildlife.
Companionship of its own species
Most pet animals are social / pack animals and require the company of others of their own kind. However, few pet owners are able to adopt multiple animals to keep them company. In other cases, these animals are locked up in homes like prisons for long periods of time, at the mercy of their owners to come home and interact with them. The justification that they appear happy and lead materially more comfortable lives than they could in the wild, are not valid justifications for subjugating animals for the purpose of our entertainment, companionship, or functional support. 
What is the root cause? And how can we address the root cause?
If it weren’t for humans, animals would never have been domesticated. Humans mostly started domesticating animals for their needs and now we are in this vicious circle. Just because the need keeps on increasing, puppy breeder keeps on increasing the supply. And as noted earlier for every 1 puppy to put into market, 3-4 non-sellable puppies are killed.
If these domesticated animals were sent back to their natural habitat without preparing/training them, then they wouldn’t be able to survive in the new environment either.
We cannot change all the impacts of animal domestication overnight. But at an individual level, we can stop contributing towards increasing the demand. And we can also focus on our spiritual growth so that we aren’t depending on pet for our emotional needs.
Bottom line
We strongly suggest against buying a pet animal from a pet store or commercial sources. In specific scenarios, we must use our own wisdom to do what's right at the time.
If we can help any living being in any way, then we must do so. We should never miss an opportunity to help all different forms of life around us if we have the capacity to do it.
We should also work towards growing spiritually and becoming emotionally strong, so we can eliminate our dependence of our emotional well-being on any external factors.

Sep 20, 2019

Eating Meat of Naturally Dead Animals

Q8. One of the students at Pathshala wants to know why one cannot eat naturally dead cow's meat. She does not want to do it. However, her classmate asked, and she could not answer. Do you have a good answer for it?
On the surface this question might seem extraneous with an obvious answer, however, it stems from systematic understanding of Ahimsa principle and awareness about existence of life in one, two, three, four and five sensed living beings. Please refer to this blog post for details about five senses and their role from Ahimsa point of view.
This question can be addressed in one of the two ways:
·       Asking an individual to “not question it” and just follow what is being said. Using this approach is easy and simple, but in the long run, it will either drive the individuals away from religion and spiritual lifestyle, or create a community that would follow religion blindly, that is, without any understanding of their own.
Or
·       Aid individuals in understanding the values, principles and logical reasoning, so that the individuals can use their own logic and wisdom. Nowadays, people have information at their fingertips, there is increased awareness and they want to think, understand and reason it out for themselves.
Our intent in addressing this question is to create a positive and enriching experience about the religion, enable understanding and answer questions for curious minds who want to understand rather than follow blindly.
This question can be interpreted in many ways. The question is not about eating meat or debating on natural causes for animal's death. The focus and intend of the question is:-
  • If an animal is naturally dead (animal’s soul has parted/the dead body is not living)
  • By eating meat of that animal equivalent amount of plant lives are saved
  • Assumption is that technically there is no violation of non-violence principle. Then is it allowed in Jainism?
And the answer is NO.
Jain Acharyas did not allow it and consequently the Jain societies have been protected from the negative implications that may result from these types of actions.
As an example - Buddhism has the similar five great vows like Jainism. However, the non-violence vow has been mis-interpreted and exploited and meat eating has proliferated in some Buddhist culture.
“According to Theravada sect of Buddhism, Buddha allowed his monks to eat pork, chicken and fish if the monk was aware that the animal was not killed on their behalf.” 
In other words, Buddha allowed eating meat of a dead animal with some caveats in place. Those caveats and loopholes are now being taken advantage of by some.
In Bangkok, some restaurants have signs “we sell only dead animal’s meat”. This implies that animals were not killed for their meat.  Rather animals died naturally and then their body is being used as meat.  Hence many Buddhist people and monks eat the meat in the restaurant without thinking twice or feeling guilty about it.
One can see that industries and businesses take advantage of this kind of loopholes.  How can that many animals die naturally where the restaurants always have meat dishes for their customers?
Every action by which a person directly or indirectly supports killing/injury to animals and/or every action that knowingly or unknowingly promotes the industries that involves cruelty towards animals is a form of violence (himsa). When it comes to any form of violence, whether we are doing it (karyu), making someone else do it (karavyu) or directly/indirectly promoting others to do it (karta anumodiyu), then it results in karma bondage and limits our spiritual growth.
In Jainism, food is restricted to that originating from plants, since plants have only one sense (ekindiya) and are the least developed form of life. Research shows a plant-based diet, which emphasizes fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, legumes and nuts, is rich in fiber, vitamins and other nutrients also has health benefits, such as reducing your risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. Consuming any food that is harmful to our body is violence towards ourselves.
Death of an animal will promote growth of bacteria in the body. This fact can lead to questions about himsa at bacteria level related to food consumption. However, consumption of yogurt or fermented food (dosa/idli/ dhokla batter) also incurs bacteria growth. Even farming also incur himsa at bacteria level. From a layperson perspective, for our healthy survival we cannot avoid himsa at the bacteria level but attempt to minimize it. Here our aim is to discuss himsa to five sense animals, which is considered highest sinful act than millions of bacteria (one or two sense invisible living beings) in Jainism.    
Jainism has one of the most rigorous forms of spiritually motivated diet on the Indian subcontinent.  Whether the animal is dead naturally or butchered, the meat is still “meat”.  We should think about how our food choices fit into our spiritual path or our vision for transforming ourselves?
If Jain Acharya’s would allow the exceptions to such rules, then people will find ways to exploit it and compromise ethical standards. People forget the circumstances or the caveats and start following it as a norm. If there is a leeway, people get a tendency towards eating it and when something becomes part of the culture then it takes time to overcome it and people continue to follow it blindly. In Jainism, this is what happened with dairy consumption, people are culturally programmed to consume dairy products, despite of the cruelty towards five sense animals in current times. (See this blog post for details). In the past, milk and other dairy products were allowed only for medical purpose and with Acharya’s permission, however it has become a norm even though raas-tyag is the fourth vow of nirjara.
Because of such negative implications to society and people going into wrong directions, Jainism does not allow such exceptions/actions with meat consumption.

Aug 4, 2019

Usage of Animals for Medical Research...



Q6. Does Jainism allow the usage of animals for medical research?

This is an important question that has very compelling perspectives for both sides, for and against the use of animals for medical research. Animals, from fruit fly to the mouse, are widely used in research. From Jain principles perspective, this question is straightforward, however, it can quickly become complicated in the current environment/lifestyle and also as we start hypothesizing scenarios.
Many factors come into consideration with using animals for testing/research:
  • Should we use animals solely for human benefit? It is ethical/moral?
  • If we don’t use animals, then how would we develop new treatments for deadly diseases? For Humans as well as for animal treatment?
  • Animals and Humans don’t react the same way then is testing really useful/necessary?
  • With animal testing, there is definite pain and suffering for animals, whereas there is uncertainty in benefits for humans
  • What about new computer systems, mathematical model, human tissue, cell culture? What about using cadavers (human dead bodies) for research? 
  • Are there other alternatives to using animals? 
These perspectives also vary with individual backgrounds, belief system and experiences in life. 
What is Jainism Perspective?
Using animals for any kind of research involves a lot of violence, exploitation and cruelty. It is a gruesome and cruel industry. Nowadays a huge number of animals are used in many types or research/testing: medicines, cosmetics, vaccines, agricultural, household materials, aeronautic, automotive, behavioral, consumer product testing etc. And these animals are subjected to horrifically painful experiments. Tens of millions of animals are used for testing every year, and it is just an approximation, since animal testing labs are not required by law to disclose the number of animals used for testing. 
From Jainism perspective, any kind of exploitation/use of animals is violence towards those animals and is not allowed. And there are no exceptions to the principles in our scripture. If any exceptions are allowed in our literature, then people will find ways to exploit it. Once there is a leeway, people get a tendency towards using animals for their benefit and it can become a problematic situation.          
What if the human race is at stake?
Amongst all the living beings, grown-up human beings possess a fully developed mind and human beings are the only ones who can do meditation and ultimately attain self-realization and liberation. So, if the entire human race is at stake then one must do whatever minimum is required, with Jain Acharaya’s permission, for the survival of the human race. We can protect ourselves but not have aggression (an example of aggression would let me destroy other before someone is going to attack me). 
What can we do at an individual level?
From a spiritual perspective, we should follow the path of minimum violence, do what is absolutely required for individual survival. We should not waste the human life, make the best of our human life and use every moment for our spiritual upliftment (i.e. reduce our Kashayas and eliminate Mithyatva).  
Now we have the information, we need to internalize the information, verify/test it with our experience, make it our own and then use it to make decisions that are right for us.  
From a practical perspective, at the individual level, we need to stop/avoid/minimize using any products that involve cruelty. We need to do the due diligence of gaining as much information as we can about everything that we use/consume and ensure that they are cruelty free. Plus, nowadays given technology/internet, we can do the required research efficiently and find cruelty free alternatives for all the products. There are cruelty free alternatives for vitamins and medicines too. 
Vaccines have been in ethical controversy for long, many vaccines also have animal by-products in them and hence it is not that straightforward. Some people take regular vaccines, and some opt for non-vaccination/religious exemption. For vaccines or any life-threatening diseases, we need to gain as much information as possible and then use our wisdom to decide at an individual level. 
In summary, we have to look at the purpose/objective from a holistic point of view and use our own wisdom to make a decision by applying Jain principles in our current environment. Please remember that under any situation, if we exploit animals there is big consequence and if we use them very minimum for our survival, the consequences to us is minimum.

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