Jainism, Yoga, and Ecology: A Course in Contemplative Practice for a World in Pain

Abstract

This article proposes an introductory course to Jainism vis-à-vis the categories of yoga and ecology. Following a short introduction, the main section of this paper introduces the contents of the syllabus for this upper division undergraduate theological studies course. Students will learn not only the history and philosophy of Jainism, but will also undertake basic Jain contemplative practices. Contemplative practice is used not merely as a technique of self-care, but rather, following some of Jainism’s foundational textual sources, first and foremost as a method for helping students to form a sense of ethical relationship and empathy with the world around them. Using such a pedagogical approach, which I situate as a specific form of “high-impact” learning, I suggest that at the completion of the course students will be better equipped to respond to our shared social and environmental crises. This article serves as both an introduction of this course to the academic community, as well as an invitation to scholars and professors of South Asian religious traditions to adopt the pedagogical approach proposed herein.

1. Introduction

Following several proposals for courses combining the categories of Jainism, Yoga, and Ecology (cf. Miller 2018, Forthcoming 2020), as well as a recent conference organized concerning the topic of Jainism and the Environment (James 2018), this article presents a course syllabus for an upper division undergraduate theological studies course entitled “Introduction to Jainism: Yoga and Ecology.” In Section 2, I provide an overview of this syllabus (Appendix A), outlining concentrated scholarship and primary sources pertaining to Jainism and ecology as well as Jain yoga that are used in the course. The purpose of this course, as I show in the concluding Section 3, is to provide students with an opportunity to learn about the history and philosophies of the Jain tradition using a pedagogical approach that is simultaneously cerebral, somatic, and affective. Contemplative practice is presented not merely as a technique of self-care, but rather, following some of Jainism’s foundational textual sources, first and foremost as a method for helping students to form a sense of ethical relationship and empathy with the world around them. In doing so, at the completion of the course, students will be better equipped to respond to our shared social and environmental crises, and thus the course is also situated as a specific form of “high-impact” learning (Kuh et al. 2013) in the article’s concluding section.

2. Jainism, Ecology, and Yoga

The syllabus (Appendix A) begins with “PART I: INTRODUCTION TO JAINISM,” and “Week 1: Introduction” includes articles concerned with introducing students to Jain Dharma. Because this is an introductory upper division undergraduate course, no prior knowledge of Jainism is necessary and students will spend Week 1 becoming acquainted with the basic outlines of the tradition including the central vow of non-violence (ahiṃsā). They will also, as we see on the syllabus, begin reading short selections from the Ācārāṅga-Sūtra corresponding to each week’s assigned contemplative practice. Although there is no assigned contemplative practice for Week 1 as there are in future weeks, students will nevertheless reflect on the vow (vrata) of ahiṃsā when they begin their reading of Book 1, Lecture 1, which contains a discourse by Mahavira’s disciple Sudharman concerned with, as translator Jacobi (1884) tells readers, “the comprehension and renunciation of everything that hurts other beings” (p. 1).

Following the introductory Week 1, Weeks 2–6 comprise “PART II: JAINISM AND ECOLOGY.” In Weeks 2, 3, and 4, students read selected chapters found in Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life (Chapple 2006a). The first and most comprehensive set of chapters concerned with the topic of Jainism and ecology, this volume contains four sections pertaining to “Jain Theories about the Nature of the Universe,” “Challenges to the Possibility of a Jain Environmental Ethic,” “Voices within the Tradition: Jainism Is Ecological,” and “Tradition and Modernity: Can Jainism Meet the Environmental Challenge?” (pp. vii–viii). In addition to providing a firm foundation for understanding the core philosophical underpinnings of the tradition of Jainism, the contents of these four sections provide both insider and outsider perspectives concerning the many hopes, limitations, challenges, and lived realities pertaining to the topic of Jainism and ecology. Because it is accessible to undergraduates and is the most comprehensive volume of its kind, Jainism and Ecology is an indispensable resource for any course seeking to study the relationship between Jainism and the environment. Also note that students will watch two films in Week 4 alongside their reading: Michael Tobias’s “Ahimsa: Non-Violence, The Story of the Jain Religion” and the BBC’s “The Story of India, Episode 2, ‘The Power of Ideas’” with Michael Wood. These films are intended to reinforce students’ introductory learning during the first four weeks and to show them how the ideas of Jainism fit within the wider South Asian religious and philosophical landscape.

During Weeks 5 and 6, students will read a number of selected articles specifically concerned with the relationship between humans, plants, and animals in the Jain tradition. In addition to the introduction (Waldau and Patton 2006a) to the edited volume entitled A Communion of Subjects, Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics (Waldau and Patton 2006b), we find two articles, “Inherent Value without Nostalgia: Animals and the Jaina Tradition” (Chapple 2006b) and “Five-Sensed Animals in Jainism” (Wiley 2006) embedded within a broader discussion concerned with animals among the world’s religious traditions. These articles are useful for introducing students to Jainism’s unique views of animals and animal ethics. Providing more in-depth detail, Donaldson’s (2015a, 2015b) book Creaturely Cosmologies: Why Metaphysics Matters for Animal and Planetary Liberation provides students with a chance to reflect upon their inherited views concerning animals and to see specifically how Jain metaphysics inform the Jain community’s treatment of animals. Finally, in Asian Perspectives on Animal Ethics: Rethinking the Nonhuman (Dalal and Taylor 2014a), a volume focused upon animals within an Asian context more specifically (Dalal and Taylor 2014b), Vallely (2014) provides a useful article entitled “Being sentiently with others: the shared existential trajectory among humans and non-humans in Jainism.” This article is particularly valuable for introducing students to the deleterious effects of anthropocentrism as well as anthropocentrism’s nuanced, non-violent expression in the Jain tradition.

In addition to readings, Weeks 2–6 also introduce the first of two sets of basic contemplative practices. Outside of the classroom, students will spend ten minutes every day observing the elements of earth (Week 2), water (Week 3), and fire and wind (Week 4). This sequence follows Mahavira’s sequence of observations of the natural environment in the Ācārāṅga-Sūtra, with the exception of the wind element, which is presented after plants and animals in the text for philosophical reasons which Jacobi (1884) outlines in some detail (p. 9, fn 1). I follow the more general pattern of the elements’ progression from gross (earth, water) to subtle (fire, wind) in the Pan-Indic philosophical context (cf. Chapple 2019), as I wish to present the elements as the basic building blocks upon which all of the more complex life forms (i.e., plants and animals) are composed. And indeed, the final weeks of PART II introduce contemplative practices focused upon the observation of plants (Week 5) and animals (Week 6) along with respective readings concerning Mahavira’s undertaking of the same practices in the Ācārāṅga-Sūtra. Selections from the Tattvārtha-Sūtra concerned with the various categories of living beings are also introduced during Week 6. In light of their course readings, students are asked to journal about their experience while undertaking these practices and are required to turn in these journal reflections at the end of Weeks 4 (reflecting on earth, water, fire, and wind) and 6 (reflecting on plants and animals). The detailed directions for undertaking these practices and for journaling are found under each respective week in Appendix A.

By the end of Week 6, students will have a firm understanding of Jainism’s basic philosophical concepts and will be well versed in traditional Jain views of the environment both from their class readings and from their contemplative practice. It is my intention that students will also have found their own individual ways of relating to non-human forms of life grounded in some degree of commitment to non-violence. Thus, students will be more able to relate to Mahavira’s realization in the Ācārāṅga-Sūtra, “Thoroughly knowing the earth-bodies and water-bodies and fire-bodies and wind-bodies, the lichens, seeds, and sprouts, [Mahavira] comprehended that they are, if narrowly inspected, imbued with life, and avoided to injure them” (Lecture 8, Lesson 1, verses 11–12; Jacobi 1884, pp. 80–81), giving them the opportunity to both understand and feel something akin to the realization that, as Catholic theologian Thomas Berry (2006) once wrote, “the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects” (p. 17). Such an all-inclusive experience of inter-subjectivity will provide the basis for understanding the readings and contemplative practices that will be undertaken in the following segment of the course.

Indeed, Weeks 7 through 12 introduce students to the practice of the five vows (vrata) of non-violence (ahiṃsā), truth (ṛta), non-stealing (asteya), sensory restraint (brahmacarya), and non-possession (aparigraha). Week 7 introduces these vows as they are found in the Tattvārtha-Sūtra (Jain 2010) and requires that students make some commitment to incorporate non-violence into their daily life. Weeks 8–11 follow this approach, asking students to incorporate truth (Week 8), non-stealing (Week 9), sensory restraint (Week 10), and non-possession (Week 11) into their routine. Concomitant with these contemplative practices, students will learn the underlying philosophical bases for the exercises they are undertaking: following selections from the canonical Tattvārtha-Sūtra, Week 8 discusses Jain karma theory, Week 9 looks at the ways by which one might shed karma and prevent its accrual, and Week 11 proposes the ensuing possibility of liberation. As they had during the prior section of the course, students will again be required to journal about their experiences with their practice of the five vows, the directions for which are in Appendix A.

The readings assigned during Weeks 7 through 9 collectively fall under the heading, “PART III: JAIN YOGA,” and, like the previously mentioned selections from the Tattvārtha-Sūtra, are also intended to show students the theoretical and practical contexts through which Jainism disseminates the five vows. Week 7 provides introductory readings regarding yoga as a concept of practice and philosophical speculation, providing students with a broad overview as found in the introduction to David Gordon White’s (2012) Yoga in Practice, as well as a more specific overview of what distinguishes Jain yoga from the manifold yoga traditions of South Asia as found in Christopher Chapple’s (2016a) introduction to Yoga in Jainism. Equipped with this foundation, Weeks 8 and 9 use selected chapters from Yoga in Jainism (Chapple 2016b) to discuss the concept of yoga as it is found in the Tattvārtha-Sūtra (Soni 2016), as well as the historical development of classical Jain yoga (Jain 2016b) (collectively Week 8), while also introducing manifestations of medieval Jain yoga in the work of Haribhadra (Chapple 2016c), Hemacandra (Qvarnström 2016), Śubhacandra (Chapple 2017), and Yaśovijaya (Long 2016) (collectively Week 9). Particular emphasis will be given to Śubhacandra’s Jñānārṇava, a text which makes homologies between the outer world of the gross elements and the subtle body of the yoga practitioner. Students will come to appreciate a basic understanding of the connection between the elements they had meditated upon during their observations of the elements in PART I of the course and the elements as assigned within the yogic body in the Jñānārṇava.

The penultimate segment of the course makes a transition into contemporary Jainism in “PART IV: CONTEMPORARY JAINISM, YOGA, AND ECOLOGY.” Here, students will be introduced to the three categories of study for the class (i.e., Jainism, Yoga, and Ecology) as they manifest in today’s globalized society. Week 10 introduces contemporary manifestations of Jain yoga practice and includes readings from Yoga in Jainism (Chapple 2016b) looking at yoga in the contemporary Jain imagination (Cort 2016) as well as the adaptations of popular modern forms of Prekṣā Dhyāna and other practices that have been revised to adjust to the needs of contemporary practitioners (Qvarnström and Birch 2012; Jain 2016a; Kothari 2016). Week 11 shows manifestations of Jainism and ecology in contemporary Jain practice, with readings concerning the adoption of the five vows in Acharya Tulsi’s Anuvrat movement (Reading 2019) as well as the application of Jain ethics in the social movement of Acharya Chandanaji (Vallely 2019). My intention in using these readings, which are selected from the forthcoming Beacons of Dharma (Long et al. 2019), is to show Jainism’s attempts to adapt the traditional five Jain vows to social and ecological concerns within contemporary globalized society. Indeed, week 11 concludes with a reading that shows students how the emergence of Jainism and ecology is largely a novel concept born out of the adaptations made by diasporic North American Jain communities (Vallely 2006). Week 12 continues the probing of contemporary transformations of Jainism while also foregrounding the concept of anekāntavāda (Jain Doctrine of Multiplicity of Views). Two important readings from Cort (2006) and Dundas (2006) from the Jainism and Ecology (Chapple 2006) volume used at the beginning of the course are provided to show students, following Vallely’s (2006) insights from the previous week, that the equivalence of Jainism and ecology—or at least the positing of Jainism as an ecological religion—is in some ways philosophically problematic. An article by Tuminello (2018) also provides insights about Jain ethics concerned with human intervention on behalf of animals. The story of the blind men and the elephant (jainworld n.d.) is used here to illustrate to students the notion of anekāntavāda, though the week concludes with a discussion of the paramount importance of maintaining a commitment to non-violence in Jainism in order to avoid a nihilistic moral relativism.

As we can see in Appendix A, Week 13 marks the beginning of “PART V: FINAL PROJECTS AND PRESENTATIONS” and is designated to assist students in the classroom with finalizing their final paper projects. This time will be used to answer any outstanding questions or confusion about the course material, to review the course material, and to make sure students are clear about how they can incorporate this material into their papers. Finally, students will present their final projects during weeks 14 and 15. As the course syllabus indicates, the final project requires that,

In conjunction with at least one interview with a member from the Jain community, students will reflect upon one current theme in local and global ecology such as climate change, wetland restoration, oceanic and riparian ecology, pollution, animal husbandry, waste management, or another pressing social or environmental concern. Students will incorporate their interview into the final project. The basic requirement here is for students to gain an understanding of Jain ecological perspectives from a member of the Jain community, and then to apply those perspectives to a particular ecological issue.

… Though the topic of the final paper project is flexible, the topic must engage one contemporary ecological issue and must incorporate insights from Jainism, Jain yoga, your contemplative practice, and your interview.

… students must demonstrate their learned knowledge from the Jain tradition, the field of Jainism and ecology, their understanding of basic concepts in Jain yoga traditions, and their own experience while undertaking Jain contemplative practices. A minimum of three readings must be incorporated from the syllabus.

(Appendix A)

Having immersed themselves in Jain history, philosophy, and contemplative practice, it is my sincere intention that students will finish the final project and the course with a deepened sense of relationship to all forms of life and a commitment to reducing unnecessary suffering in the world around them.

3. Conclusions

As the title of this article suggests, our undergraduate students are confronted with a “World in Pain” as they enter some of their most formative educational years. What I hope to convey in this course, following fundamental Jain philosophy, is that the “World” is comprised of everything from the smallest particle of dust to the most elaborate forms of life, including, but absolutely not limited to, the human being. All of these beings do not wish to suffer, and Jain yoga proposes a model of ethical living that inspires us to reduce the harm we inflict upon them. In doing so, Jain yoga also offers ways of being in the world conducive to solving our current environmental and social crises, perhaps holding a key to our own lasting happiness and freedom.

In conclusion, I would like to make it clear that I am aware of the inherent challenges that arise when “borrowing” practices from the Jain tradition, particularly when taking into consideration the perspective of those who are concerned with the pitfalls of cultural appropriation and Romantic Orientalism. While I acknowledge these pitfalls, I would also like to inform readers that I learned much of what I am proposing to share with students from the Jain community during my time spent in the International School for Jain Studies (ISJS), an international cultural exchange program wherein Jain scholars and laypersons share their perspectives and practices with graduate students and scholars from around the world. I, therefore, understand the course I am proposing here to be a product of this educational program, which for me took place during the summer of 2012 (Miller Forthcoming), and which reflects a contemporary manifestation of what Van der Veer (2001) describes in global colonial history as the “interactional perspective” (p. 8) wherein the imperium, in its interaction with the periphery, is transformed in a process of mutual cultural exchange.

Studying Jainism and Jain yoga has had a profoundly transformative effect on my own worldview, and, ultimately, it is this transformative influence that I wish to share with my students. In this regard, the course serves as what is often referred to as “high-impact” learning (Kuh et al. 2013), similar in scope to what is known as “engaged learning” at my own academic institution (Loyola Marymount University 2019). Among other things, high-impact forms of education involve experiential learning experiences that take place within particular communities, collaborative undergraduate projects aimed at addressing real social challenges, and transformative intercultural exchanges intended to expose students to alternative worldviews (cf. Kuh et al. 2013). As we can see from the approach proposed in this article and the contents of the syllabus in Appendix A, the current course that I am recommending here serves each of these key components of a “high-impact” learning pedagogy. Those wishing to know more about Jain contemplative practices and the particular pedagogical approach proposed in this article are encouraged to contact the author at the correspondence email provided above.