LawDog
Meditations on Self Defence
January 27, 2008
[Via Tam. I'm in full agreement with this philosophy but not all people are.

I had an interesting discussion with my officemate last week. She is from India and a Jain. Just a quick refresher on that philosophy of life:

Nonviolence includes the concepts of vegetarianism. Jains are expected to be non-violent in thought, word, and deed, both toward humans and toward all other living beings, including their own selves. Jain monks and nuns walk barefoot and sweep the ground in front of them to avoid killing any insects or other tiny beings. Even though all life is considered sacred by the Jains, human life is deemed the highest form of life. For this reason, it is considered vital never to harm or upset any person.

They also don't eat the roots of plants because of the increased chance of harming some organism that lives in the soil or the root. She does eat dairy products but not eggs.

Quite a contrast from me. I asked her, "If a lion was about to have you, or your children, for lunch does your religion require you to submit? The answer was that in the most pure form, yes, you are required to tolerate being lunch. But of course most people would not do that. They would fight back. Similar responses were obtained after gentle probes about taking antibiotics and defending against a human attacker. I dropped the subject. Maybe some other time when we have lots of time (this was to/from a lunch for our group) I'll explore more. It seems so odd to me that their ideal and the admitted practical are so divergent. And that she is so positive about my explosive videos. Maybe it's just the contrast from her live experience in a non-threatening form. Or maybe she is just being a Jain and doesn't want to upset me by showing her disapproval.

[shrug]

Those are questions for another time--we have a product to ship...--Joe]