INTER FAITH WEEK, DAY 4: JAINISM 101

At 1500 we have the sixth of ten public meetings scheduled for Inter Faith Week, under the series title, "Communities of Faith or Belief in Leicester". We're putting on two talks per day in the Adult Education College (or, more precisely, in the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery which is attached to the Adult Education College).

The speaker for this Beginners' Guide to Jainism - or Jainism 101 - is Mehta Pradip, Vice-President of Jain Samaj Europe.

There are no takers today, so Mehta and I sit together for half an hour or so, chatting usefully about the Council of Faiths, Inter Faith Week and the place of the Jain Centre and community in both.

The photo above is one of two Jain images included in the Favourite Faiths Photo exhibition launched this week at the People's Photographic Gallery. The picture shows worshippers in the Jain Centre, Oxford Street, with the Centre's staned glass windows on show. This is believed to be the only Jain place of worship in the world featuring this short of display, which blends something of the previous use of the building with its current purpose.

MINDFULNESS & MORALITY 8: JAIN PERSPECTIVE

Session eight of this twelve-week course at Christchurch, Clarendon Park Road. Mindfulness and Morality is offered by Christians Aware as part of their Faith Awareness programme.

This evening the Jain perspective is presented by Smita Shah (in photo above with Gerry Gardiner, one of the regular attendees). Smita is President of Jain Samaj Europe, the first woman to hold this position. She is also Treasurer of Leicester Council of Faiths.

Smita asks for a show of hands from those of us who have previously encountered Jainism or Jains. Since this is a relatively knowledgeable and experienced group, everyone raises a hand. She asks us to keep our hand up if we've visited the Jain Centre on Oxford Street; very few hands go down.

Mention is also made of the current exhibition at Phoenix Square Film & Digital Media Centre: "Let's Celebrate 365" contains some striking photos of Jain festivals in India, which have never before been seen on this scale in Leicester. Smita takes a moment to explain the significcance of the images on show there. In amongst the photos of far-flung places, "Let's Celebrate 365" also contains a photograph taken in Leicester's Jain Centre, during the celebration of Diwali there.

Most of us here this evening (20 in all) have already been given a copy of the Council of Faiths leaflet on Jains, which we're expected to have read in preparation for this session. Smita reiterates some central principles and practices of Jain belief and lifestyle, all of which serve to move the individual soul closer to moksha (liberation from the recurring cycle of life, death and rebirth) and nirvana (enlightenment, eternal bliss). These include:

• Ahimsa: non-violence
• Satya: telling the truth
• Asteya: not stealing
• Aparigrapha: minimisation or non-accumulation of possessions
• Anekantvad: belief that multiple viewpoints are the true picture

Among these principle and practices, ahimsa is paramount. It extends beyond human life alone, to encompass all creation. It is based on what Jains call paraspargroho jivanan - interdependence of all life.(I wonder if it could be said to be analogous to "biophilia" - a term I heard for the first time earlier today.) Ahimsa entails more than just staying one's own hand from committing harm. It's deeper, more subtle and more profound than that. It encompasses violence or harm done by speech or thought, including hypocrisy, back-biting and the like. Ahimsa also requires us to refrain from encouraging, condoning, celebrating or applauding any kind of violence by anyone on any other forms of life.

In a social and political sense, the most significant contribution ahimsa has made in history would arguably be when Mahatma Gandhi adopted it as the foundation of his campaign to free India from British rule.

While the core principles of Jain life are applicable at all times and in all places, exactly how they are put into action may vary. Smita acknowledges the effect of such factors as historical context, geographical setting, cultural influences, family background and the influence of different kinds of people on our upbringing - all these would play a part in the moral and spiritual dimension of our lives. A Jain approach to life acknowedges the tension between the physical and the spiritual. There is clear differentiation among Jains between monks, nuns and saintly individuals on the one hand - who are strictly committed to an absolute code of practice - and lay people and householders on the other, who have to live in a more pragmatic fashion, often making conscious and informed compromise with their principles for the sake of daily living in the material world.

Jains believe in reincarnation - that the individual has to go through 84,000 life cycles. Deeds determine the condition into which one is born, according to karmas stored up from lives already lived that attach themselves to the soul. The four arms of the swastika (a tradition Jain symbol) represent the four potential realms for rebirth: heaven, hell, the human or animal kingdoms.

Bearing in mind these various principle and practices, Smita asks us to consider the following moral dilemma:

A Jain family lives in the UK and has a toddler in the house. Their household is infested with pests - mice in paticular, which can be dangerous for the baby. What should the famiy do? How do they get rid of the mice? Would it be any different if there ws no baby in the house or if it was infested with ants rather than mice?

Here are some of the comments arising from the group discussions:

Since Jains believe in reincarnation and the transimgration of souls, you might be killing your grandmother if you were to kill the mice; or in the next life, it might be you going into that mousetrap.

One should do one's best to do the right thing, but still one has to be pragmatic.

Some present describe how they've dealt with similar problems and consider how what they did might match up to the demands of Jainism.

Even the idea of moving away and leaving the problem to the next occupiers of the house would not be in accord with the law of ahimsa, since all you'd be doing would be to pass on responsibility to others for the harm that will be done.

There's some discussion about the relative worth of different kinds of life - for example, the need from other cultural and spiritual perspectives to eradicate disease and eliminate bacteria, viruses etc. there's no time to go into that tonight, but the potential for longer and deeper discussion is recognised.

The most extreme form of the question immediatly above arose in one of the groups where it was mentioned that a scientist had recently published a paper claiming to have identified fossil microbes in meteorites. NASA and other scientific and astronomical agencies are investigating this claim. If this were to be proved and it were to become commonly accepted that meteorites could carry this basic form of life around the solar system - and a large one was found to be on a collision course with Earth, would a firm Jain position prohibit us from attempting to avert this collision as it might destroy the microbes, while risking the death of countless creatures on earth, perhaps even risking human extinction?

Many Jains are known to work in medicine; how does ahimsa impinge upon following that sort of career or study path? Would a Jain doctor, nurse or consultant seek to work in a particular field that doesn't involve the destruction of other organisms in order to improve the health of patients?

As a closing note, Smita tells us that the sincerity of penitence for having to do harm to other creatures in a situation like this has, of itself, led to the liberation and enlightenment of individuals, through ego-less empathy with the suffering of another creature.

INTER FAITH WEEK 2010: DAY 4

Priority this morning is to get my hands on a copy of the Leicester Mercury, to get a look at The Wave - the paper's young people's supplement, in which we've been promised front page coverage. There's a good big photo, showing Smita Shah (President of Jain Samaj Europe and Treasurer of Leicester Council of Faiths) and me, speaking with Katie (editor of The Wave) and Will (who wrote the story). The coverage is really good; I buy a dozen copies so we can show it off on the stall today.

Marion Kennedy is already at the display when I arrive around 0915. She's very apologetic about having missed her turn earlier this week (on Monday morning) when she was poorly and had to go home. She's determined to make the most of her time here this morning. I'm obliged to go off to CreativeCoffee Club just before 1000 and although I am loathe to leave her there on her own, she's quite content for that to be so.

Scott MacDonald and Aramesh Mahboubi (from Leicester Bahá'ís), Chogma (Education Outreach Officer from the Nagarjuna Kadampa Buddhist Centre), Suzanne Kelly (of Christians Aware) cover the 1400-1600 slot. Those four are in the photo below.

Speaking with one of the staff on the body care products concession that's selling products based on minerals from the Dead Sea, I ask what's happened to her colleagues from Israel, who had been speaking with us just a few days before, on Sunday. She tells me that their visas were found not to be in order, so the government has sent them home. Oh ...

In the late afternoon, a diminutive Sikh man and a big burly Christian fellow have a lively and friendly discussion about whether one has free will in matters of faith and belief or if it's no more than an accident of geography and history, determined by where and when one is born.

One woman, who introduced herself as a social worker, plucked half a dozen copies of each leaflet from our display.

Two young fellows, who later describe themselves as engineering students attending one of the city's universities, spend some time eyeing up the display on one side (the one with the later letters of the alphabet on it). After they've caught my attention, I go over and introduce myself and ask them what they think of it. They tell me that they'd like me to remove one of the banners from the display. I ask them which one, and they motion toward the Jewish one. They don't seem able to bring themselves to say the name. When I tell them that's not going to happen, they ask if I can at least move it so it's not adjacent to the Muslim banner. I tell them that's not going to happen either; we follow alphabetical order to avoid any protests at any faith community being unduly favoured over any other. After we've talked for a moment, I recognise these two chaps from a larger group who visited the exhibition earlier in the week, looked at it, appeared to speak about it among themselves, but wouldn't take any literature when offered it, or engage with anyone on the stall. (I note, later, that they've also been here earlier in the day - to judge from comments that one of the volunteers on duty earlier in the day had left in the reflective log.) This evening, the three of us spoke together for what must have been more than a quarter of an hour - and I found it all very interesting. They say that they were from Saudi Arabia and had never been outside their home country till coming here to study. They've only been in Leicester for a couple of months. Their issues with the Jewish presence in this exhibition arises from their awareness of the political and economic situation of the Palestinian people. I explain to them that the mission of Leicester Council of Faiths is to attend to relations between the faith communities in the city, and between the faith communities as a whole and the wider citizenry of Leicester. We know about the conflict between and among religions around the world - we don't hide our heads in the sand, but we also know can't resolve these conflicts. What matters to us is how we live here. To illustrate this, I describe to them what happened at Holocaust Memorial Day in Leicester, January 2009 (see blog post dated 31 Dec 2009, where I highlighted that event as my number one occasion of the year). They're still not convinced and tell me that, while their Palestinian Muslim brothers and sisters are being persecuted, there are no instances of Muslims persecuting members of other religions. I ask them to walk with me to the other side of the display and show them the Bahá'í banner. I ask them if they've heard of the Bahá'ís. They tell me that they never have. When I describe how they are being treated (how they have always been treated) in Iran, they fall silent. I put to them the question, because this is being done by Muslims to members of the religion I follow, should I take that out on Muslims in Leicester? To put it more bluntly, would it be good reason for me to punch the two of them in the face? Is it their fault this is happening? Of course it isn't - and of course I don't feel like that. but the rhetoric seems to work. At this point, they both tell me their names (they'd said earlier that they wouldn't do so) and we part on friendly terms, with firm handshakes all round. They tell me that they'll come back before the end of the week and try to talk with other people on the stall.

A young and dynamic Muslim businesswoman came to the exhibition late in the day and spent several minutes scrutinising it told me that she's opening a care home facility in Thurmaston and would be interested in obtaining training from the Council of Faiths in faith and cultural awareness for the staff she's taking on there.

"An uplifting experience. Thank you for the brilliant organisation. I've enjoyed all the conversations with 'staff' and visitors alike."

"Two Saudi Arabian students studying at DMU (engineering) were interested in the exhibition. when told about the leaflets one of the picked out Muslim, Christian, Jewish, His friend asked him why he wasn't taking one of each (I didn't hear the response). His friend took the others. We had a long chat."

"Was on exhibition from 4-8, met some interesting people and someone bought me a book to help me understand some alien concepts and approaches to spirituality."

National Inter Faith Week: day 2

Early in the day, Jan MacDonald (Secretary of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Leicester) takes a turn on the stall between 1200 and 1400. She has a long conversation (over half an hour) with a young Sikh fellow, who talks candidly about how becoming a father has changed his attitude to his culture, heritage and religion. We also enjoy a visit from Parmjit Basra, Project Officer at Leicester City Council's Adult Skills and Learning Services, who was in charge of the recent Leicester Speaks event. (That's Parmjit talking to Jan in the photo above). Also on the stall at this time is Clive Sutton, from Leicester Quakers (the fellow in the dark jacket on the left of the photo below).
 

Early in the afternoon, John Florance pops in at the display to tell me that he'd given the exhibition a mention on his Sunday morning show yesterday on BBC Radio Leicester. This time last year, Noel Singh, Shaykh Ibrahim Moghrah and I appeared live on John's show to talk about the first National Inter Faith Week.

The undoubted highlight of this second day of our exhibition is the visit from The Wave (a supplement for young people, by young people distributed free with the Leicester Mercury). Katie Stewart (Editor), and reporter Will Sturgess arrive at the exhibition just after four, accompanied by John Coster and Tina Barton of Citizens’ Eye community news agency. On the display at that time with me are Ramila Chauhan and Smita Shah. Will interviews Smita and me and photos are taken of us in front of the Jain banner (Smita is President of Jain Samaj Europe as well as being Treasurer of Leicester Council of Faiths).

There’s a plan brewing between The Wave, Citizens’ Eye and Leicestershire Constabulary for an activity they’re calling “Speed Faithing”, in which young reporters will dash around the city to see how many places of worship – and how many meaningful encounters they can fit in with the people there – in one day. The Council of Faiths has latterly become involved in this.

In the last shift of the day, from 1800-200, I share duties on the exhibition with Sarfraz Khan, who works as Administrator for the Federation of Muslim Organisations (FMO). I've long been keen to get greater involvement of Muslim friends in Amplified Leicester, CreativeCoffee Club and other networking activities, so I take advantage of the moment to try and sell their usefulness to Sarfraz. I hope I sounded convincing, rather than just some mad old bloke riding his own hobby horse!

Here are a few of the comments that some of the volunteers who helped out on the exhibition today committed to our reflective journal:

"In the lunch hour there were a lot of people keen to hurry by and only a few who would allow me to catch their eye. One, from Thailand, wanted to see what the Council of Faiths had to say about Buddhism (he works in a casino here). Another, in a wheel chair, was glad of someone to take notice and chat. Others went by. A man at the next stand, trying to capture subscribers for Sky TV, said that he found this arcade a very difficult place and he found it hard to engage people, most of whom were heading for the clothes shops. A young clean-shaven Sikh showed interest, as did a visitor to Leicester whose girlfriend is a Buddhist chaplain in the NHS. Good interest from two Turkish Muslim engineering students"

"Some people had specifically come to have a look at the stand because they had heard it was here. Others were curious and asked, some took leaflets when they didn't have time to talk. Generally, the people who spoke were very positive and encouraging."

"Interesting experience. A lot of people passing by. Young ones are also stopping and taking interest. Quite interesting that a few we spoke to hadn't heard of Jains or Jainism. Not sure that it being going home time meant overall less people stopped by. Strange interaction but very enjoyable and some interesting questions get asked."