Following a tour of Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary in CO, drJina had the opportunity to learn from the founders of Luvin Arms how individual animals can tell us their stories, if we take the time to listen. Connecting with these animals can profoundly move us and shift our consumptive patterns. Only by changing our demand for animal products and ceasing to treat them like factories can we move the world in a more compassionate direction. Sanctuaries can play a big role in what Sarah Taylor, author and advocate, said at the 2019 JAINA convention about “inducing an epiphany”, that shift in consciousness that enables people to make big changes in their lifestyle.
Among the many meaningful and beautiful pieces of art at Luvin Arms, I was really struck by this mural reminding visitors of the value of sea beings. How thoughtful to display this art where it isn’t possible (on land) to directly connect with these living beings, instead harnessing our imagination to inspire care.
Compassionate Voices, Arihanta Institute, The Jain Vegan Initiative and the Ahimsak Eco-Vegan Committee of JAINA convened an inspirational, informative and well attended online conference Aug 26/27, 2023. The conference featured keynote speakers Nirva Patel and Ruchika Chitrabhanu, and a variety of Jain activists, health and environmental experts, and scholars. You can access the recordings here.
Jain nuns and monks from a variety of sects address the violence in dairy products in the video, and then there is an extended discussion between three principled vegans about the overlap between Jain ahimsak practice and veganism. It is in Hindi with English subtitles.
This photo shows Acharya Chandanaji from Veerayatan showing compassion for animals, however, she is not one of the ascetics in the video voicing support for veganism.
On Nov 27, drJina and Sunny spoke with Mihika and Mansi, two pre-medical college students who found new friends in residents of Luvin Arms, learned about veganism as they dove head first into vegan advocacy, and are navigating their college life after this transformative experience! A lively discussion followed with tips about transitioning to veganism, veganism in India, and health benefits of a whole foods healthy vegan diet.
Here are some of the segments of the webinar, if you want to skip to topics of particular interst.
For the first 10 minutes, we have the opening, introduction of the hosts, speakers and their immersion into advocacy
(10: 41) hear the stories linked to pictures of the animals they grew to know and love at Luvin Arms
I was moved to hear the voices of so many Jains talking about their vegan journey and experiences, both diverse and familiar. Recordings are available on this shared google drive folder. Next week is part 2!
I was born in the state of North Carolina in the US. Every meal I had up until about four years ago had body parts, animal secretions or both in them. This is still seen as normal, especially in the south of the country. You see, in the south, there is a whole culture, one where people proudly display stickers andlicense plates on their cars and trucks with pictures of happy pigs along with the word “barbeque”. There are billboards on the sides of roads advertising things like steak, cheeseburgers, chicken, tacos, fish, milkshakes… On and on it goes, billboard after billboard after billboard, all of them screaming out to us, “In the name of our profits and your desires, participate in this violence!”. The same message over and over again one after the other. Not only do we have billboards screaming these messages at us, but, for some reason, the advertisers seem to think the more body parts and secretions they put between two slices of bread, the better these things they are advertising will be to those that consume them. In actuality, there is a culture of more (more violence/more harm) equals better, and many restaurants in the country are cashing in because of it.
About four years ago I went vegan. Why? I saw footage from a film called “Earthlings”. This film is not for the faint of heart, as it dives deep into the dark details,showing us what goes on in the hidden places that the meat industry, dairy industry, and fishing industry need to thrive. By the way, a little sidenote here about the dairy industry, something that is important to know: the meat industry and dairy industry are tied together, not exactly two separate industries as many seem to think, they are pretty much one and the same. More here on that.
Now, back to the film… What changed my heart, the thing that went deep into me, was seeing a cow in a slaughter chute on her way into the area of the slaughterhouse where they put a bolt through her skull. Can you imagine the fear she was experiencing, the trauma? I couldn’t help but think of the smells, the sounds, the things she saw, what was happening inside her mind and body because of all this. I didn’t know what to do with what I was deeply experiencing due to this, so I did the only thing I knew to do, I paced the floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. My whole body felt like it was quaking. That day I made the decision to never participate in any of these things again, and I never did. Fast forward to the year 2020. This is where Jainism enters the picture.
Dr. Brianne Donaldson, scholar of Jainism, recently wrote an article about the cultural blindness of our response to slaughterhouse workers. In the Covid19 pandemic, the mental health of farmers was deemed worthy to support. However, “essential” slaughterhouse workers are traumatized every day.
As she says, ” If killing animals is this traumatic, why have anyone do it? Far from “essential” business, slaughterhouse work destroys animals and corrodes the well-being of people. Since nearly all humans living in the industrialized world can live well and healthy without animal flesh, the time has come to transition away from a practice widely acknowledged to be a source of personal trauma and social harm.”
She also gave an engaging 40 minute interview the role of animal agriculture in the Covid19 pandemic.
As Dr. Donaldson describes, it is often immigrants and refugees that work in slaughterhouses. Back when I worked on refugee health, I, too found that the resettlement agencies in NC had placed the refugees from Asia into slaughterhouse jobs.
We have just posted the Jain declaration on the climate crisis as a new page. Please read and consider it and on this day of Samvatsari for Svetambar Jains, consider if you’d like to endorse it and make any commitments. There is an endorse button at the top of the page. Above for illustrative purposes only. This is not the pledge associated with the Jain declaration.
Sailesh Rao of Climate Healers places our going vegan as the #1 thing we can do for the plant.
The book Drawdown and its associated website gives details of solutions in all different sectors.
My co-author, Sudhanshu, also describes the top 8 items you can do to address the climate crisis. Continue reading →
Vegan Jains 