5 minute read
Promoting Ahimsa on Thanksgiving Day 2021
By Dr. Christopher Patrick Miller
Christopher Patrick Miller completed his Ph.D. in the Study of Religion at the University of California, Davis. He now serves as the Bhagwan Mallinath Assistant Professor of Jainism at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He is a chairman of JAINA’s newly formed “Thanksgiving Meals and Fasting Committee”. (Christopher.Miller@lmu.edu)
As we are all well aware, millions of Americans once again feasted on the bodies of nearly 50 million slaughtered turkeys and millions of other animals and their secretions last year on Thanksgiving. Though I am already vegan, I chose to fast that day, in what was for me at the time a silent protest of the unnecessary violence and racist, colonial settler roots of this national holiday as well as the speciesist, anthropocentric ideology undergirding the factory farming system more generally. Deep inside, I silently wished that I could fast with others, to share the experience with a similarly motivated collective that also understood the multiple layers of violence of the Thanksgiving holiday.
On Thanksgiving 2020, I had a zoom call with Dr. Sulekh Jain. I disclosed that I had been fasting after he said “Happy Thanksgiving” to me. A few days later in an unrelated zoom webinar, Dr. Jain publicly announced to a global audience that I had done so. I had not intended for this to be public news, though I was happy when the global Jain community responded to his announcement with great enthusiasm by sending me private and public messages in the webinar chat indicating their desire to organize a community fast for Thanksgiving 2021. My silent wish was coming true.
In the days that followed, I received several emails from members of JAINA’s executive committee and was nominated to chair a committee for a global fast and an animal-free meal service for those in need on Thanksgiving 2021. JAINA’s President Mahesh Wadher named this committee the “Thanksgiving Meals and Fasting Committee” and along with other members of the executive committee proposed that we commit 1,000 people to fast.
In addition, the committee also simultaneously proposed that the global Jain community serve 100,000 animal-free meals to those without food on Thanksgiving 2021. I am honored to accept the nomination to chair this all-too-important committee and cause, which demonstrates the Jain community’s ongoing commitment to propagate non-violence as well as its proactive approach to charity.
To be perfectly honest, as a Filipino-EuropeanAmerican who grew up in America, I was raised with a dietary ethos that tended to foster an ideology of human dominion over nature, animals, and all of god’s creation. Turkey was a staple part of every Thanksgiving meal, as was pig. On a regular basis, our family ate meat 2-3 times per day, drank milk at almost every meal, and never questioned where our Sunday morning bacon, egg, and cheese omelets came from. Nevertheless, all of this changed when I was 21 years old when my worldview and concomitant dietary habits were exposed for the first time. A student at Loyola Marymount University, I enrolled in Dr. Christopher Chapple’s “Religions of India” upper division undergraduate course where I was introduced to the Jain ideas of ahiṃsā (nonviolence) and the notion that humans are not necessarily the only beings possessing consciousness and a soul (jīva). In fact, as we learned, everything from humans down to the smallest microorganism has a transmigrating, embodied soul which, furthermore, does not wish to experience pain.
“The function of souls is to help one another.”
Tattvartha Sutra, 5.21
Following my graduation from LMU, my first supervisor at KPMG, Mira Shah, happened to be a Jain who exemplified these teachings in her daily life. Merely seeing her commitment to a vegetarian diet at our lunch breaks inspired me to try vegetarianism for the first time. Never trying to convert me, Mira shared with me many of the intricacies of vegetarianism including how to be aware of foods that appear to be vegetarian but are actually not (such as the eggplant tofu dish that was soaked in chicken stock at Panda Express!). Mira’s impact on my dietary habits should not be overlooked and demonstrate the important impact that every Jain can have on reducing unnecessary violence. Fast forward 15 years later, and I became vegan under the significant influence of UK-based Jain Vegans’ annual “Give up Dairy” campaign during Paryushan.
The Jain tradition is indeed famous for its impressive commitment to non-violence, which has manifested in myriad forms since Mahāvīra celebrated his epiphany while meditating with his eyes open:
“...Mahavira meditated (persevering) in some posture, without the smallest motion; he meditated in mental concentration on (the things) above, below, beside, free from desires... Thoroughly knowing the earthbodies 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... (Jacobi 1884: 80-81, 87).”
Though Jains are known for their abstention from violence based on Mahāvīra’s insight here, the lay community is also quite proactive when it comes to reducing the violence around them. Indeed today, Jain commitments to non-violence toward all living beings are visible both on and off the dinner plate. As many Jains today like to say, “Jainism is not just a kitchen religion,” meaning that the practice of nonviolence shows up in other domains of life. And now it will show up on 100,000 animal-free Thanksgiving meal plates for those in need.
It is in the spirit articulated in this article that I would like for us to begin to envision a Global 2021 Thanksgiving fast and a meal service for those in need. For those of us for whom food is plentiful throughout the rest of the year, we can give thanks by not eating on Thanksgiving 2021. If you do not want to fast, eat a vegan Thanksgiving dinner. If you know a turkey-eater, consider encouraging them to prepare a vegetarian meal. And no matter what we decide to eat, we must also do what we can to provide healthy, animal-free meals to those for whom food is habitually scarce.
When we collectively accomplish these tasks, we will more confidently say to one another, “Happy Thanksgiving”.
The Thanksgiving Meals and Fasting Committee therefore requests the support of Jain Centers and individuals nationwide (and even worldwide) to make the Thanksgiving 2021 meals and fasting effort a success. It is our hope to share the Jain value of nonviolence with the nation and the world, to show that there is a positive alternative to a turkey dinner, and that an animal-free meal is a realistic and more humane choice on Thanksgiving Day.
Please contact me at christopher.miller@lmu.edu if you would like to contribute to this important initiative.
