The Relatability of the Seemingly Unrelatable

The practice of samadhi-muran is incredibly hard for me to understand or rationalize. While I can see how Jainists themselves understand the act of suicide as a continuation and culmination of their ascetic beliefs, I can still not fit it into my own processes of comprehension. Initially the religion of Jainism appeared as completely foreign to me and the majority of its tenets as incomprehensible. However, in this week's reading I did learn about an aspect of Jainism with which I could relate to. While I view the Jainist belief that violence exists everywhere as a bit extreme, I do understand the part as it relates to animals. I do not consume any animal products and I understand the Jainist tenet as it relates to this. Laidlaw describes how Jainists also view vegetarianism as physically improving the body and actually improving life. This aspect of relatabilty actually led me to further understand Jainism. While our first understanding of Jainist practice might be that it makes its believers suffer in everyday life and that it makes life bad, we must consider that the act of deprivation can have beneficial consequences both physically and mentally. When people ask me how I survive without meat and dairy, I might as well ask them how they can live with them. The act of depriving myself of these things actually improves my mental well-being as well as my physical well-being. With an act of deprivation I actually add to my well-being. We must consider that Jainist practices might deprive of what the West considers to be important aspects of "the good life," while instead providing for another kind of "good life." Additionally, assuming power over one's agency or upholding one's beliefs via death might well be a way of achieving this alternative "good life."