Jain Workshop at Houston TX

Workshop Theme

STRIKING A BALANCE: - EXAMINING Social, Cultural, and Spiritual environment that our youth face while growing up in North America.

Dates – August 16, 2013 to August 18, 2013

Time – August 16 Friday 7 PM to 9 PM and August 17 and 18 - 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM

Location – Jain Society of Houston (Big Trailer)

Participants
The workshop will be most beneficial to Pathashala teachers, potential teachers and any adults who are open minded to understand the principles of Jainism and their applications in American culture environment.  The Workshop is open to all.

Workshop Moderator
Pravin K Shah, Chairperson Jaina Education Committee and Jain eLibrary in-charge.

Workshop Coordinators –
Chini Mehta at emailchini@gmail.com (832)584-4327 or Smita Bora at smitabora@hotmail.com
Registration required but no fee:(Limited space available).

Overview of Jain Workshop

After the first few sessions on Jain axioms and fundamental principles, the workshop delves into the brain storming and discussion on powerful and thought provoking questions that have no absolute answers.  It includes the social and cultural perceptions as well as stereotypes and generalizations from both youth and adult’s perspective.

The discussion will provide insights into questions that are important to our youth in order to develop them spiritually, ethically, and socially in the western world.

While often difficult to reconcile divergent influences, it is critical to understand the distinctions and strike a balance amongst Indian heritage, Jain religion, spirituality and Western lifestyle.

We will be digging deep, challenging ourselves/our limiting beliefs and exploring new possibilities. Regardless of your current level of understanding, you are bound to walk away with a new expanded view.

List of Questions

We have compiled the list of questions that our youth, young Jain professionals, Pathashala teachers, and adult community have asked us over the past 10 years of time. The following two links contain the listings of all such questions.

http://www.jainelibrary.org/$Questions/01_Youth_Adults_and_Teachers_Questions.pdf

http://www.jainelibrary.org/$Questions/02_Questions_Received_in_Email.pdf

During the workshop we will be discussing these questions and their possible answers using the fundamental principles of Jainism.  Keep in mind that some questions are not easy to answer and some questions may have more than one answer.  Also for some questions we may not have enough knowledge of Jainism to answer.

If you have any question that is not being covered in the above two lists, please send your question using the following link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1gNRHFm2qnP5RGvmYuBjldLS8FnUXrUjUocSJTsYSPhI/viewform

I would also like to put together a team of Scholars and Pathashala teachers from North America to work on the answers of these questions.  We need to prepare the answers appropriate to our time, place, and circumstances and not violating the fundamental principles of Jainism.  If any of you have an interest to work on this team, please send me an email.  (Qualification - You should be living in North America and have raised families here.)

Prerequisite for the Workshop
Please read the Jaina Education material Reference book – Jainism 101 (JES 901/902) located at the following link

http://www.jainlibrary.org/elib_master/jaina_edu/jaina_edu_book/$JES901_Jainism_E7_20090301_000901.pdf

Future Workshop

I will be conducting similar sessions every day during Paryushana in London UK organized by the Jain Network (Dr. Natubhai Shah - natubhaishah@aol.com) and Young Jains UK organizations.

If your Jain center would like to organize such workshop, please contact Pravin K Shah jainaedu@gmail.com

Follow-ups

Brett Evans’s Article on “A Perspective on Panjarapoles (Animal Shelter) of India”

We have received about 80 email responses around the world basically appreciating his work.  Brett is trying hard to respond individually.  However he will prepare general answer that will be distributed in next week.

Pathashala Presentations at the Jaina Convention

We have uploaded the Pathshala presentation of 18 different Jain centers of North America that we have received at the Jaina convention.  Now you will be able to see the various activities of different Jain Centers of North America at the following link.

http://jainelibrary.org/jaina_path.php

If you want to modify/change your existing information, please send us a new file and we will replace it on the website.  If your center has not provided its presentation, please do it now and we will upload it on the website.

If you have any questions, please fill free to contact at jainaedu@gmail.com

Regards,

Pravin K Shah

Jaina Education Committee
Jain eLibrary.