As It Would Be Unto Thee
The story
The lesson opens by picturing a good teacher as a clear lake. It says a new monk may later find untrue what he once thought true, and the other way round. Then this sentence comes as a refrain, repeated for tyrannizing, tormenting, punishing and driving away. Its conclusion is that a person who lives by it neither kills nor has others kill.
Ācārāṅga Sūtra, Book I, Lecture 5, Lesson 5, §4; tr. Hermann Jacobi, Sacred Books of the East 22 (1884), p. 50
The same moment, today
A gardener finds an earthworm on a warm concrete driveway after a rainstorm. It isn't dangerous, and it doesn't get in anyone's way. Most people walk right past it, or they step around it so they don't get their shoes dirty. But picking it up with a dry leaf and carrying it over to the grass takes five seconds. It comes from a simple gut feeling. Nobody wants to dry out in the sun, and you don't need a special reason to spare someone else that trouble.
The line from the Acaranga Sutra says that the creature you want to hurt feels pain in the exact same way you do. The text repeats this same sentence for beating, driving away, and bullying someone. You don't have to guess what another creature wants, because it wants what you want: not to be hurt. Jain monks live this out by sweeping their path with a small whisk broom so they don't crush insects underfoot. Lay Jains strain their drinking water through clean cloth and don't eat after dark so bugs aren't drawn into cooking pots. The rule is plain: treat the other creature's pain as real as your own.
The lesson
Before you crush a bug or snap at someone who got on your nerves, pause for one breath. Remember that they hate pain just as much as you do.
Where this comes from
The earliest Svetambara scripture
This verse comes from the Acaranga Sutra, which is the oldest text in the Svetambara Jain canon. Hermann Jacobi translated it into English in 1884 for the Sacred Books of the East series. The passage compares a good spiritual guide to a clear lake, then repeats this line for killing, tormenting, punishing, and driving away. Digambara Jains don't accept the Acaranga Sutra as scripture, because they hold that the ancient canon was lost over time. But both traditions teach this exact lesson, and both agree that hurting another being is no different from hurting yourself.
A small reminder, on your water bottle or your notebook, that every living thing fears pain just as much as you do.
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