Walking Buddha's Path

MindUp project

2010-03-09T21:55:00.000-08:00

An interesting educational project:

http://www.thehawnfoundation.org/program/about-mindup/

From the site:

"The Hawn Foundation, in collaboration with neuroscientists, behavioral psychologists, educators, and leading researchers in the field of social and emotional learning, has developed MindUP™, a comprehensive classroom-based program for children in grades K-7.

MindUP™ has four main goals:
• to foster mindful focused awareness;
• to increase positive human qualities, such as empathy, perspective-taking, helpfulness and kindness;
• to increase optimism and well-being;
• to foster a cohesive, caring classroom climate that enhances learning."

perception of time

2009-09-17T06:22:00.001-07:00

I had one of those days today.... rushing from one place to another, with a sick wife, a hungry baby, tired toddler, an (almost) lost wallet...

At school, I went directly to the classroom before picking up the key to the room in the reception. When I realized, I went to reception as quickly as I could. But, when we started the class the kids where of course quite unsettled.

We bowed and I immediately asked them to sit for meditation. About half did well, four actually did extremely well and sat for at least 15min straight.

For the second group I asked Debbie to lead the class, but she had also not been able to prepare a class. So I sat for a few seconds trying to figure out what was the right thing to talk about.

Of course: time!

My personal experience after meditating for 2-3 days in a retreat is that things 'slow-down'. At the end of 10 day retreat the effect is always obvious. It is as if we were seen a film and suddenly we can see each frame of it. The great thing is that by being able to see the details in each frame we can enjoy a different aspect of the film.

I thought this image might be a bit complicated so I used the drawing of a cartoon. One of those that you draw in a notebook and then flick through the pages to see the animation moving.

I explained students how our world demands (or seems to) that we always do more in less time. This is like flicking through the pages quicker and quicker. We all agree that this may the cartoon seem less interesting.

I asked students to make a resolution, just as I would. To do less in more time, and at the same try to enjoy every moment.

I explained that by being aware of our senses and our feelings we can be more aware of time, and enjoy more each moment.

I don't think the explanation come out terribly clear, but I tried. And as it often happens I still felt satisfied about the class. I should think more about the topic and try to do better next time.

Smell - part 2.

2009-08-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

This week I brought in a container with cinnamon and one with vinegar (of Modena, the black kind).

We took refuge in the 3 jewels and sat for a few seconds, just as last week.

The cinnamon was first, and they found it much harder to identify than I had originally thought, but most could tell it was a spice (maybe because they probably saw it). Interestingly when I asked them about the memories it brought, everybody had different ideas. Some thought about 'banana cakes', 'pudding' one about this dad's 'massage oil' (he is a masseuse) and 'cough medicine'. This was a beautiful opportunity to discuss how the senses trigger different memories in each of us.

Two of the kids said the class was starting to feel like a science class. First, 'I agree in some sense, for me the Buddha was scientist, but a scientist of the mind'. The difference with the science class is that there 'this would be cinnamon and this vinegar. Here it is banana cake and massage oil, worcestershire or soy sauce (for the vinegar)'

The fact that many confused vinegar with soy or other sauces also triggered a nice discussion on how the different senses often 'trick you or do not agree'. If you see something your ideas of what it is will change even if the smell is telling you something else.

With the older ones we discussed how the habits or the thoughts that senses trigger affect our lives. We talked about walking in front of McDonalds triggers a thought of 'hunger' (even when you are not), all due to the smell (that all of them identified as a unique McDonalds smell).

We wanted to start moving to other senses, and start linking to habits that might affect them later.

Debbie brought some magazine photos form Cloe and other teen magazines, and we discussed very briefly what does photographs make them feel. There were photos of obese and photos of female models. We wanted to make them aware of their feelings... originally thinking that a model would trigger things like 'I want to be like that' but it did not seem to be something they I actually (or so explicitly) see. Next time we will use other type of photos (objects of marketing).

Last night I saw a great documentary on 'Consuming Kids: the commercialization of Children'.

One of the researchers (or marketers?) describes the outcomes of advertising as 'attachment' to a sense of self. Buddha was so right! Hopefully these type of exercise will help kids be less attached, and a have a proper sense of self (or no-self ;-) not based on what they own.

back! to the senses (smell)

2009-08-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

I recently came back from a 4 month trip to the US and Europe (work related).

Last week I started teaching again and it was a a wonderful experience.

The lady who coordinates the classes in the school told me to 'prepare... they will probably be a bit unsettled'. Instead they behaved like angels.

The program we had agreed for this term was to work on awareness of the senses, so I had planed to but some herbs in the supermarket before going to school. As it happens I was stuck at work until last minute. When I arrived to school check my watch... no time. With an uncharacteristic quick thinking I went to the school's canteen and asked for an orange that they did not have, an apple (neither)... I finally got a vegemite sandwich and a mandarine.

We first took refuge in the three jewels (Buddham Saranam Gachami, Dhammam Saranam Gachami and Sangham Saranam Gachami).

I explained why I like to do it in Pali, the language of Buddha. People has been doing it for 2500 years. Every time they do, people are putting a bit of effort into something. Millions of people do it every day, and have been doing it for centuries! how much effort has gone into this.

If we compare it with some of the 7 wonders of the world, with the Great Wall of China, buildings that took thousands of people decades to build.... how much more have we built with the Buddhist tradition. The fact that we can not see it, does not mean is not there. The effort goes into changing ourselves, not the nature outside, and interestingly enough this is more difficult. The kids were very interested with this idea.

We sat in our normal position' the legs crossed, the back straight, right hand over left hand'

And then did a bit of 'breath in.. breath out'. I asked them to keep their eyes closed until all had a chance to smell the objects hidden in my cloth bag. 'try to feel where you 'feel' the smell, i it in the tip of your nose or deep inside. Is it in your stomach? your mind?'

I walked around and let them get a sniff of the orange.

Most had an idea of what it was, but some confused it with other fruits.

We discussed what they felt? some actually wanted to eat it, and their 'mouth watered' so we discussed the response patterns we have. We smell some things and get hungry...

We then got a smell of the vegemite sandwich. Obviously most of them expressed their feelings loudly 'stink', 'o no!', 'disgusting', but very few recognized what it was.

We then discussed how some scents we feel attracted to and some we reject. How we do this to recognize things that can be harmful or things that can bring nutrition.

The important thing is not to recognize the object, the stimulus, it is to recognize what it triggers in our mind. I believe that when we learn to do this we would have fewer cases of eating disorders, marketing would have a much lower impact on us. We would be much wiser.

At the end of the session, as a joke I ate the vegemite sandwich (that I like), and they all laughed. Regrettably I was not mindful enough to notice that I would need it for the second class with the older kids. The exercise with them was similar but just discussing the 'attractive' fruit.

the six perfections

2009-01-22T04:47:00.000-08:00

Kids never stop surprising me. We so underestimate their abilities!

One of the activities I led late in the year was to discuss the six perfections (technically called the Paramitas), a different take on the path, with similarities to the eightfold path.

I wanted to leave them some 'homework', something to think about in their holidays, and we had already discussed the eightfold path, so I thought this could be a good alternative, but I had my reservations due to its complexity.

But, they always can surprise us with their ingenuity and focus.

I thought that activity was very successful. The kids meditated on these perfections and seemed happy and motivated when we finished.

Dana (generosity), reminds us on what the real meaning of the Christmas season should be (most of the kids are from christian families). We practice giving without expecting anything back.

Sila: (virtue), can be developed by remembering that giving should be accompanied by virtue.

This means that we can only give what is ours, and that choices should be mindful of waste, cost,...

Kshanti (patience, acceptance), can be developed when we have expectations, desires, etc, all of which cannot be met.

Virya (diligence) that I brought up, asking them to make an effort to meditate a few minutes everyday, while they were on holidays.

Dhyana: (concentration) that they would develop while they meditate

Prajna: (wisdom) that they would also develop while thy meditate.

I wish I had written the details on the session's pros and cons immediately after school. Now, a month later, I only remember the gist of it, and that I was extremely happy about the outcomes.

epilogue to 2008

2009-01-22T04:33:00.000-08:00

2009 has started, and soon I will be teaching again.

Regrettably life was so hectic on the last couple of months last year, that I did not keep this diary up to date.

A few important things happened. The best thing was to meet Debbie in a Buddhist Council workshop. Soon after we met she volunteered to help me with the teaching. She already volunteers in another school, cares for seniors and somehow manages to maintain a family with 3 kids.

We decided to take a more structured approach this year, with a specific topic in each term.

I also want to better engaging parents, trying to motivate them to practice with their kids at home.

I will be away, for work, for almost 4 months this year, so it is really good that Debbie will be around to cover for me.

Books recommended in the SRE workshop

2008-08-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

I found a number of really interesting books in the last workshop organized by the NSW Buddhist council. I have not used them in class yet, but they seemed excellent.

The Centering Book, awareness activities for children, parents and teachers by Gay Hendricks and Russel Wills
Zen Shorts by John Muth Recommended for year 1, 2 and 3.
The Three Questions by John Muth
Stone Soup by John Muth (I loved this one)
The Prince Who Ran Away: The Story Of Gautama Buddha by Anne Rockwell (Author), Fahimeh Amiri (Illustrator)
Her Father's Garden by James Vollbracht

books on teaching emotional intelligence

2008-08-06T00:43:00.000-07:00

In a recent training workshop(for SRE teachers) at the Buddhist Council, its president made a point about how Buddhist Scripture is teaching in many way 'life skills' (in the lay sense. Dealing with emotions (our own and those off others), is an essential part of this training. Although these books are not Buddhist at all, I have bought a copy and now have them in the ever growing pile o things to read. If any Buddhist teachers has experience with any of these, I would appreciate your feedback.

Teaching Emotional Intelligence: Strategies and Activities for Helping Students Make Effective Choices. by Adina Bloom Lewkowicz. 2006

Fostering Emotional Intelligence in K-8 Students: Simple Strategies and Ready-To-Use Activities. by Gwen Doty. 2001

Emotional Intelligence . by Daniel Goleman. This is the book that probably coined the term and started the trend. Goleman is very well know researcher in the field of emotions.

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships by Daniel Goleman.

Teaching Meditation to Children - new book

2008-08-01T00:19:00.000-07:00

Teaching Meditation to Children: The Practical Guide to the Use and Benefits of Meditation Techniquesby David Fontana (Author), Ingrid Slack is a fantastic book written by experienced teachers of mediation. Not a Buddhist book but very insightful about techniques and particularly issues that appear while teaching meditation to children.
It is the type of book where I feel the urge to use a highlighter is stronger than the guilt of scratching a book (I feel this guilt, even when the book is mine).

Some of the things I highlighted:

"Working with children in meditation lifts our spirits as well as theirs."
"A fifth-century Buddhist monk, Buddhghosa, spoke of meditation as a training of attention"
Preparatory rules:.. 1. Don't expect too much. 2. Never show disappointment or impatience 3. Make it clear that children are not competing with each other 4. Keep all instructions simple 5. Keep explanations simple and 6. Use appropriate tone of voice.

Dalai Lama meets scripture students

2008-06-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

The NSW Buddhist Council organizes great events. "On Saturday 14th June 2008 some children along with their parents were invited to meet His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama at Homebush. Here are some pictures to share with you http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelwu2218"

I was not one of the lucky ones ;-)

But Michael photos are fantastic.
I still haven't figured out how to embed a single photo, so I borrowed one:

Mathieu Ricard in Aloka

2008-05-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

The ABM Youth group organized a fantastic event around Ricard's visit.

We had a musical show, and then a very interesting Dhama by Ricard.

The following Q& A section with Ven Mahinda was enlightening. It showed how different monks have different opinions on things, but then at the bottom, it is the same.

The icing on the cake was the slide show that Ricard gave to the youth group. His sensitivity and analytical skills are reflected on all he does.

Al proceeds from the event went to Ricard's charities. If you can help support orphans in Tibet and Nepal, please visit his website: http://www.karuna-asia.org

Meditation And The Neuroscience Of Consciousness

2008-05-12T05:04:00.000-07:00

It feels very strange to comment on two readings as distant as "Peaceful piggy meditation" and the Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness on almost the same day... but well, that is what I have been reading.

Actually, of the latter I only read "Meditation And The Neuroscience Of Consciousness: An Introduction" by Antoine Lutz, John D. Dunne, And Richard J. Davidson.

This chapter reviews defines meditation by analyzing some of the techniques common to all Buddhist traditions, then it explores where Buddhism and Neuroscience intersect, describing how Buddhism as an exploratory field of study can contribute to the neuroscience of emotions and mind-body interactions. The chapter concludes with a section discussing the neuroimaging and neuroelectric research that reviews some of the correlates between both. With 120 pages the chapter goes pretty deep.

The authors, from the University of Wisconsin, are working with a number of very experienced meditators, monks from the Tibetan tradition, including Matthieu Ricard.

Peaceful Piggy Meditation

2008-05-12T02:43:00.000-07:00

On week two of this term I tried to reproduce the successful results I had on week one. We read Peaceful Piggy Meditation a short story about family life in today's fast world.

The basic premise is that since "Sometimes the world can be such a busy, noisy place" then "it's good to meditate."

According to Amazon, the author is a certified meditation teacher for children.

The books is very nice, both the writing and the illustrations. For teaching in a large class in fact that images are somewhat realistic makes reading it more difficult: all kids want to see them!

For the older kids I think the story was less interesting than the "Hermit and the Well" I read last week.

Mind Science - a news report

2008-05-06T15:45:00.000-07:00

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. (Albert Einstein)

A number of scientists have started looking at Buddhism as a source of information on how the brain works. This is a news report of the research produced at the Lab for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin, led by Prof Richard Davidson.

The Dan Rather news report starts with a section on the impact of meditation on well-being, with interviews to the Dalai Lama and a number of scientists. Then there is a discussion of medical research on how the increased understanding of neuroplasticity is helping people suffering the consequences of stroke. I found the interview to Eric Kandel, nobel prize winner, particularly entretaining.

The Hermit and the Well

2008-05-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

For the first lesson of this term I picked The Hermit and the Well a short story by Thich Nhat Hanh. Thich Nhat Hanh is a fantastic writer. The book tells, in first person, the story of a boy who goes on a school trip to a mountain to find a hermit. They do not find him, but the boy finds something much more important while sitting next to a well.

The story raises a number of issues that can trigger discussion. The kids were interested in knowing if the story was true, or if it could even be true. It also can be used to discuss how when we hurry we do not see the beauty of what lays on the path, or how we sometimes find what we are looking for, in something that looks completely different.

I was actually feeling pretty awful before the class. I had read the terrible story of child abuse and was feeling very sad. But somehow the kids were the quietest they have ever been. The class was fantastic. I had decided to read the story while we 'played' freeze and the distractors, and offer to give candy to those who won. At the end I gave a candy to each of them, because they had all been so good (I actually ran out of them half way).

With the older ones, I used the remaining time to discuss the story. It always amazes me how people can have so different interpretations of a text.
Note: Before starting the reading I asked what a Hermit was. Very few knew the meaning, so one of the kids explained it.

End of term

2008-04-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

For the last 3 weeks, Monica, a Volunteer came to the class to help with the teaching. She was really nice and I was hoping she would be able to teach Kindy and year 1 that currently have no teacher. On the second week she made the case that it would be better to teach in a school that has no teacher whatsoever. She was probably right.

The kids behaved pretty bad the first two of these weeks. The third one I started sending the restless ones out, to their normal class. I will have to keep strict on the discipline or we will have the same problem I had last year.

The classes have not been as structured as they used to be. We worked on a historic topic on alternate weeks.

When we discussed the four sights, I showed a snippet off the BBC video.

Siddharta was very sensitive to what happened around him so the King was very concerned about the type of things he saw and heard. But Siddharta wants to see the world.

The story tells how Siddharta leaves the palace with his friend/servant Channa. On each excursion he sees an important sign, and on each occasion Channa explains how that could happen to anyone: A sick man, is the first one, then an old, and a dead man. With these first three sights he faces for the first time the suffering of the cycle of life. On the four one he sees a monk, begging for food. And Channa explains that he is a wise man looking for answers to the problems of life.

On the last class the kids wrote on small cards, made by the Buddhist council, their name, year and an act of kindness they did recently. We then read and discuss them (without saying aloud who wrote what). The Council will collect them all for the Vesak celebrations.

Interesting books

2008-04-07T23:51:00.000-07:00

I am trying to learn about what Neuroscience has to say with respect to emotions, a very hot field of scientific research. I just ordered three books that seemed promising. They are not Buddhist at all, but I hope to find they have something interesting to say:

Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion - Richard D. Lane;

The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind - Marvin Minsky

Affective Computing - Rosalind W. Picard

circles of metta - loving kindness

2008-03-17T01:51:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I get bits of inspiration out of nowhere. By serendipity I end up making up an activity that engages students much more than other activities. Last week it one of these.

With the older ones (about 12 this year) we did almost 15 minutes of meditation. Most of them where sitting pretty quietly by the time I finished the session. We stretched, talked a bit and then I thought another 5minutes of sitting would be nice.

I asked them to sit in groups of 3-4. I ended up with 2 groups of 3, a group of 4 and two groups of 2. They had to sit in circles. The exercise was to send loving kindness 'energy' to the person on the left. This way the person on the right was sending 'metta' to myself and I was sending metta to the person on the left. Metta circulated clockwise in each group. I asked them to feel the energy coming in through one arm and leaving through the other. It seemed that liked the activity.

We then discussed what they felt when they meditated. They mostly said 'calm'.

Surprisingly they could not come with examples of other situations where they felt the same way. I said that I felt somewhat like that when I sat in the beach, listening to the waves and feeling the breeze. They did not seem to click on the simile, so I think they enjoy the beach in a different way :-)

SRE workshop - a success

2008-03-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have been with a flu and classes just started at Uni, so I had not able to report on the funtastic workshop organized by the NSW Buddhist Council.

We followed the program for the day quite closely:
10:00 - 10:10 Welcome and meditation
10:10 - 10:50 Daniel Yeo “how best to use the Come & See CDs” gave us a great show, with music, dancing and a lot of ideas on how to make our classes more fun. The CDs of D-Kidz, his group, can be acquired in the website. You can listen to samples in his site or from Buddhanet here. The songs tell the story of Buddha and as such they can be very useful. Note, some of the lyrics have religious connotations common in asian countries, but that not all teachers might want to bring to their classes in Australia (or other western countries). As I told Daniel, I wish I could sing and entertain like that!, but as he replied 'if you can't sing, use the CD!'

10:50 - 11:10 DET Representative on their protocols. A discussion of mostly administrative issues, but the lady who presented provided some useful materials.
11:10 - 11:30 Michelle Corby “meditation with children”. Michelle told us about her experiences and a discussion followed.
11:30 - 11:40 Break
11:40 - 12:00 TC Lim “the Dhammapada”. TC Lim, a long term benefactor of different Buddhist organizations told the personal story of editing a version of the Dhammapada, and suggested looking into it as a source for children stories.
12:00 - 12:30 Ven Jin Rou "Teaching Ecology through Buddhist Stories" read some of the stories she has written.
12:30 - 12:50 Group discussions

We then went for a delicious lunch at a restaurant in Crows Nest.

Thank you to Roselin and Brian for organizing this

online learning?

2008-02-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

Since we have so little time during the class (30 min) I have been thinking how I could extend it to the time they spend at home.

Several of the kids mentioned that they practice with their parents at home.

Maybe sharing their experiences online would help having them think more about meditation during the week?

The first real question is, would online activities help at all?

If so, what type of activities would be best? Some ideas

I found ePals website, recently featured at New York Times, that helps teachers link with groups of students elsewhere. How about getting students talk about Buddhism with kids in Vietnam or Thailand?
Discussion amongst themselves about their personal experiences
Pick a topic for the year (e.g. 'happiness') and discuss it, bringing the buddhist perspective in classes.

Ricard coming to Sydney

2008-02-07T03:21:00.000-08:00

One of the best news I got in the Council's meeting a few weeks ago was that Matthiew Ricard was coming to Sydney. He will nowhere less than Aloka! on the 4th of May. They have set up a website with a name around the theme of his visit: 'Towards a simple and peaceful life'

I also found another excellent talk by Matthiew Ricard at google video.

Sunnataram Forest Monastery

2008-02-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we went to the Sunnataram Forest Monastery, a Thai temple about 120Km south of Sydney. The temple is a few kilometers from Bundanoon (see map below), and I strongly recommend a visit. Check the temple's website for events.

We forgot to bring a camera, but in Flickr I found fantastic photos of the temple, the monks and the flora and fauna surrounding the place. I insterted them below as a slideshow, so people can get an idea of the beauty of the place. To see who took the photo, just click on the one you like.

The food, as temple food always is, was fantastic. The baby got tired early so we where not able to hear a Dhamma talk, but I hope that we will next time.

View Larger Map

Getting ready for the first class in 2008

2008-02-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

The School's scripture coordinator called me yesterday to inform me that classes would start on 28 February. Scripture classes start a few weeks after the beginning of the first term, to give parents time to decide which classes they will enroll in.

Her estimate is that the number of students enrolling in Buddhism would increase even further this year! It is really amazing. Parents must really feel that Buddhist teachings will benefit their kids. We had more than 50 students last year, lets see how many we have in 2008. To give you an idea of the context, this is a relatively small school located in Leichhradt, serving an area of Sydney with less than 3% Buddhists.

If I have to summarize my plans for this year's teaching preparation, I would do it in one word 'sit'. If I wanted to summarize the learning outcomes for this year, 'metta' (living kindness) is the best I can think of.

preparing for the new year

2008-01-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I got an email from Roselin the SRE coordinator for the NSW Buddhist council. The Council's president has organized a taxation office recognized charity, so they can take tax-deductible donations. The council plans to use part of this money to pay for teacher's expenses. Luckily I do not need mine to be paid, but I am sure it will help a number of people out there who do a lot of teaching or have a lot of traveling expenses.

After the email my mind somehow spinned off (as they do) thinking about what I would do if I earned the Lotto (not that I ever play). I added 'create scholarship for non-English speaking monk or nun' to the list. There are so many wise and compassionate Sangha members that could help teaching to a wider audience, if 1) they were here in Australia 2) had good English communication skills. It is now written in stone (well on a digital one)...

Roselin also mentioned that she will be organizing a meeting with all the teachers at the end of March. I look forward to it. Regrettably I was overseas for the one at the end of last year.

Learning from hatred

2008-01-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

I have felt the impact of being hated for the first time in my life, and I am trying to learn from this. Although this started over a year ago, this week I realized how far this person's delusion has gone, and it may me think about the issue again. I still have to learn to live with these situations better.

So far, I could say that I have been very lucky. I was born white, straight, ... so I did not have to suffer any hatred from people who did not even know me. While meditating, one of the visualizations we use is to send loving kindness to people who with had disagreements with. I always interpreted that as wishing well to those who have wronged us. But what I am writing about is different, it is about someone who decided to hate us, so I am thinking how to extend (for personal use) this exercise.

It seems that at some point this should happen, and according to the 'Sunday Dhamma school' book, these things make us stronger.

By keeping a compassionate life we are less likely to get into trouble. I think people notice that we only wish them well and this way we are able to keep good relationships. At least in my personal life this has worked well. We will always have the ocasional person who might not like what we do, but so far I never had someone who I would say 'hated' me.

When our jobs give us positions that affect other people's lives, this affects their views about us, and this views can be very strong. They may perceive that we have ulterior motives, hidden agendas... they attribute things that happen to their fantasy characters, and everything we do only feeds their delusions.

I believe that in these jobs we have a responsability to do our best . I have always made my best effort, and in general I think I have done well. Of course we make mistakes, and when this happens we might be making people unhappy. The responsability is to then learn from the experience, so we can do better next time, and ask for forgiveness when necessary.

It also happens that some people have stronger seeds of delusion and hatred. They have not been touched by the Dhamma, and they do not even see those seeds.

When that hatred is directed to us (at least in my case), it produces confusion, doubts in ourselves. I first tried to understand what had triggered it. I asked this person what I had done, but only small meaningless things came up. I even apologized for any suffering I might have caused. Nothing helped. I have wished him well (from within and explicitly). Recently when through his web page I learned that he was moving on, I was happy. Then, through his web page I also learned that his hatred was still there. It had actually become so irrational that some people told me to be careful, because the person could be dangerous (I don't think so).

This is an opportunity to learn. Family and friends have told me that I should just let it go. Ricard's book says that when this happens we should meditate and send them metta -loving kindness-, and I am trying this. It really helps, but the pain still languishes inside. I am not wise enough yet.

Matthieu Ricard talks about happiness

2008-01-10T04:06:00.000-08:00

I recently started reading Matthiew Ricard's new book: "Happiness: A guide to developing life's most important skill".

The book is fantastic, as this scientist, who became a Buddist monk.
Riccard has been working with scientists in uncovering the meaning of happiness from the neurophysiological point of view.

This short video is an interesting lecture that summarizes the book's first chapters.

Great experience - although not many parents

2008-01-01T00:47:00.000-08:00

Regrettably not many families were able to come to the temple. I think part of the reason was me getting wrong the dates the temple could receive visitors. My first letter was incorrect, and only when I was in Europe I learned that I had to change it. Although I faxed the School they were not able to tell all parents about the new date... I sent a new letter again when I came back, on the last week, but by then the mistake had been made...
I apologize for the inconvenience this caused.
I also had to apologize to the monks and nuns, since I prepared a nice curry but forgot to *not* use onions or garlic. My mom and the guest liked it though.

Venerable Rong gave a very nice lecture in the main hall. She combined the type of factual information that is interesting for adults with that interesting for kids. We did not get to sit, but this is probably to short a visit for that.

Photo Exhibition about buddhist temples in NSW

2008-01-01T00:43:00.000-08:00

Through the Buddhist Council of NSW website I found Michael Wu's very nice photo exhibition.

Organizing the Temple visit

2007-12-13T01:35:00.000-08:00

This weekend some of the kids' families and us will be visiting the Hwa Tsang Monastery in Homebush. I really look forward to meeting them outside School. I am hoping that going to a temple can help those who are graduating so they can follow up afterwards.
Scripture classes only exist in Primary School and some of them will be going to secondary school next year.

Tomorrow I going to Chinatown to get some special bean curds to make a curry.
For the kids mac and cheese :-)

Playing 'Freeze and the Distractors'

2007-12-13T01:18:00.000-08:00

I had to travel overseas for business so I was not able to teach (or post here).

Somehow the week before leaving I made an unexpected discovery, maybe even an invention :-)

The kids were a bit more restless than normal on the weeks leading to my trip. Somehow I think it is related with my own personal state of mind. They can pick up every detail on how we feel. And on those days I was very restless, working 70hrs a week and still trying to keep up with my own baby.

So here it is. The game is very simple, and they love it:
'1,2,3 Freeze' and they all have to stop moving, stay in the position they are until disqualified or until we finish. Of course, a number of kids are too restless to do this, so they become self made 'distractors' that go around ... distracting people, trying to break their concentration, trying to make them move. In some sense they act like the nimphs sent to distract the Buddha when he was under the tree.

While they are mostly still I get a chance to talk and be listened. In fact, although it has a competitive aspect that help make it more interesting for them, I can discuss about the important of sitting or being n a comfortable position, on focusing on something like the breath, on not paying attention to those who (for their own weaknesses) can not stop bothering others.

They liked the game so much that now they ask for it every time.
I did not play it with the older ones, but on the last week of the term they also wanted to play it....
I guess that next year I will have to keep learning on the balance between play and work on the Buddhist scripture class.

taking the practice beyond primary school

2007-10-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

We are now in the vacation period before the last term of the year (in Australia they have 4 terms, with 2-3 weeks vacation between them).

One of my concerns as the end of the year comes closer is to provide those who will finis the primary school with 'tools' so if they want (and with a bit of help from the parents), they can keep practicing.

I am planning to organize a trip to a temple, probably on a weekend. many of the kids expressed interest, so I started looking for the most appropriate place. I want the trip to be a 'learning' trip, not just a fun or observational activity like going to a museum. I also would like, at least some of the kids (and parents) to finish motivated to keep going.

Of course, Aloka, where I normally go would be my choice, except that it is quite far from the inner west of Sydney, and parents would find it to hard to take the kids there often.

We found on the web, a couple that we still have to visit personally. The Phuoc Hue Vietnamese temple in Wetherill Park, and the Hwa Tsang temple in Homebush.

Why do we teach?

2007-08-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

We read today what Buddha did after enlightenment.
After taking a break, he started thinking if he could teach what he had learned.
The question was, who would be able to understand his teachings.
He first thought about his previous teachers, but they had died, so he decided to go back to his friends, the ascetics with whom he mediated in the forests. He met the five as ascetics in current-day Sarnath.

The little one where quite restless today, so we read this story from the textbook. When I asked them about the meaning of Dhamma (mentioned in the book) they couldn't remember, although we had just done the bowing to 3 jewels. I will have to spend more time on this.

The older ones said that since we had read and talked a lot last week we should meditate longer.
I briefly went over the story, instead of reading it. I mentioned that the reason the Buddha went around teaching was that he thought that he had learned would be useful to others. It was his ways of sharing. I explained that it was the same reason I had. This has become so much more clear to me in the last few weeks.
When I teach at Uni its always about skills, even when I get out of the 'technical' curricula is only to help them be better communicators or better team players... In some sense more skills.

Teaching Buddhism/meditation actually makes me feel good about myself.

For example, after the 20min sitting one of the kids who had been more restless during the session said that more thoughts came to his mind when he was sitting than otherwise. Other kids immediately said that they felt calmer, and it was just because he did not try hard enough.
He said that he had been thinking about computers, so I said how that happened to me all the time, even worst when I went into retreat, when there is nothing else to do.
When he explained what happened to him, I felt closer. I also felt that explaining why that happened , and giving him some tools to overcome that, would be a 'skill' that would benefit the rest of his life. Hopefully he would do much better than me!

a class on the meaning of ignorance

2007-08-17T04:09:00.000-07:00

Year 4 had dancing classes so we had a smaller group this week. It was good because someone misplaced the key to the classroom I normally use and we had to sit in a smaller one.

I can now say without a blink of the eyes that I am enjoying the teaching... a lot.
We had a nice session with both groups, but specially with the older ones.

I had promised to start using the textbooks I got from the Buddhist Council.
I asked them to open on page 38, that has a description of the enlightenment.

The text describes how Buddha talks about how Prince Siddhata sees how the root of suffering is ignorance. So we discussed the meaning of ignorance.
In my example, I explained that if I steal something, I do it driven by selfishness, I do not care about the other person. Selfishness was not realizing the other person's suffering.

I then asked them to give me their examples where we caused suffering because of ignorance.
Some of them included

'When we do not help mom clean the dishes. She has been working all day, and we just want to sit there without doing anything.... We do not think about her.'
'When we do not help in the house...'
'When we eat more than our share of food and leave dad or mom without enough food'
'When we make noise and misbehave in class, we do not think about the teacher and how he is also a person.'

Regrettably I can not quote word by word by these where pretty much the examples they came up with. I thought they were pretty good.

We then only had 5min to sit, but everybody was so quiet that I just let them sit for an extra 5min. Again I was very 'one' with them when guiding the session.
I can see that the advantage of that is that I can relate the meditation to what we discussed in class (e.g. sending metta to mom). I am not sure if this is the best, maintaining a routine is alo very important. Although for this I have well established the bell and taking refuge three jewels.

Buddhist council and chaplancy training

2007-08-14T04:05:00.000-07:00

The Buddhist Council under the Presidency of Brian White is doing a fantastic job.
The new premises in Crows Nest are great, with a good library and room for meetings and training.

They have organized a Chaplaincy training program .
Regrettably it runs for five weeks, on Thursdays (all day). Much more that I can allocate nowadays.

Interestingly the program is organized with the New South Wales College of Clinical Pastoral Education. They seem to normally train Christian Chaplains but they are now the first to train Buddhist as well. A fantastic interfaith collaboration.

New volunteer

2007-08-14T03:54:00.000-07:00

I have not been able to post much recently. Life has been pretty hectic.

A few weeks ago I asked the nun in charge o the Vietnamese temple in Marrickville if she could come to our class one week. She replied that they were very buys lately trying to gather enough funds o buy the house next door so to be able to enlarge the temple (sounds familiar ... half of Sydney is in the same race). Luckily she referred me to Anna, a lovely lady that visits the temple and has been a devotee all her life.

Anna has been coming to our class for the last two weeks. It is a big effort for her, since she lives in Maroubra, so she has like an hour trip each way, to come and teach with me for only 1 hour!

She was really nice and the kids loved the wodden chanting bell, the Tibetan prayer/'spinner' and the images, all with nice explanations on what they meant.
It is interesting how they engage so much more with this practical items. Anyway, they are actually asking for meditation, so every day we have at least 10min of sitting.

Last week the CD recorder did not work so I could not play Bhante's metta CD. I improvised (I'm getting better at it) and actually guided the meditation.
I was so deeply into it, just as when I have a long and 'productive' sitting session.
I felt the same happiness, lightness and freedom/detachment that one feels when meditating. It was great.

Interfaith contributions of meditation

2007-07-19T22:52:00.001-07:00

Most of my students come from non-Buddhist background. Why are the Buddhist scripture classes then so popular? I think it is because of meditation's popularity, or at least the increased knowledge of the benefits of meditation.

I said yesterday "I don't think any of you is being forced to come to this class, is there?" and 2 o three students said "I am". Interestingly non had a Buddhist background, so their families are sending them to my class because they think that what I teach (and not necessarily about Buddha) will benefit their kids. They are probably of Christian background, and the School has several Christian, both Catholic and protestant clergy.

The spread of meditation is actually happening in all religions. Recently I was talking with a Jewish friend who started doing meditation. I was so happy when she told me she was planning her first retreat. I know that with two children it is not an easy commitment. She had first asked me to recommend a place, but regrettably because she lives in the US I was not able to help her. So when she told me she had found a place I was curious to know more. Elat Chayyim has meditation retreats guided by two Rabbis. One (Rabbi Alan Lew) seems to be a Zen teacher as well. I don't know much about Judaism, but I think this is an interesting combination. My friend is putting a lot of trust in these teachers so I hope they are good teachers.

new term, some new students

2007-07-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

The 3rd term of the year started yesterday (in Australia they have 4 terms). Three students joined the group, all of them in year 6. They said that other students had recommended the Buddhist scripture clas, but although I always like a compliment, I think it was because they wanted to be with some of other kids.

We had a relatively good session, although one of the new girls was quite restless, and at some point disrespectful. I had to report her to the Principal... gopefully that will help.

I brought two images. One of a sitting Buddha I got in a trip to Korea. According to Bhante it is a Boddhisatva and is sitting on a chair because its getting ready to rush to the help of people (when you are in a lotus or half lotus position it takes some time to disentangle).

I tried reading another story written by Dorian (The wind and the sun) but run out of time. I will have to do it next week.

monkey magic and other perspectives on Buddhism

2007-07-14T01:41:00.000-07:00

I recently started reading an article about Buddhism, and as often happens (more now that I have a baby boy), I did not get to finish it. One of the things that first striked me about it is that it discussed Buddhism as a combination of ideas between a polytheistic religion and a non-theistic one (including a monotheistic one for some people).

Although the principles are clearly non-theistic, Buddhism has adapted to the local cultures where it grew. I think that since the principles make it clear that you should not try to 'convert' people as it happens in other religions, its ideas just melt and impregnate what is already there.

This is what happens in many Buddhist traditions, sometimes made popular through movies and TV shows that are very .... uhm ... special. 'Monkey magic' is the most interesting I have seen. It is a 70's Japanese show with a childish sense of humor and random quotations from Buddhist literature.

Today I was browsing at books in Sapho's our local bookstore/cafe and found "Utimate Journey" by Richard Bernstein (Borzoi Books, 2001). "Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk who crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment".

I could not believe it when it said mentioned "Monkey, a Journey to the West" by Wu Cheng-en, apparently the fiction written around the real story of a real monk (Hsuan Tsang) who traveled from China to India . The novel actually has a monkey with supernatural powers who travels with the monk. Obviously the story in which the show is based.

The show (and probably the book) mixes Buddhism with ideas from other religions. In fact, the shows' Buddha, reminds me of a cartoon's version of Jesus Christ.

I have also seen the polytheistic approach in Korean and Chinese art, where Boddhisatvas, daemons, Devas and other deities appear repeatedly.
Some of they may be based on the different levels of beings that appear on Buddhist scriptures, but other are based on traditions from each locality where Buddhism developed.

The power of metta - loving kindness

2007-07-06T14:42:00.000-07:00

In the last class of the term I wanted to discuss why developing loving kindness helps us and the people we love. I brought two Tibetan images, one silk embroidery with an image of the medicine Buddha and another with a golden Buddha in a distinct mudra (I think for wisdom). I also brought a photo of my grandmother, who was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

We looked at the images, and discussed the differences. The medicine Buddha is very popular in China and some of the students had seen it before. We then had an excellent sitting session. I asked if they had a person in their family who was very sick, if not I asked them to focus on my grandma. They very very quiet (specially the older ones) and were sending loving energy to people they loved or people that just needed it. It was a great session.

That night I called my mom who is taking care of my grandma. For the first first time in a week, she was able to get up and talk, even trying to listen to my 15month old baby :-)

The baby just woke up, so I better go...

Manipulation or fatherly love?

2007-06-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I used another popular story out of Buddha's live: 'the four sights'.
The story starts when Prince Siddharta wants to see the world outside the Palace. Until marriage, he had been kept inside the Palace and not allowed to go out. In most books I have read, the interpretation is that the King wanted Siddharta to be the next King, and was afraid (based on something an Oracle had said) that Siddharta might want to be a Sage, a wandering wise man, so he kept him inside.
In fact, even while Siddharta was in the Palace, the King had given orders to anything that might cause a negative impression on him should be removed. If someone was injured or dying, he was not allowed in the princely quarters. Only people looking happy were allowed to wander around.

Despite all the entertainment the King organized within the walls of the Palace: music, banquets, teachers, etc. Siddharta wanted to see the outside world. So after getting married, the King had to agree. Of course, before doing he ordered the city to be cleaned, and the street where he would walk had to be 'cleansed' of any unsightly views.

For anyone who has walked in the north of India, it would be obvious that this is not possible. Poverty and disease are in every street, even nowadays.

The story goes on, so I told the kids how he went around and saw four things that changed his life (actually we managed to read 3, before the fourth the bell rang and they ran outside)

The first one was an old man, who could hardly walk. When Siddharta saw he him, he asked his companion what was wrong with him. 'He is old, we all get old'

The second one one was a sick man. When Siddharta saw he him, he asked his companion what was wrong with him. 'He is sick, we all get sick'

Then he sighted a body being carried by two men on a wooden frame. When Siddharta saw this, he asked his companion what was happening. 'The person is dead, we all die'. 'Even the King, even I will die?' asked Siddharta. 'yes, I believe so'.

Finally Siddharta sighted a man wearing robes, carrying a bowl.

I didn't get to this last point, so I will tell people what happens when I do.
Meanwhile, something really interesting happened when I was explaining these ones to the kids. I normally try to relate the story to things that happen nowadays, and most likely in their lives, but I was having trouble contextualising this one.

I explained (my view) that the father loved Siddharta, and the King was probably doing what was best for Siddharta, and for the Kingdom.

Sometimes parents do not want their kids to see things that might affect them negatively.

One of the kids said something that opened my eyes: 'oh like what happens when they don't want us to see a TV show.' Exactly' I replied, 'thank you, your example is great'.
So there it is, another example of how kids teach us about Buddhism.

The question about the King's real intentions may still be open. But the girls example puts puts the issues closer to our modern heart. When we censor content from the web or the TV we are trying to help our kids, we are probably trying to show them a safer world than it really is. Not that the TV shows like CSI describe an everyday reality, but we may be trying to filter some of the suffering. On the other hand, at the appropriate age they should be able to cope with the perversity (at least the one of the the TV channels), because they will have to live in a world with TVs.

Meditation and the Neuroscience of Consciousness

2007-06-23T01:32:00.000-07:00

For a long time I've had an interest in Neuroscience.
I recently found an article by Antoine Lutz and others that looks very promising, even just because Antoine was a PhD student of Francisco Varela.

Meditation and the Neuroscience of Consciousness. Antoine Lutz, John D. Dunne, Richard J. Davidson. In press in Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness edited by Zelazo P., Moscovitch M. and Thompson E.

The paper is a review of the current research around finding evidence of links between meditation and its neural impact. This paper is a review such research.
In the first section, the authors provide an operational definition of meditation, trying to narrow down the wide spread of meanings.

This narrower definition is important to study “the Intersection of Neuroscience and
Meditation", the second section of the paper. Here the authors discuss what ismotivating neuroscientists to examine meditation and its impact on the mind-body interaction. It also addresses the issue of appropriate methodologies, something that Varela explored in a lot of his work.

The last section Neuroelectric and Neuroimaging Correlates of Meditation,” reviews neuroelectric and neuroimaging research.

"Good lesson" I was told :-)

2007-06-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

Today Kshanti was not able to come. Last week when this happened I was a bit overwhelmed with the kindy ones. They were above me, and the class was a complete waste of time.
This week, when Kshanti told me I dreaded what would happen.
Last minute chaos, both at home and office, prevented me from sitting, as I like to do on the days I teach.

Anyway, I told the scripture coordinator about my worries with the little ones and she asked the Kindergarten teacher to come and talk with me and two of the trouble kids. She did, and I think that helped quite a lot.

I also took two of my favourite Buddha statues and the bell. I used the bell to call for silence. They then looked at the Buddhas and we discussed the differences. One was a Korean Buddha and the other from India. When I mentioned that the long ears meant wisdom one of the girls said her name "Sonia" meant wisdom as well, so now we call her long years (everybody laughed a lot when I said that).

The class went very well! yes, at the end one of the kids said 'thank you, it was a very nice lesson'. I was so happy.

The second group was also very good. I have a couple of new students (both girls) and they did very well. At the end another of the girls come and said thank you, although in a different way. She came and half bowed, I bowed to her and gave her Bhante's CD so she could practice at home. She looked very happy.

Positive discipline in the classroom

2007-06-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

I started reading this book I got from the library.

Positive discipline in the classroom. by Jane Nelsen, Lynn Lott and H Stephen Glen. Prima Publishing 1997.

I just started it, but it looks very interesting. It emphasizes the need for techniques that develop Three empowering perceptions:

Perceptions of personal capabilities
Perceptions of significance in primary relationships
Perceptions of personal power of influence over life.

and 4 essential skills

Intrapersonal skills: understand personal emotions and use that understanding to develop self-discipline and self-control
Interpersonal skills: ability to work with others
Systemic skills: the ability to respond to the limits and consequences of everyday life
Judgement skills: the ability to develop wisdom and evaluate situations according to appropriate values

One of the activities I found interesting was 'Practice compliments and appreciations'. Students (and teachers) are not used to giving and receiving praise.

Some ideas from the book:

Ask them to think of a time when someone said something that made them feel good about themselves.
Ask them think (and share) something they would like to thank others for.
Ask them to think of something they would like to be complimented on.
If they are having trouble coming up with compliments, remind them how much easier it would be if they had been asked to criticise instead of giving compliments.
If someone gives a criticism instead of a compliment ask him/her to try again (or ask other to do it)
After the student got the idea, you can use an object passed around so the person holding it has to say a compliment, so all get a chance to do it.

Dalai Lama in Sydney

2007-06-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were very lucky to get the chance to listen to the Dalai Lama.
It was a rainy day, and we had volunteered to help collect donations. Apparently the renting of the Domain (a park next to the Sydney Botanical Gardens), furnishing it and providing security, costs about $800,000/day. The total cost of the tour was about $4M, and although the tour was not for profit, the organizers were running at a big loss.
Anyway, while the Dalai Lama spoke it hardly rained, and we enjoyed and learned from it.

The talk was about compassion and lasted about 45min. He described compassion from the Buddhist, the Theistic (focusing on Christian) and the common sense perspective. I would not try to explain here what he said, but I found interesting that he brought together the ideas of Interrelatedness (the Buddhist perspective), with God's love and our need to get closer to him by loving others (the theistic perspective) and the idea that good feelings bring good health and therefore our own happiness (common sense/ scientific)

After the talk he answered 4-5 questions, read to him by the host.
When asked 'What is the meaning of live' he said 'the most direct answer would be, I don't know' and then he went on explaining how it was difficult question and that the purpose of live is happiness.

Buddha: the horse wisperer

2007-06-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

I am increasingly using the images of 'A pictorial Biography of Sakyamuni Buddha' (the author is written in Chinese characters) and shorter version in 'Buddhist studies for primary students' by Danuse Murty, Buddhist Council of New South Wales, 2003.

The original texts and illustrations are by Gunapayuta et.al, and are very popular, used in many Buddhist books. Similar books can be downloaded from BuddhaNet.

In recent weeks I have tried to take 2-3 'frames' of Buddha's life and make a little short story, trying to relate his life to things that children understand.

Th first is the popular story of the Horse taming contest.

When the Buddha was about to marry, the King organized a contest. In the horse riding activity the Buddha had his white horse Kanthaka, the fastest horse in town. All competitors said that with that horse he would always win, in fact anyone with that horse would win. The King then decided that instead of their horses, everyone should try to mount a fierce black horse that threw everyone in the ground. Prince Anirudha tried first, being one of the best riders in the country, he mounted the horse without effort, then he wiped it hard to force him to run around the yard. When he did this the horse went wild and threw him off to the ground. Helpers had to rush in to help and save the prince's life.

Next was Prince Siddharta. He approached the horse from the front, and instead of immediately jumping on it, he started petting him in the cheek, and then on the neck. He whispered some words with a soft voice. Before riding the horse he explained what he needed to do and asked the horse for permission.

Everybody was then surprised that the fierce black horse had calmed down, and let the Prince ride gently, moving forward and backwards in front of all the country's audience.

When I finished telling the story we discussed why asking for permission might have worked better. Do we behave better when we are asked nicely or when we are forced to do things?

kshanti joins teaching

2007-05-31T03:31:00.000-07:00

Today Kshanti joined me at the school.

She took the kindy group to the room that the scripture coordinator had kindly allocated. I think the kids were very interested and did well.

Most of the older kids had gone on a trip so we only had about 10, Kshanti gudied the class and I just listened. The class went really well. The students were curious and interested in the bell that Kshanti brought and let them play with.
She asked the group to listen to the bell until the sound stopped. Then rang it again and asked them to count their breaths. On the third go she asked to try to breath fewer times. The kids had fun and practiced well.

two weeks passed - and big changes to come

2007-05-29T03:07:00.000-07:00

These lasts two weeks have been busy at my day job, so I have not been able to write anything in my journal. Kind of a pity because I actually had two good weeks.
After the Principal and the scripture coordinator came things worked much better.
In fact on one of the weeks the little ones did better than the older ones!

What am I doing better? I'm not sure, maybe nothing, maybe the problems are just all the normal cycles that I should have expected.

What am I doing different? I gave up on having similar classes for the two groups.
For the little ones I normally have an activity such as reading and then do the sitting. For the older ones I had 10-15 sitting with Bhante's CD and then a talk.

When a boy/girl looks too restless I ask them to lay down on the floor instead of sitting. Once they have calmed down I ask them to sit. I also ask the to sit next to me, and I actually sit as close as possible so when they get distracted I can look directly at their eyes, and the quiet down.

In the last talk (with the older ones) we discussed the eightfold path (yes, the 8 steps in 10 min!). We had already mentioned the first four and I mostly focused on right livelihood. It was funny to see what their interpretations of 'wrong livelihood' were. Several mentioned 'fast food cook' as wrong livelihood, other included garbage man and other hard jobs. After a short discussion they started coming out with those that harm people and animals, 'killer', 'thief', 'drug dealer' and notably 'poacher' were popular ones.

The big changes next week: I got someone to help me with the classes. Chris has accepted to take the Kindy and the year 3 boys, and the school agreed to provide an extra room. I must really thank both. I know that Chris is really busy with her PhD and daughters, so sparing the time is a big commitment. The school has also been extremely nice and helpful. Both the principal and the scripture coordinator are very supportive. Providing an extra room is already a big thing since I understand the school has serious space issues.

More good news include that the Buddhist Council of NSW now has a new 'Education Coordinator',Roselin Nusantara has agreed to take this role, and we are all very grateful. Regrettably the monk that was in charge until now has been extremely busy with his Sangha and had to travel to Japan... Roselin is now going to help appointing new teachers, distributing textbooks and hopefully organizing some event where we can meet other teachers.

despair or wrong expectations?

2007-05-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

The little ones gave a hard time again.
I think that the discipline issues in this have also gone up to the Principal, as he came today, to see how they are doing and warn them that if discipline did not improve they would not be able to keep coming to scripture class.

I felt despair, because I did not know how to manage them properly. They show so much respect for some of the other teachers...
A solution would be to divide the group. Two things are needed: a classroom and a teacher. The scripture class coordinator will try to find a new room, where an other Buddhist teacher could take part of the group. I think this would help.

The second class was great again. Two of the kids that are normally noisy and restless did really well. They sat quietly for the 15 minutes of Bhante's meditation.
When we started several of them lied down, as they had done last week. I told them that since they were doing much better, they should try to do the extra effort and start sitting, with the back straight, eyes closed,...
Interestingly some of those that last term were doing great this term are more restless, and those that seemed hopeless, are now doing great!
Of course, this seems logical, but seeing it like this makes the realization much more clear.

Today, I think the factors that affect the quality of the session include:

- Appropriateness of the activity (learning design?): For the little ones either hands on activity or very short story (1 page max). I'm still not sure how to get the meditation going.

- Teacher's mood (related to the personal 'development' of the teacher - wisdom and compassion): this affects my voice and what I say. When I felt despair today, in the first class, I am sure that it affected how I behaved in both classes. At he very least I was not as happy and energetic as I would have been. It probably appears as lack of self confidence... and the kids pick up on that.

- Time management: The class is so short (30 min) that any distraction affects what we can do.

- Student's expectations/habits: I need to develop this better. Repeating the same type of activities every week helps them understand better what to expect. I think I have been trying different things every week and it has a negative effect.

- Teacher's expectations: Although I have reduced the expectations on the achieving side, the bottom line is that I'm still expecting things, as when I was surprised that student X did so well. These are also expectations that I should learn to note and manage.

Fantastic day

2007-05-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, I had the best day so far.

Even the little ones did well. I read the Muchalinda (giant Cobra) story that Dorian wrote and they liked it a lot. They were quiet for most of the time. The reason: the Kindergarten kids did not come. There were still about 20, but the little-little ones make a whole lot of difference.

With the older ones, we did Bhante's guided meditation on metta. Fantastic. I think that Bhante voice has the same effect on them as he does on me. I did some new things that seemed to have helped:

I sat in the office, before leaving to the school, and then again in the classroom, before the kids came in. This gave me a lot of energy and focused my mind. I followed Bhante's talk, the same I would use with the students.
Asked the two most 'active' boys to lie down in the floor instead of sitting.
Told the rest to be in the position they felt most comfortable with. Have sat, have lied down.
I kept my own voice to a minimum. I tried to leave it to Bhante and just sit for most of the time. I followed the guided meditation myself.
When the kids moved, I looked at them or pointed to them, looking straight to the eyes. Since the other are were with the eyes closed or quiet, when I looked at them, they were more 'alone' with me. It was the most one to one I can get in this large class.
When H, one of the two that are two active had relaxed I asked him to sit, and I sat close to him and send him metta. He did great! yes I was so impressed that I praised him at the end of the class. I think he was impressed himself, even though it was only about 2 minutes that he kept still.

At the end of the day I went to see the principal and asked her what had happened with the Kindergarten kids. She had forgotten to take them to the class! Well, I said 'it was the best day so far, so I am grateful to you'.

PD: I saw some school statistics. They have about 290 students in the whole school. 40-50 each year. This means that 15-20% of parents want their kids to learn about Buddhism. It is very impressive considering that the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates the Buddhist population in Australia at about 4%.

2nd term starts

2007-04-26T02:32:00.000-07:00

Having renewed my energy with the holiday and the retreat, I was back to scripture classes today.

During the retreat I asked Bhante to make a CD for kids with a guided Metta meditation. I hope he does it. Meanwhile I thought I could use the one he made for adults.
This morning I sat with his CD and realized that it was not going to work out for the little ones.
I'm happy I took that decision.

With the little ones we read the story of Sigala. One of the kids, of Sri Lankan background already new it. The story is about a boy (Sigala) who the Buddha finds throwing seeds in the four directions. When the Buddha asks him why he is doing it, he says its because his father asked him to before dying. The Buddha then explains him the meaning, basically that it is a symbol of sending loving kindness to all sentient beings.

Sometimes you’ll hear Buddhists refer to all ‘sentient beings’ in their blessings and prayers. This is a way to say ‘everyone in the whole wide world who can sense and feel’, including all creatures from the tiniest little bug to the biggest whale, all humans and animals and insects and even the beings we can’t see, like happy spirits waiting to be reborn. When you say a blessing for all sentient beings you’re making sure not to leave anyone out!

I went on to read a definition of sentient beings that my wife had written and a blessing:

May all sentient beings be well and happy,
May all sentient beings be free from suffering,
May they live in equanimity, free of prejudice, craving and anger.
May they never be separated from the happiness that is free from suffering.

I asked to repeat after me, and emphasized the first two.

We the older group we did the metta guided meditation. It was excellent. All the kids sat for the first 10 minutes of session (15 minutes long). They were mostly quiet, and they were still for most of the time. I was very grateful.

Last term I told the principal about the problems with discipline and she suggested I get some extra help from the council. With so mny students in one group is not easy to do it alone. When I told her today that the kids had been pretty good, she was happy and said '"we all have a bad day"

I gave a CD to the two that seemed more concentrated. I asked them to share it and use it at home... lets see if it works.

back from retreat

2007-04-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

I finished my 5th (or 6th?) long retreat. Most of them have been under the guidance of Bhante Ven. Mahinda at the Aloka Meditation Centre.
In these retreats we get a lot of freedom. There is only 2 'mandatory' chanting and 1 dhamma talk.

For me every retreat is different. New challenges come in, and vanish...

Some things stay the same, and these are the things I tell people who ask. For example, the schedule:

5:00 am. Bells - Wake up call.
5:30 Chanting
7:15 Breakfast
11:00 Lunch
3:00 Tea (unless you are doing the 8 precepts, so like the monks you do not it after 12:00 noon)
5:00 Dinner (idem)
6:00 Chanting
8:00 Dhamma talk
10:30 lights off.

The whole week we maintained 'noble silence', that although is difficult for some people is the best way to keep everybody focused on their own mediation practice (The practice we follow is the development of Samadhi). The people of this group were great. Some with a lot of experience. The residents who coordinate the retreat were also great.

I decided to create a new label in the blog 'development'. For the sake of my Dhamma teaching the retreat could be considered 'professional development', although I'm not a 'pro' so I will just call this development.

week 6 - missed it

2007-04-07T17:46:00.000-07:00

I was not able to teach on the last week of the term. My son had cried all night and I was exhausted with too much work. I realized that it would have been a bad idea to try teach at school. Even then I felt a bit of shame...

On the same day I had to teach at University. I was so tired that I started my lecture (I have about 50 students) and after the 3rd slide one of the students raises his hand and says 'sir, you forgot to turn on the data projector', I had been looking at my slides on my computer screen but students were looking at a blank projection....

Tomorrow I'm going on a 1 week retreat. My wife has been very kind in letting me go. I know that is not going to be easy for her to cope by herself with her work and the baby.
I'm very much looking forward for the retreat. I hope it will give me the energy and wisdom to be a better teacher, both at school and with my son.

Yesterday we sat with him and my wife. It was very nice. He played quietly for a while, and when we chanted he listened quietly. Then fall asleep with his bottle of milk. My son is one year old.

Australian Government Innitiative

2007-03-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

I recently found about the National School Chaplaincy Programme. It has received a lot of criticism for having the government spend about $30M in chaplaincy programmes.

I probably agree with the critics. At least in my school the issues about teaching Buddhism are not about money. Anyway the document is the first official description of what a school chaplain is expected to do. I feel strange with that title ('chaplain').

5th class - video

2007-03-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

I tried using technology this week! just showing part of a DVD.

As I expected the kids got very excited about it. The DVD "3 Refuges and 5 Precepts" is a very nice production by "Dharma Dream Production" and the Kong Men San Phor Karkb See Monastery. The first 15 minutes are appropriate for this age group. Later it becomes a bit too technical for under 16. Regrettably the sound of the DVD was not great, and a little bit hard to understand, specially with the noise you get in a classroom.

Again the discipline was a problem.

The curly hair girl at some point told me "those kids are very distracting, you should send them out". She is probably right and wiser than me. She was so good at sitting, and when I asked them to leave walking mindfully, she actually walked out slowly and watching each step. Very impressive, I told her "please tell your parents I'm very proud of your work"

The DVD starts by alternating scenes from noisy street environments with the faces of people meditating. The peaceful faces and the sound / silence make such an impressive effect that we all watched interested. Then there images of churches and temples from different religions and then images of Buddhist temples of different traditions, with monks and people meditating.

With the younger group we talked about the different religions shown in the video. They were curious about Ganesh, the Indian elephant God, and one of the kids knew the story and told it to everyone in the group. Very good. We briefly mentioned Christian, Muslims and Jews. I only repeated what the movie said, that believing in Buddhism was based on what we learn through the practice. 'Which practice?', I asked and one of the boys said 'meditation!'.

I used the images of Boddhi Gaya to remind them of the tree that they had seen in the images they had coloured. I then used the images of people meditating, showing the right way of sitting, particularly of crossing the hands over the lap, instead of 'flying around' in fancy mudras (that they have probably seen in movies).

With the older group, we stopped in the images of people bowing and discussed the significance, and the 3 refuges:

Buddham Saranam Gachami
Dhammam Saranam Gachami
Sangham Saranam Gachami

They had fun bowing, and repeating the verses.

I found out that the boy that does not speak English just came from Sri Lanka. The video I had planned for a future class might be a nice thing for him. "Budda and the rice planters" is a video I found in the library and shows temples and images of Sri Lanka.

Next week is the last class of the term.

4th class - coloring the story

2007-03-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

This 4th week was more 'average' than the previous one, or at least more of what I am begining to expect.

The younger group was not as bad as last week, but the discipline was still an issue. I wish I had fewer students, it would be much easier. I talked with the teacher in charge of scriptures, and who takes care of discipline. She gave me some tips that I tried this week. Lets hope it works. I think she left two of the kids I sent to speak with her without the lunch break with friends. I hope it works. We spent most of the time coloring the book. I asked thm to focus on doing it well, making sure that they only color between the lines, and more importantly that they think about the image they are coloring. I walked around and asked a few of them what the image meant. Mixed responses. Some were not paying atention, but some did very well. We probably did about 5min seating. The truth is that I felt somewhat sad for not doing a bit better.
Note: there is a boy that seems to have serious problems with the English (tall and asian). I need to check on him next week.

The older group did not do as well as last time, probably because all teh class was there. But it was fine. Most of them wrote the story next to each image, and at least half had good recollection of what it meant. I still have to go through the notebooks to get a better feeling, than the approximation of walking around during class.
We discussed again the hindrances that we face when seating: discomfort, boredoom, sloth. And I gave examples with the different kids behaviours.
The girl with the curly hair did great again, she said she had been practising meditation while doing other things besides seating. I should congratulate the parents (if I knew how).

I will ned to photocopy, cut and glue the next lesson. We should be discussing the 2nd step: Right thoughts.

BBC video about the life of Buddha

2007-03-08T01:38:00.001-08:00

The British Broadcasting corporation has done a great move to make their great content more available.
By chance today I found this documentary about Buddhas life.

I hope I can get the DVD for the library, it might be a good resource for the class.

NSW Buddhist curricula

2007-03-08T01:20:00.000-08:00

The need for a standard curricula has become more obvious in the last couple of weeks. The NSW Buddhist council, and the councils from other states in Australia, have written guidelines describing mandatory and elective modules.

The compulsory modules are:

Module 1 Introduction to Buddhist classes.
Module 2 Life of the Buddha. Part 1: Birth, childhood & marriage.
Module 3 Life of the Buddha Part 2: Leaving the palace – the four sights.
Module 4 Life of the Buddha Part 3: Under the Boddhi tree – Enlightenment.
Module 5 Life of the Buddha Part 4: What the Buddha taught- the Four Noble Truths.
Module 6 Life of the Buddha Part 5: The Buddha’s Disciples – the Sangha.
Module 7 Life of the Buddha Part 6: Showing Loving Kindness.
Module 8 Life of the Buddha Part 7: The Buddha’s last days.
Module 9 Who is a Buddhist? The Triple Gem. The Five Precepts.

The Elective modules

Module 1 Sangha visit.
Module 2 Visit to (preferably) local Buddhist temple.
Module 3 Buddhist festivals.
Module 4 Buddhism in different cultures. Choose from: eg. Vietnamese, Tibetan, Japanese,
Sri Lankan, Chinese, Cambodian, Thai etc.
Module 5 Visit from/or to Gyuto Monks for Sand Mandala making & chanting.
Module 6 Buddhist Art & History.

Interestingly the modules describe content, not necesarily learning outcomes.
I will try to cover all these topics during the 4 terms in the year.
But I will try to focus on the eightfold path. The way I am doing it is following the Buddhas life and highlighting those things that show the four noble truths:

1. There is suffering
2. There is a reason for suffering
3. There is a solution to suffering
4. The solution is the eightfold path.

And the eightfold path:
1. Right views/understanding
2. Right thoughts
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration

3rd class

2007-03-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

Today was an interesting day. The school had a swimming pool day, so many of the kids did not came to class, particularly in the older group.

The meditation was metta (loving kindness). We focused on the breath during the whole session. Sending love when we breath in, and then feeling the air coming out through the nostrils when we breath out. When breathing in, we think about someone we love, trying to visualize the person. When we breath out we just focus on the breath coming out through the nostrils.

The younger k-2 kids were terrible. It was partially my fault. I did not hand out their notebooks at the beginning of the class, when I was passing role, and then it was too late. We did about 10 minutes of sitting, but too many were too distracted. Then I tried to spend some time reviewing Buddhas life, but by then it was hard to get the attention of half of the class....
What I've learned: The little ones need to be more busy. Being busy keeps the discipline under control. The 30 minutes is actually all they can handle for this type of activity (or inactivity I should say).
Despite the problems some kids must have done better than I thought. One of the girls seemed sad when we finished the class, and one of her friends was hugging her. I asked her what was wrong and she said she had not been able to see her grandfather. The grandfather had died recently, and I now think she meant during the visualization exercise... This means he tried hard, and it teaches me I should mention that this might happen and its alright.

All the bad luck of the work in the first group, was compensated with the great results in the older kids group. There were about 10 kids. Two of them kept making noise in the first 5 min of the sitting, moving around, etc. So I send them to the office. It was very obvious that the other ones were very ready to sit and do it properly, so it would have been unfair to leave them there. Everything was perfect afterwards.

One of the girls actually sat for most of the 30 min. Poor things, I could tell she was in pain. First her legs (she was in full lotus!), then everything.. her teeth grinding, but she kept going.
I asked those that felt in pain to change positions if they needed to, but she wanted to keep still!

feedback

2007-03-07T01:28:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is my next class and I have decided to not include any new activity. We will only be working on sitting and filling/coloring the stories that we did in the last couple of weeks. I am keen in seeing how far we can go with the sitting. Hopefully the discipline will be fine...

I was thinking that with fewer requirements I might actually be able to achieve more. For what is it that we want them to learn. To calm their minds and to live better lives following the eightfold path.

Interestingly when I asked the older ones, what did they want to learn, the said things like 'about Buddha', 'who is the Buddha', etc. It sounded like pre-maid answers that were aimed at the facts. Obviously they do not yet see the value in practising. Maybe I could compare it to a sport, where learning the rules of the sport or its history is important, but not as much as the actual practise.

Today I went with my son to the library and borrowed 'Stepping into freedom' by Thich Nhat Hanh. It is unbelievable how much he writes. And so far I always liked his books.

the purpose of this blog

2007-03-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

Why would I keep a blog? and why would I make it public?
I have asked this to myself several times, so I might as well blog the answer.

The first one is easy. It is well known in the scholarly research in education that reflective practice in teaching is a good practice. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher by Stephen D. Brookfield. Wiley 1995. ISBN: 978-0-7879-0131-8 is a popular book in these matters, at least here, between Australian academics. This blog addresses just that, practising reflection on my primary school teaching, and my own practise as a buddhist.

Why would I make this public?
This one is harder. Buddhism is all about eliminating the ego, but Blogs are normally tools for feeding it up. By keeping a blog, and making it public, would I be just feeding my ego?

On the positive side, it is said that teaching and spreading the dhamma is one of the most positive things we can do. Although I'm not a 'Teacher" (I leave that to the monks and nuns), maybe my experiences teaching (with lower case) kids are useful to other people.

I have not made up my mind yet. Maybe later on I make this public and ask for feedabck from Bhante Sister Sumitra, and other Teachers I respect. If they say its OK, then I will keep making it available.

2nd class

2007-03-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my second class already, and I'm still surviving!

I have 30 students in the first group. They go from Kindergarten to year 2.
The second group has 20 kids, years 3-6.

The second group was much easier. The 10 fewer students make a lot of difference.

On week one, the first class logistics utterly failed me.
I wanted the kids in the first group to colour a set of drawing from the life of Buddha.
I started handing them out when I realized that it would take too long, so I had the great idea of asking 3 students to help distributed the 3 pages that everybody should have worked on. I asked each of them to distribute 1 page, of course what happened was that all students ended with just one, at random.... When the time came to color, everybody was saying 'but I do not have this one...' or 'I do not have that other'.
At the end of the 30 minutes I had not achieved any of the things in my list for the day.

For the second -older- group, on week one, I already did a bit better. The were not so many logistic problems and we read the story and many even wrote the things I aked them to...

On week two, I strated by 'refreshing' the story of Prince Siddharta, up t the point were we have finished last week. This was a drawing where he is sitting under a tree, just before enlightement.
I then went over the life of Buddha as a teacher. Starting when he gets enlightened, going over the growing Sangha and responsabilities and ending in his death (I did not explain Nirvana).
The message was the first step: 'Right Understanding". Right understanding as seeing that things change. We can not be happy forever and we can not be sad forever. Things appear and dissapear. The same with our lives. Even the Buddha dies, just like anyone else. And with death comes sadness. I did not mention Nirvana, but we talked a bit about deaht and some of the kids mentioned how they felt sad when a family member died, or they pet died.

We then sat, probably fpr like 10 minutes, with several interruptions.
But this week we started seating, and that is what matters.
Out of the 30, 10 did really well, 15 where OK but around 5 were terrible. and I mean terrible.
When we got to the seating in the second group I had about the same proportions.
Of course 20 is much easier to manage.

Interestingly, many did really well. They sat for the 10 min and could have easily done it longer.

We discussed briefly about how they practice at home. About a third actually sit periodically with their parents. Normally in the evenings. One of the girls in the second group was really cute about it and asked if were going to sit next week. When I asked 'would you like me to?' she said 'oh yes, please' in such a sincere way that made me very happy. In fact when someone asked how often did I practice, I was a bit embarassed saying that I tried to do it everyday, but it was not always possible and sometimes I just did walking meditation. I should be able to teach with my example.

Some resources

2007-02-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

I have been preparing the materials for the course.
Non of the books I got provide the materials for me to teach the way I want to.

Buddhanet has a very good list of online resources such as eBooks:
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhism/ebooks.htm

I am taking parts of some of the books there and reusing in them to make my own materials.
It would be good to ask for permission to post them here (the images might be copyrighted).

I was very suprised about the mix of quality in the resources available. I guess is understandable, but it also makes it clear why it is so important to ask teachers to follow a curricula such as the one by the Buddhist Council of NSW.

First post

2007-02-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

I have offered myself as a volunteer to teach Buddhism to primary school kids and I decided to keep a log of my experiences and thoughts on how to do it best.

After six years of practising I do not have as much Buddhist experience as I wish I had, but I believe I can help others understand how they can make a difference in their lifes.

It is a big commitment, but people around reassured me I would do a fine job.
It is also a way of giving back by working in a non-profit like the NSW Buddhist Council. I find teaching a more satisfying way of helping than doing web development for them.

Well... This month I also helped moving about 200 boxes of books... but that is different.