Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 140-minute session, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and colleagues present the vision and early implementation of Universal Education, an FPMT initiative to teach compassion and wisdom across all ages and cultures. They lay out the program’s core subjects—loving kindness, wisdom, inspiring role models, and practical skills—and discuss how to present Buddhist philosophy in rational, non-religious language accessible to non-Buddhists and people of any faith. The speakers work through practical challenges: adapting the approach across different cultures and traditions, developing curricula and ethical pledges, building partnerships with secular values organizations, and navigating questions about incorporating devotional elements. Separate updates cover related programs: the Discovering Buddhism curriculum, Foundation of Buddhist Thought, archive digitization, and interpreter training. Pitched at FPMT center directors and education coordinators implementing these initiatives.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 Universal Education 2004 08 24.mp3
UUID: 353dce95-18d5-40f6-a54f-b2928bef1c5f
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: z CPMT (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 2004-08-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 140.0 minutes
Words: ~12,588
Okay. So you’re in pairs, So we take this definition. Vincent is not quite clear how concepts like karma, past and future lives, could end in the if you take that information. Okay. That’s great.
I agree. It’s a challenge. Thank you. You have to finish. Okay.
Thank you. One final one. You’re up to here. I think the the two safeties that we both have complement each other. The one my favorite one was the one of the good heart brings peace and happiness.
And especially because the children can learn very early, you know. So how would the world be if the all children learn the spiritual values that would face the the change the face of the earth, the planet? And Elaine’s favorite one was Lama Zopa’s. The the I I want to change the clothes because Buddhist the range from little child to the person in college. And that would really change the peace of the family.
You. Someone next? Actually, in reading all of these quotes, and I like the one that you like, Vincent too, about you clearly have the deep scientific and psychological explanation of things. But it occurred to me that to ask the question that isn’t implementing universal education really bringing all sentient beings to enlightenment? Because isn’t it about showing the potential and guiding?
So shouldn’t it be, like, the most important thing that every one of us does? Sorry. So I didn’t make up at the beginning. The first question about and the one is also involved in the universal education meeting. The good heart teaching good heart to the children just all of the say, thinking to benefit the happiness, you know, the thinking to benefit happiness of this life to others.
Is that the question? You see, even though you aim for the short benefit, benefit this life, but you see, yeah, nothing beyond from this life. But because of the person who because of the person who generate this attitude to benefit others happiness even though it’s just this life, but that’s a good heart. But personally, generally, thought even that what happened if you want to cause it is just on this life, but the person who generally have a good heart, a person who have a good heart, like somebody sincerely giving help with shelters or food or medicines, What common people in the world, what they do is they just happen in this life. You see, Africa sending the food and all these things, but even though it could not solve completely the problems.
But you see the the countries, they organize those people who do sincerely, they create merit. They create merit because it’s good heart. You see a good heart. So in so all those organizations or countries or individual people who are helping Africa, all those giving shelter, food, all these things, since they’re doing sincerely without politics. So all those, I say, their attitude is a good heart.
So they collect merit. And from that merit, they have result happiness, which they will experience in the in not this life, in the future lives, definitely, in many lifetimes. So so so and the others, they get others, they get the happiness in this life. And those who generate good heart, they they they they they can achieve happiness all the future also in the future lives. So in in that case, in in any even you do this way, but still so there is still teaching good heart, even the aim happens what you’re to cause, which is on this life, because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of benefit in that.
So like that. But I think and we don’t we don’t teach them from the beginning karma and this and blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, karma and this and that, you see, not from beginning. Beginning, it is simple, see. But gradually, my understanding that we should my understanding that we should accept reincarnation in we should have the subject reincarnation in the university education was to to expand to you see, to go higher and higher. You see, it’s the level of children’s mind grow up.
You see, the understanding. You see, the subject also should be expand. It should go higher and higher, you see, deeper and deeper. So grad gradually, sometime later, you see, not from beginning not very from beginning frightening them, not frightening them or the parents or chasing them away. Like, when the people come in come in my teachings, they they they they chase they away.
See? So after five minutes. So not like that. So this one, I think, after some time, there must be in the in the in the education, there must be educational — how is it? — education of the reincarnation and about consciousness, you know, continuation of consciousness.
It should be there. Giving deeper understanding about mind, you know, should be there. Yeah. Deeper understanding of mind, you see. More information about, deeper information about mind, you see, there should be a later.
So that’s so there was one question about all sentient beings. All sentient all sentient that our daily life prayer, all sentient beings. You know? Our daily life prayer, all sentient beings. Right?
Okay. So however, you see, doing emphasis. Anyway, if your talk only happen in this life, but you can think about you know, to all living beings. Yeah. You can emphasize all living beings.
So which means everyone, praying for them, which means everyone in this world, something like that. You know, all the human beings without racism, you know, you know, nationality, all that. So animals and, you know, all living beings. You just you just use the word all living beings like that. So it’s just become familiar.
You know? Just make it become familiar. Start like that, you know, gradually. Then that’s how they understand the universe living beings, you know, gradually. So anyway, that’s the idea.
But you see, in reality, we have to we have to make some plans and really start. And we will learn while we are while we are while we are doing the work, while we are doing the school. Actually, in that time, then we would learn much clearer. This is I think, you know, after having experimented, done, we have a lot of we have a lot of, say, discovery or, you know, what to what problem arises, what to do, what not to do. You see, after you start this start the first school, or maybe it depends also with which country, culture, I think maybe it depends on many things.
But I think you will learn a lot by actually starting the school like that. So I think it is not it is not completely it is not completely not narrow. You know, the universe is something very narrow. You see something very tight, narrow, not like that. So something to expand gradually, bigger and bigger.
See? So that’s is the anyway, that’s my dream. Anyway, so thank you very much. We’re just going to share some thoughts that we’ve developed about universal education over the last few months. They are very much thoughts, they’re very much in draft form.
Will welcome, I mean, particularly, Rinpoche’s contribution, but also any other points, questions, ideas that people have. A lot of people have come up to me during the week asking to talk about universal education, and I apologize for the people that I haven’t managed to connect with yet. But we are going to have a chance this evening to deal with questions and also potentially tomorrow morning. So there will be opportunities. So we start off with the name Universal Education, and we put underneath as a sort of strapline compassion plus wisdom equals peace.
I’m going to start by saying that even unfortunately, the name the one And we question. Very countries to be in helping all primary school children to read and write. So for example, it’s on the UNESCO website. There are presentations in the Senate of America about it. There’s a very big corporation in the States that’s launched the foundation for universal education.
So all that suggests that it actually might be quite unskillful for us to carry on using the expression. I have to say, I cannot think of a better name, not after months of thinking and searching. So I say that in all the sadness. So we’re consulting with Rinpoche about how the name could change, maybe just change a small amount. And also to take into account what Lama wanted, which was the name represented Mahāyāna, the great path.
And that was one reason why Lama chose that name. Anyway, so this is just to show you really how draft these documents are. So we then come up with a name because if we’re going to set up an organization, it has to have a very clear name, aim that will communicate with people outside of our Buddhist community. So what we have at the moment is to provide learning opportunities, tools, and resources because this is definitely about learning situations. It’s not that anything we do in the spirit of dharma is universal education.
This is particularly about those situations where one person can learn from another in all kinds of different ways and also in all ages. Because although we talk a lot about schools and we hold children very dear in our hearts, Lama was completely clear that universal education is something from the cradle to the grave. It’s for all ages. So we have to provide learning opportunities, tools, and resources that will enable anyone, anywhere. We want universal education to be accessible to anybody.
There are no barriers here at all. To develop their natural compassion and wisdom and contribute to peace in the world. And that’s contributing to peace in everyday ways, like the quote we had earlier, where a child with a good heart will bring peace in their family, but it’s also about leading on to peace in in the greatest, most extensive way that we could ever imagine. So we’ve then got some sort of guidelines that give a taste about how universal education would operate. And again, this is trying to draw out specific things from the advice that Lama and Rinpoche have given.
So look, universal education uses rational language and explanations free from any dogma. At one point, I had the word scientific in there. it uses that, not just intellectual. But I that’s experiential as well as intellectual understanding. It’s about putting these things into practice in your life.
It strives, it tries to be culturally sensitive and accessible to everybody. And I’m sorry, for example, today that we didn’t manage to provide the quotes and translation for you. That’s something that we want to try and pay a lot of attention to in the future. And been And able do do to that. And based on Buddhist philosophy.
And this is a very delicate one, as you may have guessed. Rinpoche has given some very clear instructions on kinds of areas. For example, he says that it mustn’t contain anything that contradicts Buddhist philosophy, but also that his counsel is advised that people are presented with a range of philosophies so that they can look at them for themselves as they would do in university. It’s also clear that us, the students of the FPMT, these people who have been studying dharma with the lamas, are the people who will need to produce the initial materials because the initial materials need to come from our study and from our integration of that study. So there’s some interesting sort of conundrums in here that we have to deal with.
I mean, one way of putting it is that we have two religious visionaries, which is Lama and Rinpoche, who are creating a non-religious organization. And we have to be completely open about that, and that should be fine. We can’t hide it. The last thing we want to do is hide it. And also, for a lot of people, the fact that universal education is rooted in two and a half thousand years of philosophical tradition is actually helpful to them.
But that still doesn’t need to me doesn’t need to mean that it’s religious, and it also doesn’t mean that we won’t take the very best of other traditions. You know, the parts of religion about good heart and about how to live that everybody responds to and that feel like universal common sense. Anyway, I’m trying to make it sound simple, and it isn’t, but but we’re working with it. So what does UE currently comprise of? What is it at the moment?
Well, we have two founders and visionaries, the And very a to we do it. Which he may be able to associate himself either publicly or in practice with university education. We’ve got a director, that’s me. And we’ve got a volunteer team. That’s actually a little bit more than just Wendy.
Because we’re in the UK, I have people in the UK who are offering support, but we’re also getting some incredible offers of support from around the world now. We have at least twenty identified projects around the world. Now this may come as a surprise to some people because I think most people here have at least some familiarity with the Maitreya Universal Education projects, the is a school in Bodh Gaya, for example. There’s also Tārā Redwood School in California. And there’s some fantastic work being done by somebody called Valentino Giacomin at Alice Project in India that’s also been studied and looked at in Taiwan and also in Nepal and other countries.
There’s also been, for example, twenty years of summer camps in Italy. And there’s there’s summer camps in Mexico. There’s a new schools project in Colombia. There’s things happening in Brazil. I mean, there’s there’s there’s some management consultancy projects, for example, people teaching, you know, adults in business.
There’s somebody working with elder hostels, working with over fifty fives in California. Somebody else I’ve covered I’ve encountered who’s creating a set of twenty parenting classes. Now at the moment, we’re using universal education in a relatively loose way, but I think that’s the way forward. And then we engage with people and we talk with people, and we look at how this can become a really dynamic network. So just to stretch our minds a little bit, we may all know people who are actually putting these principles into practice in learning situations.
And maybe we have much more of the UE network already than we ever realized. A growing network of people who want to get involved. Some people here may have seen the newsletter that I sent out at the beginning of this month. I now have a mailing list of the And with in the we’ve And able to take an interest in. And finally, we have an archive of previous advice and previous work to draw on.
So that’s what UE comprises. Now just a few ideas We lot people are working UE people on the UE network. To put people in touch. You know, someone says I’m working with four teenagers in a high school and, you know, I’m really feeling quite isolated. And I said, wow.
That’s amazing. Somebody else in, you know, somebody else in Spain is doing that. Maybe you too can communicate. And we could have fantastic gatherings where people come together and share this, share their ideas, you know, real sort of lateral sharing of people’s understanding and interest and incredible, you know, richness this could give to our own practice, both our outer practice and our inner practice. Creating manuals and training opportunities.
Now this is something that has been stressed from the very beginning by both Lama and Rinpoche. What seems incredibly important is for us to actually have almost a technical handbook for people. Know, this is what we’re talking about. This is the heart of universal education. It’s not something fluffy.
It’s something incredibly rigorous. Rinpoche said that he wants dura, Abhidharma, lorig, all those different things in it. You know, present Madhyamaka, Prāsaṇgika philosophy, but explained in a completely rational, accessible language. And what these manuals or technical handbooks could do is then be the basis for people to do specific things in their own areas. So, you know, you’re not necessarily going to be sharing Madhyamaka or Prāsaṇgika with a five year old, but at least, you know, the teachers have an awareness of how what they can do with that age group is going to fit into the overall scheme of things.
And we’re completely clear with people who want to be universal education educators that this is the philosophical framework that we’re offering. One way I sometimes think about it is that we’re talking about the inner chocolate market. People remember Lama Yeshe’s comment about, you know, Dharma is inner chocolate. And the inner chocolate market is actually pretty crowded. But there’s lot of stuff out there that’s twenty percent cocoa, and we can offer a hundred percent cocoa.
So, you know, just to think about it from that point of view. And fourth thing, developing pilot projects. The network could actually try some things out, you know, do some things, potentially things that would even bring an income in. And lastly, exploring partnerships with other organizations and initiatives. Now we’ve already begun to do that.
The way there’s an incredible tool for looking at all the different things that are happening. And as with any good idea, this is happening all over the world. I mean, that’s confirmation. People are saying we need values in education. There’s an organization called core values in education.
There’s another there’s the alternative education resources. There’s global ethics. There’s all sorts of the we’re excited the very in a marriage that, you know, if you’re gonna connect with somebody, you need to know who you are first and do your own work first. But already, I’m meeting incredible people and coming across some extraordinary connections. I mean, for example, in the world of transpersonal psychology, one of the main things they’re talking about now is interconnectedness, this dependent arising.
And we can use that vocabulary. We can connect with those scholars. There’s there’s there’s an amazing amount of thinking and working that’s already going on out there. Some by Buddhist professionals and some by people who are actually reaching some of these truths through their own intellectual and heart inquiry. So those are the five key activities at the moment we see, but I used the word envisage because these are very early days, and we’re just beginning to explore.
So just to more than almost finish, I was just going to talk about what are the actual subjects and to share with you some of the things that Rinpoche shared with me and with previous directors of UE. Four main subjects for UE, loving kindness, wisdom, which would include the philosophical framework, Inspiring stories. I think this is a really exciting one. We’re simply suggesting that we take the stories of people around the world who have done extraordinary things, you know, who have shown good heart and practice in their lives. You mentioned people like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Saint Francis, but there are many, many people like that.
And we actually try and share that with people, particularly particularly young people, as a new kind of role model instead of pop stars, instead of footballers, instead of wrestlers. And we actually try and introduce young people to the idea of having a different kind of a role model and a healthy relationship with that And then finally, Rinpoche talked about skills for helping other people. The people who maybe we can’t help through words. So he talked about meditation, Kung fu, healing, astrology, exercise such as yoga and qigong, and psychotherapy. But he talked about the kind of western psychotherapy that doesn’t the newer one that doesn’t contradict with the Dharma.
And he said there will be more things as well. And he also talked about four attitudes that should be practiced in daily life, which is kindness to all, rejoicing, this is very familiar territory for us, I think, patience, and forgiveness and letting go. So we’re coming up with a very clear presentation for young people, old people, anybody. You know, this is the way to develop a good heart. This is the way to have a happier life.
And then another thing from Rinpoche, he suggested that we have pledges. Because he said it’s all very well having these words and having these teachings to give people. But unless something really changes in people’s lives, then what’s the point? There’s not gonna be a difference. And we all know the value of commitments and the value of vows, but of course, we want to get away from that vocabulary.
So at the moment, we’re looking at the pledge vocabulary. And the two sets of pledges that Rinpoche suggested ten purities. I think I don’t need to read those out to anybody. And then the second set, maybe less familiar, which is the fact that in the eighth century, king Songtsen Gampo introduced a set of guidelines in Tibet for lay life, which he said could have an incredible effect on society. The imagery was taught so movingly on the difference that could be made if we all followed these pledges these guidelines.
And also, Rinpoche said, well, don’t worry about presenting something that’s not obvious and familiar to people because otherwise, nothing will change. You know, if you went to the Copan course and you expected it all to be easy, then maybe the line wouldn’t make any difference. So we can be quite bold about this. So Wendy and I were just going to read these out alternately because we realized that the text is gonna be too small for everyone to see. And maybe you’d just like to take these as a meditation for a moment.
So the first one is to appreciate compassion and wisdom in all its forms, to seek and practice excellent teachings, To repay the kindness of parents. To appreciate people who possess knowledge or good qualities. To respect and support our elders. To benefit others when possible. To be honest in speech and humble in mind.
To be faithful to loved ones and friends. To choose and emulate positive role models To consume an appropriate amount of food and drink. To repay the kindness of people who have benefited us. To repay debts on time and to not cheat. To avoid jealousy.
To hold on to our principles and not listen to bad advice. To be gentle and controlled in speech. To take great responsibility, be broad minded and brave. And one effect, we can certainly check off of all of this. In fact, what Rinpoche suggested is that we make a kind of pamphlet or booklet.
Some of them, with permission, could be slightly rephrased. They could be put into some categories and things like that. And we could then have examples, and Rinpoche’s already started to give some, of how these can be explained to people who aren’t familiar with the kind of teachings that we’ve heard. And then also maybe some questions to get people thinking about how to apply them in our lives. And then this could be distributed really, you know, in a in a really big way.
And I hope that’s something that we will be able to take forward relatively quickly. I had one nice little experience with this. I’ve begun to share some of these materials with friends of mine who are outside of Buddhism. And one of them is doing a PhD at the London School of Economics because I wanted to find out how this read to somebody who didn’t have Buddhist vocabulary. Okay?
Slow down. And this friend came back to me, and she said, I like what you’ve written. And she made some small changes, but she said, what I really liked was the pledges. And she said, they made me look at my own life. And I guess that’s the purpose of them.
And repeat the comment. This friend of mine said that she really liked the pledges. She said, the pledges made me look at the way I behave in my own life, and I guess that is the point of having them. And this is somebody with no religious connection. So that showed the power of the pledges to me.
So finally, we just wanted to mention something about the relationship between FPMT and universal education. It’s obviously an extremely important subject. Universal education is part of Lama Yeshe’s vision, part of his mandala, and also part of Rinpoche’s vision. But we’re also setting up a separate organization because we think skillful way to interact with the people that we most want to reach. And Rinpoche has said very clearly that it doesn’t matter about the label Buddhism.
The important thing is actually to reach people to accomplish the purpose that we want to. Couple of quotes here from Lama Yeshe. He said, universal education and the FPMT are symbiotic. That means they support each other. And we are proud of our materials and to its growth.
And secondly, he said, there’s no need to tell people we are a Buddhist organization because our principal aim is to present something that isn’t Buddhism. Mark, I just had a question about It’s a very subtle distinction, and this is one of the reasons why we would set up an organization that isn’t the FPMT to be doing that. I think we have to be completely open about the inspiration that we take from our teachers and that we take from Buddhism, which is why we try to put it very carefully into the principles earlier. There are some interesting questions about whether the organization should affiliate to FPMT or not. And to some extent, you can say, well, Lama and Rinpoche are very clearly the founders and the visionaries of both organizations.
It’s like having two different flowers on the same plant, and we can trust in that connection, you know, for the thing to grow properly, especially, for example, Rinpoche remains responsible for appointing the director of universal education. But but these will be key points that I think will unfold over a period of years in how we do things. That we have some extraordinary teachings to offer and to offer from a very pure motivation. We’re not doing it to make money. We’re not doing it to gain power or anything like that.
And there are some things like that going on in the world. Everything. There’s all these corporate initiatives that people are supposed to have access to be able to report unscrupulous activities to to their head office and with no consequences on them. So there there’s, like, it’s actually an initiative that people have to have an anonymous hotline. So, you know, I don’t think this is coming on the left field at all.
I think if we can if if this gets under the umbrella of ethics and world peace, it’s it’s not a strange idea at all. All we need is that universal language. So and that’s not a small thing. If we can’t standardize dharma texts, if the translators can’t standardize dharma texts, that starts becoming international called Spirit and Business. It’s got four thousand members around the globe, and they’re working with some very prominent business people about bringing this into the corporate world.
So that’s another very exciting new Thank you very much. I think already I mentioned before already, what I was talking before is the subject before is you see, the way the way you present, I mean, the happiness, You don’t you don’t present happiness, future lives, or liberation, some type of enlightenment, these things. And that, Anyway, however you see it at the beginning, it’s just it’s just happiness is the happiness is this life. And and then causing this giving this causing this to other living beings. You you see that for educating the educating the the people who see it.
I mean, the kids the young the young people, how about the students? To cause to cause this happiness so this is so this is our happiness to others. So so here he’s talking about others’ happiness. He’s not talking about your happiness. From very beginning subject, it’s totally totally different.
I’m I’m not talking about, you see, see see, I’m not talking about one’s own happiness. You see, we are educating them to benefit others even though it’s temporary benefit, happiness, this, but to to others. So it’s totally different subjects. You know? So so that’s why I used the organization, the countries, the individual people who sincerely help the people in Africa, you see, their food and shelter and all these things.
But sincerely, you know, even though the happiness what it cost is just his life. But this they’re doing sincerely, you know, actually, in the in their heart, not thinking their own happiness, but thinking others happiness, they are giving help. So that’s virtue. That is the word. That action that is done sincerely is a virtue.
You see? So this this is more pure. Even then seeing seeing happiness, you know, doing things doing things for doing things, you see, see. This is more pure than as far as virtue, it is more pure dharma than doing prayers, things to achieve happiness for oneself and the happiness future life for oneself or even liberation from saṃsāra. You see?
This exchanging self and others thought. So here, you’re you don’t think of your happiness at all. You think of in the in your heart, objectives, others’ happiness for the happiness. So it’s totally that’s the most pure dharma. So since there’s no problem of the there’s no problem of That that that say, facility.
That that debate doesn’t there’s no connection to this one. So the other thing oh, did it make clear? Did you say? Okay. So the non-Buddhist so therefore, Buddhist, you see, Not not to say, nonbeliever.
So including Christian religion, you see that nonbeliever. So person who don’t have any religion, how possibly this all put them to collect merit? That is when they have if they have compassion in their daily life, rise to somebody and do some benefit, think of the other other persons, other animals, you see, they’re suffering or to to relieve to relieve the suffering or to obtain happiness. So whenever they do this, that’s the time that’s the one time. I have something something else in my talk, but I forgot at the same time.
So So, anyway, so nonbeliever, you see so when they when they generate when they generate compassion to somebody and, you see, wishing that sentient being, that person or that animal to be free from suffering or to have happiness, that time, that person collect merit. And then then on top of that, do something by taking responsibility to help. That time, they put that none that person who collect merit even as a nonbeliever. So the only only in only in those times when the a lot of times, compassion, sincere heart rises and do something to others. You see?
So that that’s the only possibility when unbeliever, say, can collect the cause of happiness. The other thing is that the nonbeliever, you see, rejoice. Somebody say something good happened to somebody. You know, some success or some good thing happened. And then she rejoice in, you know, oh, how wonderful it is.
Is it like bodhisattva’s attitude, you know. What you when you see something brings happiness, you rejoice. You see, you know, how wonderful that is good, you see. So that per non believer also when he does when he or she does the dedication creates merit. So the about the motivation, about the about the attitude, you mentioned about the attitude.
Yes. Yeah. I think you’re completely right, that you see. If, you know, if, yeah, if, you know, when we explain, if we say if there’s additional in the motivation, if there’s additional emotional thought, obscuring thought. Negative emotion.
You see pride or something. Then you see, of course, then that’s a mistaken. But you see, but sincerely but sincerely, you see you see you have there’s a there’s a gold mixed up with brass, then you have pure gold. You see? I tell you.
Oh, this is my gold. So my gold is pure. You know? So sincerity without pride, without any additional of this emotion negative emotion, but telling sincerity, that is no problem. What is what is what is teaching or education or is it the you know, you have discriminated talk wisdom.
The discriminating talk discriminating discriminating wisdom in understanding which quality is better. Is it education? I mean, any education or is it as far as, you know, say, I mean, say, religion or teaching. So so just to see discriminating wisdom. You know?
We have to have a discriminating wisdom. So I don’t see yeah. Otherwise, then we see we see cannot achieve it. Can cannot it’s a liberation from some side. Cannot achieve enlightenment without discriminating without discriminating wisdom.
So able to realize what is the right to practice was wrong to my parents. So, anyway, similar with that. So I just want to clarify that. Let’s make clear. The three things we would wind on was the ways that we could immediately see that we can work together.
It’s kind of clear that we’re at the beginning of a very, very vast task. And the resources, apart from our own enthusiasm and energy, are pretty tight at the moment. So continuing communication. If people are interested in being on the email link and at least knowing what’s going on, please give me your email address or send me an email. I’ll use it for Mandelow as well.
Detective work, looking out for people in your centers or people you may come across who may have a connection. It’s amazing how many people have a sort of universal educational seed in their heart and say, wow, this is the kind of service I’ve always wanted to offer. Or this is a dimension of the dharma that really makes natural sense to me or that I could do something within my life. And so please look out for those kinds of people. And we we may create a very simple questionnaire this autumn as possible.
And we nearly forgot we have a very small life offering here in universal education, and we hope you’ll join us for a moment in praying that universal education can bring benefit in the world. We think about the Yes. Many times. That’s right. And we want to pray for our children.
Yes. Yes. Sure. Yes. Right.
Yes. He’s in Spain now. Yeah. He’s in Spain. Yes.
He is in Spain now. Marie? Yeah. On holiday, ma’am. I don’t know where.
And Geshe la and Demsho asked me to hand and shade this. Okay. And Wendy Cox, the new director from the Loretto Wow. Asked me to hand you the Oh, Wendy. Yes.
Yeah. Wendy. The Roger’s Yes. Name is. Roger’s cousin.
Yeah. And then this is from myself on behalf of all the students Mhmm. At Kurukula Okay. Center. Anyway, you are the Kurukula.
And then some of the other students Mhmm. They wrote letters. Mhmm. Also, SPC Mhmm. And some of the students yes.
Mhmm. They all wrote letters to wrote a letter to because he just feels his whole life. He really feels his whole life that he’s had some some being interfering. Mhmm. And now he anyway, now that he has this word spirit interference, he feels from his side it’s something like this, and he was wondering if Rinpoche could maybe do observation or check or if Rinpoche had any advice on him.
So Okay. Just trying to make room. So these last updates, we’re gonna try to keep these extremely short because we wanna have about an hour for you to just break out into groups and talk. So this will be very brief. Does anyone not know what the Discovering Buddhism program is?
So just a brief update on Discovering Buddhism. Seventy five centers are currently offering Discovering Buddhism. From my understanding, most centers that have chosen to offer it have found it to be extremely beneficial, bringing in a lot of new students, and it’s really, really helped their center in many ways. So I’m glad that that’s working out well. One of the open forum groups tomorrow will be on discovering Buddhism.
So for centers that are trying it and maybe having difficulty or centers that wanna share their experience about it, that will be one of the options tomorrow morning. We now have also a number of study groups that are using the discovery at home materials. So I think we might have mentioned that now there’s discovery Buddhism at home as a correspondence course, which is coming handy for study groups. And that’s being done as far away well, getting up from here, but from the United States, in Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, and so forth. And we have now more than four hundred discovering Buddhism at home correspondent students as far away or in countries with as little Buddhism as China, Turkey, Iraq, Burkina Faso, Samoa, etcetera.
So it’s really been helping us to Yeah. Help people who have a connection to cultivate that connection. And fifty of those students are doing it, especially for a certificate. And why this is significant is those fifty students as far away as Iraq are committed to doing a hundred thousand prostrations and a hundred thousand Vajrasattva mantras. And many of them have already gotten the materials that we created to we created a Vajrasattva preliminary practice booklet and prostrations preliminary practice booklet that has commentary and practices, how guidelines for actually how to complete your hundred thousand.
And Mary just wanted to point out if if correspondent students in Turkey can do it, certainly students at your centers can do it. So please do encourage them to fulfill those aspects of the program. Also, many liberation prison project prisoners are following the program, and because they can’t get CDs in prison, she’s making the whole program available in books. I don’t know if people are aware, but the at home program is basically teachings on audio CD. Of the twelve of the thirteen modules, there’s a different teacher teaching each one.
So it’s a great exposure to all the different teachers in FP and T Western teachers. So, like, Robina has a course. Sangye Khadro has a course, Venerable Thubten Chodron has a course. It’s a great vehicle for your correspondence students to get broad exposure to different ways of presenting Dharma by Western teachers. We currently have nine of the modules of BB out, and the remaining four will be out in the next six months.
Just to remind you that there’s continual updates for materials available to support you that are available on the members area of the website. There’s also a Discovering Buddhism retreats page on the website. And I don’t know if people are aware of this, but a lot of the at home students are quite interested to find centers where they can go and complete their retreat requirements and like support for that. So any of you that are offering Discovery Buddhism and offering Discovery Buddhism retreat days or weekends weekends or longer, please let us know because we’d like to have that posted on our website so that at least Discovery Buddhism’s at home students have a place, a resource to go to to be able to take courses. So that’s kind of moving into that international availability of retreats on our website.
Upcoming is there’ll be two week Kopan style retreats in Australia led by Thubten Yeshe and also in the United States. I think that’s at Vajrapāni, a regular basis to help students fulfill the two week Kopan style long range course requirements. We can help students be able to do that. And again, the mention of that we’re hoping to host an education conference either the end of next year or in two thousand and six to review all the study programs. And Mary has asked that especially in the next nine months to be able to prepare material for that education conference if people have next few months.
Oh, sorry. Trying to cover a lot quickly, but speaking quickly isn’t helpful. So again, please give us your feedback for suggestions, for improvement, for discovering discovering Buddhism so that we can incorporate those ideas and present it as material in the education conference when we get to that place. Because we know it was the first time out, so it probably can use some improvement. And also, please send inspiring stories or comments from your students that we can use in the general news sheet and on the website.
And we’ve had quite a few inspiring stories and comments from correspondent students. That’s all I have to say about discovering Buddhism at the moment. Other than it’s going really well, and I think it’s because it’s a it’s been was a collaborative effort by, you you know, fifty different spiritual program coordinators and teachers within the organization, and and it’s been received really well, and people have continued to stay involved with this development. Sangye Khadro has been huge in making the correspondence So I’m just going to say a few words about Foundation of Buddhist Thought which is the second of the four programs. It’s a little bit unique in that it wasn’t actually created by the education department, and it’s not actually administered by the FBNC Inc.
It’s it’s run from January in London, and it was created by Geshe Tashi Tsering at Jamyang in London. And it’s different from discovering Buddhism and its material is more advanced. So in some ways, it fits between Discovering Buddhism and Basic Program. However, it’s probably a bit simplistic to say that we do Discovering Buddhism, then Foundation Buddhist thought, and then Basic Program. People will go from Discovering Buddhism to Basic Program or Foundation to Basic Program.
It’s what I want to do with course the There are six modules in four months. And the course book and the order materials that you get from the correspondence course are geared for a very structured various rigid format, which in fact has worked beautifully because it gives people that structure, gives them the ability to really delve deeply into the material. The six modules are the four noble truths, Geshe Tashi devised the program specifically for the students that he was teaching, which were fairly switched-on Londoners. Came about. And in that, he’s included the Four Noble Truths, which is actually sort of just a tad radical because within Tibetan Buddhism, it’s not it’s there, but it’s not part of Geshe Tashi’s genius is that he’s used a very Western pedagogy in that there is the reading, the listening, the meditating on a particular topic, but then there’s also the course the written by Geshe Tashi, which if you haven’t had a look at, I do recommend them because they are really good material.
And all the other materials of other CDs, MP3s or tapes about fifteen CDs per module. So there’s a lot of listening needed to guided meditations, questions, essays, exams, etcetera. And we also have online resources. We have the text in Spanish and French. We have additional reading and additional meditations, things like that.
So who’s actually who’s doing the course or has done the course here? It was not bad. Put down when you feel like it. It’s something you’re locked into for two years. And that really is the strength of the course.
I’d like to offer the books to all of these center libraries for free, but I can’t, I’m afraid. But I could offer them a cost price, which fifty euros for this set and ninety euros per module of CD. If you want to do that, can talk to me and I can post it out to you. Have to charge postage of course as well, but help. The prayer practice materials that we have available, wisdom publications, website.
There’s a publication which you may not know about called education structure and general programming advice, which gives an overview of all of the education that we consider part of FP and T education. So something to look at if you haven’t looked at yet. And I didn’t mention the Lama Yeshe with some archive because I’m going to let them mention themselves. So please come up. Archive has been really, really helpful in the education.
Sorry. I don’t have any fancy graphics. Also, sorry. I’m a recovering transcript editor. Ninety six, is at the back of our books.
We have about two hundred and fifty thousand free books in circulation. So if you haven’t seen one right now, what’s wrong with you? Also, many of them have been reprinted for free distribution in Singapore and one in Malaysia and also in other languages, Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, German, not yet. Like that. So this is only due to the kindness, the blessings of our gurus, and the money of our benefactors.
Recently, we started a membership program trying to get some really big money in, and we asked people to become life members of the uncapped for a thousand dollars. And this is we’re trying to raise about six hundred thousand dollars so that we can hire a long term team of at least five editors to really work on the teachings in the archive, the teachings of in a kind of organized way. I sent a small booklet called preserving the FPMT lineage out to all the centers. So I hope I forgot to bring any to the meeting, but I hope you’ve all seen that by now. So does any does anybody not know not know what I’m talking about?
Anyway, see me later. Also, the content of the thing is on our website, lamayeshe dot com. It’s called it’s under the membership section. It’s called preserving the FPMT lineage. There’s a question so first of all, I’d like to thank all those individuals and centers who have joined.
We have and there’s been especially strong support in Singapore where we sort of ran a pilot program, and it was very successful. So we have about one hundred and fifty, two hundred members worldwide. Some paid up a thousand dollars straight away, and some are paying a hundred dollars a month for ten months. And we’ve also instituted the plan where you pay a dollar a day for thirty four months, and we’ll debit your credit card once a month for that. So, you know, really grateful for for the support.
I know the centers have a lot of their own needs, and feel very fortunate to be able to get some money out of it. So the next thing I wanted to mention is the digitization of the archive, which has nothing to do with fingers. There are more than ten thousand hours of teaching on more than seven thousand old cassette tapes, which were the tapes themselves were physically deteriorating as they do. So with thanks to the to Rinpoche and the FPMT education Fund and then the Roger and Mimi Sherby and the FPMT Board, we were funded to, over two year period, take all the material off the tapes and digitize it onto hard drives. So that will, of course, allow us to preserve the teachings indefinitely.
So we’re just in the final stages of of the first part of that project, which is just checking all the digitization to make sure everything’s there, everything’s been done properly. So that will be their So lot are this. So you can see here how how fortunate we were because of the kinds of volunteers we’ve developed with. Next thing I just wanna mention briefly is some of the some of the things that we’re working on in the archive. We’re preparing some books for wisdom to publish, and venerable Elsa is working on a couple of books of Rinpoche’s teachings on guru devotion and the Ganden Lhagyama commentary, and then she has some other things she’ll work on.
We’re also going through all of Rinpoche’s Lamrim teachings from Kopan and other Lamrim courses to organize to check the transcripts that are in the archive and then break them up into by topic according to the Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand outlined. So collect all the teachings on perfect human rebirth, impermanence and death, calm, refuse, etcetera, into sort of the electronic baskets. And then once all the teachings on each topic is being collected, then to go through each basket and make a coherent to to you to the So the first two books will be published by Wisdom. So we’re working on those two. Then just to mention other things, we’re working on Rinpoche’s Vajrayoginī commentary, commentaries, putting them together, mainly the generation at this point.
Then a couple of people are working on Lama Yeshe’s Offering to the Spiritual Guide commentary and Chöying Tobden Dorje’s commentary. I’m working on Lama’s Mahāmudrā commentaries, publication by wisdom, and then Kopan’s six-session Guru Yoga commentaries. Venerable Sera is supposed to be working on a few things. I’ll just leave it I’ll just leave it at that. And, anyway, there are a number of other things we have in the pipeline.
Also, we’re working on we have a number of videos, unfortunately, not enough, but we have probably thirty or forty tapes video tapes of Lama Yeshe teaching. There are four fairly relatively extensive courses, two on six yogas, one Chenrezig commentary and Lama’s Guhyasamāja commentary. Then there are a number of short teachings by Lama. We’re putting all these videos onto DVD. And the first two, which are Three Principal Aspects of the Path available in two or three weeks.
And with the DVD, we’re putting subtitles across the bottom. So sometimes people can’t catch online what we’re saying. So like that. And they’ll be able people will be able to put other language subtitles on them as well. So so that’s that.
Basically, the last thing I want to mention briefly is our technology plan. I’m not going to go through this in detail because I don’t understand it myself. But you can look at it. Done by our wonderful IT person, Jennifer, who manages the office and does our website and everything. But, basically, we’ve got the audio files.
We’ve got transcripts. We’re beginning to build up a photo archive, and then we’ll have the digitized video of Lama and Rinpoche. So we’re getting one huge storage server, and we’re starting it will be sort of a multirack system. We’re starting with a terabyte, which sounds something like from the dinosaur age, but believe it’s actually quite advanced. Terabytes is a thousand gigs.
And it sort of sounds like something the rock and roll band would tell you. So there’s that. Then we’re going to have an external server for accessing things on the web. So we at the moment, our database is in one it’s kind of a flat file thing where it’s just it’s just a database, and you look things up on it and you go somewhere else. So we’re trying to integrate all our information so that you go to the database, you see a teaching, click on it, you’ll be able to go to the audio, you’ll be able to go to the the transcript of it.
If there’s video or photographs of the event, you’ll So thanks to everybody here who’s ever had anything to do with the archive. My particular responsibility besides for well, anyway, directing it, which I can’t help, I’m not sure if responsibility, which means that I keep track of Rinpoche’s travel schedule. I try and contact the center directors or somebody at the center who I can get a response from to give them the recording guidelines and to hear back that they understand them. Just to take a moment to emphasize that where I stand in the organization in this role is that when Rinpoche comes to your center, actually capturing his holy words is almost, in my opinion, from where I stand, the number one thing that the center director or works in charge should be thinking of. And, unfortunately, from what I’ve seen since nineteen ninety six being the one receiving recordings back from centers, it was all too evident that well, anyway I say that it wasn’t number one but there were so many obstacles.
And a couple of CPMTs ago, the one in the two thousand, I think I reported that about fifty percent of the time I got that media. Well, I used to always say tapes, now I say media because it comes in a different format. Fifty percent of the time it would come back and the recording quality was between satisfactory and excellent. Twenty five percent of the time, it would come back and it would be below par or terrible or almost unusable and twenty five percent of the time I get nothing. So I like to report that has definitely improved a lot and so thank you so much.
I don’t even think of it in that terms now because definitely the feeding of the archive I really feel has improved tremendous amount. But not to get complacent and so I think after the CPMT I’m going to just send an email out to CPMT list that just puts a link to where you can everybody in one hit can download the recording guidelines And you know even if Rinpoche hasn’t been to your center for a long time, mean it might be very interesting for you to read all the things to think about. So anyway I won’t go into more detail than that that it’s actually not easy. Actually, my opinion is you need a tremendous amount as an organization, and we need a tremendous amount of merit to actually capture capture Rinpoche’s words well, well recorded. And so often a lot of obstacles come up.
So therefore, so much attention needs to be paid to this point. And it’s it’s my it’s what I always say and I can’t say it enough. So anyway, but thank you very much for everybody who has actually really done this job extremely well. Comes to mind is also doing the Milarepa retreat and during the Kopan retreat Vajrayoginī Institute. And I know other places too, the recently Mahāmudrā.
And I think actually with the digital recording, it’s that’s one of the reasons why there’s a big improvement. So that said about the oh, and then the next point is actually to send it to me at the archive. Send it to the archive. And sometimes, ideally, is to send it as soon as you can. And sometimes I am still chasing materials from centers six months, twelve months, eighteen months after a patient’s been.
So obviously, the sooner it gets the archive, the better it is for everybody. And then in terms of transcribing, this is quite a specialized skill. And as Nick mentioned, venerable Lhundup Rigdrol, is helping now me or work with transcribers. And often people would like to do this, but to know that it’s very time time intensive and you need to be very familiar with Rinpoche speech, very familiar with the dharma and so forth. So generally, I don’t actually put out appeals anymore for transcribers because what I would get back is mostly people who are very good.
They’re they’re offered to transcribers extremely well motivated but they simply didn’t have the skills or the realistic attitude of the real perseverance it takes. And on that score, though, I’d like to all of us to rejoice in EC’s recent efforts, which was to transcribe the whole of the Vajrayoginī Institute teachings. Three weeks was it? One of many many teachings and she she’s actually, I would say, almost the perfect transcriber because certainly because of her knowledge, but also because she stuck with it and she stayed in touch with me. And I knew she was doing it, and I knew it was progressing.
And, you know, it was just slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, and but she finished the whole thing. That’s unbelievable. So I think round of applause. That’s it for me. Thank you.
And the the most we to do And is actually the Director of the current LRZTP and who requested me to translate for her for this brief presentation. So Isabelle is directing the fourth Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program. And as Rinpoche so kindly said, it has made an enormous difference to us as an organization to have properly qualified interpreters ready to come to the center to interpret from Tibetan into English and various other languages. The current program is going to finish in April next year and out of twelve who started there will be nine graduates. Almost all of those are now committed to go to centers.
But of course, do keep in touch with Isabelle if you suddenly think of a need. Isabelle asked me to to let you know that of those nine, every day they rejoice and appreciate how fortunate they are to be studying at what is the best Tibetan training program currently available in the world for specific skill of learning to be an interpreter. Because as you all know, it’s not enough just to know the language. You also have to know dharma language in your own line in your own language. And you have to have that ability to communicate it and to have that certain personality that enables you to be the interpreter rather than to be the latter The the following two years is the actual on the job training of working in the center with the Geshe.
And there are many centers here who have had the benefit of a properly trained interpreter and who can, you know, really vouch for the fact that that has been an amazing contribution to the dharma program at their center. So the next thing is to think ahead. Isabel has at the moment a list of forty people who would like to continue, who would like to do the next LRZTP, LRZTP 5. And that means that not all of those candidates will be accepted on the program. There is quite a rigorous procedure for application, isn’t there?
But that means that there will be at least twelve, maybe fifteen candidates, some of whom will be available to actually be booked in advance for your center. And just I’m to next Or book a student now and sponsor them so that you know that in two years time, you will have a well a well trained interpreter. And then he sent us to do that. But what always happens is that at the end of the LRZTP, people are calling and emailing Isabelle going, what do mean interpreter? Is there anybody spare?
So don’t be in that situation. Be one of the lucky ones. And the next LRZTP will start either next in the middle towards the middle of next year or it will start in two thousand and six when perhaps we’re not of pleased the the we’ve a And after Rinpoche’s encouragement that we should be having interpreter training programs in many other places, maybe Taiwan, please talk to Isabelle so that we can maybe get a show on the road. Thank you very much. So we’re gonna break up into groups so you can talk instead of listen.
It’s group number six on your name tag. And we just thought it’d be a good opportunity for people to just talk about what they’re doing at their centers, especially things that are working really well or challenges that you’re having with programs to help each other out. And also the small group discussion leaders, if for some reason you run out of things to talk about. Another question to consider is how do we measure success of our programs? Rinpoche had suggested that it would be good for people to brainstorm some practical ideas for social service at our centers.
Lama Lhundup had mentioned that it would be good if we could look at what we’re doing in our centers to make Maitreya statue happen. So that could even be merit making activities. Yeah. It doesn’t have to be only money. It could be merit making activities, but really looking at what we’re doing to support.
I don’t remember if this was Lama Zopa Rinpoche or Lama Mujuk who mentioned just to think about we think often of training students so that they can teach. However, if students aren’t really going to be able to teach, what else can they do? So looking at different ways to plug people into our centers in ways that they can be of service. So there’s quite a lot of ankles you can take depending time. I’d like us just to meet back quite briefly at twenty after six just to brainstorm if there’s any other requests for open forum topics, and I’ll write down what we have already just so that I can organize that when so that when you meet in the morning, you can just break into discussion groups in an efficient way.
Yeah. So we’ll just come back at six twenty. Kendall, what was that? Are you thinking about the shift? If if this is gonna happen, it’s better to organize on the one of the Buddha’s days so that anybody, you know, who, say, may offer a donation, but basically, children of, you know, old people who have even the ones from the intermediate stage.
Even those who are in the intermediate stage. So it so those who contribute, you see, they create one hundred million merits in that day of the day of Buddha. So if you see kind of organized then I think maybe on the one of the Buddha days, it might be the perfect path for that. Also, children’s, you see, could come, I don’t know, if it is. Is it a good chant mantra, Maitreya mantra?
It can be, you see, as a group, they can chant the materiality the mantra, and that’s very good also. So they can be more of the ideas how to organize them. Thank very much. Just by the way sorry. Let us set up this question about sort of going back relation to the, say, Love and Peace for Youth.
And so that two years ago, I think when Istituto Lama Tsongkhapa invited His Holiness to do a teaching. So I attend that. And then on the way to from Lama from Italy, when I was returning back to United States in the airplane, the thought came in my mind, something to help the young people. That to create an organization called Love and Peace for Youth. And then time to time, have very large meetings.
Many young people together and then to have also those some of those people of noble peace who received noble peace. And of course, no question, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So to give speak to give, say, advice or talk, but also among the young people or kids, those who are very good example, kind hearted, not only old people give advice, but also the young people among the children also give, say, the opinion or the advice to the young. So make sure like that. So time to hold out that, especially, I guess, maybe in the countries where there’s a lot of violence, maybe those are most more effective places.
And then generally, the young people in different countries in the cities, what they do is they do meditations and they do kind of consultations, their problems and also so different things and different activities. You know, education. And then and then they do a lot of social service, voluntary, a lot of voluntary works, young people, say, having programs like that, something to to give or offer to others. The heart is a lot of those practices. So then the for method of the education is the university education.
So is it the materials? The method for the education is the same, used universal education material, say like that. So that is another one just to create. So almost kind of the other one is you start school, you see. But here, just organization group of young people, say, the young yes, young people we see to gather and then do mentational discussion, see consultation or do things.
So education is used, university education, the those materials, you see. And they do many they have many voluntary services. So I think so however, as of time to time, we have very big meetings, which is giving sharing ideas. However, the whole aim is about peace and happiness. For the title, Love and Peace for Youth, so since since you are part of that organization, so for example, while you are walking in the road and somebody, you see, tease you or some something.
This is an example. Somebody bothers you, you see. But then suddenly so then suddenly, you remember, you see, oh, I’m in this organization, lot of times, peaceful yogi. So how I harm? How can I revenge back?
You see? So just just just being under that umbrella or, you see, carrying that name of the organization, it helps it helps to not harm to other sentient beings, you see, to practice tolerance. So even name helps very much for the person to do training with karma and for the world peace. So I’ve been mentioning the there has not been yet actually started to but mentioned in different countries, like, you know, the young people. So, say, there has not been say, people are going to try, but there’s not, there has not been something that’s been set up.
That’s on, you see, on. So so just to mention that. Okay? So thank you very much. So back here at twenty after six.
Thank you. Oh, sorry. Where do you go? So in regards to this, say, things, like, charming, you know, man who has the devotional things. Yes.
Well, of course, original idea is not having those things, diversional things. But you see, it is not completely the universal association of something not very rigid, not it’s all depends on which country, which culture. It depends a lot of that. So for example, Valentino, it has been very successful for many years. And here, know, many books.
And you see there’s a there’s also Hare or what? Hare Krishna. Yeah. Hari Krishna mantras and Haram and Ram Ram and whatever. Anyway, so you see, he has a Muslim, has a Hindu, he has a there’s all there’s everything there.
So you see, so you can think that way also universal. Not necessarily, you see, say, not any diversion thing, you see. But he created like that in India, and that fits very well in India because India is a devotional country. You see, you can understand, it’s a devotional country. So it fits very well.
And there’s China, many people whom we see the Buddhist thing. They also fit because Buddha, I mean, I don’t know, but we see Buddha, I mean, Buddhism happened in India. So Buddhism, the Hindus go to Buddhist temples. The Hindus go to Buddhist temples. And so you see they go to the monasteries.
They go to the Buddha. They come from very far villages. And the many passes, you see, they go to the temple. However, this gentleman speaking like that, you see. So he then they also the school has built stupas.
I think they build two stupas, one in Bodh Gaya, one in Varanasi. You see, different times. And he invited many lamas and many other lamas visited the school, you see. So the children become very familiar and very familiar and connected. You see, it’s pretty like that.
So anyway, but in the West, so there is like this. Now in the West, I think it’s all depends very well as the school and culture of the people of country. So it’s not really something you kind of do original things. It’s not really kind of concrete, you see. So much there are so much of it depends on the country, the culture of the people.
So that’s what I thought to mention to bring up. So that’s so the Yeah. Then here, I think two times I have seen the the material. You know? University school.
You see that? And they it’s on Mandarin. No? It’s on Mandarin. No?
They also they performed. They did they did excellent the first time. So when, say, when I saw their performance, there was Richard Gere who was there. This has been a few years ago, I think four years, right? Something that anyway, the performance, Buddha’s Life Story was extremely well done in some part.
I really like very much The Buddhist life story, they did extremely well. So I think it’s just very natural. It fits. So I think that’s all. That’s just to just know.
Yeah. So thank you. Yeah. Well, we do. Yeah.
We have we have children that clearly have learning difficulties. We don’t have people with the expertise to make clear diagnosis of what type of learning difficulties they And, of course, in that society, that’s inevitable. There are kids that can’t keep up. But we don’t you know, the the teachers get anxious about it sometimes, and they they like to keep them down. You know?
They have I mean, they come from a very rigid approach to education where it’s based basically on role of learning. And and and traditional sort of well, not traditional, but the the the the approach that you find most commonly, particularly in that part of India, is where teachers start on day one, they start in the book and they start on page one, and they grind through it methodically, basically just reading from the book. They don’t do any preparation. They don’t give any thought to the activities. They just grind through the book, and the kids basically have got a rough learning to try and memorize it.
And if they can’t keep up, then they keep them down. You know, they hold them back. But I I we we don’t do that. I my fear, we just have to accept that there are children who are as quick as others. But it’s better that they just go through the school.
It’s not like they’re all gonna go out and compete for high flying jobs anyway. You know? A lot of them are gonna be faced with the fact that they’re back in back working in the fields and doing very menial work. But if they get a set of values, and even if they just have a happy time for the ten to twelve years that they’re in school, then I I consider that is a worthwhile experience for them. So, yeah, I’m sure there’s the whole range of just so called disorders of, you know, disabilities that children manifest, but we sort of just treat them all the same.
I think it’s probably more of the disability to children, more they they are coming alive. Sorry. Or the discussion of the the disabled students Yeah. They’re coming alive. Well, what the question was, you know, what do we do about this the children who are slow, who are who are maybe have learning problems.
Mhmm. And yeah. That no. What I’m going say is not quite exact to the question. But yes, they may not they may from our score, just they may, as they mentioned, that they have very high jobs or however from that they can get.
However, I think the long run benefit is that the children’s you see, the most important thing that the the children, they change their attitude of life, you know, and they thought of benefiting others. So total change, the attitude we see from anger to patience and all those things. To universal responsibilities rather than thinking of one’s own happiness, all these things. So so if they allow to practice kindness and so the, rejoicing and all these things. Well, this, what was meant, yeah, introduced this matter.
So this daily life practice, you know, every day, practice kindness towards others, animals, human beings, other living beings, and the practicing tolerance in the patient towards others and then the rejoicing and the forgiving, let’s say, letting go, the forgiving. So the others who harmed you, you see, instead of calling grudge, grudge and hard to let go. If you did harm to other asset, say if you harmed hurt others, you see, along within that, if you hurt others to apologize, if you say something bad to others, to apologize to that. So that’s not a good quality. During that practice, if you don’t apologize, you see that then the problem stays, disharmony stays.
But if you apologize, you get fixed, you see, and bring harmony. So anyway, so these are daily life practice, action practice. So however, these children, they will have as they grow up, so become grow up with the attitude, and they will have children. They will have families. And they, then they’ve I think they become parents.
They will influence. They will bring their children in a similar way, at home naturally. Since they have these qualities. Let’s say, the children’s generally will grow I think they will, the influence of having that, they will become an example to their own children in that way naturally. Naturally, you see that they will grow up similar to parents, the similar attitude, you see, how to behave.
So then these children, you see, now same, this grow up, then they will have children. So then again same, those children, the third children, grandchildren, I can assure you, they will grow up with a similar attitude, you see, behavior, where kind, generous person, stop taking from others, benefit to others. So I think so if you think like this, I think there’s a long run benefit, you see, long run peace and happiness in the generation of family. So the universal education has offered that long run benefit. However,