Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Lama Zopa Rinpoche presents Universal Education—a vision to cultivate compassion and good heart across all ages and cultures independent of religious belief. In this 140-minute teaching, he explains why to begin with concrete kindness and merit-making rather than doctrine: the goal is genuine behavioral change, not intellectual assent. Four main subjects anchor the curriculum: loving kindness, wisdom with philosophical depth, inspiring stories of exemplary role models, and practical skills such as meditation and psychotherapy. Four daily practices—kindness, rejoicing, patience, forgiveness—drawn from Buddhist and eighth-century Tibetan ethics ground this in lived behavior. He describes schools, camps, youth organizations, and teacher training already operating, stressing cultural adaptation. A complementary initiative, Love and Peace for Youth, would gather young people for meditation, discussion, and service. Extensive Q&A addresses how non-Buddhists engage with these values and practical implementation. Pitched at FPMT educators and center directors.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 Universal Education.mp3
UUID: 8057ba84-7045-4a58-8a41-811a10fc4608
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: z CPMT (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 2004 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 140.0 minutes
Words: ~12,549
Okay. So you’re in pairs. So we take this definition. Vincenzo is not quite clear how concepts like karma, past and future lives, could fit in 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 two sayings 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 all children learn the spiritual values that would change the face of the earth, the planet? And Elaine’s favorite one was Lama Zopa’s. The I want to change because Buddhist teachings range from little child to the person in college. And that would really change the peace of the family.
Thank you. Someone next? Actually, in reading all of these quotes, and I like the one that you like, Vincenzo, too, about you clearly have the deep scientific and psychological explanation of things. But it occurred to me to ask the question: 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 is involved in the universal education meaning. The good heart, teaching good heart to the children, all of the 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 generates this attitude to benefit others’ happiness, even though it’s just this life, but that’s a good heart. But personally, generally, even though what happens if you want, it is just on this life, but the person who generally has a good heart, a person who has 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 help 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 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 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, their attitude is a good heart. So they collect merit. And from that merit, they have result, happiness, which they will experience in not this life, in the future lives, definitely, in many lifetimes.
So others, they get the happiness in this life. And those who generate good heart, they can achieve happiness in all the future also, in the future lives. So in that case, even you do this way, but still, there is still teaching good heart, even the aim, what you’re causing, which is on this life, because there’s a lot of benefit in that. So like that.
But I think we don’t teach them from the beginning karma and this and blah, blah, blah, you know, karma and this and that, you see, not from beginning. Beginning, it is simple. But gradually, my understanding, that we should accept reincarnation, we should have the subject reincarnation in the universal education, was to expand, to you see, to go higher and higher. You see, as the level of children’s mind grows up, you see, the understanding, you see, the subject also should be expanded. It should go higher and higher, you see, deeper and deeper.
So gradually, sometime later, you see, not from beginning, not very from beginning fighting them, not fighting them or the parents or chasing them away. Like when the people come to my teachings, they chase them away. See? So after five minutes. So not like that.
So this one, I think, after some time, there must be in the education, there must be education of the 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 mind, you see, deeper information about mind, you see, there should be there.
So that’s, so there was one question about all sentient beings. All sentient beings, 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 happens in this life, but you can think about all living beings. Yeah. You can emphasize to all living beings. So which means everyone, for them, which means everyone in this world, something like that.
You know, all the human beings without racism, you know, nationality, all that. So animals and, you know, all living beings. You just use the word all living beings like that. So it just becomes familiar. You know? Just make it become familiar. Start like that, you know, gradually. Then that’s how they understand all living beings, you know, gradually.
So anyway, that’s the idea. But you see, in reality, we have to make some plans and really start. And we will learn 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, say, discovery or, you know, what problem arises, what to do, what not to do.
You see, after you 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 completely, it is not completely narrow. You know, the universe, it’s something not very narrow. You see, something not very tight, narrow, not like that. So something to expand gradually, bigger and bigger. See?
So that’s, 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, unfortunately, the name Universal Education is already being used in many countries for primary school literacy programs. 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 a 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 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 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 at 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 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, universal education uses rational language and explanations free from any dogma. At one point, I had the word scientific in there. But it’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 in translation for you. That’s something that we want to try and pay a lot of attention to in the future. 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 various areas.
For example, he says that it mustn’t contain anything that contradicts Buddhist philosophy, but also that his counsel is 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, the 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 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 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 two founders and visionaries, who may be able to associate themselves either publicly or in practice with universal 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. There 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 Thailand and other countries.
There’s also been, for example, twenty years of summer camps in Italy. And there’s summer camps in Mexico. There’s a new schools project in Colombia. There’s things happening in Brazil. I mean, there’s some management consultancy projects, for example, people teaching adults in business. There’s somebody working with elder hostels, working with over fifty-fives in California. Somebody else 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 people who have taken an interest in universal education. 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 envisage people working on the UE network. To put people in touch. You know, someone says I’m working with teenagers in a high school and, you know, I’m really feeling quite isolated. And I say, wow, that’s amazing. Somebody else in Spain is doing that. Maybe you two 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 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. You 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 sūtra, 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 Prāsaṇgika with a five-year-old, but at least 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 a 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 web is 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 the Alternative Education Resources. There’s Global Ethics. There’s all sorts of things. We’re excited, but we’re not in a hurry to have a marriage with that, you know. If you’re going to 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 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 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 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. People like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Saint Francis, but there are many, many people like that.
And we actually try and share that, particularly with 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 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, Kum Nye, healing, astrology, exercise such as yoga and chi gong, and psychotherapy. But he talked about the kind of Western psychotherapy, 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 going to 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 Kopan course and you expected it all to be easy, then maybe the teachings 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 going to 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 take from 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 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. 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 it’s a 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 committed 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 this. 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 these will be key points that I think will unfold over a period of years in how we do things.
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. There’s all these corporate initiatives that people are supposed to have access to, to be able to report unscrupulous activities to their head office with no consequences on them.
So 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 out of left field at all. I think if we can, if this gets under the umbrella of an organization 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 area. Thank you very much.
I think already I mentioned before, what I was talking about before is, you see, the way you present, I mean, the happiness. You don’t present happiness of future lives, or liberation, nirvana, or enlightenment, these things. Anyway, however you see it, at the beginning, it’s just, it’s just happiness of this life. And then causing this, giving this, causing this to other living beings. You see that for educating the people, the kids, the young people, the students, to cause this happiness, to cause this happiness to others.
So this is, so this is causing happiness to others. So so here he’s talking about others’ happiness. He’s not talking about your happiness. From the very beginning, the subject is totally different. I’m not talking about, you 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 of this life, but to benefit others. So it’s totally different subject. You know?
So that’s why I used the example of the organizations, the countries, the individual people who sincerely help the people in Africa, you see, with food and shelter and all these things. But sincerely, you know, even though the happiness it causes is just this life, but they’re doing sincerely, you know, actually, in their heart, not thinking of their own happiness, but thinking of 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 is more pure. Even then seeking happiness, you know, doing things for oneself, doing things, you see. This is more pure than, as far as dharma is concerned, more pure dharma than doing prayers to achieve happiness for oneself and the happiness of future life for oneself or even liberation from saṃsāra. You see? This is done without self-cherishing thought.
So here, you don’t think of your happiness at all. You think, in your heart, of others’ happiness. So it’s totally, that’s the most pure dharma. So since there’s no problem of, there’s no problem of that debate, that debate has no connection to this one. So the other thing — did I make it clear? Did you understand? Okay.
So the non-Buddhist, so therefore, Buddhist, you see, not to say nonbeliever, so including Christian religion, you see, nonbeliever. So person who doesn’t have any religion, how possibly can they collect merit? That is when they have, if they have compassion in their daily life, it rises toward somebody and they do some benefit, think of the other person, other animals, you see, their suffering, or 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 else in my talk, but I forgot at the same time. So, anyway, so nonbeliever, you see, so 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, at that time, that person collects merit. And then on top of that, do something by taking responsibility to help. At that time, that person collects merit, even as a nonbeliever.
So the only, only in those times when compassion, sincere heart arises and they do something for others. You see? So that’s the only possibility when a nonbeliever can collect the cause of happiness. The other thing is that the nonbeliever, you see, rejoices. Somebody, something good happened to somebody. You know, some success or some good thing happened. And then they rejoice in it, you know, oh, how wonderful it is.
It’s like a Bodhisattva’s attitude, you know. When you see something that brings happiness, you rejoice. You see, you know, how wonderful, that is good, you see. So that person, nonbeliever, also when he does, when he or she does, they collect merit. So the about the motivation, about the attitude, you mentioned about the attitude. Yes. Yeah. I think you’re completely right, you see. If, you know, if, yeah, if, you know, when we explain, if there’s additional in the motivation, if there’s additional negative emotion, obscuring thought, negative emotion.
You see, pride or something. Then you see, of course, then that’s a mistake. But you see, sincerely, you see, you have, there’s 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 negative emotion, just sincerity, that is no problem.
What is teaching or education? Is it, you know, you have discriminating wisdom, the discriminating wisdom in understanding which quality is better. Is it education? I mean, any education, or is it, as far as, you know, religion or teaching. So just to see discriminating wisdom. You know? We have to have discriminating wisdom. So I don’t see, yeah, otherwise, then we cannot achieve liberation from saṃsāra. Cannot achieve enlightenment without discriminating wisdom.
So able to realize what is the right path to practice, what’s wrong to abandon. So, anyway, similar with that. So I just want to clarify that. Let’s make it clear. The three things we wound up with 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’m on Mandala 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 education 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 with in my life.
And so please look out for those kinds of people. And we may create a very simple questionnaire this autumn, if possible. And we nearly forgot, we have a very short loving 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.
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. I don’t know.
And Geshe-la and Demsho asked me to hand you this. Okay. And Wendy Bosnyak, the new, Wendy Cox, the new director from Loreto, asked me to hand you this. Oh, Wendy. Yes. Yeah. Wendy Cox. Yes, her name is. Roger’s cousin. Yeah.
And then this is from myself on behalf of all the students at Kurukulla Center. Okay. And then some of the other students, they wrote letters also. SPC, and some of the students, yes, they all wrote a letter. They wrote a letter to a student because he feels his whole life that he’s had some spirit being interfering. 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 an observation or check or if Rinpoche had any advice for him. So, okay.
Just trying to make room. So these last updates, we’re going to try to keep these extremely short because we want to 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 want to 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 Discovering Buddhism at home materials. So I think we might have mentioned that now there’s Discovering Buddhism at home as a correspondence course, which is coming in handy for study groups. And that’s being done as far away, well, going out 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 in countries as far away or with as little Buddhism as China, Turkey, Iraq, Bulgaria, Samoa, etcetera. So it’s really been helping us to 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. We created a Vajrasattva preliminary practice booklet and prostrations preliminary practice booklet that has commentary and practices, guidelines for actually how to complete your hundred thousand.
And Mary just wanted to point out, 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, Mary’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 thirteen modules, there’s a different teacher teaching each one. So it’s a great exposure to all the different teachers in FPMT 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 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 support for that.
So any of you that are offering Discovering Buddhism and offering Discovering Buddhism retreat days or weekends or longer, please let us know because we’d like to have that posted on our website so that Discovering Buddhism 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, there’ll be two-week Kopan-style retreats in Australia led by Tenzin Yeshe and also in the United States. I think that’s at Vajrapāni, on a regular basis to help students fulfill the two-week Kopan-style long course requirements. We can help students be able to do that. And again, the mention that we’re hoping to host an education conference either at 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, in the next few months — oh, sorry. Trying to cover a lot quickly, but speaking quickly isn’t helpful. So again, please give us your feedback, suggestions for improvement for 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 newsletter 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 been a collaborative effort by fifty different spiritual program coordinators and teachers within the organization, 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 program.
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 FPMT Inc. It’s run from Jamyang 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 of Buddhist Thought, and then Basic Program. People will go from Discovering Buddhism to Basic Program or Foundation to Basic Program. It’s more to do with the structure.
There are six modules, four months per module. And the course book and the materials that you get from the correspondence course are geared for a very structured, fairly 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 stressed-out Londoners. 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 emphasized in the same way. Geshe Tashi’s ability to do this 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 written by Geshe Tashi, which if you haven’t had a look at, I do recommend because they are really good material.
And all the other materials of CDs, MP3s or tapes, about fifteen CDs per module. So there’s a lot of listening needed, 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 doing the course or has done the course? Put your hand up 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 at cost price, which is fifty euros for a set and ninety euros per module of CDs. If you want to do that, you can talk to me and I can post it out to you. I have to charge postage, of course, as well, but it would help.
The 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 FPMT education. So something to look at if you haven’t looked at it yet.
And I didn’t mention the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive because I’m going to let them mention themselves. So please come up. The Archive has been really, really helpful in the education. Sorry. I don’t have any fancy graphics. Also, sorry. I’m a recovering typist.
Nineteen 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, 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 archive 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, 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 anybody not know what I’m talking about? Anyway, see me later. Also, the content is on our website, lamayeshe.com. It’s called, it’s under the membership section, it’s called Preserving the FPMT Lineage.
So first of all, I’d like to thank all those individuals and centers who have joined. There’s been especially strong support in Singapore where we 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 a 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 the support. I know the centers have a lot of their own needs, and I feel very fortunate to be able to get some money out of the centers. 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, and the tapes themselves were physically deteriorating as they do.
So with thanks to Rinpoche and the FPMT Education Fund and then Roger and Mimi and the FPMT Board, we were funded to, over a 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 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 completed by the end of the year. Then we’ll be in a position to start making audio teachings available on our website. So, eventually, there may be more than ten thousand hours of teachings that you’ll be able to access. So you can see here how fortunate we were because of the kind volunteers we’ve developed.
Next thing I just want to mention briefly is some of the things that we’re working on in the archive. We’re preparing some books for Wisdom to publish, and Venerable Ailsa is working on a couple of books of Rinpoche’s teachings on guru devotion and the Guhyasamāja Tantra 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 check the transcripts that are in the archive and then break them up by topic according to the Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand outline. So collect all the teachings on perfect human rebirth, impermanence and death, calm abiding, refuge, etcetera, into sort of electronic baskets.
And then once all the teachings on each topic have been collected, then to go through each basket and make a coherent book. 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 stage at this point.
Then a couple of people are working on Lama Yeshe’s Offering to the Spiritual Master commentary and Mahāmudrā commentary. I’m working on Lama’s Heruka commentaries for publication by Wisdom, and then Kopan Heruka Vajrasattva commentaries. Venerable Sarah is supposed to be working on a few things. 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 video tapes of Lama Yeshe teaching. There are four fairly 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, arriving in two or three weeks. And with the DVD, we’re putting subtitles across the bottom. So sometimes people can’t catch online what Lama’s saying. So like that. And people will be able to put other language subtitles on them as well. 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. It’s 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 it will be sort of a multi-rack system. We’re starting with a terabyte, which sounds something like from the dinosaur age, but I believe it’s actually quite advanced. Terabyte is a thousand gigs. And it sort of sounds like something a 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 at the moment, our database is in a kind of flat file thing where 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 transcript of it. If there’s video or photographs of the event, you’ll be able to access those as well.
So thanks to everybody here who’s ever had anything to do with the archive. My particular responsibility, besides directing it, which I can’t help, I’m not sure if I’m sure, is 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 whoever’s 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 two thousand, I think I reported that about fifty percent of the time I got media — I used to always say tapes, now I say media because it comes in different formats — 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’d 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 those terms now because definitely the feeding of the archive, I really feel, has improved a tremendous amount. But not to get complacent. And so I think after the CPMT I’m going to just send an email out to the CPMT list that just puts a link to where 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, I 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 of merit, I think, as an organization, and we need a tremendous amount of merit to actually 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 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. What comes to mind is also doing the Mahāmudrā retreat and during the Kopan course Vajrayoginī Institute. And I know other places too, recently Mahāmudrā.
And I think actually with the digital recording, 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 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 Rinpoche’s been. So obviously, the sooner it gets to 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 Lodro Tashi is helping me work with transcribers. And often people would like to do this, but to know that it’s very time-intensive and you need to be very familiar with Rinpoche’s 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 were very well motivated, they offered to transcribe, 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 all of us to rejoice in Edie’s recent efforts, which was to transcribe the whole of the Vajrayoginī Institute teachings. Three weeks, was it? One month? Many teachings. And she’s actually, I would say, almost the perfect transcriber, 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, but she finished the whole thing. That’s unbelievable. So I think a round of applause for Edie.
That’s it for me. Thank you. And the most important thing is actually the Director of the current LRZTP 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 centers 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 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 the 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 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 the teacher. 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. Isabelle has at the moment a list of forty people who would like to do the next LRZTP, LRZTP five.
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 so just send us an email, or book a student now and sponsor them so that you know that in two years’ time, you will have a well-trained interpreter.
But what always happens is that at the end of the LRZTP, people are calling and emailing Isabelle going, what do you 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 toward the middle of next year or it will start in two thousand and six.
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 going to 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 Zopa Rinpoche had mentioned that it would be good if we could look at what we’re doing in our centers to make the 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 Yeshe 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 angles you can take depending on time. I’d like to ask you about forum topics, and I’ll write down what we have already just so that I can organize them 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.
What was that? Are you thinking about the shift? If this is going to happen, it’s better to organize on one of the Buddha 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 in the intermediate stage. So those who contribute, you see, they create one hundred million merits on that day, the Buddha Day.
So if you see, kind of organized, then I think maybe on one of the Buddha Days, it might be a perfect time for that. Also, children could come, I don’t know, if it is. Chanting mantra, Maitreya mantra? It can be, you see, as a group, they can chant the Maitreya mantra, and that’s very good also. So there can be more ideas how to organize them. Thank you very much.
Just by the way, sorry. Just to bring up this question about sort of going back in relation to Love and Peace for Youth. So two years ago, I think when Istituto Lama Tsongkhapa invited His Holiness to do a teaching, so I attended that. And then on the way 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 some of those people who received the Nobel Peace Prize. And of course, no question, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So to speak, to give advice or talk, but also among the young people or kids, those who are very good examples, kindhearted, not only old people give advice, but also the young people among the children also give their opinion or advice to the young. So make it like that.
So time to time, especially, I guess, maybe in the countries where there’s a lot of violence, maybe those are 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 about their problems and also different things and different activities. You know, education.
And then they do a lot of social service, voluntary, a lot of voluntary works, young people, having programs like that, something to give or offer to others. A lot of those practices. So then the method for the education is universal education. So the materials, the method for the education is the same, using universal education material.
So that is another one just to create. So almost kind of, the other one is you start a school, you see. But here, just an organization, group of young people to gather and then do meditation, discussion, consultation or do things. So education is using universal education, those materials, you see. And they do many voluntary services.
So I think, so however, 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 you are part of that organization, so for example, while you are walking in the road and somebody, you see, teases you or something, somebody bothers you, you see.
But then suddenly, you remember, you see, oh, I’m in this organization, Love and Peace, you know. So how can I harm? How can I revenge back? You see? So just just being under that umbrella or, you see, carrying that name of the organization, it helps, it helps to not harm other sentient beings, you see, to practice tolerance.
So even the name helps very much for the person to do training with karma and for world peace. So I’ve been mentioning this in different countries, like, you know, to young people. So there has not been, people are going to try, but there has not been anything that’s been set up yet. 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, you know, things like chanting, you know, mantras and devotional things. Yes. Well, of course, the original idea is not having those things, devotional things. But you see, it is not completely, the universal education is something not very rigid, not, it all depends on which country, which culture. It depends a lot on that.
So for example, Valentino, it has been very successful for many years. And he has, you know, many books. And you see there’s also a Hare Krishna, yeah. Hare Krishna mantras and Hare Ram and Ram Ram and whatever. Anyway, so you see, he has Muslim, has Hindu, he has, there’s everything there.
So you see, so you can think that way also, universal. Not necessarily, you see, not any devotional thing, you see. But 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 in China, many people, you see, the Buddhist thing, they also fit because Buddha, I mean, I don’t know, but, you see, Buddhism happened in India.
So 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 many buses, you see, they go to the temple. However, as a pilgrimage, like that, you see. So then they also, the school has built stupas. I think they built two stupas, one in Bodh Gaya, one in Varanasi. You see, different times.
And he invited many lamas, invited the school, you see. So the children become very familiar and connected. You see, like that. So anyway, but in the West, so it’s like this. Now in the West, I think it all depends very much on the culture of the country. So it’s not really, the original thing, it’s not really kind of concrete, you see. 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 yeah.
Then here, I think two times I have seen the materials. You know? Universal education school. You see that? And they, it’s in Mandarin. No? They also, they performed. They did, they did excellent the first time. So when I saw their performance, there was Richard Gere who was there. This has been a few years ago, I think four years. Anyway, the performance, Buddha’s Life Story was extremely well done in some parts. I really like it very much.
The Buddha’s 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 know. Yeah. So thank you.
Yeah. Well, we do. Yeah. 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 have. And, of course, in that society, that’s inevitable. There are kids that can’t keep up. But we don’t, you know, the teachers get anxious about it sometimes, and they like to keep them down.
You know? They have, I mean, they come from a very rigid approach to education where it’s basically on rote learning. And 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 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, we don’t do that. I, my feeling is we just have to accept that there are children who are not as quick as others.
But it’s better that they just go through the school. It’s not like they’re all going to go out and compete for high-flying jobs anyway. You know? A lot of them are going to be faced with the fact that they’re 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 consider that is a worthwhile experience for them.
So, yeah, I’m sure there’s the whole range of so-called disorders or disabilities that children manifest, but we sort of just treat them all the same. I think it’s probably more, the disabled students, more they are coming alive.
Sorry. The discussion of the disabled students, they’re coming alive. Well, what the question was, you know, what do we do about the children who are slow, who maybe have learning problems. Mhmm. And yeah. What I’m going to say is not quite exact to the question. But yes, they may not, from our score, they may not have very high jobs or however far they can get.
However, I think the long-run benefit is that the children, you see, the most important thing, that the children, they change their attitude of life, you know, and they thought of benefiting others. So total change, the attitude, you see, from anger to patience and all those things. And to universal responsibility rather than thinking of one’s own happiness, all these things.
So if they’re allowed to practice kindness and rejoicing and all these things, well, this, what was mentioned, yeah, introduced to this material. So this daily life practice, everyday practice, kindness towards others, animals, human beings, other living beings, and practicing tolerance and patience towards others and then rejoicing and the forgiving, letting go, the forgiving.
So others who harmed you, you see, instead of holding a grudge, holding a grudge, to let go. If you harmed others, if you hurt others to apologize, if you say something bad to others, to apologize for that. That’s a good quality. During that practice, if you don’t apologize, you see, then the problem stays, disharmony stays. But if you apologize, it gets fixed, you see, and brings harmony.
So anyway, so these are daily life practice, action practice. So however, these children, as they grow up, so become grown up with the attitude, and they will have children. They will have families. And then, I think they become parents. They will influence. They will bring their children up in a similar way, at home naturally. Since they have these qualities.
The children 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, they grow up, then they will have children. So then again same, those children, the third, grandchildren, I can assure you, they will grow up with a similar attitude, you see, behavior, being kind, generous person, giving to 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 the family. So universal education has offered that long-run benefit. However,