Re : FAQs from principals about children Anapana Meditation Courses

[Guest guest]

Respected Shaliniji and All,

 

This mail is about encouraging moral education for school/college students.

Kindly refer following link for one key idea of how to introduce moral education in school/colleges.

http://o3.indiatimes.com/Vipassana_Education_Integration

(Above link contains lot of further links explaining Anapana, Vipassana and the courses offered in schools)

The following conversation between a Vipassana Meditator and a school principal is really wonderful and very inspiring indeed !

I am sure all of us can collect good questions and answers and turn it into a FAQ which could be put in various websites. That will benefit both the school teachers/principals to judge the Anapana Meditation course, and the Vipassana Meditators selflessly serving with the intent of benefitting the children/youth.

 

I truly appreciate Shaliniji's effort for the benefit of children, students and youth !

 

I am sure I will learn a lot from Shaliniji, and do my little bit of concrete action towards this noble mission.

 

May all students get Dhamma early in life, live a happy life, and help build a shining India !!

 

Thanks and Respects,

Vikas Nagpal -- >>May all beings be happy, be peaceful, be liberated!http://www.dhamma.orgBright Children/Students => Bright citizens and leaders => Bright India !!http://o3.indiatimes.com/Vipassana_Education_Integration>>

 

Shalini S dhamma-blr ; Vipassana_Education_Integration Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 11:27:22 PM[Vipassana_Education_Integration] FAQs from principals.

 

 

Another school, this time a public CBSE school has agreed. But what I found was that the principal is expecting good ground work from us...i mean the people who are going to conduct the course. The principal posed me a lot of questions most of which I had expected and which I tried my best to answer and I thought I will put that forward to benefit those who are interested in going and talking to principals: I mean to compile this as a common FAQ from principals in the course of my meetings with these principals.

 

1. Though it will be immensely beneficial to children to have a technique to control their agitation, how is it that can grasp meditation which is quite an abstract phenomenon.

 

Ans: was easy. The children dont need to understand anything abstract. They have a solid "seeable" , "holdable" bodily anchor namely breath, which is related to their minds. They DONT need to understand how to see their minds in an abstract way. And my second point was that even if we adults cant believe it, they have an intrinsic sense of worth of all these and they do follow that. In one of my summer camps, there used to be a 1 mt musical meditation and the feedback from quite a few was that they like the camp because they liked meditation.

 

2. How will you in the first place make the child understand that this technique is going to help them feel less agitated. Typically a child doesnt even understand that he is agitated and that he needs to remove that agitation.

 

Ans: The course is held in such a way that , the child gets a brief experience of what it means to observe the breath and how it can get a hold on its mind. And we try to make it understand through stories and activities , the significance of the technique in the language of a child. We even have short Jataka stories which illustrates to a child in an easily understandable way the significance and purpose of this method.

 

2. We want to know quite solidly how the schools which have implemented ...what did it take to implement this practicallly. ...their difficulties and how exactly it has benefited the children. Basically she asked for evidence and proof of concept.

With time, we can provide that. Looks like that is what most principals will get impressed by.

 

3. How many schools in mumbai have implemented this?

dont know :-(

 

4. Why is it that many schools do not implement meditation. Is there something wrong with the method or your presentation. She was almost giving me a suggestion that I should hold presentations and give convincing testimonials and evidences from schools which have already implemented it.

 

Ans: Right now I dont have that. But we can establish that with time. However, give it a try ..as an experiment and see it.

 

5. If there is a charge to meditation then it is very difficult for schools to implement this, because most parents do not agree for this. They would rather give a fee for a movie show, but they are reluctant to give a charge for a meditation course. When I told this course is free, and they could donate if they wanted, then she expressed skeptisicm and said that is a kind of a pressure and euphemistic.

 

My ans: The course is absolutely free. This course is being held purely in the interest of the students. What we want is that it should benefit them , since we know that it can benefit them solidly. No pressures applied. Dont ask parents for a fee. Not needed. The vipassana organisation is purely running from people who have donated with their volition because they found it beneficial. It is not imposed in any way and we accept donations only if that volition comes deep inside their hearts after seeing the change and benefit that this technique causes to children not as a FEE, but as their volition for service to benefit others. We dont need a fee to run these courses at all. We will not even ask for it. Absolutely no hidden pressures.

 

Well overall, I found that the principal was quite ready for the vipassana technique herself by the way she talked and showed interest in understanding what vipassana was about. She was ready to get this working in the school, but she was anxious that more schools take this up ...:-) and wanted us to do it in the right manner. She went to the extent of proposing we hold a forum of school principals where we present our offerring of the method to them all in a group, because she thinks it very very important that children are trained in mind cultivation. She was quite impressed by the fact that it is free because she says that is one of the important factors especially in schools, to make it successful, because parents flatly refuse.

 

Dint I tell...dhamma knows people are ready to receive and hence readying us all....

 

metta

ShaliniI am a changed person! Always.

 

 

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