The Karmapa Visits the American Embassy School

Here is an article I wrote for NESA (Near Eastern School’s Association):

Touching Peace Within:  The Karmapa Visits the American Embassy School

by Meena Srinivasan (Middle School Faculty, American Embassy School – New Delhi, India)

In honor of the UN International Day of Peace, the American Embassy School in New Delhi hosted His Holiness the 17^th Gyalwang Karmapa. After the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa is the most important spiritual leader for Tibetans and is being groomed to lead the Tibetan people when the Dalai Lama steps down. Only 24, he was born into a family of nomads in Tibet, recognized as the 17^th Karmapa at age 7, and at the age of 14 made a daring escape from Tibet to India.  Like the Dalai Lama, he is regarded as an embodiment of compassion. The Karmapa’s day long visit marked the fourth year the American Embassy School has come together as a community on the International Day of Peace to create a space for reflection and practical acts of peace.

The Karmapa arrived with an entourage of monks who visited classrooms and interacted with students throughout the day. The essence of their message was that peace is a choice we make. In an all school assembly of more than 1000 students and faculty His Holiness guided the school community through a short meditation to illustrate that peace is something natural to all of us; it is right here and now. By relaxing, being present in our body and placing our attention on our breath, we can easily see that peace is not something we have to create; it is already within us. The Karmapa stressed that education must go beyond acquiring knowledge to include our taking that natural peace inside ourselves, expanding it and giving it to others to make a better  world.

In addition to addressing students and faculty in an all school assembly, the Karmapa’s day-long visit included a talk given to parents and high school students about how to cultivate happiness.  Younger students participated in small-group question and answer sessions. His Holiness gave of himself to bless everyone who came to meet him including students, parents, faculty, custodians, gardeners, security guards. 

The visit of His Holiness was especially meaningful because the American Embassy School had an opportunity to share with the Karmapa our long standing partnership with the Tibetan Children’s Village, a community for the education of Tibetan children in exile.

A unique feature of the American Embassy School is our Educators’ Sangha that has been meeting weekly for the past eight years to share in mindfulness, meditation and peacefulness within. The Karmapa’s visit transformed the entire school community into a space of peace for the day, teaching us that “we all have the ability to touch the peace we hold within at any moment, under any circumstances.”

Keep The Spark

Just got this forwarded to me from my mom and it came at just the right time. I had an off day…my students felt that an exam I gave them was unfair and I took it personally…This is just what I needed to read! 

This is…. Inaugural Speech by Chetan Bhagat for the new batch at the symbiosis BBA program 2008…ranks as one of the best speech one would have heard… 

Keep the Spark                                                            
Good Morning everyone and thank you for giving me this chance to speak to you. This day is about you. You, who have come to this college, leaving the comfort of your homes (or in some cases discomfort), to become something in your life. I am sure you are excited. There are few days in human life when one is truly elated.  The first day in college is one of them.  When you were getting ready today, you felt a tingling in your stomach. What would the auditorium be like, what would the teachers be like, who are my new classmates – there is so much to be curious about. I call this excitement, the spark within you that makes you feel truly alive today. Today I am going to talk about keeping the spark shining. Or to put it another way, how to be happy most, if not all the time.                
                                                                            
Where do these sparks start? I think we are born with them. My 3-year old twin boys  have a million sparks. A little Spiderman toy can make them jump on the bed. They get thrills from creaky swings in the park.A story  
from daddy gets them excited. They do a daily countdown for birthday party - several months in advance – just for the day they will cut their own birthday cake.                                                            
                                                                            
I see students like you, and I still see some sparks.. But when I see older people,  the spark is difficult to find.. That means as we age, the spark fades. People whose spark has faded too much are dull,dejected,      
aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena in the first half of Jab We Met vs the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost.  So how to save the spark?                                                            
                                                                            
Imagine the spark to be a lamp’s flame. The first aspect is nurturing – to give your spark the fuel, continuously. The second is to guard against storms.                                                                    
                                                                            
To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible for you. It isn’t any external measure – a certain cost to company pay package, a particular car or house.                                        
                                                                            
Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big achievement.                                                              
But it isn’t the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won’t be working hard to make a better iPhone, as he  
sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do it? What makes them come to work everyday?                                                
They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current levels feels good. If you study hard, you can improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact  with people, you will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important.                                                        
Nature designed  with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature’s design. Are you? Goals will help you do that.                              
                                                                            
I must add, don’t just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.                                              
                                                                            
There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.                                          
                                                                            
You must have read some quotes -  Life is a  tough race, it is a marathon or whatever.. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school. Where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.                                                              
One last thing about nurturing the spark – don’t take life seriously. One of my yoga teachers used to make students laugh during classes. One student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga practice. The teacher said  – don’t be serious, be sincere. This quote has defined my work ever since. Whether its my writing, my job, my relationships or any of my goals. I get thousands of opinions on my        
writing everyday. There is heaps of praise, there is intense criticism. If I take it all seriously, how will I write? Or rather, how will I live?   Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It’s ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.                                                        
                                                                            
I’ve told you three things – reasonable goals, balance and not taking it  too seriously that will nurture the spark. However, there are four storms in life that will threaten to completely put out the flame.These must be guarded against. These are disappointment, frustration, unfairness and loneliness of purpose.                                                    
Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is  extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it’s life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember – if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that’s where you want to be.      
                                                                            
Disappointment’s cousin is  frustration, the second storm.  Have you ever  been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India . From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don’t know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to  a release.                                          
                                                                            
Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even    
though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts  , having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life  – friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.    
                                                                            
Unfairness - this is hardest to deal with, but unfortunately that is how our country works. People with connections, rich dads, beautiful faces, pedigree find it easier to make it – not just in Bollywood, but            
everywhere. And sometimes it is just plain luck. There are so few opportunities in India , so many stars need to be aligned for you to make it happen. Merit and hard work is not always linked to achievement in the short term, but the long term correlation is high,and ultimately things do work out. But realize, there will be some people luckier than you.      
In fact, to have an opportunity to go to college and understand this speech in English means you are pretty darn lucky by Indian standards. Let’s be grateful for what we have and get the strength to accept what we  
don’t. I have so much love from my readers that other writers cannot even imagine it. However, I don’t get literary praise. It’s ok. I don’t look like Aishwarya Rai, but I have two boys who I think are more beautiful    
than her. It’s ok. Don’t let unfairness kill your spark..                  
                                                                            
Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot 
like your friends. But ten years later and you realize you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your      
goals may not match with others.  And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise.Love yourself first, and then others.                                                                    
                                                                            
There you go. I’ve told you the four thunderstorms -  disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation. You cannot avoid them, as like the monsoon they will come into your life at regular        
intervals. You just need to keep the raincoat handy to not let the spark die.                                                                      
                                                                            
I welcome you again to the most wonderful  years of your life. If someone gave me the choice to go back in time, I will surely choose college. But I also hope that ten years later as well, your eyes will shine the same way as they do today. That you will Keep the Spark alive, not only through college, but through the next 2,500 weekends.And I hope not just you, but my whole country will keep that spark alive, as we really need it now more than any moment in history. And there is something cool about saying – I come from the land of a billion sparks.      

“Towards a Compassionate and Healthy Society” – A National Workshop for Educators in India with Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh

I had the good fortune of attending a retreat for educators with Thich Nhat Hanh. What follows is a report my Educators Sangha crafted about the retreat. 

With Palms Pressed Together and a Heart Filled With Joy,

Meena (Pure Confidence of the Heart)

Towards a Compassionate and Healthy Society:

A National Workshop for Educators in India

September 26-29, 2008, Dehradun

 

 

 

Good teachers share one trait: they are truly present in the class room, deeply engaged with their students and their subject. . . (they) are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students, so that their students can learn to weave a world for themselves. The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts.

 

Parker Palmer

 

 

Close to 500 educators gathered from all over India for a groundbreaking workshop promoting mindfulness. The event was led by renowned Zen master, poet, teacher and international peacemaker, Thich Nhat Hanh, called Thay by his students, from September 26 – 29, 2008 at the Doon School in Dehradun.

 

The Doon School founded in 1935 and spread across seventy acres of lush greenery in the state of Uttarkhand, is one of India’s premier educational institutions. The workshop, sponsored by MAX, Ahimsa Trust, was made possible through the help of numerous volunteers and generous hearts.

 

The aim of the workshop was to help teachers transform – through the energy of mindfulness – their classrooms into communities of mutual understanding and compassion. Mindfulness, awareness in the present moment, is increasingly recognized as a powerful tool for students, teachers, school administrators, and parents to promote an individual’s sense of well-being.

 

The practice of mindfulness decreases stress, attention deficit issues, depression, anxiety, and hostility while simultaneously providing optimal conditions for learning and teaching.

 

The workshop focused on introducing mindfulness practices to educators so that they can utilize it in their classrooms in order to develop skills such as:

• attention and concentration
• emotional and cognitive awareness and understanding
• bodily awareness and coordination
• interpersonal awareness and skills
• conflict resolution

 

The retreat was entirely experiential and consisted of daily practice of the following: guided mediation, walking meditation, mindful movements, Dharma teaching talks, question and answer sessions, deep relaxation, singing, Dharma groups, mindful eating, noble silence, workshops with classroom applications, and mindfulness trainings.

 

What follows is a series of personal accounts by Sangha members from the American Embassy School, in New Delhi. This group of teachers has been meeting weekly for 8 years in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. Sharing this experience was a beautiful fruition after many years of quiet cultivation of mindfulness both individually and collectively. We hope that you can experience the benefits of the retreat through our words. 

 

Meena Srinivasan

 

 

Walking and Guided Mediation

 

“Happiness is here and now

I have dropped my worries…”

 

In the mood of mindfulness and taking care of our spirits and bodies through practice, we were invited to start our days by dropping our worries, switching off cell phones, and beginning the morning with a guided meditation.

 

These sessions were held at the Rose Bowl Amphitheater situated near the top border of the campus. The theater was beautifully framed by an arch of giant bamboo curving in over the right hand side of the stage. Stately trees bordered the opposite side. Birdsongs greeted the crowd as we arrived and dappled shade sheltered the sides for the monastics as they arrived and took positions at the stage level of the amphitheater. Participants filtered in from various morning activities and after a breakfast taken in “noble silence,” and arranged themselves around the semicircular seating risers in preparations for our start.

 

In the first session, Brother Bernard made an opening statement of purpose to bring participants together in the spirit of being fully present, focused and happy in the moment.

           

For some, this may have been a first exposure to sitting meditation while others, who had been part of practicing Sanghas, were quite familiar with the exercise. After inviting the bell, we were led through gentle dialogue that focused our attention inward through the vehicle of mindful breathing. “Breathing in, I feel calm, breathing out, I feel refreshed; calm, refreshed.” Our guide took us through approximately 25 minutes of practice, focusing our attention on our breath, as we embraced each moment of our meditation.

           

The sitting meditation ended with three rings of the bell to bring us back to ourselves. The monks invited participants to find a bit of space to wake our bodies up so that we could perform the ten mindful movements. The monks led us through these movements over the course of about an additional 10 minutes.

 

Later, we went on our first mindful walking meditation. Dozens of photographers moved quickly to the front of the line to get images of Thay leading us. The slow mindful movement eventually became the complete focus of the moment. My steps became aligned with my breathing and we slowly moved in a column through the campus in a frame-by-frame awareness. I became absorbed in each step and fully opened to the reality of just that instant in our journey. A bit more than half way back towards the group meeting area, Thay lead us out to the edge of a grassy location where we paused and grouped around him in seated posture and became still. He invited the bell and slowly and mindfully took a few sips from a small cup. When he finished, he invited a youngster to hold the bell as he struck the chime. It was just a short time back to the meeting area and Thay moved away from us as we approached the buildings. We finished the journey into the hall to make ready for the next session.

           

The examples of this practice offer powerful lessons for us as teachers. If we are to truly pay attention to taking care of our spirits and bodies through practice, then starting our days by dropping our worries, switching off the to do list, and beginning our school days with a guided meditation is an appealing idea.

 

It would certainly be interesting to see if it would help students become more focused and happy in the moment.

 

Michael Citrino

 

 

Singing

 

“Make of my life a melody of love singing. . .”

 

Singing was a frequent and welcome activity for this large gathering of educators. Each of us received a song sheet that included 19 songs we whole-heartedly sought to learn as we repeated lines after they were sung by one of the monastics. While all songs helped us remember how to be mindful in our daily lives, many of them were accompanied by playful and interpretive hand and/or body gestures. Those were particularly popular because many of us could immediately see how the combination of word, melody, and movement could be used to capture the attention of students in our classrooms and provide another tool we could use to convey the message of peace and mindfulness as a daily practice in their lives as well.

 

In addition, each song seemed to serve the purpose of underscoring the important teachings we received in Thay’s Dharma talks, giving us an opportunity to experience and integrate these teachings through music. From “Breathing In” to “I Love Nature” we all sang with more delight and energy as we became more familiar with each song. It soon became very natural for all of us to enthusiastically break out into song prior to a Dharma talk or at the beginning, middle, or end of a Dharma group discussion. We also noticed that the meaning, sound, and feel of the songs seemed to be so thoroughly absorbed into our minds and bodies that we found the melodies floating back to us continuously when we least expected it, or perhaps when we most needed it. It is certain that everyone went home with their list of favorites, intent upon sharing them with students, friends, and loved ones.

 

Barbara Hegranes

 

Deep Relaxation

 

“Knowing when to rest is a deep practice.”

 

Deep relaxation gave all of us an opportunity to honor our physical and mental need for rest in the afternoons. Each day after lunch, we stretched out on the cushioned floor of our meeting hall, toe-to-toe and head-to-head, to practice deep breathing and relaxation. One of the nuns masterfully led us through a guided meditation in which we imagined every part of our body and mind, letting go of all tension and letting ourselves physically and mentally melt into the floor. As we were led to picture and lovingly recognize our faces, our livers, our hearts, we were prompted to smile at each of these physical parts of our being and imagine each part returning the smile. An increasing sense of health and well-being floated through our bodies as we practiced deep relaxation and appreciation. Awareness seemed to gradually flow into a realm of peace as a natural state of being as Sister Chan Khong guided our consciousness with her soothing speaking voice and her sweet singing voice. Regardless of which language she used, the words of each song washed over us and lulled us like the gentle and loving care of a mother’s lullaby.

 

For those of us who are more accustomed to working at a constant and sometimes frenetic pace throughout the course of our daily lives, the experience of stopping for this short period of rest illustrated how much more effective our working time can be when we listen to the needs of our bodies and minds. We arose after deep relaxation feeling refreshed, energized, and rejuvenated. And once again, many of us began to imagine the possibilities within this practice for our students to help bring peace and harmony to our busy school days.

 

Barbara Hegranes

 

 

Dharma Talks

 

“The Dharma is deep and lovely. . . “

 

Each day we gathered in the great hall to listen to a series of Dharma talks. These sessions, delivered by Thich Nhat Hanh, laid out the basic foundational teachings of mindful living. The collective energy of Thay’s presence in the midst of the large community of teachers created the optimum environment for learning. Instead of sitting on a podium, Thay joined us below the stage. He used the white board to illustrate his points. In this way he modeled a relational way of interacting with students. We were invited to relax and let the teachings fall on us like “rain”, trusting that we would absorb what we needed to know.

 

Thay skillfully presented traditional Zen Buddhist teachings in refreshingly simple and practical ways for our time. The resounding message was a call to look deeply- into the nature of our own lives, our relationships, and the world around us – in order to cultivate our presence, understanding, and compassionate response to life. We must first develop mindfulness in ourselves in order to cultivate this presence in our classrooms and schools.

 

Here are some of the ideas Thay touched on in his teachings:

• The first practice for the teacher is to go home to oneself, to one’s body, to learn how to relax, to care for feelings, and to cultivate mindfulness
• We all have seeds of mindfulness and peace. We all have seeds of fear and anger. We can choose which seeds to nurture.
• A teacher is meant to communicate the wonder of the world, to inspire, invite critical inquiry, model values
• We are not here to receive intellectual knowledge. We are here to radiate peace and compassion
• We all have deep needs to be loved and love, the second deepest need is to understand. When we are aware of these things curiosity and the desire to learn flow naturally
• When the educator knows how to love they help students to fulfill their need to love, be loved and understand
• Every living being has a potential of awakening
• The teacher creates the environment where the seed of awakening can be nourished and grow
• Teachers must address why the curriculum is so heavy and consider how to make choices about what needs to be done so that they can accomplish their work and also enjoy being together with their students
• When we cultivate joy – entering the classroom, sharing our subject – then learning is joyful

 

Adele Caemmerer

 

 

Question and Answer Session

“Our answers are hidden in our questions and the answers are ripe within us.”

 

In addition to Dharma talks in the great hall, there was also a session for questions and answers. The question and answer period was a chance for individuals in attendance to pose personal questions directly to Thay, who compassionately responded to each of the questions after a moment of reflection:

 

Faith:

“Please, could you talk to us about faith,” the first questioner asked.

 

Thay explained that faith is believing in ourselves and in the seeds of compassion, forgiveness and joy which our ancestors transmitted to us. If we believe and water theses seeds we can overcome difficult situations in our daily lives.

 

Grief:

Another woman quietly sat across from Thay. She shared that she had recently lost her husband in a violent way. She asked Thay how to deal with the grief of this sudden loss and how to help her teenage children through the pain.

 

Thay sat quietly for several minutes and with great gentleness and compassion said, “The person you love is still there in a different manifestation. Your beloved is there if you look deeply you will recognize his presence. Lao Tzu said “nothing is born and nothing dies.”

 

Mindful Speech:

The third questioner raised the problem of how to practice mindful speech when one is around those who do not practice (colleagues, peers, government oppressors, etc.).

 

Thay responded saying the only option for communicating is loving kindness. Before communicating in a difficult situation one should first meditate with the goal of understanding the suffering of the other person. When you truly understand, then you can write a “love letter” to the person. The practice of using loving speech is very powerful. It can transform.

 

Anger:

“What to do with my anger?” asked a school principal. “I find I am always angry.”

 

“We all have seeds of violence within ourselves.” Thay said. “The violence in us has to do with the violence in society. We need to take care of this.” He suggested the following as ways to take care of our violence and anger:

 

1. Practice mindful consumption: Be careful of what we consume as it feeds the anger and violence in us. Draw up a strategy to protect yourself and do not listen to others who are watering violence
2. Cultivate the energy of mindfulness: get in touch with the healing elements in our lives. Mindful walking, practicing mindful breathing helps us get in tune with the beauty of nature.
3. Embrace your feelings with mindfulness: “There is my old friend anger, I will take care of you.” Breathe and slowly, slowly, little bit by little bit, the anger will dissipate.
4. Practice compassion, deep listening, and loving speech to resolve conflict: If you look deeply at the other person you think is the source of your anger and see his/her suffering, you will be able to respond with compassion. We are hard wired for compassion. As we practice our brain develops a neuropathy for joy and happiness. 

 

 

Teaching and the practice:

In response to the fifth question in which a practitioner shared he was not finding that the repetitive process of focusing on the breath was leading to understanding, Thay replied:

 

 “It is our belief that the teacher does not deliver wisdom to the student, it is already there. The teacher simply helps the student to touch the seed of inner wisdom. It is not my intention to give ideas or knowledge. The purpose is to communicate in a way that awakens truth in the student.”

 

Frenetic pace at a school

A written question expressed concern over a frenetic pace at a school where expectations were high and where more was considered better.

 

Thay suggested that, after meditating and looking deeply to understand their suffering, that the questioner write a “Love Letter” to the administrator . In this letter, express yourself in a loving way with no blame or judgment. Send copies to other faculty members and maybe through collective insight there might be ways to help change the system.

 

 

Mindful listening

How can we improve our mindful listening, the seventh questioner asked?

 

Thay suggested four ways to achieve this:

1. First, it is important to know our limit and take care of ourselves through nourishing and restoring ourselves every day.
2. Second, have a group of people who come together and practice nourishing each other. Members of a Sangha need to be ready to replenish each other when there is a need.
3. Thirdly, work should be joyful. Take the time and make the effort to conduct work in a way which creates joy.
4. Keep a diary of your joy. Life of service can be fulfilling and compassion brings happiness.

 

Impatience with students

 How do we control our impatience and be consistent in greeting students with a smiling face?

 

Thay explained that when we expect something to arrive then we become focused on the future and give up being present. Thus, we need to realize that even in the present moment of tension, happiness s is possible. Life is only experienced in the present moment.

 

Enlightened being and suffering

How can even an enlightened being become engulfed with sorrow? Thay responded:

 

 “Sorrow and suffering have to do with our happiness. It is from suffering that happiness arises. Sorrow and happiness go hand in hand. For example, take the Lotus flower. It will only grow in muddy water. We should be able to see the lotus when we look at the mud and see the mud when we look at the Lotus. We can learn from our suffering to cultivate happiness. We cannot look for happiness where there is no suffering. Happiness is not consumable, something you ‘get’. It comes from understanding and compassion.  Compassion is something you generate when you touch suffering. Many of our students run toward objects of desire. We need to teach and model for them the real source of happiness.”

 

Jill Windahl

 

 

 

Dharma Groups

 

“Alone you will sink. The Sangha is the boat that will enable you to float.”

 

After the post-lunch renewal of deep relaxation, we met in small groups for Dharma discussions.  This was an opportunity to experience the refuge and support of our Sangha (a community of educators practicing mindfulness) and to practice the trainings of loving speech and deep listening.  Our Dharma discussions were based on sharing rather than dialogue.  To start, we went around the circle and briefly introduced ourselves and shared how we came to be at the retreat.  It was amazing to discover what a diverse group of educators we were from all across India, each of us searching for a centering force in our work with children.  As the members of my Dharma group shared their stories, a strong bond began to develop among us.  These were people who shared and understood the path I was trying to navigate.  I could learn from them and steady myself on the way.  I felt the power of community.  It was the Sangha as a boat that Thay had described to us in a Dharma talk and I felt myself floating in the collective energy of my colleagues.  I was so grateful for this opportunity!

 

As our discussion deepened, Brother Phap Dung, our leader, gave us gentle reminders to practice deep listening.  The practice was to turn off our judging mind so that we weren’t constantly agreeing or disagreeing with what was being said.  We had learned in the morning Dharma talk that deep listening does not mean giving advice or correcting perceptions.  This was our opportunity to try to practice stopping and coming back to breathing when there was an urge to comment.  Brother Phap Dung’s loving invitation of the bell partway through our session supported us in coming back to ourselves and enjoying the present moment.

 

The Practice Guide that we received at the retreat published by the Ahimsa Trust (www.ahimsatrust.org or email: ahimsa.trust@gmail.com) provides these suggestions for developing your practice through Dharma Discussions:

 

Dharma discussion is an opportunity to benefit from each other’s insights and experience of the practice.  It is a special time for us to share our experiences, our joys, our difficulties and our questions relating to the practice of mindfulness.  By practicing deep listening while others are speaking, we help create a calm and receptive environment.  By learning to speak out about our happiness and our difficulties in the practice, we contribute to the collective insight and understanding of the Sangha.

Please base our sharing on our own experience of the practice rather than about abstract ideas and theoretical topics.  We may realize that many of us share similar difficulties and aspirations.  Sitting, listening and sharing together, we recognize our true connections to one another.

Please remember that whatever is shared during the Dharma discussion time is confidential.  If a friend shares about a difficulty he or she is facing, respect that he or she may or may not wish to talk about this individually outside of the Dharma discussion time.

 

Kathy Zabinski

 

 

Touching the Earth

 

“Standing like a tree with my roots dug down,

my branches wide and open. . .”

 

“Touching the Earth” was a powerful practice that allowed each of us the opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate the influence and presence of our blood ancestors, land ancestors, and spiritual ancestors. First, we brought into the present moment the genetic and emotional heritage handed down from our parents and grandparents; our aptitudes and health, the gifts of life, breath and support. We felt the incredible lineage that lives in and contributes to our being, and the presence of our blood family in the cells of our bodies. We then acknowledged those other seeds that were passed to us – the anger, fear, apathy, violence, and impatience. All of the seeds are our heritage, but we gave back to the earth these negative seeds, placing our hearts literally on the bosom of mother earth to release them. This was the first practice of Touching the Earth.

 

The second practice was acknowledging our land ancestors – those generations that were born of and lived in our homeland. We felt the spirit and nature of the land rise through our feet – the generosity, fertility, and spaciousness of the earth itself. We then touched the earth to release the violence and harshness that may have come to us via those land ancestors.

 

The third practice was to embrace the gifts received from our spiritual ancestors. The gifts could be ones of insight, peace, harmony, and connectivity and could be delivered via friends, family, songs, poetry, spiritual leaders, or nature. We filled ourselves with the breath of these gifts and touched the earth knowing these seeds would germinate, grow and bless all people.

 

Jann Fling

 

 

Mindful Eating

 

“The bread in my hand is the body of the cosmos.”

 

We shared our meals in silence, allowing us to meditatively focus our full presence on our eating practice.   Standing in long lines, we patiently and appreciatively received our food and drinks.  We were instructed to wait for a group and sit and begin eating together.  We took time to observe, smell and fully appreciate our food before taking a bite.  As we chewed, we contemplated the gift of the nourishment; the gift of the sky, clouds, rain, sun and effort that went into each vegetable, each grain, each crumb of our food.  We heard the bell of mindfulness ring and the recitation of the 5 food contemplations (which were displayed on the food tables and in the eating area as well):

1.     This food is a gift of the whole universe, the earth, the sky and much mindfulness work.

2.     May we eat in mindfulness so as to be worthy of it.

3.     May we transform our unskilled states of mind and learn to eat in moderation.

4.     May we take only foods that nourish us and prevent illness.

5.     May we accept this food to realize the path of understanding and love.

Eating together, we silently appreciated both our food and our togetherness.  As we finished eating, we observed our empty plates and were filled with gratitude for the meal, for our nourishment. 

 

Mindful conversations then began as participants enthusiastically shared their experiences with one another.

 

Mimi Kemper

 

 

Noble Silence

 

“We allow the silence and the calmness to penetrate our flesh and bones.”

 

Silence is an important part of the mindfulness practice.  As we dispersed the first evening, we were encouraged to practice Noble Silence, to speak as little as possible until we reconvened in the morning.  This practice allowed us space within ourselves to experience the calm, peacefulness, and energy of the day; to be mindfully aware of each moment of our evenings. 

 

Many of the participants stayed with hosts or with groups of people where it might be disrespectful not to talk. In this case we were asked to speak only when necessary and when speaking practice mindful speech and deep listening

 

Mimi Kemper

 

 

Workshops on Sharing Mindfulness in the Classroom Setting

“Listen, listen . . . this wonderful sound of the bell, brings me back to my true self”

 

In the afternoon of the final day, the participants had the opportunity to choose from a selection of workshops:

• Bell Practice
• Body Awareness
• Total Relaxation
• Basic sitting Meditation
• Pebble Meditation
• Beginning Anew
• Communication and Mindful Consumption

 

Each workshop was divided into two sections, one for teens and one for younger children. Each workshop section was led by one of the monastics. The workshop topics were designed around practices that could be shared and adapted for classroom use. Deciding which workshop to attend was possibly the most difficult task we were asked to do during our 4 days at the Doon school. How to choose just one when you wanted to attend them all! The sessions ended with participants eager to return to their schools and classrooms to begin the task of developing a compassionate and healthy society through mindfulness in education.

 

Cheryl Perkins

 

 

Embracing the Five Mindfulness Trainings:

How Floating on a Cloud became the Tip of the Iceberg

 

Mesmerized by the personal touch from Thay’s eye-to-eye-catching talks, his open and candid Q & A, the notions of participatory (yes, you) singing, walking, exercising and silent eating… I was blissfully drifting on my cloud within what I defined as the mindful ambience by mid-morning of the first day, thinking that this was my never-ending story.  Leave me alone to wander in and out of this new deeper place that I find more enticing than ever. 

 

“Would you”, asked my assigned monk, Dharma Stream, “care to try feeling like this when you return home?  While you are at school?….while you are filling your calendar with all the events of your already-booked teaching day?….while you are dealing with you know who?  If so, then we have some personalized practices to introduce to you this afternoon.  If not, you might still find them provocative at the least. Perhaps one or two of them will speak to you or may even prefer to consider all five of them.”

 

“All five of what?” I asked myself. “Please do not ask me to leave my bliss to consider anything practical right now.  This is not the time for action or more projects, but a time to turn inward and explore those hidden recesses and release those sneaky repressions.”

Then again, knowing myself better than anyone else, I had to admit that I needed relentless prompting if ever I was to make any meaningful changes in my life…if I desired to reach below the tip of my own iceberg and last beyond the supposed 21 days of required repetition, I needed an assist.

 

The five paragraphs sounded good to me. From the awareness of suffering due to the destruction of life, to eroding social injustice, to abusive sexual behavior, to unmindful speech and over-consumption, I could wish to think more mindfully and show more compassion.  But I had not considered the thought of making….

 

Vows….what?

 

 I don’t do vows anymore.   Promises?…Commitments?   Nope, been there, done that.   Besides, to whom would I make these commitments?  To Thay or to the Sangha?, to my favorite nun or monk?, to my children, my students, my family, or to my beloved who knows oh so well the vices of my good intentions? Would I dare to attempt to bring mindfulness in the present moment back to my 24/7 existence…in front of my students, my peers, my friends and family? 

 

The paradigm shift did not take long at all for me to “get it.”  Or have I been dozing for an eternity and decades slipped into nanoseconds?  Out of the Noble Silence a door opened.

I breathed. I felt alive.

 

So on the eve of Gandhiji’s birthday, I knelt before my home Sangha, embedded within my new and larger, sub-continental Sangha, in front of my awaiting Master Teacher, holding all my past, present, and future students, family and friends as my witness.  I stood and bowed three times to the Buddha.  As I made my vows, I understood that the door was not a portal to another place, but into myself.  So then and there I promised to begin anew, as many times as it takes, to devote myself to surfacing from my depths, the living a more engaged life filled with loving kindness through the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.   

 

Gene Harrell, Great Stability of the Heart

 

Bringing the retreat home to ourselves and our students . . .

 

“Peace in ourselves; Peace in the world”

 

“You cannot transmit wisdom and insight to another person. The seed is already there. A good teacher touches the seed, allowing it to wake up, to sprout, and to grow”

 

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Thich Nhat Hanh along with his band of traveling monastics, and the India – based retreat organizers under the guidance of Ahimsa Trust were visionary and practical in their planning. The aim of this retreat was noble and far reaching: That a large number of teachers from all over India would come together with a renowned master teacher to experience mindfulness for ourselves and explore how to realize this with children with who we work.

 

Of all the things we teach our children, the teaching of mindful presence is one of the most critical yet often ignored in the rush to cover curriculum and manage the task of supervising children. Thich Nhat Hanh drew our attention to a deeper potential in our relationship with our students based on two basic universal human needs: to love and to understand. His belief is that when we are aware and responsive to our deepest human interchange with our students the process of learning flows naturally. The notion that we as educators are only able to create a climate of peace and mindfulness in our classrooms and schools when we are nurturing mindfulness in ourselves was lived out in every aspect of the retreat. Instead of gathering us to talk theory, we were drawn into practice from the very beginning.

 

It is said that the teachers’ presence in the classroom is the unwritten curriculum. Thich Nhat Hanh conveyed through his presence, his teaching, and the overall experience of the retreat that transformation of our schools and beyond that, our society, begins with the transformation of ourselves through the practice of cultivating mindful awareness.

 

Adele Caemmerer

American Embassy School Sangha

New Delhi India

Obama and The New World

OBAMA and THE NEW WORLD

By Maura Moynihan

 

The Bush years have been painful for millions of Americans, and especially tough on my neighborhood.  I’m an Irish Catholic Liberal Democrat Female Smoking Vegetarian from Manhattan. For 8 years I wondered if I’d better find a new habitat before I am officially extinct. But on Tuesday Nov. 4th, 08, the streets of New York City went wild. This manic fusion of the Five Continents, on the island that houses the United Nations, this urban dreamscape of the New World screamed and danced and wept until dawn. 

 

It’s a miracle.  Once more, the people have wrested power from the plutocrats and restored the nation’s honor and promise.  Once more, democracy prevailed, and the American people can feel proud, and relieved. Throughout that warm November night, our cell phones were jammed with exultant calls from friends around the globa. A voice from India said; “The world can forgive America all that has happened, because the world needs it.”

 

The American people have weathered a threatening storm created by bad governance and driven by an antique world view that venerates militarism and plunder. We saw our tax dollars looted from our civil society to fund an insane war, we saw our rights assaulted, our votes stolen.  We got tax cuts for the rich as the poor suffered. We’ve seen the polar ice caps are melting, but we’ve been told the global warming was a farce whilst the powers that were proffered bigger cars, hamburgers and mortgages. And our young men and women still perish in foreign wars, far from home.

 

Let us thank the gods of commerce that the financial crisis hit before the election and the plunder came clear. Let us celebrate the End of the 80’s, a tawdry decade in American life, when the power elite began its’ determined, relentless campaign to annihilate the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. For 28 years it was a smashing success. Not much it left of the Roosevelt legacy these days, except for my neighbor’s social security checks and the FDR Drive, a crumbling beltway to the east of Manhattan. Here in New York  we have the words and faces of those New York Democrats beaming an antique nobility from photographs hanging askew on a tavern wall. How proud they would be of their Democratic Party today.

 

Indeed, one of the most pernicious elements of the right wing political machine was their demonization of Democrats. During the 2004 election a man from Virginia quite literally lunged at me with a clenched fist when I said I was voting for John Kerry. It was cause for concern. I wondered, why do so many of my fellow Americans hate people like me so much? Didn’t we all grow up watching “My Favorite Martian” together?  What are we doing in the same country? Are we in the same country? But this election year, at last, negative ads failed to deliver results. The American people resisted the manipulations of spin doctors and voted for change, by voting for the better candidate, not the slickest package.

 

Change was embodied by the brave young senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. His mother took him round the world from his childhood, his grandparents nurtured his scholastic gifts, his teachers rewarded his talents, as did his constituents from Illinois. His victory on Nov. 4th was achieved by extraordinary discipline and a talent for leading and inspiring people, first his campaign staff, and then, the nation, and now, the world. He is the man for the New World, a shifting universe replete with peril and promise.

 

                Many Americans of Obama’s generation were given the gift of an international childhood. In the early 1970’s I moved to India with my family, and graduated from Hindi High, the American International School in New Delhi. Living in India liberated me from ignorance about a great many things, principally a cloistered, 1st world ignorance about basic needs. (If living in India doesn’t raise your consciousness, then you are one tough customer, or maybe you didn’t leave the hotel). As much as I love Indian art and culture, I admire India’s democracy. India is the most honest country I know. India does not lie to itself about its struggles, neither does it endeavour to deceive the world about its problems. John F. Kennedy once said; “Democracy is a difficult form of government. It requires courage, but above all, it requires knowledge.”  Many of us feared that the USA had lost the will to examine itself, to be honest with itself and the world, to guard its democracy.  The Democratic Party, which my late father, Daniel Patrick Moynihan believed to be the hope of mankind, had been dealt so many death blows by the Radical Right, I wondered if it was a corpse.

 

                It’s not dead. It’s alive. The right wing’s determined, well-funded efforts to kill the party of Franklin Roosevelt failed on Nov. 4th. On that November night, sanity returned. Let us hope that America may yet be an example to the world an not a lesson to it.

Kurai Ondrum Illai (My Family Song)

My family has a song…I know it may sound weird but we do. The crazier thing is that shortly after I moved to India and met my mentor the late Professor Ramchandra Gandhi I discovered that his grandfather had actually written the song! Here is an interesting piece I just found.  Enjoy!

Rajaji’s unknown collaborator As is so much about Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, his song `Kurai Onrum Illai — No Regrets Have I’ — is a paradox. In attempting to place it both within and outside Rajaji’s inner being, GOPAL GANDHI believes that the metaphysical composition had a co-author; an individual who worked subliminally in Rajaji’s mind … . A special tribute to Rajaji on the occasion of his death anniversary that falls on December 25.       Rajaji… rarely moved by emotion.   WHEN Chakravarti Rajagopalachari wrote Kurai Onrum Illai, what was on his mind? The question must arise in most listeners as they hear M.S. Subbulakshmi render that Tamil song in her magical weave of music and prayer. He was known to be, essentially, a cerebral being, an aquiline Sri Vaishnavite who could use his powers of reasoning and articulation to telling effect, often against one’s own judgment. Among Mahatma Gandhi’s front-ranking associates, he was regarded as one who had brought to the cause an essentially intellectual vigour, Jawaharlal Nehru saying of Rajaji, “His brilliant intellect, selfless character, and penetrating powers of analysis have been a tremendous asset to our cause”. Jayaprakash Narayan described him as “a mental phenomenon” and Professor Hiren Mukerjee in a moving article has said “Rajaji came to be known as the brain behind the right-wing constellation around Gandhiji”. K.P. Kesava Menon, Chief Editor of Mathrubhumi observed in a birthday assessment, “Sri Rajagopalachari is rarely moved by emotion”.     Rajaji’s letter to his son-in-law Devadas Gandhi.   But it needed no more than a slight engagement with Rajaji to feel the vibrations of an aquifer within him of pure emotion, of sadness, in fact, of sorrow. His life had been anything but what could be called happy. Death had stalked his contentment. His wife Alarmelamanga died when he was 37, and their youngest child, Lakshmi, three. He was to lose a much-loved son and both his sons-in-law, Varadachari and Devadas Gandhi, the elder one widowing Namagiri at 26 and the younger widowing Lakshmi at 45. At Namagiri’s loss, the Mahatma telegrammed Rajaji: “God must be your rock”. When a future President, R. Venkataraman met Rajaji to condole with the septuagenarian at Devadas’s going, Rajaji told RV it was not a great thing to live a great age, “One has to bear the sorrows of the next generation”. He certainly had regrets, corrosive regrets. And yet, Kurai Onrum Illai. As with so much about Rajaji, the song is therefore a paradox. It has been composed by a man of religion, born to Vaishnavite orthodoxy but disclaiming every encrustation of religiosity barring the sacred thread; a vegetarian by habit and conviction but fascinated by the culinary details of that sanguinary Scottish repast, haggis; a teetotaller and prohibitionist but an honest admirer of the Punch advertisement: “Don’t be vague, ask for Haig”; a Savonarola of serious intent but Sharian in caricaturing others (T.T. Krishnamachari introducing a grandchild to Rajaji: “He is mischievous”. Rajaji: “But that runs in the family”); an ardent admirer of Tilak but follower of Gandhi; a “no-changer” and “anti Council-entry” among Congressmen in 1922 but a proponent of support to the British war effort in 1942; a firm believer in free enterprise but never in possession of one extra rupee; a devotee of Rama who could yet say that the killing of Vali by the Prince of Ayodhya was and will remain indefensible. Kurai Onrum Illai is the composition of that complex mind, a mind that had its share of human sorrow but had a talent for sublimating his private sorrows into inner responses of an altogether original quality.     The Raj connection… Lord Lady Mountbatten and Rajaji (second from right) before their visit to Burma.   This article is intended to place that song both within and outside Rajaji’s inner being. For I believe the song had a co-author, an individual whose name is lost to history but who worked subliminally in Rajaji’s mind, through recollection merged with devotion, to create the song. The year was 1925. The Congress had rallied its adherents — satyagrahis and non-cooperators — across the country to boycott the Raj’s courts, symbols of its arrogance and power. There was no question of lawyers in the Congress like Rajaji taking up legal cases. But an exception arose. Let Rajaji describe the episode in his own words as written to his future son-in-law Devadas Gandhi: Gandhi Ashram Tiruchengodu 24.12.25 My dear Devadas Yours affectionately, I have been away from my place since 21st and will be there only tomorrow. I am writing this from Salem where I have broken journey for a day. I am returning from Chittoor where I argued a case in court! (As perhaps you have already read in the papers) you can read a report of this unexpected event in The Hindu of 23 December.     Jawaharlal Nehru with Rajaji (left)… recognising his selfless spirit.   A panchama was convicted by the sub-magistrate of Tirupati because in a fit of devotion and exultation of mind he went inside along with other pilgrims into the famous temple at Tiruchanoor. I read a report of the judgment in the papers with indignation. Later on I was requested to help in the appeal filed by the man and I readily agreed. I went and the gentleman an MLC and Vakil in charge of the case asked me if I would argue the case. I said if I could speak in court as a private gentleman specially requested by the appellant — which procedure is open to every accused person in a criminal case — I would gladly do it but I could not appear as a vakil filing a vakalat. The court agreed to this course and I fired away. Of course the event is a shock to the Non-Cooperator’s conscience. But every rule is observed best by breaking the letter of it when the occasion arises in a supremely compelling way. The case of a perfectly devoted and earnest pariah rushing into the temple to see his God and offer worship and the police catching him and prosecuting him took me out of the mechanical groove of doctrine. He was not a satyagrahi, he was not a reformer, nor a hero. But he was a panchama who came year after year to the temple for the last ten years and was content to break his coconut from outside the gate. This year somehow he felt he was also worthy to go nearer. I suppose the pulse of agitation had unconsciously touched his soul and when a crowd of pilgrims came shouting Govinda! Govinda! The Tirupati pilgrims’ war cry, he forgot himself and the law imposed on his unfortunate class. And he went in. Surely, I can’t stand aside resting on the creed of Boycott of Courts and see this man convicted for “insulting religion”! I fear the event might be misunderstood and purposely hooked on by designers and enemies. However I have done it and I have obtained an acquittal too of the man. I felt a bit queer when standing and addressing without turban or coat and with only my khadi chaddar over my head and shoulders as at home and was prepared to be objected to and to retire. But the magistrate was all courtesy and felt keenly interested. So I went on as if I had never stopped practice these seven years.   Anna When the Mahatma learnt of the episode his reaction was as quick as it was clear: “(Rajaji) would have been like a Pharisee if he had sat there still, gloating over the sanctimonious satisfaction of non-cooperating, while the accused could have been discharged by his intervention”. Kurai Onrum Illai telescopes the identities of the panchama and the Sri Vaishnava. If Rajaji had an intellectual difficulty in capturing the metaphysical totality of the Lord and His Consort at Tiruchanoor, he was in the company of a man who had difficulty in accessing the physicality of the deities. For both, the Divinities were behind a tirai — imagined but unseen. And both were without regrets at what they had done. One at having ventured into a temple the grooves of law had forbidden him from, the other at having ventured into the court the grooves of protest had forbidden him from. Both had broken the letter of the law in a moment that had appeared to them in a supremely compelling way. I have attempted a translation of Kurai Onrum Illai with the help of Kalki’s grand-daughter Gowri Ramnarayan, knowing full well that this or any other English version can never convey the transporting force of the original. I know that this rendering would seem disastrously inadequate to those who savour Kurai Onrum Illai. But I trust they will see the non-literary, psycho-historical and cultural context of the piece. I invite their attention, particularly, to the use of the word kal by Rajaji in the song, translated as “rock”. I also invite attention to Gandhiji’s use of the word “rock” in his message to Rajaji on the death of Varadachari. Gandhiji certainly knew the man he was writing to. As Rajaji lay dying in General Hospital, Madras, in December 1972, all his regrets must have crossed his mind, all his sorrows. But also, all his reconciliations of those emotions with his faith in the “rock”. The last words spoken by him from his death bed, when asked how he felt were simple: “I am happy”. No one knows what the last words spoken by his Tiruchanoor client were. But if, wherever he died, the devotee had recalled the pulse of emotion he felt on the mountain doorstep, he too might well have closed his innings with the words “I am happy.”     Rajaji’s father, Chakravarti Iyengar.   Kurai Onrum Illai is a metaphysical composition which lends itself to more than one interpretation. But it is above all the encapsulation of a Vaishnavite’s dualistic faith in a God and Goddess “yon high” who are seen but partially through the twin lenses of knowledge and devotion by the devotee. Rajaji, with surpassing humility, holds his apprehension of Reality as limited by his own mental confines, but he accepts what he is given and does not claim more. His “co-author” is limited by physical confines and with equally surpassing humility regards his partial imagining as wholly adequate and claims no more. But both are swept on by the “pulse of emotion” to a territory they retreive from beyond the edges of temporal and celestial possibilties. It has been given to Subbulakshmi to trigger the same pulsation, through her spire of musical intelligence, among us, her listeners. Who can match her credentials for doing so? So, along with MS and Kadayanallur Venkataraman (who has set the composition to music in a triangulated compound of Sivaranjani, Kapi and Sindhu Bhairavi), Rajaji’s piece has a fourth, and perhaps most important, collaborator in the nameless devotee of the rock-incarnation of Govinda. There are those who, today, reading Rajaji’s 1925 letter will turn up their noses at his use of the words pariah and panchama. May I urge them to hear MS sing the song next time with that devotee in mind, calling him whatever politically correct name they might choose. They will find new meaning to it then and also discover a new facet in the “brain” behind the right-wing constellation of the Mahatma. Kurai Onrum Illai (No Regrets Have I) A rendering of the Tamil composition of C. Rajagopalachari No regrets have I My lord, None. Lord of the Written Word, My light, my sight, My very eyes No regrets, None. Though you stand Where I behold you not My light, my very eyes, Protector of all earthlings I know you sustain me Lord of the Venkata Hill so pure You meet my hunger, my thirst My hope, my prayer You keep me from harm, Lord of the Sparkling Gems, I need naught else Father of the Seven Hills, Naught else.   * * * You stand — do you not? — Veiled by a screen Only the learned can part For they are the learned Which I am not But no, no regrets have I. Crowning this hill You stand as rock Giver of Boons Immutable God Father to these hills No regrets have I Govinda !   * * * In this benighted Age of ours Lord — The worst of all the Four — You have entered The sanctum A shaft of granite Where though I see you not No regrets have I. Boulder of strength With the Ocean, Heaving on your breast, Of the purest compassion — My Mother, My very own, who grants Anything I ask of her Can I possibly have regrets? The two of you, I know, Stand there for me Eternally No regrets have I my Govinda None, none whatsoever Govinda! Govinda! Govinda! Govinda!         © Copyright 2000 – 2008 The Hindu

Every Day Heroes

On his side: Palestinian priest builds peace, not barriers in Mideast

Kevin Spurgaitis

When “exclusively interpreted” by both extremists and entire nations, religion can be the most dangerous weapon against humanity,” a prominent Palestinian scholar charged last month, as a tenuous Mideast truce resumed.

“Only together, we are stronger than the storm of fanaticism and exclusivity … in order to enhance the dignity and the rights of human beings, and provide everyone with a homeland and shelter from any per secution,” said Abuna (Father in Arabic) Elias Chacour, of the Melkite (Greek Catholic) Church, an Eastern Byzantine institution in communion with Rome. He spoke at Toronto’s Tyndale University College & Seminary in May–a part of his lecture tour, “Beyond Barriers: Building for Peace in Israel,” sponsored by the Mennonite Church of Canada.

Chacour, an international peace and reconciliation figure, has devoted himself to the often hard-pressed, long-awaited resolution between Middle Eastern Arabs and Jews. A three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, the Melkite priest has become an ambassador for non-violence in Israel and around the world. In March 1994, he received the prestigious World Methodist Peace Award, which has also been presented to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the late Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat.

Today, the 65-year-old best-selling author continues to provide professional teacher training in the small Arab-Israeli village of Ibillin, near Nazareth in Galilee. His Mar Elias Educational Institutions (MEEI) employs more than 270 faculty and staff, and serves an estimated 3,300 students. MEEI’s mission: “to help bring about reconciliation in a land of strife,” by encouraging students to value their heritage and strengthen connections with their cultures and communities. Students at the school are prepared for life-long learning and service to these same areas.

“It seems that sometimes people are obsessed with peace. They want to talk peace. They want to build peace. They want to argue peace. And only war comes out,” he said.

“When people talk peace, they mean to maintain the status quo, because they are on the ‘good side,’ and they don’t want to lose the privileges they have –the comfortable life. But when you visit Third World countries, you will rarely hear people speaking about peace. They would rather speak about human rights, justice, survival, dignity and self-esteem.”

According to Chacour, peace and security must include justice and integrity. “Today our political leaders say ‘God is with us. And whoever is not with us is against us.’ They are nurturing a culture of death, suspicion and fear. If you justify violence and terror to your friends and normalize it against your enemy, you are becoming one more enemy. And we don’t need one more enemy.”

He charged that Jews and Palestinians have produced enough martyrs, along with widows, orphans and thousands of mentally and physically challenged persons, during their conflict with each other.

“We should talk a little less about peace and break the ground for widened relations with religious groups and nations–accepting the other as someone who is needed for one’s own definition of self, and going beyond tolerance towards willful acceptance,” Chacour said.

‘Israel emigrated to my country’

Although identifying himself as a Palestinian-Arab, he concedes that he is still an Israeli citizen. “Israel is an entity that is 57-years-old and that makes me older than Israel. I did not immigrate into Israel when it was created; it was Israel that came and emigrated to nay country and changed its name. And I had to accommodate–find a way out and a way of life. I began to be a part of the scattered nation of the Middle East.”

Born in 1939 in the village of Biram, Upper Galilee, he was raised by a predominantly Palestinian Christian family. By the age of eight, he said he experienced the tragedy of his people head-on, when he was evicted–along with his entire village–by authorities in the fledgling state of Israel. He became a deportee and refugee in the country of his Palestinian forefathers–granted citizenship in Israel when it was finally founded in 1948. Seventeen years later, during his pastoral work, Chacour witnessed the lack of educational opportunities for Palestinian youth.

“We have been the tolerated minority inside Israel. And we revolted and we’re still revolting against this labelling of us as a minority … This is who I am. This is where I live.”

Chacour, who hosts hundreds of pilgrims on fact-finding missions in Ibillin, maintained his birth in the Middle East was no “providential arrangement.” Nonetheless, he takes responsibility for what happens there, because of its importance as the cradle of the three monotheistic religions–the place where millions of worshippers like to go and follow in the footsteps of the prophets Jesus, Moses or Mohammad.

“One of the major attitudes we are developing in the Middle East, is one of unity within the sociopolitical and racial diversity that is there. Is this not possible?” he asked.

“(Palestinians) are still looking for a way to overcome the status of minority and tolerance to the status of acceptance and partnership. We are not yet there, but we are working daily to find a way to be integrated into the state of Israel, and to build the state and future we want together.”

Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 Palestinians face the prospect of losing their homes during large-scale demolitions of the eastern sector of Jerusalem. The Jerusalem municipality claims it wants to convert the area into a national park, because of the site’s biblical and archaeological significance. However, Israeli human rights campaigners and lawyers charge it is an effort to reduce the Arab population, while strengthening the Jewish settlements of East Jerusalem, which Palestinians have earmarked as the Capital of a future Palestinian state.

Recently, U.S. President George W. Bush promised US$50 million to the Palestinian Authority, for housing construction in the Gaza Strip, according to the Associated Press. Following the scheduled withdrawal of Israelis from the region in August, Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to receive aid packages approved by the U.S. Congress, aimed at helping him moderate Palestinian forces–those characterized by suicide bombers. However, according to Chacour, what Israel direly needs is a sign of hope. And it will not come from religious or political leaders, he said.

” … Faith does not only mean faith in God. It’s easy to have faith in God. It’s much more difficult to have faith in your neighbour. It’s much more difficult to believe your neighbour is the most beautiful God has created, without an inner conviction that you can make a difference in this world.

“How much do we believe in each other and do we believe in the goodness that is in every human being,” asked Chacour, who said he is more impressed with the faith of non-believers, pagans and people who do not want to claim any prophet to be theirs.

“The question is: are we on the side of God? And that’s where we fail; we create our own God and pretend that the creator is on our side … It’s not important that God is on your side. God is always on our side.”

Chacour continued: “… We are too eager to build walls, while reducing ourselves and others into pieces. We need someone to mend these pieces together again. We need to keep the faith alive and look for better relations between Jews and Palestinians–not in speaking about the need for peace, but in speaking about the vital need to recognize each other’s right to live, enjoy life and be free.”

COPYRIGHT 2005 Catholic New Times, Inc.

Fixed Mind-Set Vs. Growth Mind-Set

This morning a colleague of mine (Elementary School Psychologist) introduced me to the work of Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck. I plan on sharing her concepts of “fixed mind-set” vs. “growth mind-set” with my students tomorrow. I really like the term, “growth mind-set.” I think it is empowering and a great way to approach life and resilience is probably the most important skill for a young person to learn. Below is an article from Stanford Magazine. What follows is a summary about her findings in “Scientific American.” To read the entire article go to: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids

· Many people assume that superior intelligence or ability is a key to success. But more than three decades of research shows that an overemphasis on intellect or talent—and the implication that such traits are innate and fixed—leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unmotivated to learn.
· Teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life.
· Parents and teachers can engender a growth mind-set in children by praising them for their effort or persistence (rather than for their intelligence), by telling success stories that emphasize hard work and love of learning, and by teaching them about the brain as a learning machine.

The Effort Effect

By Marina Krakovsky (Stanford Magazine)

 

According to a Stanford psychologist, you’ll reach new heights if you learn to embrace the occasional tumble.

 

One day last November, psychology professor Carol Dweck welcomed a pair of visitors from the Blackburn Rovers, a soccer team in the United Kingdom’s Premier League. The Rovers’ training academy is ranked in England’s top three, yet performance director Tony Faulkner had long suspected that many promising players weren’t reaching their potential. Ignoring the team’s century-old motto—arte et labore, or “skill and hard work”—the most talented individuals disdained serious training.

On some level, Faulkner knew the source of the trouble: British soccer culture held that star players are born, not made. If you buy into that view, and are told you’ve got immense talent, what’s the point of practice? If anything, training hard would tell you and others that you’re merely good, not great. Faulkner had identified the problem; but to fix it, he needed Dweck’s help.

A 60-year-old academic psychologist might seem an unlikely sports motivation guru. But Dweck’s expertise—and her recent book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success—bear directly on the sort of problem facing the Rovers. Through more than three decades of systematic research, she has been figuring out answers to why some people achieve their potential while equally talented others don’t—why some become Muhammad Ali and others Mike Tyson. The key, she found, isn’t ability; it’s whether you look at ability as something inherent that needs to be demonstrated or as something that can be developed.

What’s more, Dweck has shown that people can learn to adopt the latter belief and make dramatic strides in performance. These days, she’s sought out wherever motivation and achievement matter, from education and parenting to business management and personal development.

As a graduate student at Yale, Dweck started off studying animal motivation. In the late 1960s, a hot topic in animal research was “learned helplessness”: lab animals sometimes didn’t do what they were capable of because they’d given up from repeat failures. Dweck wondered how humans coped with that. “I asked, ‘What makes a really capable child give up in the face of failure, where other children may be motivated by the failure?’” she recalls.

At the time, the suggested cure for learned helplessness was a long string of successes. Dweck posited that the difference between the helpless response and its opposite—the determination to master new things and surmount challenges—lay in people’s beliefs about why they had failed. People who attributed their failures to lack of ability, Dweck thought, would become discouraged even in areas where they were capable. Those who thought they simply hadn’t tried hard enough, on the other hand, would be fueled by setbacks. This became the topic of her PhD dissertation.

Dweck and her assistants ran an experiment on elementary school children whom school personnel had identified as helpless. These kids fit the definition perfectly: if they came across a few math problems they couldn’t solve, for example, they no longer could do problems they had solved before—and some didn’t recover that ability for days.

Through a series of exercises, the experimenters trained half the students to chalk up their errors to insufficient effort, and encouraged them to keep going. Those children learned to persist in the face of failure—and to succeed. The control group showed no improvement at all, continuing to fall apart quickly and to recover slowly. These findings, says Dweck, “really supported the idea that the attributions were a key ingredient driving the helpless and mastery-oriented patterns.” Her 1975 article on the topic has become one of the most widely cited in contemporary psychology.

Attribution theory, concerned with people’s judgments about the causes of events and behavior, already was an active area of psychological research. But the focus at the time was on how we make attributions, explains Stanford psychology professor Lee Ross, who coined the term “fundamental attribution error” for our tendency to explain other people’s actions by their character traits, overlooking the power of circumstances. Dweck, he says, helped “shift the emphasis from attributional errors and biases to the consequences of attributions—why it matters what attributions people make.” Dweck had put attribution theory to practical use.

She continued to do so as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, collaborating with then-graduate student Carol Diener to have children “think out loud” as they faced problem-solving tasks, some too difficult for them. The big surprise: some of the children who put forth lots of effort didn’t make attributions at all. These children didn’t think they were failing. Diener puts it this way: “Failure is information—we label it failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, I’m a problem solver, and I’ll try something else.’” During one unforgettable moment, one boy—something of a poster child for the mastery-oriented type—faced his first stumper by pulling up his chair, rubbing his hands together, smacking his lips and announcing, “I love a challenge.”

Such zest for challenge helped explain why other capable students thought they lacked ability just because they’d hit a setback. Common sense suggests that ability inspires self-confidence. And it does for a while—so long as the going is easy. But setbacks change everything. Dweck realized—and, with colleague Elaine Elliott soon demonstrated—that the difference lay in the kids’ goals. “The mastery-oriented children are really hell-bent on learning something,” Dweck says, and “learning goals” inspire a different chain of thoughts and behaviors than “performance goals.”

Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process. For them, each task is a challenge to their self-image, and each setback becomes a personal threat. So they pursue only activities at which they’re sure to shine—and avoid the sorts of experiences necessary to grow and flourish in any endeavor. Students with learning goals, on the other hand, take necessary risks and don’t worry about failure because each mistake becomes a chance to learn. Dweck’s insight launched a new field of educational psychology—achievement goal theory.

Dweck’s next question: what makes students focus on different goals in the first place? During a sabbatical at Harvard, she was discussing this with doctoral student Mary Bandura (daughter of legendary Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura), and the answer hit them: if some students want to show off their ability, while others want to increase their ability, “ability” means different things to the two groups. “If you want to demonstrate something over and over, it feels like something static that lives inside of you—whereas if you want to increase your ability, it feels dynamic and malleable,” Dweck explains. People with performance goals, she reasoned, think intelligence is fixed from birth. People with learning goals have a growth mind-set about intelligence, believing it can be developed. (Among themselves, psychologists call the growth mind-set an “incremental theory,” and use the term “entity theory” for the fixed mind-set.) The model was nearly complete (see diagram).

Growing up in Brooklyn in the ’50s, Dweck did well in elementary school, earning a spot in a sixth-grade class of other high achievers. Not just any spot, it turned out. Their teacher, Mrs. Wilson, seated the students in IQ order and even used IQ scores to dole out classroom responsibilities. Whether Mrs. Wilson meant to or not, she was conveying her belief in fixed intelligence. Dweck, who was in row 1, seat 1, believes Mrs. Wilson’s intentions were good. The experience didn’t scar her—Dweck says she already had some of the growth mind-set—but she has shown that many students pegged as bright, especially girls, don’t fare as well.

Tests, Dweck notes, are notoriously poor at measuring potential. Take a group of adults and ask them to draw a self-portrait. Most Americans think of drawing as a gift they don’t have, and their portraits look no better than a child’s scribbles. But put them in a well-designed class—as Betty Edwards, the author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, has—and the resulting portraits look so skilled it’s hard to believe they’re the work of the same “talentless” individuals. The belief that you can’t improve stunts achievement.

Culture can play a large role in shaping our beliefs, Dweck says. A college physics teacher recently wrote to Dweck that in India, where she was educated, there was no notion that you had to be a genius or even particularly smart to learn physics. “The assumption was that everyone could do it, and, for the most part, they did.” But what if you’re raised with a fixed mind-set about physics—or foreign languages or music? Not to worry: Dweck has shown that you can change the mind-set itself.

The most dramatic proof comes from a recent study by Dweck and Lisa Sorich Blackwell of low-achieving seventh graders. All students participated in sessions on study skills, the brain and the like; in addition, one group attended a neutral session on memory while the other learned that intelligence, like a muscle, grows stronger through exercise. Training students to adopt a growth mind-set about intelligence had a catalytic effect on motivation and math grades; students in the control group showed no improvement despite all the other interventions.

“Study skills and learning skills are inert until they’re powered by an active ingredient,” Dweck explains. Students may know how to study, but won’t want to if they believe their efforts are futile. “If you target that belief, you can see more benefit than you have any reason to hope for.”

The classroom workshop isn’t feasible on a large scale; for one thing, it’s too costly. So Dweck and Blackwell have designed a computer-based training module to simulate the live intervention. Their hip multimedia software, called Brainology, is still in development, but thanks to early buzz from a Time magazine article and Dweck’s recent book, teachers have begun clamoring for it, one even asking to become a distributor.

Unlike much that passes for wisdom about education and performance, Dweck’s conclusions are grounded in solid research. She’s no rah-rah motivational coach proclaiming the sky’s the limit and attitude is everything; that’s too facile. But the evidence shows that if we hold a fixed mind-set, we’re bound not to reach as high as we might.

Although much of Dweck’s research on mind-sets has taken place in school settings, it’s applicable to sports, business, interpersonal relationships and so on. “Lots and lots of people are interested in her work; it touches on so many different areas of psychology and areas outside of psychology,” says Stanford psychology professor Mark Lepper, ’66, who as department chair in 2004 lured Dweck away from Columbia, where she’d been for 15 years. “The social psychologists like to say she’s a social psychologist; the personality psychologists say she’s a personality psychologist; and the developmental psychologists say she’s a developmental psychologist,” Lepper adds.

By all rights, her appeal should transcend academia, says New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, who is well known for making psychological research accessible to the general public. “One of the most popular pieces I ever did relied very heavily on work done by Carol Dweck,” he said in a December interview in the Journal of Management Inquiry. “Carol Dweck deserves a big audience. It is criminal if she does not get that audience.” Perhaps Mindset will help; it was written for lay readers.

It certainly cemented Tony Faulkner’s belief that Dweck could help the Blackburn Rovers soccer team. Unlike the disadvantaged kids in Dweck’s middle-school study, the Rovers didn’t think they lacked what it took to succeed. Quite the opposite: they thought their talent should take them all the way. Yet both groups’ fixed mind-set about ability explains their aversion to effort.

But aren’t there plenty of people who believe in innate ability and in the notion that nothing comes without effort? Logically, the two ideas are compatible. But psychologically, explains Dweck, many people who believe in fixed intelligence also think you shouldn’t need hard work to do well. This belief isn’t entirely irrational, she says. A student who finishes a problem set in 10 minutes is indeed better at math than someone who takes four hours to solve the problems. And a soccer player who scores effortlessly probably is more talented than someone who’s always practicing. “The fallacy comes when people generalize it to the belief that effort on any task, even very hard ones, implies low ability,” Dweck says.

Her advice for the Rovers rings true for anyone stuck in a fixed mind-set. “Changing mind-sets is not like surgery,” she says. “You can’t simply remove the fixed mind-set and replace it with the growth mind-set.” The Rovers are starting their workshops with recent recruits—their youngest, most malleable players. (Faulkner realizes that players who’ve already earned millions from being “naturals” have little incentive to reshape their brains.) The team’s talent scouts will be asking about new players’ views on talent and training—not to screen out those with a fixed mind-set, but to target them for special training.

In his 2002 essay that relied on Dweck’s work, Gladwell cited one of her best-known experiments to argue that Enron may have collapsed precisely because of the company’s talent-obsessed culture, not despite it. Dweck’s study showed that praising children for intelligence, rather than for effort, sapped their motivation (see sidebar). But more disturbingly, 40 percent of those whose intelligence was praised overstated their scores to peers. “We took ordinary children and made them into liars,” Dweck says. Similarly, Enron executives who’d been celebrated for their innate talent would sooner lie than fess up to problems and work to fix them.

Business School professor Jeffrey Pfeffer says Dweck’s research has implications for the more workaday problem of performance management. He faults businesses for spending too much time in rank-and-yank mode, grading and evaluating people instead of developing their skills. “It’s like the Santa Claus theory of management: who’s naughty and who’s nice.”

Leaders, too, can benefit from Dweck’s work, says Robert Sternberg, PhD ’75, Tufts University’s dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. Sternberg, a past president of the American Psychological Association, says that excessive concern with looking smart keeps you from making bold, visionary moves. “If you’re afraid of making mistakes, you’ll never learn on the job, and your whole approach becomes defensive: ‘I have to make sure I don’t screw up.’”

Social psychologist Peter Salovey, ’80, MA ’80, dean of Yale College and a pioneer in the field of emotional intelligence, says Dweck’s ideas have helped him think through a controversy in his field. Echoing an older debate about the malleability of general intelligence, some scholars say emotional intelligence is largely inborn, while others, like Salovey, see it as a set of skills that can be taught and learned. “People say to me all the time, ‘I’m not a people person,’ or ‘I’m not good at managing my emotions,’” unaware that they’re expressing a fixed mind-set, Salovey says.

Stanford psychology professor James Gross has begun extending Dweck’s work to emotions. In a recent study, Gross and his colleagues followed a group of Stanford undergrads as they made the transition to college life. Those with a fixed mind-set about emotions were less able to manage theirs, and by the end of freshman year, they’d shown poorer social and emotional adjustment than their growth-minded counterparts.

As she approaches the end of her third year at Stanford, Dweck has embraced the challenge of cross-country culture shock in a manner consistent with the growth mind-set. Nearby San Francisco provides her with the benefits of a great city, she says, including a dining scene that rivals New York’s; and the University supplies a more cozy sense of community. She’s also brought a bit of the New York theater scene with her in the form of her husband, critic and director David Goldman. He founded and directs the National Center for New Plays at Stanford.

At the Association for Psychological Science convention in May, Dweck will give the keynote address. The topic: “Can Personality Be Changed?” Her short answer, of course, is yes. Moreover, holding a growth mind-set bodes well for one’s relationships. In a recent study, Dweck found that people who believe personality can change were more likely than others to bring up concerns and deal with problems in a constructive way. Dweck thinks a fixed mind-set fosters a categorical, all-or-nothing view of people’s qualities; this view tends to make you ignore festering problems or, at the other extreme, give up on a relationship at the first sign of trouble. (The growth mind-set, though, can be taken too far if someone stays in an abusive relationship hoping her partner will change; as always, the person has to want to change.)

These days, Dweck is applying her model to kids’ moral development. Young children may not always have beliefs about ability, but they do have ideas about goodness. Many kids believe they’re invariably good or bad; other kids think they can get better at being good. Dweck has already found that preschoolers with this growth mind-set feel okay about themselves after they’ve messed up and are less judgmental of others; they’re also more likely than kids with a fixed view of goodness to try to set things right and to learn from their mistakes. They understand that spilling juice or throwing toys, for example, doesn’t damn a kid as bad, so long as the child cleans up and resolves to do better next time. Now Dweck and graduate student Allison Master are running experiments at Bing Nursery School to see if teaching kids the growth mind-set improves their coping skills. They’ve designed a storybook with the message that preschoolers can go from “bad” one year to better the next. Can hearing such stories help a 4-year-old handle a sandbox setback?

Dweck’s students from over the years describe her as a generous, nurturing mentor. She’d surely attribute these traits not to an innate gift, but to a highly developed mind-set. “Just being aware of the growth mind-set, and studying it and writing about it, I feel compelled to live it and to benefit from it,” says Dweck, who took up piano as an adult and learned to speak Italian in her 50s. “These are things that adults are not supposed to be good at learning.”

 

 

On Tibet…

A friend of mine in Delhi has come up with a term, “social mindfulness.” This very political, deeply spiritual athiest friend is trying to articulate a belief system based on Buddhist philosophy to challenge the conservative right in the United States. I’ll keep you posted…

What follows are some email exchanges I’ve had with my friend that lives in China and an email written by a friend of a friend that lives there as well regardging (mostly) the Tibet situation.

Dada (Sister),
This perspective from your student is great and thanks for sharing!
I would say that my experience in China has provided me with a similar perspective.
My only concern when living in China is that although the majority of 1.3 billion people may support their government and believe this side of the story, people are not taught (or allowed) to think freely about sociopolitical ideas or spirtuality/religion.  So how can we expect critical thinking and self reflection from this kind of system?  That is the danger, in my opinion, that a society is so inclined to tunnel vision, so patriotic, and not inclined to question itself, its ethos, its ego, its government and its ideology.  The fact that the young generation so commonly fits this mold, as your former student described, is even more concerning to me.
Today I keep a Kosher diet and am pretty much a vegetarian.  As a senior in high school, my favorite lunch sandwich was bacon, chicken and cheese. This is not Kosher for two reasons: pork and meat/milk combination.  The summer after I graduated high school, I received two books from a very religious Jewish man.  Both books were about questions.  One was on why one should believe that there is G-d.  The other was on why one should believe that G-d gave the Jewish people the Torah.  The first book was more convincing, and the second book was good too, although I am not totally convinced (don’t personally think it matters) that G-d physically handed the Jewish people the Torah, or if this is a more allegoric story.  Nonetheless, my entire life changed after high school because I was disposed to ask questions and hear what the answers were.
Even my most open and “free-thinking” Chinese friends have difficulties questioning their sociopolitical views and internal compass (although they have no problem questioning economics, which generates great dialogue in China), and so many people I know in China are so sure about how the world works and what is “good” and “bad”.
I suppose most of the US fits into the same boat.  But at least there is an important segment of our society, even if it sits largely in academia, which is constantly pushing the envelope of society, and has a mandate to do so, even if it is an indirect mandate towards teaching and learning that only indirectly results in questioning the status quo.
So, yes, there is another very valid perspective from China.  But without space in China for thinking and reflection about sociopolitical ideas and religion/spirituality, I remain concerned about how such an enormous Chinese culture and society will relate to the world, especially as it becomes so much more economically (and militarily) influential.
Thanks also for the article on Confucian Humanism.
On one hand, I see this with great hope, as the wherewithal for guarding against hyper-capitalistic individualism that seems to grow in dominance in China with each day in a one-child dominated society that seeks its “rightful” position in the world, after having been cut off from its ancestral roots by thirty years of Maoism.  In many ways, with the Buddhist (or Daoist even less) connection largely ruptured by the Communist/Maoist experience, perhaps it is Confucianism that managed to slip through the cracks and can provide the historic continuity towards self and societal improvement.
On the other hand, my understanding of Confucism is as a philosophy and system that stratifies society and provides pre-defined roles for people out of which it is very difficult to rise.  While Confucian Humanism may focus on the more egalitarian or humanistic elements of Confucianism, a lot of Confucian philosophy and ideas, from my understanding, may not fit this mold.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts on some very difficult issues…
Abraços,
Subject: Fwd: the other side of the story
thought you might find this interesting.
—– Original Message —–
A former student of mine has been living and studying in China for nearly a year now on a junior year abroad from college.  In a recent group email she sent out she addressed the issue of China,  the Olympic torch and the Tibet protests.  I found the perspective from an American living in China very eye opening, especially after we have talked about trying to understand both sides.  I thought you might enjoy reading Ashley’s insights into the Chinese people’s psyche.  I wrote back to her and asked if it was okay to share this.  She replied with some updates that are also included here.
—– Original Message —–
Everyone is asking me about what’s going on with China in terms of the Olympic torch and Tibet protests so I guess I’ll give you a little bit about what I think has been going on here. Basically, the Chinese government is spewing all kinds of propaganda about the whole thing. If you don’t believe me just go to the China Daily website. The editorials are especially incendiary. For a while it was hard to get a hold of western articles because China was blocking all the major western news sites and youtube. We all used proxies to get around the block sites. With the western outcry over the Olympics, China has been forced to unblock a lot of sites including youtube and wikipedia (which has always been blocked). Some of you looked at my pictures when I was home over Christmas break. Remember the Tibetan village I lived in for a few days? Or the city where the Hui (the Muslim minority), Han and Tibetans all lived together? That was in Gansu Province. The city I was talking about was Xiahe, site of Labrang Monastery. When the protests first started spreading throughout Tibetan provinces in China the monastery and city were in chaos. Foreign reporters were ordered to stay in their hotel rooms and eventually escorted out. Everything seems to be opening up now, but I’m sure a return visit would find things looking very different.
Everyone in the U.S. seems to think that Beijing is all aflutter with protests. It’s not. Most people in China believe that Tibet is a part of mainland China and that the Dalai Llama is more or less a terrorist trying to break up Chinese unity. They’re angry with the west for reacting the way it has. At the beginning of the riots, western media pretty much only focused on the plight of the Tibetan people. The Chinese were extremely upset that the west sympathized with the Tibetans causing the riots instead of the Han Chinese who were killed or who’s livelihoods were destroyed. Most Han Chinese in Tibet are migrant workers who are barely making a l iving and most Chinese believe that sending them is helping a poor province develop economically. A lot of Han Chinese go to Tibet to work or volunteer in the same way that we might think of spending a summer working in a poor part of Appalachia. It’s something different, it’s lacks modern convenience, you feel like you’re helping to develop of part of the country that is struggling and there’s a sense of adventure in going.
This is even true of college students. Yes, Peking University is known as the University where many historical movements began, but the movement right now is pretty much in support of the Chinese government. You will see students get heated about the issue. But mostly it’s out of anger towards the West. They aren’t angry with the Chinese government, they’re angry with the rest of the world. They don’t understand why the West has to demonize China. They also don’t understand why all of this has to overshadow the Olympics. Having the Olympics is such a point of pride with the Chinese people. They have an intense sense of patriotism and they want the rest of the world to see how much they have developed. Beijing 2008 is EVERYWHERE you look. All my students this summer could draw the little cartoon mascots and knew their names. Yes, that’s partially due to the advertisement (read: propaganda) concerning it… but it really is something they know will influence the world view of China. Most Chinese feel like development in their country is no longer something to ashamed of. They can be proud and stand next to the superpowers in the world. They are offended by western attacks and want to prove them wrong. Imagine one day someone told you that Hawaii didn’t want to be a part of the United States. That there had actually secretly been a movement going on for decades and finally violence had broken out. It would challenge everything you had known to be true about the United States for your entire life. You would be pissed that Hawaii suddenly wanted independence and you would support the government’s desire to keep the nation together. Now imagine the rest of the world was supporting Hawaii and its exiled leader. Then people began protesting the one event your country has been banking on to help it show the world how far it’s come in the last 20 years. It’s entirely understandable given the circumstances/perspective. There’s actually a good article on this in the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13forney.html?ex=1208750400&en=bee 09e70da30f998&ei=5070&emc=eta1
It talks about today’s youth and how they are actually one of the more patriotic segments of society. They are just as passionate and opinionated as the students of past generations… their opinions just happen to fall in line with the government. In the states we tend to associate youth movements with opposition movements that challenge the status quo. That is definitely not true at this time in China. I overheard one conversation at a cafe near Beida between an American student and his Chinese tutor. She was telling him that the Dalai Llama is a bad man. He asked her why she thought that and she simply said because she knew it was true. He reminded her that she had told him she quit teaching because she was told to teach things she didn’t believe in. He asked why she thought this was any different. And she said they didn’t have anything to do with each other. She simply knew the Dalai Llama is a bad man because it is the truth. Those of us raised in America have been taught since birth that our system is the best system in the world. So that’s what we believe. Chinese students are raised to believe that the concept of mainland China is the ONLY concept of China. Taiwan is part of China and Tibet is part of China with no exceptions. It’s hard to challenge someones fundament al beliefs about their own country. Anyway, that’s my perspective on what’s happening here.
*****RESPONSE TO ANOTHER STUDENT*****
Thank you! I feel like it’s something everyone needs to understand. There is another side to the story! I’m not saying you should agree with it, but you can’t just ignore it! Pretending 1.3 billion people don’t have an opinion is a pretty stupid diplomatic (not to mention public relations) move.
The backlash here is getting worse. This weekend protests happened outside the French embassy and Chinese people have started to boycott Carrefour (the French grocery store that is popular here). Of course, the Chinese police are doing little to stop THESE protests because they are pro-China. I was in Shanghai this weekend and my friend’s host brother went out to dinner with us. He loves the West and wants to move to America after he graduates. Out of nowhere he said “Oh, did you guys here that we all hate French people now? Yeah, we’re aren’t shopping at Carrefour anymore because of the Torch relay.” There have been protests happening outside of the stores for the past few days. I guess it got pretty intense this weekend in Beijing and a few of the stores shut down. Apparently some people came out to remind the protesters that even though it’s a French store, Chinese people wold lose jobs if they actually shut down. They’ve now opened back up. Cab drivers want to know if you’re French (the correct answer is no, by the way) before they take you somewhere. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
Of course you can share it with your students. You can share it with the whole class if you like! They can even send me questions if they want. Co ming from a western perspective and only hearing other western opinions makes it hard to really understand what’s going on on the other side. I’m in the perfect situation because I’m living in China and seeing everything first hand, but I’ve also come into it with a western perspective. There’s a lot of misunderstanding on both sides of the issue and if the West keeps up all the name calling they are NOT going to find the Chinese very receptive in August. Somehow the West condemns China and its government but forgets that there are over a billion people living here that for the most part support the government (at least on this issue). The west is alienating the Chinese people more than it’s causing any change in the government’s treatment of Tibet. China will never let go of Tibet because of the loss of face to its own people. The more the Chinese people feel like the west is out to get them the more they will support China holding on to Tibet. They feel like they are being treated unfairly. That that Olympics shouldn’t be political. You should totally look up some articles on Tibet in the China Daily to share with your students. Sure, most of it sounds suspiciously like propaganda… but some of the articles really express the Chinese people’s anger and confusion over the sudden change of opinion on China. Putting out the flame of the Olympic torch may have been a powerful message to free Tibet groups… but over here it’s just an unwarranted attack on China from the west.
Anyway, I hope it helps your kids put things into perspective and deepen their understanding of the issue as a whole. Yeah, once I get back to NH I’ll probably miss being here… or at least miss being around other people that understand what it’s like to live in China. There’s this whole expat culture that I’ll miss too! We speak Chinglish and we make jokes about China and everyone gets it. Now I have to go back to the states and be around people that want me to explain China to them in 20 words or less. I’m NOT looking forward to it…

Consumerism and China

After watching “The Story of Stuff” in class my students and I have been talking a lot about consumerism, greed and need. We watched an excellent clip on youtube about the book, “A Year Without Made in China.”  The clip consisted of an interview with the author of the book that challenged her family to not buy goods produced in China for one year. You would be amazed with just how many things are produced in China. It makes the protests right here in Chanakyapuri by the Chinese Embassy for the “Free Tibet” movement all the more telling. The following is a very interesting article from SF Gate, February 13, 2006

Out of the retail rat race  – Consumer group doesn’t buy notion that new is better by Carolyn Jones

While many people will spend countless hours this year lining up at Wal-Mart and maxing out their credit cards at Nordstrom, a small Bay Area group has declared it will do just the opposite. About 50 teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 — except food, health and safety items and underwear. “We’re people for whom recycling is no longer enough,” said one of the members of the fledgling movement, John Perry, who works in marketing at a high-tech company. “We’re trying to get off the first-market consumerism grid, because consumer culture is destroying the world.” They call themselves the Compact. They have a blog, a Yahoo group and monthly meetings to reaffirm their commitment to the rule, which is to never buy anything new. “I didn’t buy a pair of shoes today,” said Compacter Shawn Rosenmoss, an engineer and a San Francisco resident of the Bernal Heights neighborhood. “They were basically a $300 pair of clodhoppers. But they were really nice and really comfortable, and I haven’t bought new shoes for a while. But I didn’t buy them. That’s a big part of the Compact — we show that we’re not powerless over our purchasing.” Compacters can get as much as they want from thrift shops, Craigslist, freecycle.org, eBay and flea markets, as long as the items are secondhand. And when they’re in doubt, they turn to their fellow Compacters for guidance. “We had a little crisis when Matt and Sarah had to replace their shower curtain liner and we said no,” said Perry, who lives in Bernal Heights. “But we put the word out and someone found one for them. It’s like the Amish — we help each other out. We raise a barn every week.” The Compact started two years ago when Perry and a group of his friends, who were tired of devoting so much of their time and money on items they don’t need, vowed to go six months without buying anything new. American consumerism, they say, has led to global environmental and socioeconomic crises, and the only way to reverse it is to stop buying into it. The Compact — named after the revolutionary credo of the Mayflower pilgrims — proved immensely popular and quickly increased its membership. Then one couple remodeled their house and couldn’t find used drywall. After that, “it all started to unravel,” Perry said. But after a breather, the group decided to recommit and try to expand its membership. Kate Boyd, a drama teacher at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, said she enjoys the extra time, money and perspective that a consumer-free life brings. “It’s just a relief to get away from the pressure to always have new clothes, gadgets and other things we don’t need,” she said. “And I find that I have more money to spend on the dried cherries for my Manhattans.” The Compact is part of the larger trend of consumers beginning to “tread gently on our planet,” said Peter Sealey, adjunct professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. “It sounds marvelous. It’s a wonderful example for all of us,” said Sealey, a former chief of marketing at Coca-Cola and Columbia Pictures. “It’s a crystal-clear statement about what can be done to get us away from being a disposable society.” The boom in green building, Oakland’s recent crackdown on fast-food litter and the surge in biofuel-powered cars are all part of the movement toward more responsible consumerism, he said. Northern California is often at the forefront of environmental and social trends, and the Compact is likely to garner a devoted following, he said. “Will the Compact ever become mainstream? I don’t think so, but it’s an excellent way to bring attention to the reality that we need to be more gentle with our resources.” One especially appealing aspect of the Compact is its social component, members say. Fellow Compacters offer advice, moral support, help locating needed items and partners for thrift-store runs. One couple, Matt Eddy and Sarah Pelmas, met through the Compact and got married six months ago. But the main advantage of being in a group is “you can brag to someone,” said Boyd. Perry agreed. “After a while you get this bravado. You want to brag more and more,” he said. “I found a Razor scooter for $15 at Thrift Town. That was great, but it doesn’t top the free sewing machine I got on Craigslist. The stakes just keep getting higher.” Perry, who said he loves to shop, went into withdrawal the first few weeks of entering the Compact. For many people, shopping is a recreational and social activity that almost transcends consumerism. Boyd described it as an urge to “line the nest.” “But after a few weeks the buzzing in your head subsides,” Perry said. “Although if I continue to shop crazily at thrift stores, is that any better?” He thought about it for a moment. “I think it is.”

For more information Here are some Web links to the Compact: groups.yahoo.com/group/thecompact sfcompact.blogspot.com

I am Thou or I and Thou

Here is a paper written by Professor Biswas that I found especially interesting.I am Thou or I and Thou