as a dharma teacher, i totally cannot accept when i see and hear another person use fear to promote or make people believe/ practice the dharma. this is totally counter-productive and in the long run, we may end up losing people totally.
and i am saying this becos in my experience, i see people going around telling students that they should observe the noble eightfold path or they will have a lot of negative karma and will go to hell. ok, something along this line. and i totally cannot accept this. imagine, one teacher go - ok, you must observe right speech, if you practise divisive speech, you will end up walking into trees and obstacles, if you practise harsh speech, you will be reborn in a place where the crops die and there are no food... if you this and that, you will get negative karma and go to hell... and the teacher kept warning the class about it again and again and again... i mean, how to convince people about the relevance of buddhism when you keep using some of these concept to promote fear? no, it is not that i don't believe in them. i do. but i seriously think we should accept these concepts and move on. and unless we have very clear ideas and understanding on the concepts of heaven and hell, i think we should try not to use it to promote anything, be it out of fear or out of good. and i reiterate - no, i am not against these concepts, i think it is necessary. but i think we should be mature enough to find out more before we try to deal with some of these abstract concepts. and added to this, i think we also need to recognise that many of the teachings, especially in mahayana buddhism, are also founded on symbolism. and we need to read them and ask deeper why so? and i half suspect that it is due to the chinese culture. the chinese culture is a very interesting one that is often founded on symbolism, folklores and stories. good are represented by dieties and bad are represented by ghost and what have yous. and from these, many stories arose. and i am totally not surprise when some of these stories creep into the teaching.
and so i think we should try to understand these stories, interpret or do some research about what the dharma is trying to tell us and present them in modern day context to make it relevant. people these days do not accept fear or superstition as readily as they do facts and logic. and buddhism is founded on truth, logic and sensibilities. we need to promote and teach it as such too and we should never coerce people into believing what we are trying to teach. telling people that they will go to hell if they do things wrong is totally counter-productive. practice founded on fear is not sustainable.
sighs.
and i am saying this becos in my experience, i see people going around telling students that they should observe the noble eightfold path or they will have a lot of negative karma and will go to hell. ok, something along this line. and i totally cannot accept this. imagine, one teacher go - ok, you must observe right speech, if you practise divisive speech, you will end up walking into trees and obstacles, if you practise harsh speech, you will be reborn in a place where the crops die and there are no food... if you this and that, you will get negative karma and go to hell... and the teacher kept warning the class about it again and again and again... i mean, how to convince people about the relevance of buddhism when you keep using some of these concept to promote fear? no, it is not that i don't believe in them. i do. but i seriously think we should accept these concepts and move on. and unless we have very clear ideas and understanding on the concepts of heaven and hell, i think we should try not to use it to promote anything, be it out of fear or out of good. and i reiterate - no, i am not against these concepts, i think it is necessary. but i think we should be mature enough to find out more before we try to deal with some of these abstract concepts. and added to this, i think we also need to recognise that many of the teachings, especially in mahayana buddhism, are also founded on symbolism. and we need to read them and ask deeper why so? and i half suspect that it is due to the chinese culture. the chinese culture is a very interesting one that is often founded on symbolism, folklores and stories. good are represented by dieties and bad are represented by ghost and what have yous. and from these, many stories arose. and i am totally not surprise when some of these stories creep into the teaching.
and so i think we should try to understand these stories, interpret or do some research about what the dharma is trying to tell us and present them in modern day context to make it relevant. people these days do not accept fear or superstition as readily as they do facts and logic. and buddhism is founded on truth, logic and sensibilities. we need to promote and teach it as such too and we should never coerce people into believing what we are trying to teach. telling people that they will go to hell if they do things wrong is totally counter-productive. practice founded on fear is not sustainable.
sighs.
2 comments:
Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
Totally agree with you on this.
Not only fear, but also other tactics like temptation, falsehood and misrepresentation.
I've no issues to ask the kids to perform acts of kindness to create positive merits for better conditions in the future. However, to tell the kids that these acts will have XXX amount of merits or multiply million fold, etc is another thing altogether. Yea, someone pass me a merit counter please.
For falsehood, well I strongly believe that we CANNOT and SHOULD NOT teach the Truth with a lie. Using expedient means (as cited in the Lotus Sutra) is an excuse. I do believe in expedient means, but not in the way it's being uses (or misused).
For misrepresentation, the most common is as per your example, telling the kids something symbolic is for real. Some teachers told me that the kids (esp. the primary classes) are too young to be taught the symbolic meanings and that we should just tell the stories.
So far I don’t see that as a problem even with kids as young as P2 in some years. My students usually have a good laugh, when I ask them if they think Prince Siddhartha is a monster if he can actually walk 7 steps and speak right after he was born. Poof, next moment he turned back to a baby and need to be taken care again. I usually bring up the symbolic meaning in the 7 steps as 7 factors of Enlightenment, but depending on their age, I varied the depth of my explanation on that.
Similarly, there are tons of Jataka stories (which I usually say are not the real past lives of the Buddha) in which animals speak to human being etc. Let’s have a bit more respect for the intelligence of our kids. :-)
Remember we are here not to teach the Dharma or the Life of Buddha. We are here to inspire others on the Path and to create the environment for Dharma practice. There are teachers who may think differently.
Should you be disheartened by them or should you show and inspire them to follow what you believe as the proper way to Dharma teaching? The choice is yours.
Sam
Haha... just reminded me of one incident. a teacher told the class the buddha is so great in his practise of right speech that he can speak to all sentient beings including animals. and when one of the girls asked if buddha can speak the lion language, the teacher replied that yes, he is so good that he can speak it. i was like "huh!!!" and i quickly added that we should see buddha's ability to "speak" to animals from the perspective of the calm that he exudes due to his great compassion and through that, tamed the lion. well, i am keeping my calm when i hear all these misinformation from teachers. have learned to know and just know and move on. no use trying to sound antagonistic and create unnecessary tensions. nonetheless, i will try to give a logical interpretation whenever i can.
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