had my last lesson today. decided to let the two lead teachers conduct it. they did the revision. but it went rather disorganised such that some of the students started grumbling... teacher! what are you trying to do? we are so confused! one of the student went...
i continued observing. it was clear they were losing the children's attention. people starting chit chatting. people starting doing their own things. people started reading their own stories. and it was weird cos after half an hour, the lead teacher asked the other teacher "how? should we carry on? or what should we do?" hmmm... rather unplanned and disorganised. well... i thought they wasted the time today although at times, they managed to get some proper revision going.
often, the discussion threatened to go awefully wrong. teacher teacher, if you say we cannot eat anything that is living, then why we eat plants? teacher teacher, if you say we cannot eat animals that are alive, does that mean we are not guilty of killing if we order from the menu? teacher teacher, can buddhist eat beef? teacher teacher, if you say cannot eat anything that remind us of meat, then how come vegetarians can eat fake meat?... good questions. these questions threatened to distract the class from the revision proper. but i thought, well what the heck! these are perfect questions and there are no other time after today to clear their misconception! and i decided to speak up.
often, i had to remind them not to exist at the action-level. they need to remind themselves to think about the intentions behind the eating of the food. did they intent to kill it to eat it? if they did (say a chicken), then they would not even be able to eat chicken, much less beef. and about fake meat, i had to remind them of intentions vs desire. i had clarify that by eating vegetarian, their have right intentions to not eat anything that would create a demand for killing. but if they cannot forgo meat (ie cannot forgo their desire for meat) yet want to avoid killing, then the best solution would be fake meat la. and can buddhist eat beef? should buddhist avoid eggs? well, again back to intentions. if they think it that way, i need not answer the question anymore. it became clear. also, why some vegetarians can eat egg, some drink milk... well, got to remind them not to confuse between choice and type of vegetarianism vs intentions of not wanting to create a demand for meat. anyway, i thought the session was very good. it was spontaneous and such spontaneity creates a lot of interest. i was glad i managed to clarify a lot of issues.
and for that, despite what i thought was a failure of the revision, i thought we managed to clear a lot of doubts and myths about buddhism.
:-)
i continued observing. it was clear they were losing the children's attention. people starting chit chatting. people starting doing their own things. people started reading their own stories. and it was weird cos after half an hour, the lead teacher asked the other teacher "how? should we carry on? or what should we do?" hmmm... rather unplanned and disorganised. well... i thought they wasted the time today although at times, they managed to get some proper revision going.
often, the discussion threatened to go awefully wrong. teacher teacher, if you say we cannot eat anything that is living, then why we eat plants? teacher teacher, if you say we cannot eat animals that are alive, does that mean we are not guilty of killing if we order from the menu? teacher teacher, can buddhist eat beef? teacher teacher, if you say cannot eat anything that remind us of meat, then how come vegetarians can eat fake meat?... good questions. these questions threatened to distract the class from the revision proper. but i thought, well what the heck! these are perfect questions and there are no other time after today to clear their misconception! and i decided to speak up.
often, i had to remind them not to exist at the action-level. they need to remind themselves to think about the intentions behind the eating of the food. did they intent to kill it to eat it? if they did (say a chicken), then they would not even be able to eat chicken, much less beef. and about fake meat, i had to remind them of intentions vs desire. i had clarify that by eating vegetarian, their have right intentions to not eat anything that would create a demand for killing. but if they cannot forgo meat (ie cannot forgo their desire for meat) yet want to avoid killing, then the best solution would be fake meat la. and can buddhist eat beef? should buddhist avoid eggs? well, again back to intentions. if they think it that way, i need not answer the question anymore. it became clear. also, why some vegetarians can eat egg, some drink milk... well, got to remind them not to confuse between choice and type of vegetarianism vs intentions of not wanting to create a demand for meat. anyway, i thought the session was very good. it was spontaneous and such spontaneity creates a lot of interest. i was glad i managed to clarify a lot of issues.
and for that, despite what i thought was a failure of the revision, i thought we managed to clear a lot of doubts and myths about buddhism.
:-)
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