I was invited to Sikkim by the Director of the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology to help follow through on a promise the Chief Minister of Sikkim made to His Holiness the Dalai Lama to implement secular moral ethics into the Sikkimese educational system. The past few days I've spent in this beautiful northeastern state of India have been incredibly interesting. In addition to dialoguing with members of the education sector and working with 39 pre-service Sikkimese school teachers I was able to visit the Rumtek monastery (the seat of the Karmapa) and get a feel for the unique history and culture of Sikkim. Sikkim became a part of India in the mid 1970s and the politics surrounding the inclusion of northeastern states in India are both fascinating and complex. Education reform in this region involves a number of critical issues which include addressing the fact that Sikkim has the highest suicide rate in India. Seventy percent of the state budget goes toward education but the discussions I've had here examined how that money isn't allocated in the most efficient way. Members of the education ministry participated in a presentation I gave on the importance of "teaching for the heart & mind" and we are looking into implementing a mindfulness training pilot program for pre-service teachers.
As I was cleaning out my apartment I came across a program from a Children's Program I ran at a Delhi Day of Mindfulness back in 2008! I've placed the program below which includes all of the directions for the activities I did with the children. The activities drew from a book featured above that Sr. Chau Nghiem put together when Thich Nhat Hanh ran a retreat for Educators in India. Sr. Chau Nghiem has shaped the material into a book that will be out in June published by Parallax Press called, Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness With Children. I was involved in the creation of this book along with countless others in the Global Plum Village Community :)
Today my dear friend and Dharma brother, Shantum, and I co-led a mindfulness workshop for more than 100 teachers at the Heritage School in Rohini. Below is the presentation and short video with highlights from our half-day workshop! While we all have the seed of mindfulness in us, it has been my experience that the soil in India is very fertile when introducing mindfulness practice to teachers :)
On the eve of the last session of Mind & Life our NGO, Ahimsa Trust in collaboration with The Foundation for Universal Responsibility held an event on bringing mindfulness into education. Considering our event happened at the same time as a dinner for some Mind & Life participants we had a great turn out. In fact, the morning after our program the Director of our NGO and myself were invited to give a similar presentation to the Chief Minister of the state of Sikkim and the Secretary of Education because they are adopting moral ethics into their curriculum.
During the Mind & Life events former President Abdul Kalam also spoke about the importance of bringing values into education and Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, stressed the need for social, emotional learning in schools. However, in the last month the results of the largest federal study of school wide character education programs came out stating that for the most part these programs don’t produce any improvements in student behavior or performance. Some of the programs in the study are considered Social Emotional Learning but they may assume kids already have some self-awareness and capacity for focusing which seems like a possible gap that may explain the data. I’ve always felt that these types of programs/curricula are useless without targeting the teachers delivering the programs/curricula first. The article states: “the programs did not improve the use of schoolwide social-development strategies or teachers’ attitudes and their individual practices related to character building, such as modeling polite behavior etc.” I’m reminded of when His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, “You can’t teach compassion, you are the teacher, you must be compassion” in response to a question I asked him at a conference on religious tolerance a few years ago about ethics and education. Mindfulness must be a critical part of any character development program because without any sense of self-awareness and a deep understanding of interdependence that the Dalai Lama believes is critical to secular ethics there is no real foundation for making the world a better place.
Our mindfulness in education workshop for teachers went off beautifully in Dehradun. Hundreds gathered from all over India at the prestigious Doon School for four days. Footage including teacher reflections on the retreat below.
Mindfulness in Education Workshop for Teachers in Dehradun:
Today was the final day of our Delhi Educators Workshop on Mindfulness which was a HUGE success! Watch the video footage below that includes teacher feedback/reflections! Today began with a formal recitation ceremony of the Five Mindfulness Trainings in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh (you can read them below) which was followed by an enlightening Question & Answer Session led by Dharmacharya Shantum Seth (Director of Ahimsa Trust and Senior Student of Thich Nhat Hanh for more than 20 years) and Sister Chau Nghiem (she has a great blog with resources for teachers and parents: http://mindfulkids.wordpress.com/). My colleague and Educator Sangha Sister, Adele, shared about how to build a community of practice (presentation below) and time was given to address how to take specific practices into the classroom. American Embassy School Educator Sangha Founders/Leaders, Gene and Barbara, shared their wisdom and Indian teachers left the workshop inspired to bring the practice into their lives and the lives of their students. Participants also engaged in the practice of "Touching the Earth" (details at: http://www.stillwatermpc.org/ceremonies/five_touchings.htm) and Chai (Tea) Meditation.
Day Three of Ahimsa Trust's Delhi Mindfulness for Educators Retreat:
Today was the second day of our retreat for educators here in New Delhi at the Sanskriti School. Educators delved deeper into the practice. What follows is a video of highlights from today including teacher reflections from day two!
Today was the first day of our workshop for teachers on bringing mindfulness into education. The workshop is being held at the Sanskriti School in New Delhi. Indian teachers are very receptive to mindfulness practice and given the unique spiritual, cultural landscape of this country mindfulness in education can really flourish here. The footage from today which you can watch below includes teacher reflections which are very, very inspiring. The clip is about 10 minutes and from 4:25-10:13 teachers speak about the retreat and from 8:25 to 10:13 they share what they will take from day one of our program. We have 4 senior teachers from Thich Nhat Hanh's tradition here (Shantum Seth, Sr. Chau Nghiem, Br. Phap Xa, Br. Phap Son) in India to introduce the practice and I share about the practical application of mindfulness in the classroom and in the lives of educators.
Within minutes of my arrival to the retreat site where more than 500 Ambedkar/Dalit Buddhists had gathered a bright eyed, eleven year-old girl named Ruchika ran up to me and asked, "Hello Mam. What's your surname?"
"Kyom?" I inquired which means "why" in Hindi knowing full well that she was asking me my surname to determine my caste. Sure enough her next question was:
"What is your caste?"
I looked her straight in the eyes with a smile and answered, "I'm Buddhist. Like you, I have no caste."
Indian Teenager’s thoughts on Caste and Buddhism:
Photos of bringing Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings to Ambedkar/Dalit Buddhists:
Nagpur, a city in Maharashtra approximately 860 miles from Mumbai, is home to more than 100 million Buddhists. These Indian Buddhists are known as Ambedkar or Dalit Buddhists because they were previously lower caste Hindus who converted in the late 1950s to Buddhism under the political influence of Bhimrao Ambedkar, author of India's constitution, to denounce caste oppression. In India, those who are from lower castes are referred to as either Adivasi, which means indigenous in Sanskrit, or Dalits, which means “suppressed” in Marathi. Communities of Ambedkar/Dalit Buddhists have very little knowledge of Buddhism and few if any practice. Their conversion is more of a political statement and many still follow Hindu rituals.
I had been invited to Nagpur by one of the leaders in the Ambedkar/Dalit Buddhist community, Kumarjeev, to share mindfulness practices with children. When my teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, was in India in 2008 he also traveled to Maharashtra to connect with this isolated Indian Buddhist community. Spending time with this community was especially important for me because like the Ambedkar/Dalit Buddhists I've experienced the evils of caste oppression but not from being on the "bottom," my Brahmin birth places me at the "top."
My parents grew up in India but have been settled in the United States for more than 40 years. I grew up in an affluent suburb, have studied at some of the world's most elite educational institutions and am a product of extreme privilege. Responding to an unexplainable calling from deep within my heart I moved to India 4 ½ years ago. During my time in my ancestral homeland I've seen firsthand the divisiveness of caste and this led to my embrace of Buddhism. Throughout my life I've witnessed the hubris that comes with a privileged birth. Growing up my family would take trips to India every few years where I would see relatives refuse to eat food cooked by non-Brahmins and hear comments about how "special" we Brahmins are. At my older brother's graduation from Harvard Business School the former Dean (who I believe is now at Brigham Young) cautioned graduates to never let their privilege get into their hearts and to use their education to help others and make the world a better place. During my career as an educator I've taught students of extreme privilege at elite international/independent schools. The students I teach will be the future "movers" and "shakers" of the world and it is critical for them to be exposed to issues of equity and social justice. Most importantly, they must learn how to cultivate mindfulness because the awareness that comes with mindfulness practice provides a strong foundation for creating real, lasting change in the world. The transformation of society must first begin with transforming ourselves.
For a community that denounces caste, I was shocked by how literally every few minutes in Nagpur I was being asked what caste I belonged to. In all my interactions I stressed the importance of using the Buddha's teachings to move beyond caste and in an address to the retreat attendees shared how I was born into a Brahmin family but I've moved beyond my caste identification. If you convert but still hold on to your caste identification then what's the point? As I drank from the same cup as my newfound brothers and sisters I drank with the intention to transform the seeds of pride that have been transmitted to me from my birth. I befriended a beautiful fourteen year-old girl names Prashita who also served as my Marathi translator when I taught several mindfulness practices grounded in the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh to hundreds of children. The top of this blog post includes video clips of some of her thoughts on caste and Buddhism.
I had to cut my trip to Nagpur short by one day because I was invited to meet President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in New Delhi tomorrow. The children I worked with in Nagpur made a beautiful card for me to present to the President and First Lady. As the girls worked on the card for the Obamas I couldn’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for having been born and raised in the United States of America. While there are class divisions in the US it is incomparable to the legacy of centuries of caste oppression in India.
I was able to spend time really connecting with Kumarjeev while in Nagpur. Kumarjeev is not only a leader in the Ambedkar/Dalit Buddhist Community but he is also one of the only two certified Nonviolent Communication Trainers in all of India. I actually met him in Delhi during Gandhi’s birth anniversary when he led a Nonviolent Communication workshop I attended. As we spoke about our life aspirations and the importance of bringing mindfulness into education in India Kumarjeev shared with me a teaching from the Pali Canon that has helped guide his work. Essentially there are four elements we need in order to be successful in our professional endeavors: fun, strength, reflection and focus. Kumarjeev presented these to me using Pali terms but I’ve translated them. Our work should be fun, we should have the strength to undertake our work, the ability to reflect on what we are doing and the focus needed to get things done. When things aren't going smoothly we may want to check in and see if any of these elements are missing.
It’s easy to lose hope in a country as massive and complicated as India. Sometimes you can just get so overwhelmed with the poverty and corruption here but Kumarjeev reminded me that all I need to be concerned with is affecting change within myself and as a result, one student, one classroom, one colleague, one teacher at a time. This was comforting to hear as next week we begin holding our mindfulness in education retreats for Indian teachers.
“Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don’t, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you…Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good…Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” - Vaclav Havel
