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Education Starts from Family2013-01-10

 

By DM Jin Da
English Translation By Huali Yuan

 

The Venerable Master Xuan Hua said, “In order to make Buddhism flourish, we have to start from education.” Buddhism cannot take roots by just learning and reading, so starting from education to proceed, we need thoroughly instill the spirit of Buddhism into Children's minds, to enable them to understand Buddhadharma and apply their knowledge in society. By “doing no evil but cultivating all good”, our society will be in harmony, and the whole world will naturally stay in peace.
The most urgent work is to teach students on filial piety, brotherliness, loyalty, reliability, propriety, righteousness, integrity and shamefulness, these are the basic principles of being a human. If you do not know these principles, how much the less you will understand the meaning of life. That is why the Venerable Master advocated “Standards of Students” as a required subject in Sunday school of every branch monasteries.

In ancient times, parents thought that a child should first build a solid foundation of virtue before he took the next step to other subjects. At that time, the purpose of education is to understand true principles and serve people. However, nowadays, most parents wish their children could select a so- called “hot major”, so that after graduation in the future, the children are able to find a job with high salary, and able to purchase house and car. The purpose of education is to make profit or earn fame, and the inherent virtue of the children has been totally neglected.

There are parents who have received high education themselves and have PhD Degree, but they wish their child select Chinese History major and study Chinese traditional culture-The education theory of Confucius. Why do they have such idea? Because they find current education system tends to stress on personal fame and profit, and high tech development, but neglect the environment pollution caused by the progress of high Tech. For example, the pollution caused by the nuclear leaking events happened in a Nuclear Power factory in Japan, was out of control and beyond estimation. Therefore, the parents hope their child can “Renounce the branches but pursuit the roots”, returning to study how ancient people teaches the wholesome virtue of being a good person. Now we Chinese people are on the contrary, we “renounce the roots but pursuit the branches”, we renounced the wholesome ancient culture, but turned to study the Western high tech development and believe in egoism. It is very rare and commendable for the parent to have such thought and not follow along with the tides of profits and fames.

School education needs support from family education. I remember a student and parent meeting I attended in City of Ten Thousand Buddhas (CTTB), the principle said, “You should not regard CTTB as a reformatory school, you are not taking care of your children at home, you send them to CTTB, hoping we can educate him well, however, you parents do not properly educate the children, but impose the responsibility on CTTB. Education is two-fold, school education and family education are equally important.”

Nowadays, most families have only one or two children, therefore, the children become very spoiled, so sometimes there is no way to teach children. Actually the problem is with the parents, the family itself, being too spoil children, so kids develop the habit of being high-handed, thinking “Parents should listen to me, instead of me listening to parents. If parents do not listen to me, then I will disgruntle.” Therefore, when they come to school, they also do not follow instructions. Actually the children's inherent nature is good, they are just too spoiled by the family, so they form the habit of being high-handed. So in order for children to understand the basic principles of being a human, we should start from family education, otherwise, it is difficult to just rely on school education. Unless the child himself have good roots, and he learned that what they have done before are wrong, and they are willing to correct their faults, otherwise, they will have a hard time with dealing with others. That is why the family education is necessary; parents should set themselves as good examples, cherish their children, and educate them to walk on the proper path, instead of spoiling them, and developing their habit of being arrogant and unrestrained.

Teachers in GSM Sunday School are very good and caring in teaching students. I wish parents and teachers collaborate with each other, well educate our next generation, and let they grow up in a genuine pure and blissful environment, then in the future, they are able to influence the whole society, so that everyone can “do no evil but cultivate all good.”