Relevance of Buddhist pedagogy to the modern world
 

by Ananda Kumarasiri

It cannot be denied that humankind has achieved stupendous progress in science and technology and in numerous other fields of human endeavour. But in terms of mental outlook, thinking and behaviour, the profile is one of alarming concern.

This is plainly evident in the social decadence of contemporary society. Society today is afflicted with serious social ills, albeit more severely manifested in some environments than in others.

Mental and spiritual degradation represents two of the most serious and pressing challenges facing all of humanity.

They are the twin - root causes for the rampant social ills and rapid degeneration of society witnessed all over the world. The global society needs to urgently address these twin challenges through education, and more specifically, through Buddhist pedagogy or the science of teaching, training and personal grooming develop over 2,500 years of Buddhist education.

Globalization

At the same time, on a totally different yet crucial dimension the advent of Information Communications Technology has brought into sharp focus the relevance and critical value of Buddhist pedagogy. Its culture of intellectual freedom, intellectual honesty and integrity; intellectual curiosity, inquiry and objective investigation; self-experiment, self-effort and self-reflection; and the development of a mental culture which promotes, among other things, imagination, originality, creativity, visualization and lateral thinking have begun to impact on the global society.

With globalisation, Buddhist pedagogy will inevitably be increasingly appreciated and relied upon for all levels of learning by all types and forms of education.

Today, social ills such as arson, extortion, gangsterism, stabbing, shooting and suicide take place among school-goers. Many of these tragic happenings take place in schools themselves.

Adults are guilty of more heinous crimes and wrong doing as so often highlighted in the print and electronic media. Not a day passes without a report on incest, terrorism, suicide bomb attacks, rape, child abuse, broken families and suicides.

Social ills

Admittedly, a multitude of complex factors have contributed to the frightfully rapid acceleration of social ills plaguing practically every area and strata of contemporary society.

These range from complex sociological, to economic, to educational factors. Whilst recognising the existence of a multitude of factors, it must be appreciated that spiritual development and education constitute key factors underlying the universal malaise.

The widespread prevalence of social ills that one witnesses today is symptomatic of a more fundamental problem, namely the failure of the systems of education in vogue today. The form, content and mode of the systems of education are thus straightaway brought into question.

In the face of the serious escalation of social ills many prominent people, including political leaders, educationists and religionists have begun to advocate with increasing vociferousness the teaching of morals and ethics in schools as the best way to overcome, if not at least, arrest the alarming degradation in contemporary society.

But unfortunately efforts to teach morals and ethics in schools have failed to stem the tide. Lamentably, although morals and ethics are included in many school curricula, social ills continue to escalate in most societies. Morals, ethics and civics are indeed relevant. But by themselves alone morals and ethics cannot fully meet the mounting challenges of spiritual development and education.

Moreover, the way morals and ethics are generally taught is fundamentally flawed. 'Knowing' about risks and ill effects for example of smoking, taking of illegal drugs and committing rape, incest and terrorism does not mean that a person would automatically refrain from indulging in such harmful activities.

Neither is an individual deterred by the imposition of stiffer punishments for such offences by the authorities. All it takes is to ask anyone who smokes cigarettes or indulges in illicit drugs whether he or she is aware of the harmful effects. Without a doubt the answer will be in the affirmative. Morals, ethics and civic mindedness and the inculcation of noble human values, as underlined in Buddhist pedagogy, have necessarily to be internalised in a person firstly through correct understanding.

Once a sound understanding is established, the learning process is then to be internalised through constant practice. Morals and ethics can then be expected to become an integral part of the very 'living' and 'being' of the child.

Beyond mere instructions

In other words, one has to go beyond the mere instructions of morals and ethics if they are to be inculcated in the child and expected to bear fruit. In the prevailing systems of education, morals, ethics and civic studies are taught as formal subjects just as other subjects like English, Maths, Science, History and Geography. This approach suffers limited application.

The approach is pedagogically incomplete because morals and ethics are basically being taught at the cognitive level of learning.

The affective and psychomotor levels of learning are hardly touched in the learning processes. As a result, morals, ethics and civics taught do not get internalised in the individual child. The appreciation, understanding, and the practice of the underlying wholesome human values is not reinforced and embedded in the child's mind.

They consequently do not become an integral part of the child's 'living' and 'being'. The child's knowledge or the 'knowing' of some aspect of morals, ethics and civics does not automatically make this cognition an integral part of his or her 'living' and 'being'.

It has to be recognised that morals and ethics have to be firmly embedded in the mental make-up of the child for the learning processes to bear a meaningful and lasting impact.

The training of the mind is the key to a holistic, integrated education and most certainly in respect to the inculcation of morals, ethics and civic mindedness. This is the very reason why the term "civic mindedness" is used.

Morals, ethics and civics have to be firstly ingrained in the child's consciousness and mental culture. That is to say, the learning must necessarily be linked to the development of the child's mind or mental culture as set out in Buddhist pedagogy.

From: Buddhist Pedagogical Approach

The Monpas, devoted Buddhists of Arunachal Pradesh
 

by Rohan L. Jayetilleke

The Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian State of picturesque beauty lies at the north-eastern tip of the Indian sub-continent. This enigmatic State of India situated at the foothills of Himalayas, covering a land area of 83,743 sq km of the Himalayan range is landlocked sharing international frontiers with Bhutan, Tibet, China and Myanmar.

It is belted by on the northern side by the snow capped mountains, ranging from 1829 m to 6400 m in height and by the plains of Brahmaputra valley in the south. Green forest cover spreads over sixty per cent of the land area. The earliest recorded history of Arunachal Pradesh is datable to the 16th century when Ahom rulers of Assam annexed this region to their kingdom. There are about 26 main tribes in the State, further divided into numerous clans and sub-tribes.

Incidentally, India with its one billion plus population has around 448 dialects. Races and tribes of these dialects live in either small and large villages and call them their 'homelands' and the majority do not rule them for such claims.

The tribes Monpas and Sherdukpens two of the 26 main tribes in Himachal Pradesh's Kameng and Tawang districts, came into contact with the Tibetans in the north many centuries ago and adopted Lamaistic Buddhism, while the Khamtis in Lohit district, who migrated quite early from Thailand, adopted Mahayana Buddhism.

However, a large number of people practise their own ancient beliefs and follow indigenous animistic religious beliefs and practices. But these practices are based on respect to man, animal and nature, and could be equated to the unadulterated concepts and practices of Buddhism.

Their life-long commitment is 'non-violence' to the ecosystem, fauna and flora, and mankind and are more Buddhistic than the self-proclaimed Buddhists with no linkage with Buddhist concepts of loving kindness, compassion, blissful joy, and equanimity.

The economy of the entire region is agro-pastoral. The three animals, yak, sheep and horse are the mainstay of the Monpa Buddhists' lifestyle. They provide them with raw materials for their clothing (yak and sheep) and horses beasts of burden and transport in these steep hilly regions.

Sheep rearing is very common. The yak and horses are allowed to roam untended. Interestingly Monpas are fond of using products of milk, whereas drinking milk is abhorred by other tribes as they feel that milk is meant only for the calves and not humans. Yak's milk is churned into butter and cheese.

The Monpas are enamoured with drinking tea, mixed with salt and butter and with no sugar. All these ingredients are churned in a cylindrical churner invented locally. Their drinking cups are just tumblers made of bamboo.

Times of recent Monpa Buddhists have adopted modern agricultural practices giving up the traditional farming or shifting cultivation practised in other parts of Arunachal Pradesh. They do not use insect-killing chemical fertilizers and other chemical products but use organic manure. The principal crops grown by Monpas are maize, millet, barley, chillies and a little wheat and oats. They are self-sufficient in food and there is some trade in products such as chillies, garlic and onions.

The Monpa women are adept at weaving and making their own garments and making colourful carpets with exquisite designs, with motifs of a Tibetan and Bhutan influence painting is relatively non-existent in Arunachal Pradesh except in West Kamang and Twang due to Buddhist influence. The people of these two districts paint the walls of their Buddhist shrines with brightly coloured murals depicting scenes of Buddha's life and events and other Buddhist folklore.

They excel in making decorative wooden bowls, cups, masks, Tankhas (painted cloth wall hanging) and wooden sculptures. One of their most highly respected creation is an intricately carved wooden chest with floral and dragon murals. The latter a migrant motif from mainland China.

Another unique facet in the Monpa's lifestyle is the ingenious water wheels which can be seen all over the place near small streams. They are housed in ornamented small buildings. Water power is thus harnessed for grinding grains as well as for driving prayer wheels, a concentration to venerate the Buddha through chanting being mindful of the turns of the huge prayer wheel.

The Monpas are deeply committed Buddhists and belong to the Yellow Sect of Mahayana Buddhism. Thus they are quite distinct from other tribes practising animism and other little known concepts, rites and rituals. The entire Monpa region is dotted with Gompas (Buddhist shrines).

Prayer wheels turning Monpa Buddhists are a common sight at Buddha Gaya (India) circumbulating around the sacred Bodhi and Vajrasana (seat of Enlightenment of the Buddha) for hours together in meditative whispering prayers.

On every roof-top of houses and other places flutter red, green, white, yellow and blue (colours of the Buddha's halo) inscribed with prayer. These colours represent the five elements in nature (panchabhutadhatus). The Monpas belief is that the prayers on the flags are carried by the winds in all directions, bringing peace, and prosperity to the entire humanity.

The Twang Gompa is the epicentre of religious and cultural life of the Monpas. It is the biggest Buddhist monastery in India built like a fort on the cross-section of huge mountain at an altitude of ten thousand feet.

The old wooden one was recently renovated and a brick work is now in situ. The building is totally in the traditional Buddhist architectural tradition, with the interior ornamented with paintings, murals, carvings and sculptures. The Gompa has a huge image of the Buddha almost 30 feet in height. The monastery holds the famous Torgya festival annually during May Purnima (Vaiskha or Vesak) called in Monpa language Losar. This festival is deemed to drive away evil spirits to enable people to live in peace and harmony during the ensuing year.

In the courtyard of this Buddhist temple a variety of ritual dances are performed by the people wearing beautifully designed costumes and masks. No animals are used and the people in groups form them into four-footed animals, in these festivals and processions as ill-treating of animals are anathema to their creed and ethos. Each dance is associated with some myth or legend.

Dance like Pha Cham is performed by the common people. Losker Chungtye Cham, where the dancers dress up as cows, tigers, sheep, monkeys etc. is performed by the Monpa Mahayana monks themselves. Certain dances could be performed at the Gompa only (monastery) while others can be performed during any festive season. The most famous amongst the latter is the lion and peacock dance.

The climate of Arunachal Pradesh varies with the altitude. The southern part of the state has hot and humid sub-tropical climate; the central region is cooler while alpine climate is prevalent in the higher altitudes.

The rainfall is uneven and continues throughout the year, the wettest segment of the year is from May to September. The people of thee regions, Himachal Pradesh, Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim in the foot hills of Himalayan ranges are of Mongolian extraction, as was the case with Nepal group. The 6th Dalai Lama was from Himachal Pradesh and the present sanctuary of the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet after Communist China took over Tibet. Dharmasala too is in Himachal Pradesh.

(The writer is a member of the Bharathiya Kala Kendra of India).