Children learn to meditate
28 March 2009
While most children in Thimphu spend Sundays watching television or visiting video game parlours, some are into a serious mental training. Tandin Pem reports.
A group of young children sit on cushions in a circle in the lotus position. Lama Shenphen Zangpo, their spiritual master, rings a bell, and all of them straighten their backs and close their eyes. Lama instructs them to think that they are a lotus sending out their kindness to the poor and the sick in the world. They concentrate. A small boy struggles to maintain his cross-legged posture while Woedsung, six, surreptitiously opens his eyes, quickly looks around and closes them again.
Every Sunday, this group of children between eight and 15 years of age gather at the Youth Development Fund complex in Thimphu to practise meditation organised by Deer Park, a Buddhist centre based in Thimphu.
The girls are obedient and quietly follow lama’s instructions while the boys crack jokes and make fun.
After a few minutes, lama rings the bell again signalling the children to open their eyes and share what they saw in their minds.
“I saw a brown lotus,” says Jamphel. Rose says she has seen a pink lotus and some poor people on the streets of India. She says she has made them happy.
“We give them mindfulness because kids’ minds are active. They learn some basic human values, not necessarily Buddhism,” said Lama Shenphen Zangpo of Deer Park. “Secular education teaches us how to make a living but wisdom teaching teaches us how to live in the modern world without losing the traditional values to the materialistic things.”
Next, lama shows the children some cartoon sketches. The children immediately burst into a cacophony of explanations of the sketches. Lama has to warn them that he will ring the bell which means they will have to fall back into the lotus position. The children subdue their excitement in fear of the meditation posture. The sketches tell about sharing, greed and happiness.
Then, the children carefully and mindfully colour the sketches.
After that, one of the girls distributes biscuits to everyone who bows respectfully to her, the giver. The children are taught not to gobble up food but to feel the taste and form of food when they swallow it.
Keeping the biscuit on the lap, everyone closes eyes. After sometime, they slowly put the biscuit in their mouth and chew it.
Now, the children express how they have felt. Some say it was soft and sweet, while others say it was salty and hard.The class goes on for an hour.
It has been more than eight months since Lama Shenphen Zangpo has been taking the classes as part of social service of Deer Park initiated by Jamyang Khentse Rinpoche.
Desel, a seven-year-old girl, said that she had learned the importance of sharing and to get the feeling of what she ate.
Lama Shenphen said that the programme would continue, more of it outdoors. He added that he could take a few more children.
According to Lama Shenphen, the number of children attending the class varies from week to week but most of them are regular. On March 22, there were five girls and six boys attending the class.
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This is so wonderful….m jus feeling proud n cannot say how happy i m to hear this…thanks lama shenphen….thank u very much….
its very good that being in a country where buddhism is the main religion and childrens from small age starts practicing meditation.we should explain the younger youths the teaching of buddha. so they can identify between good action and bad action and their oncequences and lead a happy life.keep it up
I think its fantastic that the western hemisphere is becoming more and more open to practicing meditation. Today, with the publicity that Russell Simmons, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney have given to Transcendental Meditation, Americans are now more accepting of meditation in general than ever.
Meditation can be a great exercise for children being that it teaches them more self-control, focus and attention, and gives them a better understanding of their thoughts and feelings.
I own a site called My Meditation Garden (www.mymeditationgarden.com) in which I have a specific category for articles on meditation and children and meditation and adolescents. The demand for this material has been very great. I will likely be mentioning this post on my site this week. Its a great post and very good news.
All the best,
Sonia Gallagher