Spiritual Education
Q: How can we, as parents, protect our children from the kinds of problems present in modern society?
A: I appreciate your concern. The world is more dangerous now than ever before. We are faced not only with physical dangers but with emotional and psychological ones as well.
In reality, parents can protect their children from only a limited range of problems. Each child has his or her particular karma and experiences life accordingly. Children are vulnerable to influences from their environment and the people around them according to their karma. Thus, among a group of children whose parents are equally interested and involved in their children’s activities, there will still always be some who will get involved in things like smoking and using drugs, while others will not be drawn into such foolish activities. Why is that? Simply said, it’s because of karma.
So what can parents do to protect their children? They can show them the value of being good, kind, sensitive people by living virtuous lives themselves. Children learn best from the examples of people in their family circle. I recommend that parents teach their children the value of unselfishness, of patience, of contentment with what they have, and of diligence in their studies. A foundation of ethics paves the way for them to practice loving kindness in their adult lives. Meditation can also be gradually introduced into a child’s routine as a natural way of bringing silence and balance into his or her life.
Our high-tech life demands that young people learn a range of skills—mastery of computers, business-oriented language, micro- and macro-economics, and so on—to prepare them for the job market. Political and environmental concerns contribute in a less formal way to the day-to-day menu of leading-edge information we are challenged to absorb. Almost every available erg of brain energy is required to keep up with all this and to compete with the more aggressive, ambitious kids sitting behind supercomputers, urged on by their fast-lane fathers. All this, plus the pervading presence of television, produces an overloaded, saturated, complex mental world for young people to grow up in. It is a situation worthy of compassion.
This array of skills and expertise is of no benefit without ethical training. A young person’s education must include an understanding of the role of virtue in human life, and a sense of fear and shame in doing what is universally considered unskillful and inappropriate. Otherwise, the inner system that holds human beings to the track of kindness and goodness will be overridden. The lives of these young people will zoom out of control into the dangerous areas of human relationship, for they are then not so much living a life as skidding along on two wheels unmonitored by conscience, creating heavy karma as they fumble along with their immature desires.
An education integrated with ethics promotes the maturing of young people into decent, sensitive adults who are able and willing to take responsibility for the situations they encounter in their personal lives. They will grow up to be people able to uplift the world rather than add more dead weight to it. The planet is already swollen with problems, and there are few honest, ethical leaders able to take the ball and patiently move us toward the goal. The need of the age is to improve the lives of the world’s family and rectify the problems that threaten the planet. Only compassionate wisdom can do the job.
My own list of qualities that are important to a child’s development includes: skill in choosing virtuous friends, nonexploitation of others, loyal companionship, responsibility, generosity, inclination toward doing good, shedding bad habits, interest in purifying the mind, endurance, patience, contentment, the courage to keep out of trouble, and acceptance of criticism. If these are introduced into children’s education, we could be confident that we are moving into the next century with a population of competent young people who have balanced modern technological skills with moral integrity. These two have to go hand in hand if the planet is to continue as a livable environment.
Q: My son is a bright, curious little boy. He seems to be exceptionally intelligent and bent on discovering the nature of the world. I’ve been thinking he should have the opportunity to begin meditation as soon as possible. Is there a best time for a child to begin practicing meditation?
A: Children are the magical people of the human race. Give your son room to explore the world, the more space the better. I don’t know of anyone who can say at what age a child should begin meditation. However, if he starts too early, he may learn an important posture but won’t understand the point of it, nor the possibilities. He will get the peel, but not the fruit.
You need to wait, really, until the trouble-making machinery is set up and suffering begins in earnest. Until then, support his curiosity through appreciation of his interest in the sensory world. Try to inculcate in him the sense that the world is ultimately an enigma, even though some adults may pretend to understand it.
If he understands early that conventional wisdom is a web of socially acceptable intellectual devices that form the structure of a culture, he will be able to maintain his vibrant curiosity in the face of factors that try to make the world black and white. In this way his mind will be established in the right attitude for meditation. Be his ally and the guardian of his spiritual aspirations. Help him to understand that he is inherently a conscious, spiritual, loving being, and that he has before him the unique opportunity to be free from suffering. When he understands this, he will himself direct his life toward ultimate freedom.