Dharma Rain - Dharma School Manual

Dharma School Manual

History and Development

Discovering What Works and What Does Not

In the early ’80’s, one of the members of our small Zen Center came to us complaining that there was nothing in our program designed for children or families with children. In fact, our whole program at that time was lifted directly from the schedule of our founder’s monastery and was only moderated in timing and intensity to accommodate people with jobs in the city. Our early attempts to create some gaps into which children could be inserted showed our ignorance and were frustrating to the members. For instance, we tried family work/retreat days. The days were too long, boring and structured in an adult monastic way to be engaging for the children. For the children, once was enough. We tried doing a serialized story reading with discussion using Journey to the West, thinking a fantastic adventure story would be great. Once again the format was too dull, adult, stifling, and slow to get to the good stuff; the material proved to be neither stimulating nor particularly relevant. In retrospect, our approach to the children and to the material was too serious and intentional. Just as we were getting fed up with our ignorance and lack of skill and were about ready to surrender, the member who had brought up this issue in the first place volunteered to organize a tour of venues where others had experience teaching religious themes to children. We visited several churches and a school, then read some books and articles from our county library. These are four of the elements we still incorporate into dharma school that developed out of that research:


1. The Use of Music
One of the best mnemonic devices is to learn to sing the thing to be remembered. Adults who were asked to remember their childhood experience of Sunday school noted that, even if they recalled nothing else, they remember that they enjoyed the singing and retained the lessons from the songs. As Zen Buddhists we have the difficult task of teaching terms and practices that are often enigmatic to children, who think and see in very concrete terms. Songs that use Buddhist terms and images allow us to introduce concepts in an enjoyable and open-handed way. Kids can allow the concepts to flow through their bodies and minds without feeling obligated to say they agree with them or even feeling obligated to acknowledge them; after all, they’re “just” singing!

For example, we begin every dharma school session with a song that directs attention to the elements of devotional practice: the altar, flowers, incense and gongs. The last song we sing before we go to meditation is called “Magic Circle,” and it takes a Taoist view on interconnectedness and emptiness. In the time between these two songs we follow the direction of the music director who may take requests from the kids. The songs cover a variety of topics, such as the Four Noble Truths, respect, the Paramitas, the Four Sights, meditation, change, and equanimity.

We had very little resource material to start with, but I am happy to say the resources are now quite rich and continue to grow. The first source that we found for Buddhist music for a Sunday school program was the Jodo Shin Shu (formerly Buddhist Churches of America). Many Jodo Shin Shu temples have been running dharma school programs in America for close to a hundred years, and they have a song book with songs for children in English and Japanese. Since then we have collected song books and tapes from a wide variety of Buddhist sources: Buddhist Youth Association of Malaysia; the City of 10,000 Buddhas in Ukiah, California; and the work of Nathaniel Needle (CD’s and songbooks are available through the Zen Temple of Ann Arbor, Michigan). Some of the songs in these sources were based in different cultures and types of Buddhism, so we selected songs that worked for us or changed some of the words so they would be consistent with our use of terms and imagery. We have added to our collection a few familiar American songs and several very popular home-grown creations (including “We All Need Samadhi To Lean On”). Many of the songs we use are lively and fun. Some ask for an extemporaneous “fill-in-the-blank” from the kids. Some have hand gestures. One is an opportunity to learn a new person’s name. Some are sweet and comforting. We try to rev up the energy in the first 10-20 minutes of singing and then start calming it again as we approach our meditation time.

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2. Kid-friendly Dharma Teachings
The director at a Montessori school who taught Catholicism as part of the curriculum advised us to sit down and make a list of important tenets and symbols of our religion. With this as a base, the teachers could pick out a few that would be the core of the teaching for the children. Through experimentation and practice, we have discovered that the teachings that work best with children meet the following criteria:

  1. The teachings are something the kids can relate to at their developmental level. Buddhism contains many teachings and concepts that can be interpreted at a fairly simple and concrete level even though they may simultaneously contain great depth and subtlety. An example of this is the story of the Buddha’s life, which can be enjoyed by children as a fine tale of someone trying to lead a good life and help others, without necessarily requiring them to grasp the significance of renunciation. Some teachings, such as the skandhas (a Buddhist model of the human physical and psychological experience), we have found too difficult and abstract to engage children.
  2. The teachings are fairly life-affirming. We strongly believe that a child or young adult must be allowed to develop a healthy ego and self-esteem before he or she will be ready to consider “letting go” of that ego, as we aim to do in adult practice. Also, though the concept of suffering or dukkha (the inherent disatisfactoriness of life) is central to Buddhist teaching, if we discuss it with children, we do so with a very light touch. It is easy to create a gloomy atmosphere by prematurely pressuring kids to “admit” that their lives are dissatisfactory at an existential level. Life experience and maturity will teach each of the children that lesson over time; in the meantime, we dwell on the positive. This is the primary reason we don’t emphasize the basic Buddhist teachings of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path, even though they look outwardly simple and ideal for children; whereas adults may be able to see how these are actually optimistic teachings, kids too frequently interpret them, more or less, as saying, “Life is going to be miserable for you, just like it was for us, so the sooner you get serious and stop enjoying it, the better. Start by whittling away all those hopes and desires you have, because they are never going to be met. Sooner or later you will see that stillness, silence and self-restraint (all things adults do better than children) are best.”
  3. The teachings can be illustrated by engaging stories and rich imagery. A note on Jataka tales: Many people trying to share dharma with children have looked to what appears to be an obvious source of ready-made material in the Jataka tales. These are ancient Buddhist fairy tales, most of which date back to when Buddhism thrived in India. They are colorful tales that describe Shakyamuni’s previous lives; some virtuous character in the story — a prince, a merchant, an animal — is identified as having been a previous incarnation of the Buddha. Strangely, most people find that the Jataka tales prove to be of extremely limited usefulness in teaching dharma to children. There are several reasons for this. First, the tales are as dated and culturally flavored as European fairy tales, so there is often a culture gap to bridge, especially to avoid suggesting to the kids that we are advocating all of the values reflected in the tale. Second, though there are many Jataka tales, the virtues demonstrated in them are limited in scope and number: kindness, honesty, loyalty and more loyalty. Frequently one of the primary character traits lauded in the tale is cleverness, which is rarely something we seek to emphasize in dharma school. Generally, we feel Jataka tales to be a valuable part of our cultural heritage, like fairy tales from other cultures, but using them to teach Buddhism is a bit like trying to use “Sleeping Beauty” or “Rapunzel” to teach Christianity.
  4. The teachings are useful to children now or gently open up topics that will be important to them in the near future. Teachings about moral behavior and compassion are naturally useful to children, as long as they are not given too dogmatically. Other teachings may go a little over the heads of particularly the younger kids, such as teachings about acceptance of death, illness or loss. However, if these teachings can be conveyed in an engaging and age-appropriate way, we plant a seed in the kids’ minds. Later, when the issues raised become relevant or approachable, the kids can ask about and explore them in a healthier way.

Over the years, we have cultivated a series of five themes that we tackle in sequence year by year (see “Our Five Main Dharmic Themes”). We did not limit ourselves to Zen teachings because other traditions, particularly Vajrayana, have yielded many teachings that fit our criteria. However, the teachings we share in dharma school are always compatible with the dharma presented to adults at the Zen Center. We cycle through themes as an aid to the teachers who work on methods and materials to fit the developmental level of their kids. Those teachers who stay long enough to repeat the cycle are better prepared the second time around. The repetition of themes and introduction of terminology is particularly engaging for the grade school children whose stage-of-life task is to develop proficiency in the world. Each of these general themes is approached on various levels and from many angles over the course of the year, using activities, discussions, projects and games to make these topics personal to the children. The children learn to draw on the Buddhadharma without noticing that it is remarkable.

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3. Creating a Environment of Respect and Care
Our program came alive when we remembered that there can be no influence if there is no relationship between people. At first we were so focused on the dharma that we were trying to teach the kids, we ended up being too grim and disconnected from them. Now our teachers first attempt to listen respectfully to the kids, honor who the kids are and where they are in their development, and adapt their dharma teaching to individuals. This helps to foster a sense in the kids that they are appreciated, supported and safe when they are at the Zen Center. Singing, smiling and sharing food are some of the other natural ways we communicate respect and care. Over time, we hope to build a foundation for the children that will allow them to take this to the next stage and show care and respect for others. After all, the first instruction for doing Metta practice (sending love and good-will toward oneself and other sentient beings) is to feel oneself to be in a safe, comfortable and supported space.

One of the tools we have for teaching the dharma to children (or adults) is to show how we carry our understanding of the dharma into our interactions with people, animals and things. Therefore, the most important aspect of the dharma school program is often not the “program” itself but the culture created around the program. Every year when we start a new year of dharma school we ask the children to state the rules. With a little prompting they tell each other that we come in and take our shoes off; that we don’t hit or call each other bad names; that we share and take turns. These are simple rules but important for the harmony of this community. Although stating these rules is important, the most important method we have for teaching this is to model it. Enforcing these rules rarely requires anything more than a reminder unless there is some personal intensity between two students. After they have been immersed in the dharma school for a few years, most of them find it a refuge from the stress of the disrespect that is rampant in the schools. When they become conscious of this, it becomes important enough to them that the kids help to model the behavior we are trying to cultivate. For the teachers, maintaining some equanimity when one or more of the kids is acting out is part of how we carry our understanding that everyone is endowed with buddha-nature. Standing firm when they are challenging our authority is how we demonstrate the belief that wisdom is made possible by discipline.

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4. Gentle Modeling of Practice
One of the stumbling blocks for any children’s program is that, in essence, religious aspiration and practice are functions of maturity. The practices we do such as self-reflection, emptying the mind, confession of faults, and holding a paradox can only be imitated by a mind that is not yet mature. (A great discussion of this can be found in Fowler’s Stages of Faith.) Imitation, however, is not without merit. The director of the Franciscan Montessori Earth School mentioned earlier has said that in Montessori education an important story will be told to the children in a fairly conventional mode with some visual aids such as dolls or felt shapes on a felt board. Then the adults withdraw and allow the children to tell, retell, and play with the story as they are inspired without any feedback or correction from the adults. This playing and reshaping is actually a helpful part of the integration of the meaning in the story.

The way in which we treasure our own practice and symbols can be an obstacle when trying to share them with children. Our attachment to the practice can create suffering in ourselves and in the children. Changing one thing can remove this attachment. This one thing is to accept that the students are in charge of what they learn. It is not the teacher’s job to make the children learn, but only to provide the opportunity. The practice forms that we love are thus transformed into a simple gift which the children can pick up when, if, and in whatever manner they are ready to do so. The occasional less-than-reverential behavior of children can also be transformed from being shocking and discouraging to an interesting part of the process.

Our teachers offer the form of meditation without any pressure to make anything happen. We offer the practices of bowing, offering incense, and chanting without any loading with goals and expectations. A few minutes of our dharma school program is given to meditation, offering incense, and bowing as a quiet ritual, or some other practice form that the teacher finds accessible to the particular group. By simply being a part of our routine, it does not need to be explained or justified. The children are free to discover for themselves what this practice time has to offer, if anything. This time helps to connect them to the quiet time their parents and teachers take to do meditation at home, at the Zen Center, and at retreats out of the city. Forging this connection may be reason enough to keep meditation practice a part of the routine of the children’s program. The rewards of introducing children to meditation practice have come in the course of events. Some of our children have come back to us as adults to practice with us in the meditation hall, take the Precepts, formally become Buddhists and take refuge in the community.

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