Some wisdom from a Zen Master

I just came off my hammock, which was slung between two mangrove trees on Playa Flamingo. My dog Omaha slept beneath me, in the shade cast by the hammock. My wonderful wife Kelsey read nearby, head resting on a fallen log.

I was reading an excellent book, Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity, by Soko Morinaga. The following two pieces of wisdom, which pertain hugely to education, come from that book and I feel compelled to share them.

Lesson #1: Teach Children to Understand their own Power

"School teachers often see it as their sole duty to entice children to take an interest in studying. Many parents believe the ability to parent lies in rearing children who cry out as seldom as possible, who chafe as little as possible.

I ask you to consider this carefully, though. Is our society, into which these children will eventually enter, an understanding society?... It is a society full of people who relish the failure of others, who savor the poverty of the next-door neighbor as they savor a tender morsel of duck... When children are brought up by teachers who seek always to entertain, to sympathize, and to allow their students to have their own way, and by parents who try in any way they can to prevent their children from knowing pain and inconvenience, what happens to them when they are thrown out into the kind of world we have?

I wonder why it is that parents, teachers, and other adults do not try to provide children earlier with the opportunity and the training to realize for themselves the power inherent within themselves, the power we all possess to stand up and work it out ourselves in times of trouble. Only when we taste frustration does the spirit of intrepidity, the resolution to rally and march on over every obstacle, arise from our innate force, from our inherent power."

Lesson #2: Having a Still Mind

"The truly still mind, with which you were born, is the mind that moves freely. Without ignoring anything, it reacts wholeheartedly to everything it encounters, to everything on which it reflects. And yet, for all that, it is the mind that is never seized by anything, but is always ready to react on the spot to whatever it encounters next. The mind that is still is the mind that never forfeits its freedom and is able to constantly keep rolling and rolling and rolling.

The mind that neither ignores anything nor attaches to anything is not something that is obtained through training. It is the natural "power" with which you entered this world. Those of us who are called Zen monks enter the monastery in order to awaken through practice to this power that we inherently possess, to freely demonstrate it, and to bring it to life."