Educating Children

My dear one,
Regarding the school, we need to develop the students’ education but not only in the subjects that a normal school has; the real education is the good heart. We need to teach the good heart and the students need to practice the good heart right now. Not in their next life or when they become old, not like that, but right now! It is so important for them to practice the good heart at school with the other students and back home with their parents. That is the most important education.

If they grow up with a good heart, instead of harming others they will offer benefit to others, even to animals. In this way, all their wishes for happiness will succeed more and more, they won’t feel all the problems they experience, and their problems will become less and less. They will have so much happiness in their lives as they grow up.

During this life, they will be able to give happiness to their families and to the people at the school, and later on they will be able to give happiness to everyone and cause them less suffering. Others will get so much happiness from them. That is the real meaning of life—being able to give happiness to others.

Especially when they die, they will have no regrets. Their minds will be very happy and they will have no fear at all. And if they become a leader, such as a minister or president of the country, because they grew up developing a good heart, they will take responsibility for the whole population. However many millions or billions of people there are in the country, they will make an effort to free them from all their problems and suffering and give them happiness.

In this way, people will like them. Everybody will like them very much. If someone has a good heart normally people will like them and want to pray for their success. Everybody wants to help them. Even if they don’t need help, everyone will want to help them. That is normal in the world. Wherever they go, to the city or the countryside, wherever they live, they will bring happiness to people because they have so much good heart. Then, when they become a leader, they will bring unbelievable happiness and peace to the country and to the world.

This is what we should try to achieve. Of course, in their future lives, they will have happiness like the sun shining. In their future lives, things will get better and better, they will be of more and more benefit to others, and all their wishes will succeed. They will have incredible happiness and success in their future lives and they will go to enlightenment.

If there are some teachers in the school who don’t have a good education and who interfere with developing the school, then, with compassion, for the sake of the many children in the school, you may have to dismiss them and find well-educated teachers. You need to do the same in the school as you would for the majority of the people in the country. You may have to do this, otherwise the school cannot get better. It cannot develop. If this happens, there will be problems for all the students. It would not be good if, due to one particular teacher, all the school children didn’t get to improve.

Even if the children and their parents have a poor life, because they have a good heart, their minds will be so happy. That will bring them happiness in their lives, even though they don’t have many material things. His Holiness says that even if we live in a grass house and only have water to drink, if we have a good heart we will be happy. Our life will be so happy.

Of course, in the world, in the Middle East, America and other countries, even those who have a billion, zillion, trillion dollars have unbelievable, unbelievable dissatisfaction. They have so much suffering, more than a beggar. Even though physically they are OK, their dissatisfaction brings a lot of sickness and many problems to their physical bodies as well. This is because they don’t practice the good heart. They don’t practice satisfaction and a happy mind, and they don’t practice patience, contentment and self-discipline. If the self-cherishing thought becomes stronger and stronger, that will make them unhappy throughout their whole life, and, as often happens, when they can’t bear it, they may commit suicide....

Thank you very much. 

Sincerely, from Crazy Zopa

My most dear most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
How are you? Thank you very much a billion, zillion times for being director of the school and for guiding the children. That is the most important thing, to help children grow as much as possible in Dharma, with Dharma understanding, with new eyes, with their wisdom eye opened, their Dharma wisdom eye opened, so they grow up with more understanding about the mind and karma and basic Buddhism in their life.

Of course Buddhism is differentiated from other religions by compassion for every sentient being, not only our family or our friends, and it's especially important for the children to develop that, to grow up with that in their life. With that development it is the best life, so when that happens then naturally they will not harm others and on top of that they will be able to benefit others.

How is the school going now? Every time I come there I want to teach something at the school.

I often think the school is very, very important because the children’s education is opening the wisdom eye, opening the new eye. It’s so important and through that they are able to help the rest of people in the country in the future and to help the people in the world, and the six-realm sentient beings, so they can bring happiness to all sentient beings up to enlightenment.

Please enjoy these cards. You can send them to your friends or to anybody in the six realms.

Thank you very much ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
I hope you are enjoying being a schoolteacher. I really want to develop the school there and hopefully a school in Kushinigar will also start and maybe other schools. I was especially thinking to develop Dharma books for children up to the twelfth class. Then, however many schools we start, we can use the books. Even if we die, then the schools can continue all the time with the Dharma subjects, so then it helps for many hundreds of years. So now we should make Dharma books for children up to the twelfth class.

I asked Samdong Rinpoche and he said he can make books using His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s talks as a basis. He can finish those within three days with a few people helping. Kabir went to see Samdong Rinpoche. I hope it can get done. But that’s not the only thing. By following the original Tibetan books there is some brief introduction to Dharma subjects, but not necessarily everything. So that is my wish to make these books.

Then the school becomes very, very special, and the children even from a young age come to know Dharma and come to know karma. They come to know what is wrong and to be abandoned, and what is right and to be created. They come to know the cause of happiness and the real cause of suffering, and why the world has so many problems—global problems and problems within a country.

People don’t know this, and they don’t avoid the cause of suffering and practice the cause of happiness. What happens in the world now is mainly the opposite of that. Mostly the right thing—what causes happiness—is abandoned and what causes suffering is regarded as best and that is what is practiced. That’s why you can see the world is suffering more and more, individually and globally. That is why having Dharma in schools is important, so that children come to know Dharma from a young age. Then they come to know and can create the causes of happiness and they can enjoy the resultant happiness up to enlightenment.

I was invited to Ladakh by Gen-la Ladakhi, who has been living at Root Institute. I am meant to go for maybe ten days to Ladakh, to give some teachings and maybe do pilgrimage. Also maybe to build up a little bit a large stupa that was ruined or hopefully fix up 108 stupas that Lotsawa Rinchen Sangpo built in Ladakh.

I hope to do that and maybe start an old persons’ home or home for the destitute, to give food to those who don’t have food and to build homes for those who don’t have homes. I hope to start something like that in Ladakh. I am sure it won’t cover everyone in Ladakh, but we can start like this in one place.

With much love and prayers ...

My dear one,
You are coming to the course, that’s amazing!

Regarding having a child: if the baby hears a lot of Dharma words, somehow that baby will grow up with a lot of Dharma [understanding]. You can slowly teach the child how to do prostrations to the Buddha with two hands, and you can teach the child about Dharma, whatever the child can learn.

There are many different things you can do, such as offering a flower or biscuits or chocolate to the Buddha. Each time a piece of chocolate or a piece of biscuit or a small flower is offered to the Buddha you avoid the cause of rebirth in the lower realms and you create the cause of receiving happiness, not only in this human body but also in future lives. As you have experienced happiness from beginningless rebirths up to now, that much is to be experienced in the future, and not only that, you will become free from samsara forever.

Not only that, the last one is that you will achieve sang gye, the total cessation of obscurations and completion of all realizations. Not only that, you can free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering, and not only that, you can bring everyone to buddhahood.

When you do that, only then are the benefits of offering one small biscuit or a small flower to the Buddha completed. Therefore, do this three times each day or once a day at least, then the child will have a lot of good karma. Then everything will go by naturally, without worry.

Please understand this. There are many other things you can do in your life if you have a child. Some of this advice is online already and you can read it. [See Joyful Parents, Successful Children by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.]

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayer ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.

Since you have three children, the most important education is, of course, Dharma, and the most important Dharma is the good heart—to not harm others and to cause happiness to others, especially pure happiness. Not samsaric happiness but pure happiness, the peerless happiness of full enlightenment.

This is achieved through Dharma education, bodhicitta education and bodhicitta practice. Then gradually [the children will learn] to live their life with bodhicitta, so they will always think about the kindness of others and they will always generate a good heart and the thought to benefit others.

While we are causing happiness and benefit for others, then our own wish for happiness comes by the way, without effort. Success comes by the way, and not only that, we are able to cause happiness more and more for others, for all other sentient beings. Not only to become free from samsara, but to bring other sentient beings to ultimate happiness, enlightenment.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most precious, most kind, wish-fulfilling one,
Your question reminded me of you, so I thought to send a few cards for you to enjoy. Of course, you don’t have to keep these cards; you can send them to other people. Maybe you can send some cards to those in the hell realm, to those people who died, your friends, or to those in the animal realm or in the sura and asura realms [god and demi-god realms.]

For a long time I heard that you are teaching at the school and that you teach with a very happy mind. Many teachers think they like their job, but it’s not making them happy; it’s just a job. But you do it from the heart to make the children happy, so it’s not only education. Seeing you would make the children happy, so thank you billions and billions of times.

I regard this school as very important. I was thinking to develop Dharma subjects to make many more books, so later when we want to start more schools, we will have more Dharma books to help with this. Maybe for children up to twelve years of age, having classes, having something to stabilize the mind is very, very beneficial. When Indian children are young, it’s a good time to understand the mind, karma, and how to stop creating the cause of suffering and create the cause of happiness instead.

I was thinking it’s very, very important for schools to give young children a Dharma education, so that they can create a Dharma life, not only to benefit themselves but to benefit all sentient beings. The big aim is that. If we can stop the cause of suffering and create the cause of happiness, that helps all sentient beings. Children need to understand that, as much as they can.

I hope to see you soon.

With much love and prayers …