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Buddhist Voices in SchoolHow a Community Created a Buddhist Education Program for State Schools

Sue Erica SmithCharles Darwin University, Australia

There are 400 million Buddhists in the world. Buddhists in Australia make up 3% of the population. So why have Buddhists had so little to say about educating youth? And, can Buddhism survive in Australia without educating youth? Sue Smith in Buddhist Voices in School answers why Buddhists are reluctant to ‘go public’ on education, and how Buddhism has much to offer the critical area of enhancing the wellbeing of young people. Here she distinguishes spiritual education from religion.

Using case studies of Buddhist classes in primary schools Smith shows how a community adapted Buddha-Dharma to fi t with contemporary education. The book describes how Social and Emotional Learning, inquiry and experiential approaches to education fi t well with the intentions of Buddhism.

In these classes students learned to meditate and explored ethics through a lively selection of Jataka tales. Voices from a Buddhist community, state school teachers, parents and also students inform the narrative of this book. It is the students themselves that reveal over time how they have developed calm, focus, kindness, resilience and better ability to make choices through their participation. The author concludes that the principles and techniques used in this program make potent contributions to current pedagogy. This book will be of great value to educators, academics and all those who have interest in Buddhism and who care about how children are educated.

ISBN 978-94-6209-414-7


Buddhist Voices in SchoolHow a Community Created a Buddhist Education Program for State Schools

Sue Erica Smith

Foreword by John P. Miller


Buddhist Voices in

How a Community Created a Buddhist Education Program for

Foreword by John P. Miller

S e n s e P u b l i s h e r s T C S E 9 8

contributions to current pedagogy. This book will be of great value to educators, academics and all those who have interest in Buddhism and who care about how children are educated.

BUDDHIST VOICES IN SCHOOL

TRANSGRESSIONS: CULTURAL STUDIES AND EDUCATION Series Editor: Shirley R. Steinberg, University of Calgary, Canada Founding Editor: Joe L. Kincheloe (1950-2008) The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy Editorial Board Jon Austin, University of Southern Queensland, Australia Norman Denzin, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, USA Rhonda Hammer, University of California Los Angeles, USA Nikos Metallinos, Concordia University, Canada Christine Quail, McMaster University, Canada This book series is dedicated to the radical love and actions of Paulo Freire, Jesus “Pato” Gomez, and Joe L. Kincheloe.

TRANSGRESSIONS: CULTURAL STUDIES AND EDUCATION Cultural studies provides an analytical toolbox for both making sense of educational practice and extending the insights of educational professionals into their labors. In this context Transgressions: Cultural Studies and Education provides a collection of books in the domain that specify this assertion. Crafted for an audience of teachers, teacher educators, scholars and students of cultural studies and others interested in cultural studies and pedagogy, the series documents both the possibilities of and the controversies surrounding the intersection of cultural studies and education. The editors and the authors of this series do not assume that the interaction of cultural studies and education devalues other types of knowledge and analytical forms. Rather the intersection of these knowledge disciplines offers a rejuvenating, optimistic, and positive perspective on education and educational institutions. Some might describe its contribution as democratic, emancipatory, and transformative. The editors and authors maintain that cultural studies helps free educators from sterile, monolithic analyses that have for too long undermined efforts to think of educational practices by providing other words, new languages, and fresh metaphors. Operating in an interdisciplinary cosmos, Transgressions: Cultural Studies and Education is dedicated to exploring the ways cultural studies enhances the study and practice of education. With this in mind the series focuses in a non-exclusive way on popular culture as well as other dimensions of cultural studies including social theory, social justice and positionality, cultural dimensions of technological innovation, new media and media literacy, new forms of oppression emerging in an electronic hyperreality, and postcolonial global concerns. With these concerns in mind cultural studies scholars often argue that the realm of popular culture is the most powerful educational force in contemporary culture. Indeed, in the twenty-first century this pedagogical dynamic is sweeping through the entire world. Educators, they believe, must understand these emerging realities in order to gain an important voice in the pedagogical conversation. Without an understanding of cultural pedagogy’s (education that takes place outside of formal schooling) role in the shaping of individual identity – youth identity in particular – the role educators play in the lives of their students will continue to fade. Why do so many of our students feel that life is incomprehensible and devoid of meaning? What does it mean, teachers wonder, when young people are unable to describe their moods, their affective affiliation to the society around them. Meanings provided young people by mainstream institutions often do little to help them deal with their affective complexity, their difficulty negotiating the rift between meaning and affect. School knowledge and educational expectations seem as anachronistic as a ditto machine, not that learning ways of rational thought and making sense of the world are unimportant. But school knowledge and educational expectations often have little to offer students about making sense of the way they feel, the way their affective lives are shaped. In no way do we argue that analysis of the production of youth in an electronic mediated world demands some “touchy-feely” educational superficiality. What is needed in this context is a rigorous analysis of the interrelationship between pedagogy, popular culture, meaning making, and youth subjectivity. In an era marked by youth depression, violence, and suicide such insights become extremely important, even life saving. Pessimism about the future is the common sense of many contemporary youth with its concomitant feeling that no one can make a difference.

If affective production can be shaped to reflect these perspectives, then it can be reshaped to lay the groundwork for optimism, passionate commitment, and transformative educational and political activity. In these ways cultural studies adds a dimension to the work of education unfilled by any other sub-discipline. This is what Transgressions: Cultural Studies and Education seeks to produce—literature on these issues that makes a difference. It seeks to publish studies that help those who work with young people, those individuals involved in the disciplines that study children and youth, and young people themselves improve their lives in these bizarre times.

Buddhist Voices in SchoolHow a Community Created aBuddhist Education Program for State Schools

By

Sue Erica SmithCharles Darwin University, Australia

SENSE PUBLISHERSROTTERDAM / BOSTON / TAIPEI

A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-94-6209-414-7 (paperback)ISBN 978-94-6209-415-4 (hardback)ISBN 978-94-6209-416-1 (e-book)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword: Buddhist Voices, by John (Jack) P. Miller ix Part 1: Gathering Voices Introduction 3 Chapter 1. Buddhism in Australia 9 Chapter 2. Seeking Buddhist Education: Global Positions 19 Chapter 3. Dharma: Describing the Way the World Works 35 Chapter 4. Finding Places in a Changing Education Landscape: Australian Values 55 Part 2: Listening to Many Voices Chapter 5. Interpreting Buddhism and the Human Sciences 67 Chapter 6. Telling Tales 73 Chapter 7. Meditating (with Mindful Motivation) 87 Chapter 8. Approaching Meditation in a Buddhist R.I. Class 95 Chapter 9. Children Meditating 99 Chapter 10. Stories of Lives: Morality, Meaning-Making and More Monkeys 117 Chapter 11. Exploring How the World Works: Acts of Kindness 139 Chapter 12. Buddhism and Spiritual Education 153 Appendix 1. Other Stories 165 Appendix 2. The Buffalo and the Monkey (Original Transcript) 173 Appendix 3. The Drummer (Transcript) 175 References 177

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FOREWORD

Buddhist Voices

I have argued that one of the main goals of education should be the development of wisdom and compassion (Miller, 2006). Yet how can this be achieved in schools? Dr. Smith has provided one intriguing answer to that question. Working with primary children in Australia, she developed a curriculum that focused on Buddhist stories and meditation. This book is clearly written and is based on a deep understanding of Buddhist concepts such as Dharma and Karma. These concepts are presented in a non-ideological manner, which is consistent with the Buddhist idea of not proselytizing but simply engaging in contemplative practices. Recently there has been much written about bringing mindfulness into education. Valuable as this work has been, this book connects mindfulness and meditation to its deepest roots and provides a comprehensive educational approach. The book is filled with examples that can easily be adopted by teachers. Dr. Smith includes many of the stories she used and the discussions that followed. The stories focused on Buddhist principles but were told in such a way that the ideas became accessible to young children. The book includes many comments by the students as they did meditation and listened to the stories. Dr. Smith also employed a happiness scale so that the students could self-assess the impact of the classes. Educational reforms for the past several decades have focused on accountability measures such as standardized testing. These measures have focused on individual achievement and competition that run counter to the goal of developing wisdom and compassion. Dr. Smith has shown another kind of education is possible which develops kindness and happiness in students. We need to explore the kind of education described in this book if we hope to heal our planet. John (Jack) P. Miller The Holistic Curriculum (2007) and Educating for Wisdom and Compassion (2006)

PART 1: GATHERING VOICES

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INTRODUCTION

“I don’t care if they know the name of Siddhartha’s horse …”

This book describes how Buddhists in Victoria Australia came together to form and deliver a Religious Instruction (R.I.) program in Victorian state primary schools. It argues that it is timely for Buddhists to engage with education and, by describing challenges faced by a non-sectarian group delivering R.I., questions are raised about how Buddhist people might choose to define their spirituality and, drawing upon the Buddha-Dharma, discern what might be cogent lessons for young people being schooled in Australian society. It is by no means a defence of Religious Instruction, but rather aims to raise some broader and more serious issues around how religion and ethics can be taught in Australia, and how voices from communities might be included. This book speaks to different groups at different stages: Buddhists – ‘ethnic’ Buddhists and ‘convert’ Buddhists, dharma people, religious educators, and fellow country women and men concerned with how ethics and spirituality are incorporated into democratic state-funded schooling. This book also speaks to academia, whose role in helping to navigate these complex tasks might be made more inclusive, and possibly clearer, by reframing ontologies and current pedagogies in ways that embrace some perspectives that originated in Asia. The end to which, it is hoped, inclusive and respectful dialogues between educators, religious peoples and the wider community may be furthered, and that learning experiences of students in our schools be enriched. This book tells of how a community developed and taught the Buddhist Education in Victorian Schools Program (BEVSP) in some Victorian state primary schools and how volunteer members collaborated to develop a landmark experiential learning curriculum ‘Discovering Buddha: Lessons for Primary School.’ By giving voice to some of the participants’ perspectives and by describing some of the issues and challenges associated with the provision of Religious Instruction classes by the Buddhist Council of Victoria, principles and practices that might define a Buddhist approach to education are brought forward. Also, by describing some of the pedagogical challenges that Buddhist teachers faced delivering a spiritual and ethical program in a secular context, ways might be paved for more Buddhist and Dharma-inspired people to engage with the education of young people, as well as ways in which ethical and spiritual education might be furthered in plural and democratic contexts more generally. To this end, this book also provides some insights into how the participating primary school students experienced the meditations, stories and other activities that they were involved in during their weekly half-hour religious instruction classes. The development of a program and curriculum that was inclusive of, and potentially meaningful to, the culturally diverse groups of participating Buddhist teachers and students, and the significant proportion of children from non-Buddhist

INTRODUCTION

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families who also attended, was a more complex task than members of the program had initially envisioned. The descriptions of the ways in which these were navigated might provide constructive examples to other plural and diverse communities of goodwill, and multifaith dialogues in particular, that are negotiating similar complexities and seeking outcomes more substantial than polite nodding and where everybody agrees to differ. The main impetus for the development of this program came initially from primary school children from Buddhist families who had felt marginalised alongside the predominantly Christian religious instruction and other Eurocentric programs in their schools. Parents approached the Buddhist Council of Victoria, and community consultations and engagements began. Volunteer advisors and teachers joined the program with aspirations to draw upon the Dharma, Gautama Buddha’s teachings and legacies, to benefit children’s lives. Dharma practice encourages this kind of altruism that is distinct from proselyting and conversion. The program was founded on member understanding that the Buddha-Dharma can be applicable to any person, regardless of creed or culture and many people involved in the program were aware of a range of popular borrowings from Buddhism that are becoming part of mainstream culture. The tension between authentic expression of the Buddha-Dharma and popular mainstream application is explored throughout this text. In traditional Buddhist countries, education of children in the Dharma has been conducted in home and monastic environments. School-based learning is largely new territory and, as children in this program reported, is valuable in providing learning often no longer available in homes and not embraced in mainstream schooling. Chapter 1 comprises a brief historical overview of the development of Buddhism in Australia, and where Buddhist principles are being applied to education globally. This begins an exploration of theory and practice that can find justified inclusion in education. This discussion is placed alongside a growing trend internationally to apply aspects of Buddhism to psychology and other related disciplines, and where Buddhists are seeking to define the doctrine more broadly than as a religion. The tenets of the Dharma that would necessarily characterise a Buddhist education are described in Chapter 3 and in the next chapter this ‘religious instruction’ program is located alongside Australian state and national education frameworks, imperatives and directions. The National Values Framework and the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) were concurrently introduced at the time this program was begun and strong resonances between these value-rich frameworks and the focus of the Buddhist education program are evident. The National Values Framework was acknowledgement that teaching values was a legitimate and intrinsic concern in public education, and the nationwide federally funded programs that sought best-practice methodologies indicated that the principles and methods used in the program offer new perspectives and methods that can refine the pedagogy. Similarly, the revised Victorian Essential Learning Standards introduced interdisciplinary themes that are actively pursued in this Buddhist program:

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interconnectedness, reflection and metacognitive thinking. These themes are retained within the General Capabilities of the emergent Australian Curriculum. This program touches on some big issues in education and young people’s development, such as how life can be made more meaningful, and how ethics, religion and spirituality can be incorporated into Australian schooling. The methodologies utilised in the Buddhist Education in Victorian Schools Program offer new and under-explored approaches in these areas and pertain directly to the nature of education, student wellbeing and citizenship and imperatives described in the Australian Curriculum. This phenomenological account of a program and some of its participants is a product of my own quest to make meaning. As I have strived to understand and articulate how, where and why this program might be relevant to primary students I am conscious of many elements of my Australian heritage that have shaped me. I am a white country woman of decent, middle-class, Anglican stock, and privileged into a generation of peace, relative prosperity and free access to all levels of education. These conditions provided me with the liberty to explore concepts such as respect and responsibility, freedom, fair go, wisdom and compassion in my personal and professional pursuits. The liberty and values of Australian public education that have been afforded since Federation have shaped a largely tolerant, inclusive and peaceful society, and I hope that these will be further strengthened and championed through the themes in this book. Through efforts here to articulate the Dharma as pedagogy of personal development, it is hoped that religious compartmentalisation might be broken down so that a broader range of educators, community stakeholders and academics concerned with these intrinsic aims of education might also engage. Also, through this openness, more rigorous and nuanced understanding of meditative, reflective and mindful practices might be understood and utilised. This book contains many stories: from Buddhist teachers, from students, observations and reflections from school teachers and parents, and Jataka stories that I have rewritten for the children’s classes. In this way, I have attempted to impart a transparent and reliable account of the program that expresses participants’ voices, such as those found in the discussion about story selection in Chapter 6. Indicators of the program’s effectiveness were sought from the students themselves. No matter how worthy the curriculum might seem to its teachers, it would be less worthy if students had not perceived some benefits. I used happiness as an indicator. Happiness is a global term, readily understood by children, that incorporates a range of cognitive and affective perceptions. The workbook entries contained here provide unique first-person insights into children’s experiences of meditation. Current research into happiness and wellbeing is discussed in relation to Buddhist understanding of the nature of mind and the relevance of meditation in Chapter 7. Meditation research in clinical and education contexts, and remarkable mental propensities found in proficient Buddhist meditators, indicate that the strategic teaching of meditation described here could become an effective addition to existing teaching and learning strategies. In the next chapter, meditation classes

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from the program are described and the children’s narratives offer some insights into their experiences and what might be achieved. Children were taught meditations intended to develop calm, mindful attention, and kindness. Students’ experiences were consistent with these aims, as well as a range of other experiences, and they consistently recorded happier states after meditation. In the Buddhist paradigm, personal happiness is not an end in itself, and neither is meditation. Meditation practice is introduced as an efficient method to nurture inner development that will support lives lived more skilfully. It is a misconception to deem Buddhist meditation and practices to be disconnected from, and uncaring of, life as it is lived. The Buddhist Education in Victorian Schools Program ran as once-weekly half-hour lessons, which precluded involvement in the general curriculum and beyond, although program members hoped to provide learning experiences that would support the development of respectful relationships and responsible social engagement. Apart from a Good Deeds/ Counting Kindness project (described in Chapter 11), learning was confined to these classroom lessons. The classes did, however, provide a unique opportunity to study a cycle of weekly lessons that taught values explicitly through stories, thinking processes and structured meditations that integrated kindness. The Jataka stories that you will find in this book are often humorous and sometimes shocking. They are characterised by events and consequences that illustrate the tenets of Dharma discussed in Chapter 3. Through dramatisations and discussions, children were encouraged to explore the nature of wisdom and the value of kindness. In Chapter 11 a play and a commentary to a sequence of lessons that I wrote about the Wheel of Life is included. Children imaginatively explored how karma might work, and the possibility of rebirth. In this book I attempt to give voice to a hitherto unheard sector of Australian society, while not letting my own agendas dominate. I have sought to resolve personal tensions such as: being part of a demographic that forms the second largest religion in Australia but is seldom heard in public and educational discourses: being part of a religion that defines its purpose more broadly; being an educator in an system where meditation is yet to enter experiential learning and holistic paradigms, and what I perceive to be a system of education that hesitates to incorporate emotional and spiritual aspects of the learner in teaching programs. I am also exploring how the perspectives on freedom, compassion, wisdom, equality that my Buddhist engagement has provided might fit with the educational institutions and the society from which I am a product. To do this, an exploration of language traverses this study as I move to find words to adequately reflect participants’ lived experiences alongside Pali and Sanskrit doctrinal terms. I know that I am operating in a field where my understanding of Buddhism is imperfect, and any inaccuracies are mine alone. The commentary here ranges over many issues – education is a multidisciplinary and relational pursuit – and I can imagine some readers might be more familiar with some sections than others. As you appraise the narratives in this book, like participants in the program, you may be reflecting, noting points of

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convergence and divergence with your particular understandings, and formulating further questions. The cycles of teaching and learning described here using meditations and stories show how wisdom and kindness can be integrated into education and attempts to illustrate some of the ways that children have said they have benefitted through education determined by these priorities. May all be well. May all be happy. Sue Erica Smith Charles Darwin University, August 2013

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CHAPTER 1

BUDDHISM IN AUSTRALIA

On the northern shores of Australia there are two stands of banyan trees, a legacy of the early Buddhists in Australia which serves as a reminder of the past for future generations. Sinhalese cane cutters who had arrived in Mackay to angry racist protests and hard labour in the cane fields during the 1870-80s found solace and a compatriot community with pearlers on Thursday Island. There, as an expression of spiritual identity and as a gift for perpetuity, they planted two bodhi trees (Ficus religiosa) from cuttings that had been imported from a venerated tree in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In the heart of Darwin stands another banyan, known in the local language as Galamarrma (Ficus virens), which has been an old friend to generations of Indigenous Larrakia people and a place to meet, trade, post notices and ponder for generations still. To the immigrant Chinese in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the tree was a familiar beacon that provided sanctity in an alien and often brutal landscape. This banyan became known as the Tree of Knowledge, in no small part because, as the accompanying plaque reads:

It was also a place where Chinese youth met with, and learned from, their elders and where wisdom was gained in its shade.

In the new land, Confucian, Tao and Buddhist traditions combined and have continued from this first recorded instance of Buddhist-influenced education in Australia. Chinese people appear in colonial records from 1848, when they came to Australia with the gold rush, and through the 1870s and 1880s as labourers. During this period Japanese people worked in the pearling industries on Thursday Island and Broome, and many Sinhalese emigrated to the Queensland cane fields and to Thursday Island (Adam & Hughes, 1996). With them came texts, artefacts and belief systems with ethical orientations that incorporated Buddhism. The Sinhalese brought the Theravada tradition and people from northern and south-east Asia brought the Mahayana, most often expressed through the compassionate deity Quan Yin. For the Indigenous peoples of Australia’s north coast, relationships with peoples from Asia had been established centuries, and possibly millennia, before colonisation. When both rock art in Australia and the seafaring capacity of boats from Asia are considered, the time span for such contact potentially spans millennia. Boats are a recurring motif in rock art across the northern coast and the variety of craft depicted suggest varied, ancient and significant contacts that include Bradshaw-like and Wandjina figures in the Kimberley, and a range of

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South East Asian style boats and some European-style vessels across the northern and north-west coast (O’Connor & Arrow, 2008). Ships from the Chinese armada sailed to Australia in the fifteenth century. Established trading patterns were noted at the time of white contact. Hundreds (King, 1827), sometimes thousands, of Macassan seafarers arrived in fleets with north-west monsoon rains in December and returned on the south-east trade winds in March or April (Chaloupka, 1996, p. 132). Conservative dating of rock art places these visitations back to the sixteenth century (Taçon et al., 2010). These peoples would have been Buddhist, Hindu and latterly Muslim, and relationships were in the main reciprocal, intimate and longstanding. It was not unusual for northern Indigenous Australians to travel, and to stay, on northern islands. These influences were incorporated into legends, kinship networks and economic life (Reynolds, 2003). Spiritual observances would have been performed in these recurring interactions and, as cross-cultural families formed, these would have asserted some influence on their children’s education. Professor A.P. Elkin (1977) in his study Aboriginal Men of High Degree noted similarity between spiritual practices of learned Aboriginal peoples across the country and Buddhists, and theorised possible influence from the latter. He observed that Indigenous men of high degree held doctrines such as pre-existence and reincarnation, and practiced retreats and meditation. Amongst ‘clever men’ with higher training the development of yogic abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance were observed in all states of Australia. These practices, Elkin tendered, resonate with yogic practices observed in Tibet (Elkin, 1977, pp. 64-65). This was a radical assertion at the time, and his readership in the 1940s was suspicious of advanced mental training seen in yogic and Indigenous traditions. Today, with a Buddhist gaze, his description of these elders is credible, and could equally apply to the role of the adept ordained monastics, the Sangha:

[It is evident that] that Aboriginal medicine-men … are men of high degree; that is, men who have taken a degree in the secret life beyond that taken by most adult males – a step which implies discipline, mental training, courage and perseverance. Secondly, that they are men of respected, and often outstanding personality; thirdly, that they are of immense social significance, the psychological health of the group largely depending on faith in their powers; fourthly … many of them have specialised in the working of the human mind, and in the influence of mind on body and of mind on mind. (Elkin, 1977, p. 66)

These are higher trainings in each tradition. Meditative and yogic practices are present in all ancient and Indigenous cultures, and Australian Aboriginal cultures developed dedicated practices of a kind not seen outside advanced tantric practice. These are tantalising ideas for a contemporary Buddhist in Australia because they pose the possibility of a compatriot voice for expressions of spirituality that are not dependent upon theistic and positivist assumptions.


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If there had been Buddhist engagement with Indigenous Australians prior to colonisation, as Elkin surmised, I propose that it is most likely to have occurred in the eighth and ninth centuries, via Indonesia, during a high point in Buddhist civilisation and where the Mahayana and Tantras (such as practiced in Tibet) were practised. On Java, less than 1,500 nautical miles northwest of Australia’s Kimberley region stands the architectural marvel Borobudur. Built between 750 and 842 AD, the site embodies the entire Buddhist path in both its architectural design and in the several thousand intricately carved relief panels that portray the canon. Among these are the life of Buddha, Jataka tales from his previous lives, scenarios that explain karma and, in the bas reliefs and architecture itself, stages of awakening mind. The detail in these carvings reveals intimate knowledge of the stories and the principles by the many local master craftsmen who created them. The themes and stories are characteristic of Buddhist expression everywhere, and are incorporated into the children’s program described in this book. Among the carvings is a wooden outrigger ship. A replica sailed from Indonesia to East Africa in 2004 to demonstrate the reach of this type of trading vessel. Australia was easily accessible, even by lesser craft. Such seafaring capacity has been apparent since the first and second centuries BCE when Buddhists arrived in Indonesia from India and the Borobudur ship attest to ongoing significance. It was customary during high points of ancient Buddhist culture for monks to sail on trading vessels to propagate the Dharma in other lands. There may also have been refugees fleeing volcanic eruptions or Muslim invasion and shipwrecked sailors. Nevertheless, if there were spiritual dialogues between Indigenous peoples and Buddhists, they would have been rich. Keen observance of interdependence, causal relationships and relational constructs of ‘self’ would have been further points of agreement had Buddhist and Indigenous Australians met and shared in spiritual practice. But from a white Australian perspective this is conjecture, for a White Australia Policy and assimilation policies in the twentieth century not only drastically ruptured Indigenous kinship, language and belief systems, but effectively debarred free and open dialogues with white Australians. Any veracity might only be discerned from within the bloodlines, song lines and stories of Indigenous Australian peoples. Within the first decade of the twentieth century the trade and family exchanges that had been conducted over centuries or millennia between South East Asia and northern Australia were prohibited and had ceased. Colonial dominance of land and Indigenous peoples had extended to the ‘other’ noticeably different demographic, Asians. In 1888, after an influx of Chinese workers, citizens of both Melbourne and Sydney were voicing their grave fears at the Town Halls and the issue was rife in the daily papers.

“Tribunes of the people warned that, unless something was done quickly, not only would hordes of Chinese demoralise and deprave the white man, but

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they would call in question the white man’s power to run the country. The very existence of British civilisation in Australia was at stake: for survival there must be agreement in the colonies on the Chinese question” (Clark, 1981, p. 16).

Although the colonial rule and settler enterprise had ensured affluence and security for much of the population, domination of the country nevertheless still felt vulnerable in cohabitation with enterprising Chinese, Japanese, Sinhala and Afghan immigrants. Colonies passed Chinese Restriction Acts, and as Australia moved towards federation in 1901 the exclusion of people not Caucasian was a unifying principle. “If there was any one clear mandate for any government under any leader it was this” (La Nauze, 1979, p. 277). The Immigration Restriction Act was one of the first passed by the new federal government. Despite these pervading sentiments – and Asian immigrants did leave – significant numbers stayed in Australia, worked, raised families, and strived to maintain intergenerational lineages of their cultures and spiritualities. Typically, immigrant communities build sacred places – temples, churches, mosques and synagogues – and the absence of Buddhist structures enduring beyond their inception in the nineteenth century belies the historical presence and endeavour of those people in earlier times. In Darwin, the All Deities Temple is but one story of community conviction and resilience amid the fragmented histories of Buddhists in Australia. An original structure that predates a temple built on the current site in 1887 no longer stands, yet on the current site the temple has been rebuilt and repaired some five times, having endured devastating cyclones, bombing and post-war ransacking. Each successive generation has undertaken to rebuild and maintain the temple. It serves as a place for social cohesion where education is embedded. Yet these, as with similar projects in other ethnic Buddhist communities have been isolated and their educative intent has largely not been articulated outside of each locale – apart from some exceptions in primary school religious instruction programs a century or more later. While nineteenth century media found easy copy amid jingoist voices, and politicians intent on winning votes counted numbers, many Australians were thinking expansively. European art and philosophy, egalitarian political and economic thought, and translations of Eastern spiritual texts into English were broadening Anglo-colonial world views, particularly in the population hubs of Melbourne and Sydney. The Melbourne Spiritualists’ Association and the Theosophical Society introduced Buddhist publications, speakers and forums and Buddhists became an identifiable demographic. Australian census figures showed that in 1891 Buddhists accounted for 1.2% of the population, a figure that was not rivalled until the 1996 census in which Buddhists were recorded 1.1% of the population. However, this was a disparate population with virtually no contact between various ethnic groups and subscribed Anglo adherents, nor any mutually perceived need for collective


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dialogues. There were cultural and ethnic groups on the one hand, and a predominantly white educated cohort who sought alternatives to Christian dominance and fundamentalism and/or saw a nexus between rationality, spirituality and autonomy on the other. These characteristics resonate through the subsequent growths and dissipations of Buddhist populations in Australia to the present day. This in part offers some explanation as to why Buddhism, unlike other established major world religions in Australia, has not committed to creating schools to educate its youth. One member of the white Anglo population drawn to Buddhism in the nineteenth century was Alfred Deakin, a journalist who gravitated into Victorian politics. In his early twenties, during a sponsored trip to explore irrigation in India and Sri Lanka, he was opened to the spiritual traditions practised in the region. Upon his return he became an active office-bearing member of the burgeoning spiritual and theosophical societies. Public office ceased to be compatible with his private pursuits. For these he received a public shellacking by the media, pragmatically resigned his memberships and devoted his life to politics. Deakin became an architect of the Constitution and Australia’s second, and then three-times elected Prime Minister. He maintained a moderating voice of morality and reason, yet with the hard-nosed pragmatism of a surviving politician. Privately, he remained a seeker of truth, who read widely and pondered deeply. In Deakin’s writings the reader gleans a sense of a solitary quest to articulate and integrate seemingly diverse perspectives within his own cultural heritage – a quest shared by many people inspired by the Dharma. The education program described in this book is a continuation of this trajectory. Deakin found an eclectic Christianity that could accommodate other spiritualities:

How should we praise the infinite? Only in surrender to the best, only in the more perfect service of Thy will, only within ourselves, shaping ourselves in act and fact after Thy image as presented to us in Jesus, most and deepest, in Buddha, Socrates and all Christ-like souls. (La Nauze, 1979, p. 74)

Croucher’s scholarship delivers detailed accounts of other influential Australians who have been inspired by the Buddha-dharma. Of these, some such influences can be seen in the crazy wisdom of charismatic everyman actor Peter Finch, in the attention to daily minutiae leading readers to sense numina in the poetry of Robert Gray, and by application of Zen-like brushstrokes to articulate spirituality embedded in the Australian landscape in paintings by John Olsen. Similarly Brett Whitely expressed raw truthfulness through anarchic applications of paint, inspired by Zen. One of the most public Australian Buddhists and one of the most ambiguous is Colin Johnson (Mudrooroo). His innovative writing and Aboriginal activism was influential in late twentieth century public culture, but his career that was built upon an Aboriginal identity and is to date discredited through exposure of a false personal construct of his Aboriginality. This deception, offensive to Buddhist and common decency, and a particularly callous appropriation of identity in Indigenous

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communities, may soften in time. In small defence he pointed out that this was where he was cast – as a mixed-race coloured person in Australia. Without apologia, Johnson’s work explores notions of a fragile, constructed, inconstant self: the nomad and ‘self’ imputed from labels by others. These are themes located at the crux of Buddhist philosophy and, as more fluid and mutable constructs of identities in society continue to gain acceptance, his literature could find renewed relevance. Now in Australia Buddhism appears to be an established religion. This provides timely cause to review the trajectories from where it has taken root, consider contemporary initiatives and challenges, and surmise future possibilities. To read Croucher’s history of the development of Buddhism in Australia through to the 1980s is to find bravely forward thinking and resilient people such as Marie Byles, the first female law graduate in New South Wales and an eco-activist, and a mix of well-meaning and/or misguided folk. Having shared in the establishment of Buddhist organisations since the 1970s myself, and having witnessed generosity, commitment and hard work by groups of Dharma people to establish their temples and centres in all states of Australia, these challenges were not as onerous as for our predecessors. The availability of guidance from authentic teachers alongside the diasporas of refugees from Asian countries, and immigrants post the abolition of the White Australia policy, has been integral to the growth of Buddha-Dharma in Australia. Where seekers in the past who primarily learned from books and without expert guidance tripped (especially in trying to understand a seemingly counter-intuitive concept of ‘non-self’), individuals today are more supported and resilient with teachers and communities. Faint footprints of Buddha-dharma have been laid throughout Australia’s history; imperceptible during the war years, faint alongside White Australia and assimilation policies, disparate between cultures, languages and traditions. Historically, the practice of Buddhism in Australia has been individualised, culturally enclaved and assimilated. As such, education of youth and intergenerational continuity has remained tenuous and the educational aspirations of Buddhists in Australian society (and other western countries) are largely unarticulated.

AUSTRALIAN BUDDHISTS TODAY

The Buddhist population in Australia has reached a new highpoint in the twenty-first century, adding impetus for considered attention to education if there is to be intergenerational longevity. By 2006, the Australian Census showed that Australia’s declared Buddhist population had more than doubled since the 1996 census, and growth has steadily continued. The 2011 Census reported that 2.5% of Australia’s population identified as Buddhist, and Buddhism holds the second largest religious population in Australia behind Christianity. Census data goes on to reveal that in Victoria, where this program is based, the 4% population of Buddhists is significantly above national figures. In some metropolitan Melbourne municipalities, there is an even higher concentration, such as the Melbourne Local Government Area (LGA) with 7.5% Buddhists,


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Maribyrnong LGA with 10.2%, Brimbank LGA 10.5% and Greater Dandenong LGA 14.9% Buddhists (VMC, 2007). Alongside growth explained in part by the rapid expansion of migrant/ethnic Buddhism as a consequence of migration from Asia and the Indian sub-continent (particularly from the 1970s onwards) there has been a significant increase in numbers of Australian-born citizens who have adopted the Buddhist path (Spuler, 2000). Rather than assuming an identifiable religious profile, Buddhist people have for the most part integrated into the society and participate in a broad range of community activities and vocations. There is much volunteer community work with economically disadvantaged people – those in prisons, addicts, disaster relief – and education programs. Buddhist people are also involved in social justice activities and work on behalf of human rights and the rights of non-human sentient beings, both from within their cultural groups and as participants in the wider community (Sherwood, 2003). However, given the predominance of Buddhist people and their willingness to engage in community life, it appears somewhat anomalous compared to the other major religions in Australia (Christian, Jewish and Muslim) that there is as yet no representative position on education articulated by Buddhist people, and the establishment of Buddhist schools is tentative and nascent. Even among smaller religious populations such as Hindu, Sikh and B’hai there are developed education programs and some schools. The Buddhist Council of New South Wales has the longest-standing Buddhist education program running in Australia, which in the last couple of years has experienced unprecedented growth. In Queensland too, Buddhist Education Services for Schools Inc. has responded to community requests to offer a coordinated Buddhist program to both primary and secondary schools. The opening of the Daylesford Dharma School in 2009, the movement to open a Buddhist school in northern New South Wales and the implementation of the Buddhist Education in Victorian Schools Program and a curriculum developed to support Australian schooling described here reflect a growing impetus from within Buddhist communities to formally engage in education. With a firm commitment to ethical living and intellectual development, the Buddhist path prizes education. However, the experiences of immigrant peoples establishing homes, families, careers, cultural networks and Buddhist centres has left systematic education of children for a later stage. Amongst refugee people with whom I have worked there is deep appreciation for the liberty afforded in Australia and for many, having survived repressive and sometimes brutal political systems, there is uneasiness about voicing concerns and aspirations publicly. For Australian nationals who have adopted the Buddhist path, such as me, the trajectory towards Buddhist education has also taken time to mature. Initial steps have been to join with immigrant peoples in the establishment of cultural networks and Buddhist centres, and to embark upon personal study and practice of the Dharma (the Buddha’s teachings). These endeavours have produced many temples, Dharma centres and retreat facilities (more than 400 nationwide) that offer a robust range of community development and awareness programs that aim to preserve and share the Dharma.

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Yet it would be pre-emptive to consider that Buddhism in Australia is established, and these centres, viharas and gompas could easily become conference facilities and nursing homes in the future. Some recent closures of Dharma facilities are already indicators of this possible trend. Even if some continue, without dedicated commitment and guidance to youth it is conceivable that large temples might be artefacts in fifty years’ time, perhaps only accessed a couple of times a year for new year and Vesak celebrations to commemorate Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death. As former chair of the B.C.V., Venerable Chi Kwang Sunim, pointed out back in 2006, (see http://bcv.org.au/education): “the burgeoning Buddhist population is largely middle-class and ageing and that without dedicated commitment to educating future generations the longevity of the Dharma in Australia is uncertain.” Sunim suggested that Buddhist organisations dedicate a small percentage of their funds annually to educating youth. Now, some six years later, it is timely for Buddhists and Dharma people to consider how and where their children’s education might be incorporated into their existing programs and structures, or into broader spheres of education. This case study about a Victorian program might help to generate further activity. Of the 250 Buddhist organisations with membership of state Buddhist Councils, barely 14% currently offer programs for children and youth. Of these memberships of course there are monasteries, hospices, and retreat centres that would necessarily preclude children’s education, and there are university youth groups that pursue this function. There are occasional family and children’s activities offered in many centres, and the language schools that often run within some centres provide a vital role combining Dharma values and materials into the delivery of their language programs. There are also websites, such as http://buddhanet.net and other authentic sites tailored for children and youth yet these can be no substitute for a comprehensive educational approach. As a Buddhist the mere prospect that the Dharma could effectively die out is alarming to contemplate, and made even more so in the light of the children’s experiences that are described in later chapters. Here there is evidence how children’s wellbeing and resilience can be nurtured through this type of learning. In the many Dharma centres of which I am aware, volunteers are invariably stretched to maintain delivery of their centre’s programs and meet growing public demands. However, as Buddhist organisations in Australia appear to be moving into consolidation phases their intergenerational legacies should warrant strategic attention. Dedicated annual financial and volunteer support for the religious education programs offered via Buddhist Councils in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, as Sunim suggested, is a practical measure. Resourcing the programs is a challenge to the communities and, in Victoria’s case, inequitably funded (i.e. none) by the state government. Yet despite much public criticism of imperfect Special Religious Education/Instruction models, Buddhist communities in Australia struggle to meet demands for their services from school communities. The state primary school model portrayed here is but one option for Dharma perspectives and Dharma people’s voices to contribute to the education of children and youth in Australian society. This exposition is not a defence of this model, but


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is presented as an addition to some current complex dialogues that are addressing some intrinsic issues in education. Firstly for Buddhists: how they might articulate Dharma as pedagogy, and further in a wider educational context: how ethics and values can be taught in schools, and how religious and spiritual perspectives can be authentically taught in a plural society. To these ends, the discussion explores synergies with education systems and practices in Australia, and inclusive engagement with other religious and ethical traditions in an attempt to expand these discourses with a view to serve an education system that better enables students’ wellbeing and their participation in civil society. These are real concerns for education across Australian society, and here we see the ways in which a Buddhist community has addressed these concerns. For Buddhist people in Australia, the slow development of Buddhist education or public positions on education can also be attributed to various factors from within the epistemology. Firstly, Buddhism considers itself a non-proselytising religion: “Ehipassiko,” said the Buddha, “Come and see,” so the movement to education comes with immediate tension, particularly regarding children, yet almost paradoxically Buddhist centres are places for education. These offer teaching, generally free or at operational costs, and are reluctant to advertise their services. Furthermore, there is also uneasiness amongst some Buddhist practitioners about identifying their practice of Buddhism as religious. Socially and politically, Buddhism holds the place of a religion and shares features of other religions in terms of offering methods to help understand connections between life, death and beyond, and ethical living. However, the promotion of freedom of thought and preclusion of self-surrender that hallmark the Buddhist path (Narada, 1988, 1993) render it anathema to conventional religious constructs that are based on faith, God creation, conformity to hierarchical rules and promotion of proselytising agendas. This unique position, as both religion and speaking to the human sciences, has prompted practitioners in the fields of psychology (Dockett, 2003; Hayes, 2003; Ragsdale, 2003), philosophy (Harris, 2006; Mohanty, 1992; Pickering, 1995; Thom, 2005) and feminist discourse (Klein, 1995) to seek an expanded, more informed and inclusive understanding of the Dharma beyond a solely religious label. Secularised borrowings from Buddhism have become profligate across the world in the last twenty years, especially the many permutations of Mindfulness, Positive Psychology and Positive Education. While these movements are encouraging for Buddhist educators, it is at this stage difficult for Buddhists to enter these arenas visibly as Buddhists because, with a religion label, proselytising assumptions can be hard to avoid. With but one school, and education bodies that administer only volunteer programs, there remain small opportunities for Buddhists to contribute substantially to religion and ethics education dialogues in Australia. Buddhists typically are fairly reticent. Vasi (2006, p. 10) observed that the willingness of Buddhist people to contribute to society comes from the Buddhist notion of interconnectedness of all beings and the empowerment of individuals and their activities through the notion of skilful action.

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Sherwood makes a similar observation that,

a distinctively Buddhist praxis arising from the Buddhist values of compassion, the linking of inner and outer transformation, and the dissolving of the artificial boundaries between I and you, between human and non-human. (Sherwood, 2003, p. 95)

These can inform what a person does, but there is no apparent need to talk about it. It appears to be an assimilated population. Buddhists overall have not drawn attention to themselves, they have not been a problematic population, nor problematised by academics. They are largely not known and hence not fully integrated into the society. For adults this may not be a problem, but it is potentially more awkward for youth to maintain this identity. It would be interesting to know how children from the Asian diaspora are faring. These children are from immigrant families, many being first or second generation refugees, and their response to trauma and their resilience is not understood. Fernando’s (2006) doctoral thesis that found that Buddhist and Christian faith were critical factors in promoting resilience in war orphans in Sri Lanka. Are Australian Buddhist children showing resilience because of these orientations? Or, like some in this book, have they assimilated, not wanting to draw attention to their difference? Has the resilience shown in the children’s narratives in further chapters continued with them past their years in Buddhist R.I.? With youth resilience now an imperative – a societal responsibility as well as in education – there is a real possibility to integrate inclusive and proactive strategies known to Buddhist peoples (and elaborated further on) around a common theme of improving young people’s wellbeing.

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CHAPTER 2

SEEKING BUDDHIST EDUCATION

Global Positions

The ‘core business’ of Buddhism is education, and increasingly Buddhists are articulating their spirituality in terms of education. Centres, institutes, temples, pagodas, gompas, wats and viharas are all places for teaching and learning. Superficially perhaps they appear to be places of ritual, worship and veneration, but these serve deeper curricula aimed to develop wisdom, compassion, awareness and responsibility. Buddhist institutions provide courses in skilful living, life-long learning in student-paced programs – that is a path to awaken minds from ignorance. The Dharma is pedagogy of personal development. The majority of these communities maintain active commitments that support education of monastics. The preservation of lineages is integral to continuation of the Dharma as a living, experiential tradition. While different practices and texts may be less or more suited to different places in history and people’s dispositions – such as the popularity of mindfulness practices today – there is an imperative to preserve the canon for future generations. Monasteries are entrusted with this responsibility, and monastics who have ideally renounced worldly distractions and cultivate wisdom and compassion for the service of others, preserve the living lineages. However, traditional structures have changed dramatically and are continuing to do so. Changes to the education of lay children, that has traditionally been a family and community concern, have also occurred.

The impetus to teach children to be aware of what they think, say and do and act with kindness has been an assumed and informal component of Buddhist parenting and teaching….[C]hildren absorbed Buddhist teachings by learning from their parents’ modelling, by developing relationships with village temple monastics, and through moral lessons in scriptures and stories. (Loundon, Kim, & Liow, 2006, p. 338)

In Asian countries these norms are eroding and in western countries, such as Australia, these traditions if existent are definitely more tentative and children’s education in Dharma is more fragile. Although Buddhism favours adherents’ making mature and conscious decisions to practise the path, and eschews a kind of religious imperialism over youth, it needs to be remembered that education of children in Dharma was never absent in established Buddhist cultures. Now, with new socio-cultural positions in both the east and the west, it can only become an increasing concern for Buddhist communities to look anew at their responsibilities to their children’s education and towards their intergenerational legacies.

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Given an estimated world Buddhist population of between 200-500 million people, some 6% of the population and the fourth largest religion in the world, there are not many Buddhist schools worldwide. This seems odd when compared to the commitments from other religions.

Strangely enough, however, when we try to review Buddhism, we come to know that it has developed few distinctive ideas about the nature of childhood and child spirituality. Education has rather been a matter of everyday living to be dealt with in a practical way. (Nakagawa, 2006, p. 33)

Otherwise, the historical institutional monastic model has prevailed. Dreyfus’ (2003) gives a detailed account of Tibetan monastic education, the rigorous educational commitment to scholarship, debate, intellectual rigour and open-mindedness. These are also characteristic of other Buddhist monastic traditions, but in the Tibetan tradition especially, scholarship is progressive, follows a set curriculum and can culminate in a geshe degree, equivalent to a Doctor of Philosophy, or higher, Lharumpa Geshe. Members of this program attempted to exercise this type of scholarship because open-mindedness, debate and critical and reflective thinking are central to Buddhist pedagogy, and contemporary education. However, it appears that the most prevalent form of Buddhist education for children today in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Korea is a Christian Sunday school model (Loundon et al., 2006). The intentions of these Sunday Schools wholeheartedly embrace the Dharma, as described in the quote from a children’s workbook in Sri Lanka:

The primary goal of Sunday schools is to educate children to be better and happier human beings by developing, in an integrated way, their perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and intuitive capacities so that they may reach their ultimate human potential. (Loundon et al., 2006, p. 341)

In overview, these authors recognise that the programs promote mental training, mindfulness, perception, concentration and memory and the ethical values of kindness, honesty and non-violence because they lead to greater happiness, and ‘the way life is’ (Loundon et al., 2006, p. 350) – pursued also in the Buddhist Education in Victorian Schools Program. However, the authors caution, that there is often a tendency towards didactic methodologies. These are a less comfortable fit in a contemporary Australian context, although they may be familiar to Asian students. These programs also operate within primarily homogeneous cultures where learning the prayers, rituals and practices of that culture help children to understand and participate in the cultural and spiritual life of their communities, and so in these contexts they can be relevant and inclusive exercises. Buddhism worldwide is a loose but deeply connected fabric of peoples. No peak authority or spokespersons exist, and for many Buddhists there is appeal in that. There are international bodies such as the World Buddhist Sangha Council, The International Buddhism Sangha Association and the World Fellowship of Buddhists who are forming relationships and strategies to address what has only recently become a global identity. Their concerns parallel those in this education


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program: how to keep authenticity of the traditions and respond to contemporary societies and expectations that come with these. At the level of the ordained monks and nuns the full ordination of women is being challenged and debated. When young people are considered, adherence to a tradition stands to make the Dharma less relevant to young people who are growing up in a country such as Australia that has had equal opportunity legislation in place for their entire lives. In countries that do have Buddhist schools, such as Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and Sri Lanka we in the BCV program were unable to get an accurate sense of how the Dharma was being taught to children in these sister countries and communities. The teaching materials that we received from some did not appear to pursue inquiry-based experiential approaches to learning that is favoured in the Australian system, and that perhaps better reflect the intention of the teachings. With the spread of Buddhism throughout the western world, particularly from the latter half of the twentieth century onwards, and much of this population ageing, there is a growing impetus for western Buddhists to engage with education if Buddhism is to continue to flourish beyond the present generation. There is also tremendous scope for dialogues between Buddhist educators world-wide to draw together established and localised approaches and contemporary best practices to further develop Buddha-Dharma articulated in pedagogy. This will open potential to speak to future generations, remain relevant to people’s lives, and provide a comprehensive guide that is not diluted through popularised borrowings. In the English speaking world specifically Buddhist schools are fewer. The longest running is the Hongwanji Mission School (established 1949) in Hawaii which grew from Japanese expatriate roots and burgeoned to a secondary campus, the Pacific Buddhist Academy, with support from the western Buddhist population. The Purple Lotus Buddhist School in California operates with a traditional Chinese ethos, with separate classes for girls and boys, and a strong code of moral purity. In the U.K., there is a Dharma School in Brighton, with declared Buddhist affiliation, and the Daylesford Dharma School in Australia. Another in Australia, the Siddhartha School, has struggled for years to become established, and the school in Daylesford requires continual resolute effort from the small community to survive and grow. The Daylesford School is committed to the ethos and implementation of the Australian curriculum, with added emphasis on meditation, development of wisdom, kindness and connectedness (that includes the environment). A more significant presence worldwide is in Higher Education. Buddhist universities, such as the International Buddhist University in Osaka, the Dharma Realm University in Taiwan, Nalanda University in the U.S.A., the Buddhist University in Myanmar, and many more departments of Buddhist studies, are building capacity to provide leadership and research links with educators of school-aged children. There are also non-denominational schools founded on Buddhist principles, such as the Shambala School in Nova Scotia, Tara Redwood School in California, and in India the Maitreya School and the Alice Project Schools. These schools are characterised by a holistic education philosophy and pedagogy that is distinguished by an emphasis upon meditation and development of a ‘good heart.’ These schools

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reflect a movement to interpret the Dharma as a non-religious, but spiritual, educational paradigm. Tara Redwood School articulates the following goals: to foster the qualities of loving kindness, compassion, and universal responsibility; to cultivate respectful behaviour toward all living beings; to present a balanced integrated program of learning activities and experiences that addresses the physical, social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual domains of the person; to transmit the universal elements of wisdom from different cultures and traditions through an understanding of both the material (external) and spiritual (internal) aspects of reality; and to develop ethical behaviour based on an understanding of the interrelatedness of all phenomena. This latter point is expanded to include understanding of the nature and functioning of the mind and its projections and the nature and source of emotions and how to work with them (http://www.tararedwoodschool.org/). Pam Cayton, the school’s developer now runs an international consultancy, Building Compassionate Cultures. The goals of the Indian Essential Education schools are very similar, and there is a readily identifiable confluence of aims and methods with these other Dharma-inspired programs. The interface between the Buddha-Dharma and education is a field that is still at a stage of defining itself. These schools bear similarities with each other and those in Australia, yet with Buddhist communities operating independently and in relative isolation from each other they will continue to struggle to maintain their operations. Their longevity will depend on broader Buddhist community support and/or greater ability to have their Dharma approaches to education reaching wider public acceptance. Buddhist voices too are seldom heard in forums where Buddhist educators hold perspectives, such as in values, ethics, character development, religion, spirituality, resilience and wellbeing discourses. A recently formed (2010) organisation, Religions, Ethics and Education Network Australia (REENA) has brought together religious leaders, academics and community stakeholders. It has made progress in bridging religious-ethics divides in education and presenting measured advice and commentary to these discussions, while promoting an equity and inclusive agenda. Nevertheless, Buddhism is being interpreted, taught and opinions about it are being shaped regardless of the presence of authentic voices. In an exploration of the place of spirituality in American public education, any practical input from Buddhism can be dismissed, such as by Yob who reduced the Dharma to mysticism, asceticism and “where the ultimate is conceived as nothingness in Buddhist thought” (Yob, 1994, pp. 3-4). Hence deftly relegated to being whacky, although perhaps harmless enough, and irrelevant. In Australia, these sorts of perceptions are at risk of being promulgated in classrooms. Barbara Kameniar’s (2005) study of how Buddhism was taught in four Year 11 Studies of Religion classes in South Australia illustrated how teachers of good will, but tacitly in positions where they were required to either defend their (denominational) school’s ethos or who lacked grounding to understand the ontology, again, and even inadvertently, delivered a message to students that


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Buddhism was nice and peaceful, but anathema to a reasoned and responsible existence. These snapshots are not, however, the whole picture. In every state of Australia schools, mostly religious, are requesting Buddhist speakers for religion and wellbeing classes. Allys Andrews has delivered talks in schools for more than twenty years. She talks about the clothes, the hair (lack of), sometimes icons and artefacts, and history. There are questions from the students and a reflective component where students review elements of her talks in relation to their own lives. Learning goes beyond knowing about Buddhism to a critical engagement by students whereby they can better appreciate why the path could be meaningful to so many people. These are astute moves by schools to recruit local expertise, and although optional and ad hoc, help to mitigate potential violence to the ‘other’ in Derrida’s sense that Kameniar suggested. Buddhism has a place in the Australian and state curricula and it is shocking to all parties, particularly students, if this component of their education might be misinformed, or worse still, feed prejudice or derision. It is potentially equally as shocking to opt to deny students opportunities to understand these potent influences in our society. There is much work to be done both with and across communities, such as Buddhists, and with religion and ethics educators if these issues are to be addressed in ways that promote respect and equity in young people. The current models fall short by not including perspectives that are representative of Australia’s population and, largely, to provide teachers who are qualified to handle this diversity. Calls for a more inclusive model of religion/ religious education in Australian public schools have been steady in the last decade (Cahill et al., 2004; Bouma et al., 2007; Byrne, 2009; Bouma & Halafoff, 2009). Lovat et al. (2010) make a case for constructively addressing religious difference in the curriculum and for the benefits to student and teacher wellbeing that can ensue. For Buddhists who seek these benefits in schools and who are recipients of some of the current deficiencies, this would be welcome.

On the margins

As we have seen already, the Buddhist population in Australia is disparate and diverse. Formation of a collective, and public, Buddhist identity that brings together these people for voice and action in the public sphere is a careful exercise in community capacity building. The Buddhist Education in Victorian Schools Program (BEVSP) that operates as an initiative of the Buddhist Council of Victoria (BCV) – the umbrella organisation for the majority of bona fide Buddhist organisations in the state of Victoria – is an outcome of these movements. The BCV was formed in 1995 to bring together the three major Buddhist traditions, Theravada, Mahayana, and its subset Vajrayana, in collaborative dialogue and projects and to be a body to represent Buddhist interests publicly. Annual membership continues to fluctuate at or around forty organisations. The education program drew from these groups that included Australian, British, Burmese,

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Cambodian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Malaysian, Singaporean, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese and other expatriate individuals. While some organisations and temples run children’s classes and associated language schools, these function within the cultural, linguistic and Buddhist traditions of the particular temple. These provide children with experience of culture, language and spiritual expression not found in their schools or other social groups. This absence prompted parents to request that Buddhist religious instruction programs be offered in state primary schools. Some parents had noticed that their children were being marginalised (and feeling marginalised) by the predominately Christian programs on offer, and a largely Eurocentric curriculum. Their Asian identities were outside the mainstream and their perceived difference was felt keenly by these children. The opportunity to respond to parental requests and to offer Buddhist classes coincided with other members of the BCV being both deeply alarmed at the growing rate of youth depression, suicide and aberrant behaviours in society, and aware of borrowings from Buddhism (such as mindfulness practices) becoming accepted wellbeing strategies among health professionals and mainstream society. Members could foresee applications of Dharma, especially meditation, in schools as means to affect student wellbeing, but negotiations to maintain Buddhist integrity and engage students took time. These members began two years of extensive consultations with ordained and lay representatives from all of the fourteen cultural and linguistic groups and three major traditions. This was an important step: to involve the community and frame a curriculum that included each Buddhist tradition, as something potentially more than mindfulness exercises, and yet was considered appropriate for primary school students. ‘Interconnection,’ ‘individual empowerment’ and ‘reflection’ are education principles that are currently informing curricula in Australia, but Dharma understanding takes these principles much deeper, and with more precision than is expressed in current pedagogies and in so doing elevates the ethical imperatives. These are where the Buddhist Education in Victorian Schools Program sought to bring inner, ethical and spiritual dimensions to these principles. These were important steps within the Buddhist community to come together with a shared project and find consensus amid its diversities. Each party had to move beyond the texts, rituals and languages of their particular practices to reconsider the intentions within these to articulate their common ground for the Dharma, which is simultaneously coherent and mutable. The seemingly straightforward curriculum that emerged – the life story of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths, Jataka tales and meditation – belied the complexity of these initial consultations. The process of implementation and refinement of the ‘What,’ ‘How’ and Why’ of the curriculum is told in the following chapters. Each tradition of Buddhism has developed its own histories, emphases and authenticity, and in a program such as this it was the first time that many of the members had the opportunity to learn about – and accommodate – traditions other than their own. The place of the Theravada alongside other and later traditions was an immediate challenge to the collective ownership of the program. As the oldest


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school of Buddhism, the Theravada holds significant doctrinal authority for all subsequent permutations and interpretations in other traditions and the many cultures stem from this canonical reference point. However, the development of Buddhism over the two and a half millennia in many societies (predominantly through Asia and the Indian sub-continent) has borne scholarly clarifications and new texts. Various practices have been added and endemic rites have been absorbed into some rituals, but authentic lineages have nevertheless continued. These trends are characteristic of Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. Hence Buddhist practices are apparent in many different forms. The tenor of the Mahayana is articulated in more humanist terms than, superficially at least, in the Theravada. To absorb the different traditions in a single program, the Buddhist metaethics – wisdom and compassion – guided the program’s development, teaching and learning rather than adherence to traditional or religious observances.

Developing an inclusive curriculum

Formal Buddhist practice invariably involves venerations such as prostration and making offerings to images of the Buddha, the ordained monks and nuns and esteemed Dharma teachers. Buddhist texts are treated with the utmost respect and not placed where they might be soiled or trampled, because these texts and images, like the people are the means through which the Dharma is taught, and thereby the means through which practitioners learn to realise their potential. These practices are undertaken for the practitioners’ mental development and not for the benefit of Buddha, image, teacher or text. If a formal and more religious style approach were to be adopted and practised sincerely or authentically, it would require a sophistication of understanding that could not be assumed from even Buddhist children who would join the classes. The members considered that they could not legitimately request children in school settings to make prayers and offerings if they did not first understand their purpose. It could not be assumed that children enrolling in the classes would be from only one Buddhist culture or tradition, or that they would be from Buddhist families. A Mission Statement (as seen in the excerpt below) was drawn up to honour the intentions of the Dharma and be aligned with state education policies and practices (points 1 and 2), would present the Dharma in a non-sectarian way (point 3) and would utilise contemporary teaching methods with which the children would be familiar (point 4):

1. Buddhist Education classes aim to contribute to the spiritual development of every child who attends the classes, while respecting and complementing the on-going education program provided by schools.

2. The emphasis of Buddhist education classes is on tolerance, co-operation and non-violence, aiming to develop within the students the knowledge, skills and values required to be part of a harmonious and peaceful community.

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3. Everything taught in Buddhist education classes is based on the teachings of the Buddha, without adhering to any one particular tradition or cultural practice.

4. In keeping with contemporary educational approaches, lessons would be built around co-operative and active learning, respecting and drawing on the children’s own experiences.

(Excerpt from the Mission Statement for the Buddhist Education in Victorian Schools Program)

The Mission Statement also articulated a broader aim:

In offering these classes, the Buddhist community seeks to make a contribution to the moral and spiritual education in the Australian community.

These were the first articulations of a contemporary educational approach that best suited both the intention of the Dharma and the aptitudes and needs of the potential students in Australia. This ethos continues to be pursued by Buddhist communities. In a 2011 submission to a federal government Inquiry into Multiculturalism, the Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils (FABC) wrote:

Australian children should grow up freely among young Australians of all religions in our schools. Our children should be educated in the cultures and beliefs of others and be taught to question and think for themselves.

This strengthening position is useful for without having a formal co-ordinated education body to advocate, unlike Christians, Jews and Muslims, Buddhists’ participation in inter-religious and ethical forums is invariably ad hoc and individualised. The Special Religious Education/Instruction programs adjacent to state systems therefore hold an important function for Buddhist people to create and deliver education programs alongside broader curricula, and build capacity for more formal engagement with education dialogues in the future, if impetus from within the communities is sustained. Concurrent with the implementation of the program described here, the Victorian State Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) had undertaken an overhaul of the Prep to Year 10 educational framework. Within the new framework, the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS), there remained no overt interface with religious programs or practitioners. Provision was made for ‘general religious education’ that could be incorporated into domains such as the Arts or English to educate about “the major forms of religious thought and expression characteristic of Australian society and other societies in the world (Education and Training Reform Act 2006, 2.2.10.4). This type of learning remained optional for teachers.

Provision for ‘special religious instruction’ was maintained, being “instruction provided by churches and other religious groups and based on


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distinctive religious tenets and beliefs. (Education and Training Reform Act 2006, 2.2.11.5)

In that religious teachers are volunteers who are

Accredited representatives of churches or other religious groups and who are approved by the Minister for the purpose” (Education and Training Reform Act 2006, 2.2.11.2a)

and are not required to be professional teachers, their role as instructors can be justified. However, the term ‘special religious instruction’ seems to hearken back to the 1958 Education Act and reads awkwardly in a twenty-first century educational context. Distance is maintained between these programs and legitimate education and kept distinctly on the margin. Having maintained the status quo as established in the 1958 Education Act in the revised legislation, the Department resisted pressures for the abolition of religious instruction and thereby avoided the possibility of religious and community backlash. The door remained open for inter-religious understanding in ‘general religious education,’ albeit without any explicit place in curricula, while the departmental statutes and structures maintained distance between religious groups and a role, or expectation to participate, in educational processes. The Australian chapter of World Conference for Religions for Peace (now Religions for Peace), is the body that mediates teacher accreditation from the ‘minority religions’ between the Department and government Minister. The ecumenical Christian education group ACCESS Ministries, the Catholic Education Office and the United Jewish Education Board, negotiate directly.

Religion in public discourse

At a policy level this is all understood and explicit in the overarching federal policy guiding education is the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA 2008). Despite unresolved tensions between the role and character of state-funded education, religions, ethics and, less clear still, spirituality, are considered to be integral learning for Australian students. Educators are directed to develop informed and ethical citizens through Intercultural Understanding; ability to communicate across and with appreciation for Australia’s social, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. Schools are also formally directed to develop named ‘Personal and social capability.’

The Melbourne Declaration on Education Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA 2008) recognises that ethical behaviour assists students to become ‘confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens.’ It does this through fostering the development of ‘personal values and attributes such as honesty, resilience, empathy and respect for others,’ and the capacity to act with ethical integrity. (MCEETYA, pp. 8-9)

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These mandates inform the emerging national curriculum and as policy moves to an operational level via the curriculum, religion, ethics and values are interspersed across History, Civics and Citizenship, and ethical thinking into the cross-curricular General Capabilities. With none of these holding distinct places in the curriculum, there is potential danger for them to be lost or given cursory attention in the ways similar to ‘general religion.’ Thinking processes in the new curriculum are potentially more limited than those described in Victoria where metacognitive thinking was included. That ability to think about thinking, understand thought processes and consider present, past and future is, in its most rudimentary form, time management exercises such as delivering on homework, but, as is shown through the children described in this book, metacognitive abilities are developed by practising meditation and employed to develop resilience, empathy and self-control. Australia is now in the ‘Asian Century’ with Asian studies a cross-curriculum priority in the Australian Curriculum. Two-way dialogues are developing, and here too, regarding content and ways of thinking, Buddhist voices have potential to play key roles in developing these understandings. Knowing about religions cannot provide a sufficient platform to negotiate multiple perspectives with the empathy and respect required for equitable participation and just decision making. These ends require pedagogic attention to cognitive and affective thinking processes, and learning from Asian cultures and traditions. Meditations and children’s experiences of meditation described in forthcoming chapters are examples of two-way dialogues and show how this spiritual tradition can be applied in ways that both keeps the integrity of the tradition and offer another set of possibilities in the pursuit of the goals for Australian schools. It is applying thinking processes developed and practised throughout Asia for more than two and a half millennia in ways that can potentially enrich the realisation of goals set for Australian schooling. In the parent and community consultation process prior to the 2006 Act teaching of religion was the second highest issue raised, so there was little public discussion and R.I. remained. Public support for general religion and values education has not diminished. However, debates surrounding the place of religion and ethics in education with the concomitant tensions between inclusion and privilege have continued to simmer (and boil) alongside movement towards the first Australia-wide curriculum, federal funding of chaplains in government schools, and the privileging of Christian R.I. through state funding and its historical entrenchment in schools. The ethical and equitable dimensions to these debates are deserving of continued broad and nuanced attention from across Australian society and all sectors of the education system. In this book I attempt to explain how the Buddha-Dharma can hold a particular and legitimate place in both religion and human sciences. Not only might it serve to understand Buddhist peoples better on their own terms, but also hearing Buddhist voices may help bridge current polarities between ethical and religious perspectives with a view to improve educational practices and student learning.


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In order to understand contemporary Australian society and to function in a globalised world young people need to know about religions and be equipped to respond critically, empathetically and ethically to religious diversity. Already students see and mix with people from many religious backgrounds in their daily lives and they are naturally curious to understand differences that they perceive. Extremist acts such as terrorism, wars, human rights abuses, and civil unrest in Australian society are often being explained and justified in terms of religion. Religious groups are also invariably some of the most visible bodies to provide aid and advocacy for disadvantaged people locally and internationally. The messages children receive about religion are incredibly varied and potentially confusing. Children in the twenty-first century will be required to be peace-makers, to defend liberty and a fair go, and be equipped to contribute to a plural civil society. They may well also be asked to go to war or endorse war. Religion will certainly be part of the justifying narratives that must be negotiated. Teaching various religious perspectives as optional general knowledge is increasingly hard to justify. The discussions throughout this book are based on a Religious Instruction program, and like programs offered by other communities, is not required to meet the standards and transparency required from the teaching profession. The discussion though is along educational lines because this route most accurately reflects the intentions of this community, rather than a religious one to induct children into the faith. These Buddhist classes provide content and ways of learning that are mostly omitted from programs despite potential spaces in the mainstream curricula, and for children from many Asian countries the classes are places to affirm a shared identity in their common spirituality. Also, the teachers here and others of the ‘minority faith’ religions, provide lived experience of their traditions, and authentic voices in fields that are often misunderstood and misrepresented, and where few teachers are trained or equipped to teach. As we have seen, religion and ethics have a legitimate, yet still underdeveloped, place in Australian schooling. Gaps exist in current teacher education, teachers’ professional development and the curriculum. Currently, volunteer R.I. teachers from the ‘minority faiths’ such as Buddhists partly fill a need. If religion and ethics are to be developed more vigorously in Australian schooling, teachers will need to be equipped with authentic materials and appropriate teaching strategies. To these ends many voices, including Buddhists, deserve to be heard.

Mindfulness in the Human sciences

From breakthrough research into the treatment of anxiety disorders through mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), the research team leader Jon Kabat-Zinn (1992) has continued to promote the wide applicability and effectiveness of this meditative technique (Kabat-Zinn, 1996, 2005, 2007). As a technique that was introduced in psychology, MBSR has been applied and researched in many clinical settings. In a comprehensive review of research using MBSR (Ivanovski & Malhi, 2007) the authors concluded that preliminary findings from mindfulness-based

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treatment outcome studies indicated effectiveness in the treatment of depression, anxiety, psychosis, and borderline personality disorder and suicidal/self-harm behaviour. A study with aggressive conduct disorder adolescents (Singh et al., 2007) also found MBSR to be an effective intervention. Perhaps it is not so widely known outside Buddhist circles, but all practising Buddhists practise mindfulness. Irrespective of prayers, rituals and celebrations, it comes down to mindfulness of body (words and actions), mindfulness of feelings and emotions, mindfulness of mind and mindfulness of objects of mind. Mindfulness exercises are directly borrowed from annapanasati, shamatha and vipassana meditations in the Dharma. Teachers from various traditions were publishing works on mindfulness before Kabat-Zinn, for example Thich Nhat Hanh, (1987, 1990) and Buddhadasa Bhikku (1988). These techniques have found an accepted place, freed of religious connotations, in psychology and general well-being strategies. Further interest, legitimacy and a shift in knowledge paradigms in the western world have been promoted through works by B. Allan Wallace on mindfulness meditation (2006) and the science of the mind (Wallace & Hodel, 2008). Wallace’s scholarship has challenged the cogency of objective and scientific methodologies as arbiters of valid social inquiry to argue the legitimate place of first-person, subjective and spiritual experiences (Wallace, 2000, 2003) and heralded a paradigm shift that has paved the way for humanist and scientific modalities to inform and support each other. This dialogic approach has supported significant breakthroughs in brain research that have added weight to the efficacy of meditative practices from charting neural changes and capacities through meditation (Carter et al., 2005; Davidson, 2002, 2004; Davidson et al., 2003; Lutz, Greischar, Rawlings, Ricard, & Davidson, 2004). Although these types of research have not to date been extended to children, these findings have given educators further confidence to adapt meditations and mindfulness practices for young people. Mindfulness/meditative/contemplative and reflective exercises – the lexicon itself is emerging – are increasingly becoming part of the orthodoxy of mainstream public schooling in the U.K. and in America where Buddhists and people from other spiritual traditions are adapting and incorporating contemplative techniques into their curricula. Some programs that are inspired by the Dharma that operate in American public schools are at the New School in Seattle that promotes mindfulness through scheduled periods of silence as part of the school day, the Children’s Compassion Mind-Training Program that incorporates the study of compassionate and ethical behaviour through self-assessment of daily thought, speech and action, and a discrete ‘Boyz 2 Buddhas’ program for adolescent males that teaches mindfulness to modulate reactive behaviours. ‘A Survey of Programs Using Contemplative Techniques in K-12 Educational Settings: A Mapping Report’ (2005) from the Garrison Institute has made a significant contribution towards finding mutually understood definitions and has paved the way for an emergent pedagogy. The study, which mapped pluralist applications of contemplative practices in schools, defined two closely related, but separate methodological domains:


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– programs that prioritised Mindfulness and Attention Training, and – programs that prioritised Emotional Balance and Wellbeing. The education program described here utilises both of these priorities in the meditative exercises taught to children and in the commitment to pedagogy characterised by emotional balance and wellbeing. From a Buddhist point of view both of these approaches are to be practised, neither simply one nor the other, and these priorities are further served by facilitating links to ethical behaviour from the meditative experiences. In the USA research into the effects of contemplative practices has attracted philanthropic support. Academic institutes have been expressly formed to engage in multi-disciplinary dialogues and to create research projects into mindful and emotional wellbeing strategies that are appropriate for children. Some projects that have close connection to the Dharma and that will bear research results over the next few years will come from the InnerKids Foundation that utilises a number of elements similar to those in MBSR and has drawn upon Dharma wisdom to develop a teaching and learning program based on the development of attention, balance, and compassion, ‘the new ABCs.’ Also the Association for Mindfulness in Education, the Hawn Foundation, Mindful Awareness Research Centre (MARC), and Mindsight Institute are engaging in research into the effects of contemplation with children.

Shifting to secular

Rather than a Buddhist education per se, the emerging global trend is to apply Dharma principles and practices in ways distinct from Buddhist devotional types of religious practice, or more significantly, a label of ‘Buddhist.’ This reflects movement within Buddhist communities to reach out to the wider community and make available perspectives that could potentially ease suffering and promote greater happiness. Ikeda was an early proponent of a socially engaged Buddhism that could provide much moral guidance and strategies for personal development beyond formal Buddhist practise (Joffee, 2006). The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hahn has also become a global advocate who as a younger man, foresaw:

The education that is needed for the present time is one that can wish away from the innocent minds of the young generation all the dogmatic knowledge that has been forced upon them with the pursuit of turning them into mere tools of various ideologies and parties. Such a system of education will not only liberate us from the prison of dogma but will also teach us understanding, love and trust. These qualities … are the prescription needed for the revival of our society that has been paralysed by suspicion, intrigue, hatred and frustration. (Hanh, 1967, p. 57)

This Venerable has taken a much less strident tone as he has matured, although his vision and commitment to teaching children has been maintained through prioritised children’s programs in his organisation’s activities and writing books

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that provide practical and insightful material for children, such as A pebble for your pocket (2001) and Under the rose apple tree (2002) and Planting seeds: practical mindfulness with children (2011). The world’s most famous Buddhist monk, spiritual head of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism and Nobel Laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has shown world leadership by efforts to broaden access to his perspectives and practices to promote peace, happiness and understanding among individuals, religious and non-religious alike. His distancing of the Dharma from purely religious discourse is evidenced in numerous books with popular appeal: The Art of Happiness (1998), Ethics for the New Millennium (Dalai Lama, 1999), Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (20011), additions to the ubiquitous ‘little books’ and the (authorised) bumper sticker, ‘My only religion is kindness.’ Amongst western Dharma students, there has been a widely circulated article in the international journal Shambala Sun. Here Sam Harris argues that Buddhism’s philosophy, insight, and practices would benefit more people if they were not presented as a religion. In a quite visceral essay he challenges his audience by quoting from a Zen koan, ‘Kill the Buddha’:

The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism. Even in the West, where scientists and Buddhist contemplatives now collaborate in studying the effects of meditation on the brain, Buddhism remains an utterly parochial concern. While it may be true enough to say (as many Buddhist practitioners allege) that “Buddhism is not a religion,” most Buddhists worldwide practice it as such, in many of the naive, petitionary, and superstitious ways in which all religions are practiced. Needless to say, all non-Buddhists believe Buddhism to be a religion – and, what is more, they are quite certain that it is the wrong religion.

To talk about “Buddhism,” therefore, inevitably imparts a false sense of the Buddha’s teaching to others. So insofar as we maintain a discourse as “Buddhists,” we ensure that the wisdom of the Buddha will do little to inform the development of civilization in the twenty-first century.

Worse still, the continued identification of Buddhists with Buddhism lends tacit support to the religious differences in our world. At this point in history, this is both morally and intellectually indefensible – especially among affluent, well-educated Westerners who bear the greatest responsibility for the spread of ideas. (Harris, 2006, pp. 73-74)

Not surprisingly Harris excited much debate. He contended that Buddhism is not strictly a religion, but nevertheless cast as one and that itself perpetuates ‘bad practice’ if treated as one. His polemic challenges a community of people committed to the ethic of non-harm to critically discern any tacit support of violence or cruelty. In Chapter 4 discussions such as these are shown to be not uncommon amid Dharma people. These illustrate humanist aspirations and hermeneutic discussions that are typical in the Buddhist tradition.


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One of my first Buddhist teachers, Lama Thubten Yeshe, another of the Tibetan refugee teachers who has been instrumental in bringing understanding of the Dharma to the western world, before his passing in 1984 issued a challenge to his students to contribute to secular education. He envisioned a ‘universal education’ that was practical and that could be applied in any culture but drew upon Dharma wisdom. The Maitreya School, Alice Project and Tara Redwood Schools and the Foundation for Wisdom and Compassion have developed out of Lama Yeshe’s petition. This Foundation is currently developing a knowledge base and teacher training and curriculum resources. These resources may well provide a much needed resource to bridge religion/ ethics binaries and promote the critical analysis and wellbeing agendas in education. At the very least they pose to make Buddhist approaches to education more visibly understood. In one communication Lama Yeshe elaborated:

In Buddhism we have very deep scientific, psychological and philosophical explanations and I am never doubtful that all people need these. But the point is if it is not presented in the right language it doesn’t work. By presenting it in the right way one can understand the essence of all the ancient religions without belonging to any religion. (LamaYeshe, Santa Cruz, June 1983)

This challenge led his students on a journey of discernment for nearly thirty years, therein asking questions: “Is it Buddhism by stealth?” “What is the extent of the Dharma as the basis for such a vision?” Tenets of the Dharma – interdependence, cause and effect relationships, the subjective nature of perceptions, and the ever changing nature of all phenomena – are where Buddhism and the human sciences meet. Simultaneously they are both mundane and profound: put simply for a novice or a child, and providing routes of analysis to guide ethical living and ‘awakening’ from ignorance. These principles are the foundation from which Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, based all of his teaching and these are embedded in the primary school program described in later chapters. As a student of these Tibetan teachers, and given these various global adaptations of the Dharma, I have wondered at times if Buddhist education is perhaps redundant albeit before it has substantially begun. However, if these trends are to transpire they must find a natural fit within this Australian context. For more than 20 years, Australians have been the beneficiaries of equity and multicultural policies. In Victoria where this study is situated, the 2011 Census recorded 26.2% of Victorians born overseas in more than 200 countries, and 4% of the total population as Buddhists. I have lived and worked in schools and communities during this period and cultural inclusion and equity have been at the heart of my own professional life, and where ethnic and cultural diversity is explored and celebrated. Yet in this backdrop of fervent debates regarding the place of religion and ethics in schools and now with a mandate to engage with Asia, intercultural understanding will be limited by not hearing Buddhist voices. This is also a time when borrowings from Buddhism are becoming mainstream, yet exclude the

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experience and scholarship from amongst Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Tibetan, Mongolian, Sri Lankan and other Buddhist peoples, which not only stands to marginalise them from potential contributions, but also to limit the knowledge base and potential development of these fields.

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