Acknowledgements
Before beginning, The Thinkers And Writers For World Peace Organization would like to thank you and “Ahnumotanaboon” (share our merits) with every one of you who gave us support for this project, and assisted in planning, organizing and producing this work on how to build up Dhamma for people at all times.
This cohesive planning that guided us to make the unified effort to spread the Lord Buddha’s Dhamma helped to catapult our organization since 2001 to the motivated group it is today, where our combined efforts assist us in illuminating others with the teachings of Phrabhavanaviriyakhun (Phra Phadet Dattajeevo). The knowledge from his enlightened teachings has been gathered from many sources and assembled together to generate these concise Dhamma teachings for all people to study and incorporate into their lives so that they may live more happily. These Dhamma teachings apply to all family members whether they are fathers, mothers or children. Because the problems that teenagers now face are so serious and widespread it is of the utmost importance for all of us to get together and become involved to help solve them as promptly as we can.
The critical dilemmas of teenagers can be resolved presently with the earnest efforts of all who are involved with them such as members of their families, their temples and their schools. Not only are the teachers of their schools educators but everyone involved with the children are also their instructors. It is imperative that their parents are considerably knowledgeable with regards to how to raise the children to become fine upstanding persons. They must obtain this knowledge from the foundational teachings of the Lord Buddha.
There is one example of such a person, who is Mr. Ta worn Chaijak. He is the Director of the middle school at the Mattayomtanbinkamphangsaen School, Nakompatom Province. He created the program entitled, “Our Warm Family Community Will Be Strong,” where parents and children alike were given the assignment to read the book, “How To Raise The Children To Be Good People For The Nation.” After that he invited all parents to attend a workshop centering on how to raise their children to be good persons. The school then instituted yearly workshops for every parent. It has been guaranteed that after 3 years of these reading assignments and workshops, the findings have concluded that most problems that were present in the children before the workshop was founded have been eradicated. For an example, in the past, many 8th graders consistently cut classes. Since the program began, no cutting has been reported and the class attendance has been 100%.
These lessons have aided the teachers as to how to motivate the students, and have assisted the parents in discovering how to raise the children in the precise manner. These teachings have reached into the very hearts of the parents to instruct their children in what is correct and necessary.
In mid April 2005, Ajahn Taworn Chaijak became authorized to attend meetings between Thailand and Australia on the subject of “The Role Of Religion In Times Of Peace And Conflict.” By the combined efforts of The Science and Culture of UNESCO and International Outlook, they encompassed a direct aim to fervently prevent innocent people from becoming the targets of conflicts. If we want universal peace, it must stem from individual inner peace first. Ajahn Taworn Chaijak initiated the subject by presenting the progressive Dhamma teachings from the text, “Man’s Personal Transformation” to high school students and teachers. Representatives from all the varied religions of many countries were present. In addition to that, he presented the teachings from his “Our Warm Family Community Will Be Strong” program in folders, since the work had not been book bound yet.
All attendees at the meeting were very pleased that the school incorporated the Dhamma teachings into their curriculum to train and develop students, teachers and parents successfully.
From that paradigm, we obtained the doctrines to print in the book, “How To Raise The Children To Be Good People For The Nation,” so that the societies of the world would know the value of the Dhamma teachings expressed by the Lord Buddha. This way we may learn how to correct the problems of teenagers based on the Dhamma approach. This is necessary because every nation of every language and culture is facing the dilemmas of teenagers universally.
This book will display the teamwork of all who supported each other and worked together to be a part of the process of creating and sustaining world peace.
October, 2005
Preface
Each day The Writers and Thinkers for World Peace Association are able to relate to you that it doesn’t matter what newspaper we pick up or what country’s situation we analyze when reading, we will discover that every country is facing the two biggest problems that are shaking most of our population. They are the increasing troubles between teenagers and families, and the businesses that are leading us down the evil paths of sordid pleasure. All countries are facing these problems continually. When these situations occur in every country in this manner, if we don’t urgently rectify them, new problems of global proportions will be evident in the immediate future. We now see that the problems with teenagers stem back to the failure of each culture to be an exemplar of basic goodness. With that said, what would happen to our future on a global level?
Therefore the critical subject of discourse among each country’s population at this time should be “The Way To Raise The Children To Be Good People” before it is too late for all.
Our co-workers, along with our volunteer staff gathered pertinent information from the sources of the Vice Abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Phrabhavanaviriyakhun (Phra Phadet Dattajeevo ), where we studied and researched over 500 pages and spent more than 2 months assembling the text in an easy to read and easy to understand version. Many volunteers assisted with the translation into English and the designing of the book cover until we were finally able to successfully print this book. Today each and every one of us is relieved and happy that the completed work will be a useful guide to many people.
Every one of our volunteers and staff who have created this book are very confident that this text has the finest Dhamma teachings and the expressions of truth on how to care for children to become the most outstanding persons for future societies. It will additionally be useful for persons in preparation for starting a family, for parents searching for the qualities of good children and most importantly for the ways to raise the children to become the finest persons in society. Also of interest, this work includes information on how to raise good children based on religious Dhamma principles.
Hopefully every individual who reads this book will have confidence and joy in discovering customs and methods that are superior. Also we hope it will aid all of us in our quest for peace throughout the entire world, by changing the way that we raise our children to become the most exemplary persons, directly from the hands of their parents.
The Writers And Thinkers For World Peace Association, Moral Development Thru Education Foundation
October, 2005
Introduction
Many people may wonder about “The Way To Raise Children To Be Good People,” and what is meant by that phrase.
The definition is one that government examiners and parents alike should research thoroughly until they can discover the conclusions relating to following 3 subjects:
1) How do you create good persons with fine qualities?
2) Where does the commencement of good behavior in children come from?
3) How do you rear the children to become good persons?
From that point on, each country’s government officials should disclose the results by dispensing the knowledge to parents and evaluating the levels of resulting information from successfully steadfast parent who have experimented with and yielded successful results. If a fruitful amount of parents pass this trial, it means that the future of that country will be exceedingly promising.
I presume that if we develop this premise regarding taking good care of our children, most problems regarding children will cease to occur and the tribulations with teenagers will lessen. This will result because parents will know the rules and regulations concerning raising their children. Parents will be educated and prepared, and therefore fully able to complete the task. Children will reflect the fine qualities of the parents who will be completely capable of taking care of them. These children will then grow up with both healthy bodies and great minds.
But the problems of today are largely a consequence of parent’s lack of edification with regards to caring for their children and raising them to be good persons. We are able to witness this in our human society as our teenagers grow and their problems are continuing to arise at an alarming rate. The rates of divorce have dramatically increased as well. At this point, I can relate that with regards to raising a family properly, many family members love each other but lack the necessary skillful preparations to be accomplished parents and are unable to distinguish between having a child and how to be an exemplary parent. These are very different matters.
The result of the inability to separate these two subjects creates a situation of incomplete groundwork of the parents. This is exemplified by the common complaint of our grandparents, who have always stated that,
“They know how to have babies but they don’t know how to raise them.”
When parents don’t know how to raise their children or when they don’t know what good qualities of children mean, they can’t find the sufficient resources to investigate this subject matter so they can teach their children. In the end their children will grow up to be carefree without aim, destination or goals.
When the child grows s/he may tum out to be an irresponsible person who has no regard for other people’s feelings, or no consideration for any damage they might cause. They will clearly be teenagers who cause problems for society. If you inquire as to the initial source of their difficulties, you will discover that the children merely were responding to those who have created kamma. This was due to care from parents who did not know right from wrong. These parents simply lacked preparation for parenthood.
Hence, all of the problems follow like links in a chain such as, “Children have babies.” This implies, for instance, that teenagers who are still in school may ask parents for allowance money to bring to school, but instead they have an affair. This results in pregnancy, leading to further impending dilemmas. The children then try to correct the problem by having abortions. Illegal abortion clinics spring up all over and they continually come into existence. At the same time a child who is born to parents who are still young are like a testing ground. This problem then spirals at an alarming rate. The problems of teenagers are but a reflection to let us witness the failure of properly raising children and these troubles will continue to escalate, resulting in more problems for the whole society.
In some countries we observe teenagers cruelly assaulting and abusing others at bus stops, in the streets, at shopping malls and all around. It does not seem much different from the criminals in Hollywood movies. Some of them use weapons like knives and guns, trying to kill the opposing gangsters. They do any and everything against the law. Sometimes innocent bystanders get hurt or killed in the crossfire.
At night we hear about teenagers sprawling all over the streets littered with the nightlife of bars, motels and prostitutes. It does not even matter how strict the laws are, but we still observe that most of the customers are very young, and many are still students. However they continue to spend their parent’s money on nightlife and drugs, and never fear the law. Some of these perpetrators are as young as 13 years old.
This reflects a continuous life cycle that the children are born into where the families have these problems and the kids grow up to be problem teenagers. They then turn into the parents that lack the skills to care for their children and teach them to be honorable. The predicaments of one generation persist and they rapidly are passed on to the next generation.
I do not hold all of the children responsible who are the recipients of these dilemmas but at the same time I reflect upon how to “stop” this family cycle. The problems of the family lay the groundwork for the problems of the teenagers and the dilemmas persist through to the next generation of teenagers.
I think that many people discuss this topic regarding the beginning of a new life cycle that gives rise to a new life with fine qualities from the beginning, and continues to reflect the good qualities of the family. They also discuss how to raise children the righteously, where parents care for them and never abandon them, and where everyone in society gives them opportunities and supports them. All of us share similar goals regarding the future of a decent society, with upstanding moral support, where we as a society can aid in solving the problems of teenagers and families together until they finally disappear.
From my concerns about how to raise the children to be good persons, it had the power to propel my heart and fuel my strength to try to discover a method to remedy all of the troubles. My attempts involved researching historical information, personal experiences from parents, and much additional data regarding this topic.
I began to do research in bookstores and I discovered that most of the books only contained information on how to take care of the children in terms of their health. There were other books that covered how to train the children to be smart and clever. There were yet other texts instructing parents on how to raise the children to become rich. These books were very exciting indeed, but the book I was searching for was regarding how to raise the children to be good persons. It was a very difficult pursuit.
So I began to think that I should explore the source of this subject matter, accumulate the data, and then write an instructional guidebook on how to raise children to be good persons.
I continued on my quest nonstop to research this topic, while always keeping the aim focused on the doctrines of the Lord Buddha’s teachings. I had the fortunate opportunity to study it thoroughly through continuous Dhamma talks on how to raise good persons from Phra Dej Phra Khun Phrabhavanaviriyakhun (Luang Phaw Dattajeevo ), the Vice Abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya of Thailand.
I spent all of my time continuously studying Dhamma with him for 6 full years. I then discovered a special progression while intensely studying Buddhism,
“Every time you begin to study Dhamma, it seems like the Lord Buddha throws back the same question, which is, ‘How does one accomplish this?’ Thus it leads us to discover the Dhamma within ourselves.”
I myself do not understand why I feel this way, however a very many of us admit to feeling that way as well.
While studying the Dhamma continually, I have the opportunity to meet and converse with a vast amount of people. These persons of varied backgrounds have different ages, occupations, diverse experiences, and countless emotions. They converge at Dhammakaya Temple to practice meditation. Some are successful in life, some are just beginning to build their lives, some are students, some are trying to find out about life, and all of those people are the foundation of my work. I am determined for them to become my witness so that they will bring the Dhamma that I share with them back home and help them to remedy their family situations.
In time I began to pull my thoughts together, and I realized that Wat Phra Dhammakaya is a central station for the problem solving of our society. The finest noble person to embrace all of the dilemma and aid in their resolve is Phrarajabhavanavissudh (Phra Chaiyaboon Dhammachayo or Luang Phaw Dhammachayo), the Abbot and President of Wat Phra Dhammakaya and his Vice Abbot Phrabhavanaviriyakhun (Luang Phaw Dattajeevo). Both of them have been very kind to me and gave me the opportunity to study the subject of how to raise fine children for many years.
For the lengthy time that I observed their work, I discovered that from sunrise to sunset, they both have to continually respond to many issues such as how to manage the temple, how to build the temple, and how to solve visitors’ problems. It seems as if neither of them have enough time to rest. There bedtime is usually at midnight. They generally sleep for only 4-5 hours, and they again arise to face more of the same problems on the following day.
There are indeed a multitude of problems from the smallest to the most monumental. I have had the opportunity to hear them. The 2 Luang Phaws give everyone guidance from their centered minds, which turns the recipient’s thoughts around to ponder the very problem, and they offer the receiver their support. They assist them in any way they can. It reminds me that for each problem, no matter how difficult it is, there is always a method to resolve it.
For example, the varieties of difficulties include illnesses of parents, not enough funds to care for them, marital discord, estate inheritance litigation, hopelessness in life, suicidal tendencies, business difficulties, bankruptcy, and a great many other manners of complexities that both Luang Phaws must encounter each day.
The persons who come to visit them are either unable to help themselves or are ill-equipped to uncover a way to help themselves. All of these problems would cause extreme pressure to a regular person, and perhaps more than an ordinary person could endure. But both Luang Phaws have seemed to manage their duties expertly at this level for more than 30 years.
Even with reference to the level of my aims and goals to try to unearth the resources to write this book, while continually being exposed to the vast array of pictures and their accompanying stories that reached me from both Luang Phaws, it absolutely stirred my emotions and caused me to worry about them. I realized that they must face these people daily and help them to deal with the vicissitudes of their lives. Concurrently I feel that I am not intellectually up to that task.
In the meantime, another feature that causes me to wonder as well as evoking surprise is that there is an ocean of kindness dwelling inside both of Luang Phaws’ minds. I wonder, how can this be? They remain cool and calm despite having to handle all of these peoples’ sufferings, which they are able to accomplish in the noblest fashion.
From my observation, most of the visitors we receive have serious faces that reflect the pain and suffering in the depths of their hearts. When these same guests depart from the temple their expressions reflect happiness and comforted minds, as their troubles seem to have been relieved. There appears to be a wonderful magic that both Luang Phaws seem to possess.
And now we advance to the wonderful surprise that I discovered at Wat Phra Dhammakaya, a temple that has become a cornucopia of information. It is also the center for realizing the vital essentials regarding how to raise our children to become good persons.
From my many years of incalculable experiences that I witnessed, heard and became familiarized with, I can now proudly say that,
“All of the Bhikkhus are the persons who recognize how parents can actually take care of their children in a manner that will foster good persons.”
In view of the fact that at the conclusion of my search, I received the summation from our Vice Abbot’s teaching, I learned that,
“Teenagers who grow up in the human life cycle with the fine qualities to assist us in producing decent societies from one generation to the next, must be endowed with the following 3 qualifications:
1) Mai Sab: Mai Sab denotes the purity of a person who is disciplined, responsible and not harmful to anyone. Those possessing mai sab follow rules, never misbehave and practice the 5 precepts.
2) Mai Ngo: Mai Ngo denotes the cleverness of a person who can rely on himself or herself from a very early age. They can be responsible for all of their duties, are self-sufficient, and they are Samma- Ditthi.
3) Mai Lang Num Jai: Mai Lang Num Jai denotes a person who knows how to help and share with others to be happy without any troubles. They are ego less, generous and always think of the betterment of others.”
Phra Treetep Chinungkuro
President of The Writers and Thinkers For World Peace Association.
October, 2005
1 Qualifications Of Good Children
All parents hope that their children will be “good kids,” which may include being well educated, skilled, talented, well behaved, and ethical, have good self-esteem, are mature, independent and never needing to beg for anything, and being a useful member of society and the world.
To raise children in such a manner, parents must know:
“How to raise children to be good children.”
Parents who can raise children well are those who know:
1) How to be good children.
2) How to raise children to be good.
Once parents realize the answers, they will have a standard with which to raise children. They hope in their minds that they will dedicate wholeheartedly and continuously their best effort through the formative years to produce such outstanding adults. Unless the parents know the correct method to accomplish this, there will be more of a chance that they will raise the children carelessly. The outcome is that those innocent children could be raised mistakenly.
The two factors for parents to utilize when raising children are the most crucial ones:
1) Children Are Bad Or
2) Parents Don’t Know How To Raise Them
Before proceeding to discuss these two factors, there’s a case study about an angry mother. After reading her story, ask yourself if you have ever experienced this kind of situation or not.
Ten years ago, there was a temple staff member going to visit his hometown, in Ang Tong province. While walking along the Choa Praya River, near his home he saw a 30 year old mother cruelly whipping her son.
The child who was a mere 4- 5 years old and not yet even in kindergarten riled and cried, but the mother went on beating him heavily.
After the temple staff member witnessed this incident, he thought that the mother beat the boy because of her own anger. He thought this was detrimental to the child. This child subsequently might be influenced by his mother’s emotions and become a hot-tempered adult later on in life.
The temple staff member decided to talk to her by paying his respects and asking her, “What did your child do? Why do you have to administer such a serious punishment?”
The mother answered angrily, “He doesn’t want to be good so he has to be beaten.”
The temple staff member wanted to help both the child and the mother by assisting the mother to think rationally and to teach the child sensibly, and help her child not to be hurt unnecessarily. So he asked the mother, “Have you ever taught him how to be a good boy?”
The mother was speechless from that question. She replied, “Never!”
The question worked, and the stick was slowly lowered down.
The temple staff member went on asking, “You have never taught him, so how could he know how to be good? How about this? I’m interested in Dhamma study and I go to temple quite often, however, I still can’t tell what is involved in practicing to be a good man. Could you explain to me how to do that?”
The mother was speechless again and replied, “I couldn’t explain that either.”
I replied,
“Sister, we are mature, but we still can’t tell exactly how to be good. Why bother with your little child?”
After the conversation, the temple staff member paid respects to the mother and went on walking. The mother stopped beating the child and took him to bathe at the river.
From this case study, parents might realize that raising children to be good people is not easy at all. The important issue is: Is it that the children don’t want to be good or that the parents don’t know how to raise the children to be good?
The Nature of Parents
Our grandparents knew the heart of Buddhism so they recommended the way to raise children effectively to us. The first thing is the target. We have to know, “What will we teach them to be?”
If we don’t know what we will want them to be, there are more chances to lose track of teaching them. The disadvantages will be passed onto the innocent children later on.
Generally, when parents have babies, they’ll hope that the babies will “not be bad.” This hope will be there from when the children are babies until they develop, grow and mature. This is the nature of parents.
Since giving birth to a baby, parents hope that the baby will be safe during delivery. Then from newly born age until 6 years of age, another hope is that the child will not be handicapped. If the child has slow physical development, the parents will be unable to sleep or eat well. If the child speaks slowly then the parent’s inclination will be to speak for the child.
At 6-12 years of age, parents will hope that the child will not be naughty, will pay attention in school, and will want to be good. If the child can meet their expectations then the parents will be happy.
At 13-18 years of age, parents don’t only hope that their teenager will not misbehave or be naughty but that they will also have high grades at school and will not be interested in all divisive activities such as gambling and drugs.
At 19- 2 2 years of age, after graduating college they will look for a job and work. Parents hope that their young adults will be talented and hired by a reputable company so that they can earn enough money to take care of themselves well, without resorting to association with gangsters.
If the children pursue their lives according to the parent’s wishes then the parents will be quite happy that they raised the children well. That is the natural hope of all parents that their children would tum out the way they had hoped.
When the children are mature and ready to get married, parents hope that they will have a warm family without any kinds of problems. If there are problems then the mother will have a broken heart.
When the children are 30-40 years old, they are pretty stable in their lives. Parents should be able to let go of all the worries regarding their children, but in fact parents will always have a small hope that their children could have a better life, get promoted in their job, be a Prime Minister, etc.
The hope of the parents is always of this nature and never ending. It is like this for every generation. The most important factor is that parents try to raise their children the way they want them to be throughout each phase of their upbringing. The parents try to raise them with the fundamental qualities to apply into their future until they can be successfully independent.
Qualifications Of Good Children
Our grandparents understand the qualifications of the Lord Buddha through three factors:
1) Pra Borisuthtikoon (purity).
2) Pra Punyatikoon (cleverness).
3) Pra Mahakarunatikoon (kindness).
They used these factors as the main guidelines for raising their children. These factors can be translated by the following:
1) Mai Sab (from pra Borisuthtikoon).
2) Mai Ngo (from pra Punyatikoon).
3) Mai Lang Num Jai (from pra Mahakarunatikoon). If parents can plant these basic seed factors in childrens’ minds, they’ll grow up in the big wide world and be happy. They can develop their lives and work effectively by themselves.
Our grandparents define each qualification in the following manner:
QUALIFICATION#l – “MAI SAB”
Mai Sab is a person who is disciplined, responsible and not harmful to anyone.
There are 2 kinds of Mai Sab:
1) Mai Sab Nai Tahng Lok (World).
2) Mai Sab Nai Tahng Dham (Dhamma).
Mai Sab nai tahng lok means people who follow the rules of family, society, and law.
For example, our kids never misbehave, are never naughty, never break the rules, or harass others. They always go to school, finish all the assignments, and they have a nice manner.
Mai Sab Nai Tahng Dham means people who practice at least 5 precepts of Buddhism, and are not harmful to anyone.
For example, our kids never look for revenge, never steal, never have sexual misconduct, never lie, never drink, never take drugs, and never smoke. People who don’t practice the 5 precepts of Buddhism will have a higher risk for becoming harmful people.
QUALIFICATION#2- “MAI NGO”
Mai Ngo is a person who is smart enough to rely on him/herself and is also be able to help others.
There are 2 kinds of Mai Ngo:
1) Mai Ngo Tahng Lok (World).
2) Mai Ngo Tahng Dham (Dhamma).
Mai Ngo Tahng Lok means people who have talent in the way that:
1) They can rely on themselves from a very young age. They can help themselves by passing their grades without copying from anyone else (no cheating on exams).
2) They can be responsible for the duties of their work such as finishing all the assignments that parents ask them to do without repeating any steps, e.g.: such as housekeeping.
Whoever has these two factors in life has Mai Ngo nai tahng lok.
Mai Ngo Nai Tahng Dham means people who have talents that can be classified as right-wrong, good-bad, proper-improper, useful-useless for yourself and others (Samma-Ditthi or right view).
There is an important reason why kids should have Dhamma talent. We could test this ability with these simple questions:
1) What’s the difference between wrong, mistake, and bad?
2) What’s the difference between right, good, and proper?
It’s not easy to answer these questions unless we learn Dhamma talent, which might be used more often than real life talent.
1) What’s the difference between wrong, mistake, and bad?
Real life talent is just average talent, which is mostly about earning for survival. It cannot classify the complicated meanings for “bad” in detail but Dhamma talent can.
“Wrong” is the destruction that happens because of stupidity. We don’t really know that it is wrong because our mind is weak or pretending to be ‘Ngo’ and end up performing the wrong deed.
“Mistake” is the destruction that happens because it was done unintentionally. The conscience was too weak so destruction happens without bad intention. In fact, we might want to make it better.
“Bad” is the destruction that is done consciously. We already knew that destruction would occur, but we still did it anyway. Pretending to be ignorant about it results in more suffering, more sins, and more blame from others.
This is why practicing children should develop real life talent as well as Dhamma talent. It is very important because it is basic to the proper development in their daily lives.
2) What’s the difference between right, good, and proper?
We knew the classification of bad already. Now it’s time to learn the classification of good. How does is it get classified in terms of Dhamma talent?
“Right” is whatever we did either with intention or not, without any destruction, harmfulness, or suffering to others or ourselves. Then it only leads to usefulness.
“Good” is a deed that we already knew was the right thing to do and did it carefully with confidence. The more we do well the more it leads to a happier life and mind. After we are done we are so happy.
“Proper” is something that we should do. If we don’t do it, it is fine, but by doing it, it is better, so we do it.
If parents can teach children to be able to classify the good and the bad this much, then the children will be truly brilliant because they have both real talent and Dhamma talent.
QUALIFICATION#3 – MAI LANG NUM JAI
Mai Lang Num Jai is knowing to help and share with others to be happy and without any troubles.
There are 2 kinds of Mai Lang Num Jai:
1) Mai Lang Num Jai Nai Tahng Lok (World).
2) Mai Lang Num Jai Nai Tahng Dham (Dhamma).
Mai Lang Num Jai Nai Tahng Lok is a person who is not self-centered but always thinks of others.
For example, before making any decision, we think of the following results for others such as colleagues, friends, and every person in the world. It is being generous and not thinking only of yourself.
Mai Lang Num Jai Nai Tahng Dham is whether rich or poor, we still think of donating, giving, and returning the best to respectful persons and others.
Why do we need to share? Not being harmful and not being a stupid person is enough, isn’t it?
Many people understand that being unharmful and not stupid is enough because they don’t cause any trouble to anyone. In fact, those are not enough because we have to live with many others in society.
For example, when parents come back from work tired the children just ignore them and never offer any refreshments to them.
Is it Sab (undisciplined and irresponsible)? It is not because it isn’t wrong in Dhamma rules.
Is it Ngo (stupid)? It is not because it isn’t in a school exam.
Is it good? It is not good because it is lacking in generosity (Lang Num Jai). When he/she grows up, he/ she won’t know how to share with others. Besides, he/she may take advantage of the family and others.
There’s a story of a mango tree. There’s a mango farm owner. He spends a lot of money for good soil and plants. All the mango trees are treated carefully with total attention to have nice production for consuming and selling. All the trees produce good mangoes for him except for one tree that never produces anything for him, even if he takes care of it so well. Finally, he has to get rid of that tree.
That tree can be compared to a person who never does harm to anyone, but never gives anything to anyone either.
Generosity should not be overlooked at all. If parents don’t teach kids to share and give to others, it’s hard for others to share and give to their children as well. It’ll be hard to ask for help from anyone when he/she has trouble if he/she has never been generous to anyone at all.
Therefore, a person who is lacking in sharing and giving will be gotten rid of like that mango tree.
So parents should teach children to share and give to others as well as to teach them not to be harmful or stupid, from the foundational three qualifications.
In summary, parents should have an aim to raise children not to be harmful, stupid, or lacking in sharing and giving to persons, which are the basic foundations of their lives. When they grow up, they will be able to develop their talents and other good behaviors easily and will also live proudly.
2 Where Does Children's Good Behavior Come From?
If you ask how to raise a child, what is the answer?
The short answer is by planting good habits for further development in order for the children to grow up with proper habits.
You should plant into your children, “What do they have (what habits)?” The answer is the foundation of the habits, which are:
1) Mai Sab.
2) Mai Ngo.
3) Mai Lang Num Jai.
Why are these three habits the foundation of the good person?
These three factors are the foundation to support the good Dhamma. It will develop more in the future and they will be able to grow to reach their full potential. In comparison to good lands and fields, they are filled with plenty of good soil and can produce good crops and good food yielding bountiful outcomes.
These three factors are creating a strong positive support to grow plentiful Dhamma in your children.
How can we train children to be disciplined, responsible, clever, pure, kind and generous?
The theory to lead our children to have good qualities is not an easy one to lead to accomplishment. But our grandparents worked hard to learn and study until they found out how to be disciplined, responsible, clever, pure, kind and generous from Buddhism.
Buddhism is a religion to teach people to be so great in the Dhamma so that they can totally be free from all kamma, evil and sins.
Because of this, whenever we study Buddhism, there ’11 be questions automatically asked such as, “How can this good Dhamma occur in ourselves?”
From this issue, it becomes a lesson to train the person’s habits, which starts with an easy question, which is hard to answer:
“How do habits occur?”
Regarding Buddhism, habits come from “repeating thinking, speaking and doing.”
Repeating thinking, speaking and doing in the right way leads to “good habits” and that person becomes a “good person.”
Repeating thinking, speaking and doing in the wrong way leads to “bad habits” and that person becomes a “bad person.”
Our grandparents realized these facts and then followed with another question, “For their whole life, what do we have to keep repeating thinking, speaking and doing about? How many are there of them? And what are they?
The answer is that there are 2 ways to answer these questions:
1) The Four Factors In Life
First Factor: Food
Since we were born until we die, we have to repeat thinking, speaking and doing about food before anything else. For example, when waking up or before going to work or school, we have to think about what we are going to eat. Even monks have to think about where they will go to get food offerings.
Second Factor: Clothing
Every morning, we have to think about what we should wear each day. When going to the mall, we have to think about which dress we should buy.
Third Factor: Residence
When it’s raining or when there is sunlight, we have to think about where we should be. We also have to think about where we could sleep at night.
Forth Factor: Health
If we get sick, we have to think about which medicine we should take or where we should go to see a doctor.
Therefore, the four factors in life are the first thing we repeat thinking, speaking and doing every day.
2) Responsible Duty And Job
If we have a duty as a parent, the thing that we have to repeat thinking, speaking and doing for the rest of our lives is how to take care of our kids.
So there are 2 things that we keep repeating thinking, speaking and doing for our whole lives. Other things are not repeated this much.
Feeding Time Can Plant Habits For Kids:
It’s unbelievable that feeding has an influence on childrens’ habits. When feeding mothers let babies repeat thinking, speaking and doing in the right way, then the baby will have good habits. While the mother is giving the children milk the children will develop good habits. If the children have repeat thinking, speaking and doing in the negative way, then the children develop bad habits.
There are 3 examples of children who received the milk from their mothers in different ways, which resulted in different habits.
Baby#l A Non Punctual Meal
There are 2 ways to feed the baby: bottle feeding or breast-feeding.
In either way of feeding the baby, when the mother can’t always feed the baby on time due to any reason, the baby will cry and scream out loud because of hunger. If this is a daily situation, what will happen to the baby?
First thing is that a hot-tempered habit occurs!!!
It is because the mother is planting the habit to the baby. Without early correction, the baby might ruin everything in the future. When the baby wants anything, he/she might just grab from some other child abruptly and he/she might damage it or hurt the other child.
Because the mother always missed feeding time, the baby had to scream to ask for a meal. That made the baby get used to screaming and acting angry to ask for something.
In some cases this is even worse. A mother who is very rich but might like gambling may miss the baby’s feeding time because she is busily playing cards. She lets the baby cry for hours and she keeps on gambling. The mother will yell at the child for interrupting the card game. The mother will tell the child to go ahead and keep on crying. This causes the baby to be hot-tempered. If you do not correct this, what is the child going to tum out to be? If the child wants something when they grow up, how will they act? Will they have to punch, or rob or what? The mother had raised the child to be a mean tiger!
So whenever the baby wants anything, he/she will use his/her energy to scream, fight, and take something from someone else. It’s like a mother who has to take care of a fierce tiger. The baby has a bad habit because the mother plants hot-temperedness due to not feeding the child on time.
Baby#2 Feeding The Baby All The Time
This baby is fed all the time. No matter whether it’s feeding time or not, the mother or baby-sitter always bottle-feeds the baby. The baby has milk all the time, and never cries for food, and is also easy to baby-sit.
What will the baby be whens/he grows up?
The answer is s/he’ll be lazy!!!
No matter how hard mother tries to push him/her forward, s /he ‘Il not go anywhere. Even if mother tries to make him/her enthusiastic, s /he will just ignore her and be lazy. It’s like the mother has to take care of a little pig that does nothing except for eating and sleeping.
Who plants this habit to the baby? Mother does.
What does mother use to plant the habit? Feeding.
Milk feeding is one of the main ways to plant habits to the baby.
Comparing these 2 ways to raise kids, we’ll see that the baby not being fed on time is like having a fierce tiger or a mad dog to take care of, while feeding a baby 24 hours a day is like having a pig to take care of, doing nothing but eating and sleeping on and on.
Baby#3 On Time Feeding
The baby is fed only at feeding time. This is like planting a habit to a baby to be punctual.
What will the baby become whens/he grows up?
S/he might be compared to a clock. S /he will not be interested in eating if it’s not eating time. She ‘Il eat only when it’s eating time. After having a meal, s/he’ll behave because his/her parents planted a punctual habit into him/ her already.
If we train him/her to be punctual, everything else will be on time automatically.
So the way we lead children to repeat thinking, speaking and doing will lead to his/her habit in the future. It is the cause that our habits were planted from repeat thinking, speaking and doing since we were little babies.
“Food” from parents can also plant childrens’ habits.
When children grow up and start learning to eat, some parents mix all good nutritious food for children together and don’t care that if it tastes good or not. They mix vegetables, eggs, meat etc. based on the nutritional value. The children cannot choose what to eat. They must eat it all.
Some parents allow children to choose what they want to eat; chicken, pork, vegetables, or snacks.
Will these 2 groups of children have the same habits and health? No.
Children who like to eat only meat will lack the nutrition from vegetables. Children who like to eat only vegetables will not get all the nutrition as well. Children who always have snacks will be unhealthy. Even if parents are rich; if they don’t feed their children with proper nutrition this can cause unhealthy problems in them.
On the other hand, if parents are poor but they know to feed their children with proper nutrition, those children will be healthy and strong.
Parents who prepared food for children with proper nutrition, planted habits for children who are easy to feed and easy to live with and who are not temperamental.
Parents, who allowed children to choose whatever they wanted to eat planted habits of self-centeredness, inconsiderateness and hot-temperedness in the children.
How can we plant considerate and inconsiderate habits into children?
We can plant habits by training children in manners regarding eating.
If parents allow children to chew food noisily, they won’t know they are being inconsiderate of others. If parents train children to have nice eating manners, then they will be considerate persons.
Good habits of children are taught from each bite that they eat and each sip that they drink based on the right manner of training, while bad habits are impacted from the wrong manner of training.
Dishes Have An Influence On Childrens’ Habits.
After having meal, a child has to clean his/her own dish, but another child doesn’t have to. What will these childrens’ habits become?
The child, who cleans his/her own dish, will be responsible.
The child, who doesn’t clean his/her dish, won’t be responsible. When s /he works, others have to help him/ her to clean up until the work is done.
We can conclude that parents plant childrens’ habits by using each meal as a tool. It’s incredible that it has a big impact on habits.
Parents Have To Be A Prototype For Children To Repeat Thinking, Speaking and Doing.
Before training good habits to children, parents have to start observing the following:
1) What are our good and bad habits?
2) How are those habits impacted from repeat thinking, speaking and doing in the four factors of life and work?
3) How can we repeat thinking, speaking and doing to become disciplined, responsible, clever, pure, kind and generous?
4) How can we develop the four factors of life in the household and train the children to become disciplined, responsible, clever, pure, kind and generous?
If we don’t teach the children wisely the children might inherit the parents’ bad habits and they might be blamed with, “They don’t want to be good.”
So parents have to set the example for children and repeat thinking, speaking and doing so that they will be led to become disciplined, responsible, clever, pure, kind and generous
Conclusion – A Human’s Habit Comes From:
1) Repeat thinking, speaking and doing in the right way causes good habits.
2) Repeat thinking, speaking and. doing in the wrong way causes bad habits.
Then it’s time for parents to learn how to train children to become disciplined, responsible, clever, pure, kind and generous.
3 How To Plant Habits In Children So They Will Become Disciplined And Responsible (Mai Sab)
What are the lessons to train children in to become disciplined and responsible?
Behavior with regards to the rules of Dhamma is the lesson, so parents have to train their children to behave according to the Dhamma rules and to control their emotions as well.
Children should be trained through the four factors of life. It should be strict but not stressful.
What behaviors should be trained?
1) Talking behavior.
2) Timing behavior.
3) Cleaning behavior.
4) Organizing behavior.
5) Dhamma training behavior.
If parents can train these 5 behaviors with regards to their children, the children will not be harmful to anyone.
The first 4 rules are real life behaviors, while the fifth one is the Dhamma one.
First of all, parents, you have to imagine yourselves as your children’s age. What did you do wrong at that time? How could you improve yourselves? If you have good solutions, you can train your children more easily.
1) Talking Behavior
Talking behavior is a big issue for childrens’ lives in the future because “Before talking, we’re the bosses of the words. After talking, the words are our boss.”
Words can make the speaker have either a better life or a worse one.
The first step to train talking behavior is training children to be honest to their parents. If children can lie to parents, they can lie to anyone in the world. That might cause many troubles to others.
Many previous Kings realized this fact, so there was a rule that stated, “A king will never withdraw what he said.” If a king lies, he will lose the trust of his people.
Thai people keep on repeating that, “Being a human has to do with what has been said. Just say only what you can do. Then it becomes a trustworthy word, which leads to success in the future.”
The Lord Buddha mentioned to Phra Rahula, the monk who was the first Samanera (novice monk) of the Buddha, “Rahula, if you can lie to others, you are not afraid to do bad things in the world, so, there’s nothing worse you can do. So we shouldn’t do that even just for a joke.”
How to train children to be honest:
There are 3 important factors:
1) Children should have a prototype person who always says the truth.
2) Parents should be able to explain the bad points of lying.
3) Parents have to train children to have prophetic speaking.
1 ) Children should have a prototype person who always says the truth, which is in reference to the parents – no lying to the children and others, no gossiping about others, and no lying even as a joke.
2) Parents should be able to explain the bad points of lying. Every time someone wants to lie, s /he has to lie to him/herself 3 times.
First Lie: Prepare a story that is about a lie.
Second Lie: Lie as planned.
Third Lie: Keep in mind the story of the lie so that others do not catch it.
If it’s an important story, s /he has to keep on lying; otherwise, others might know the truth. Ifs/he keeps on lying for a long time, s /he might confuse him/herself whether it’s lying or the truth. Later, s/he might not be able to decide anything because s /he lost his/her basic state of mind.
Why is the basic state of mind lost? Because every time s /he lies, there’s a false story instead of true story in his/her mind. The mores/he lies the more false stories are in his/her mind. Finally, his/her basic state of mind is filled with false stories.
A person who always lies might develop a short memory syndrome (Alzheimer’s disease) like old people. The power of his/her word will be lessened. It’s hard to make anyone believe when they actually speak the truth. Others will lose respect for them.
If parents want the children to be obedient, they should always speak the truth, and not even lie as a joke.
3) Parents have to train children to have prophetic speaking.
Besides training children to say only the truth, parents also have to train them to be able to choose what it is they should or should not say. If some of the story is the truth, but it isn’t useful to anyone, it shouldn’t be said. A good speaker should also know how to be calm.
“Knowing how to be calm” is to know the good and bad of what shouldn’t be said more than what should be said.
The Lord Buddha mentioned the good speaking factor as the tenth factor from “The 38 Factors of Valuable Life” (Mangala Sutta) that mentions prophetic speaking.
Our words will become prophetic speaking when we practice these 5 factors:
1) Speak with kindness. Before going to speak with anyone, parents should ask themselves before they talk whether what they’re going to say is of good intention or bad. If it’s from bad intention, they shouldn’t say it.
2) Speak only of useful things. Ask yourself whether what you are going to say is useful for the listener or not. If it’s not, we shouldn’t say it, because it might become raving speaking.
3) Speak with politeness. Not only should you speak with kindness and usefulness, but also politeness. No one would like to listen to impolite speaking. That might cause a negative reaction afterwards. It’s hard for anyone to stand listening to it, even our own children.
4) Speak only the truth. If what we are going to say is not the truth, we shouldn’t say it. We will become a liar and also break the Dhamma rules (precepts). If you break the precepts you lose your usefulness. Talk to each other only with what is useful otherwise you create your own hell. The ancient Thai saying is, “Sweet mouth but a sour butt.” You cannot trust yourself and you will become forgetful.
5) Speak at the right time and at the right place. People who don’t speak at the right time and the right place may cause trouble to themselves. For example, when a child sees that what an adult is doing is wrong, and says it politely in front of all the subordinates, they are speaking at the wrong place and time. It just causes the adult to be embarrassed. If we try to calm down an angry person with a weapon in his/her hand at the wrong time, we might be sticking our neck out to get our head cut off instead.
Speaking is not quite an easy thing to do well. If we are not sure whether we should say it or not, we should be silent instead. The ancient Thai saying is, “If you say it you get two pennies, if you stay silent you get a gold coin.”
So when the parents lay down the basics of telling the truth and teaching useful speech to the children they must not forget to teach the children to speak prophetically. It will make the children think before they speak. It will make them analyze it before they say it. Then the children will be able to speak impressively. This way the parents training of the children will be successful and the children will be successful in their future lives.
2) Punctual Behavior
“Time” is one of the humans’ resources, which cannot be returned. If we don’t use it wisely, it’ll bring old age and death to us, and take our good opportunities away.
Take a look at our classmates. If the parents try to observe the children’s classmates who study together they will find that some of the friends when studying with their own children are inferior. If they work on projects together some may not work at the same level of standards as their own children. However when they grow up, some of the ones who didn’t get as good a set of grades as our children did get better jobs and became more successful in life when they grew up. In fact, they were good at organizing time. They might even have more work to do than our children do, but they can manage their time well. There is a story of the race between the rabbit and the turtle.
If the rabbit runs full speed the turtle will never catch up. But the rabbit stopped to rest a little bit and the turtle kept on going. But when the rabbit woke up the turtle already passed him and won. There is also the story of the Prime Minister and a beggar. They have the same amount of time in a 24 hour day. The Prime Minister does many things in a day, but the beggar does only one thing, which is holding up a cup begging for change.
So a person, who can be successful in life, has to know how to organize time well, otherwise s /he will be a harmful person forever. Never finishing anything on time and showing up late will cause others to lose trust and respect for them.
If the parents want the children to be a good person and not a “Sab” (undisciplined and irresponsible) person they must train the children to avoid being harmful and they should start with these 3 strict rules regarding:
- Waking up time.
- Bedtime.
- Eating time.
1) Teach children to wake up on time.
How do you classify waking up late and waking up early?
Our grandparents used “Aroon” (the sun or sunrise) to tell. If you wake up before aroon it means you wake up early. If you wake up after aroon it means that you wake up after sunrise and you wake up late.
What time is called “morning”?
In general, we use clocks, representing 24 hours, to start a new day. But our grandparents used the Lord Buddha’s rule by using the morning sun (aroon) to start a new day.
To tell the time you have to go in the middle of the field and once you can see palm lines clearly in your hand, that is aroon or morning. That is a new day according to the Lord Buddha’s rule.
In summer, the morning begins around 5:40 am. In winter, the morning begins around 5: 5 0 am. Our grandparents used this time to judge the wake up time for their children.
The person who is not “Sab” must know how to divide his/her time. So, if any one doesn’t know how to divide the time in this life they will have difficulty being good and will have difficulty managing time correctly. With regards to the way to train the children to manage their time, our grandparents placed the first lesson of time at aroon. The children must wake up before aroon.
If any child cannot wake up early, his/her life might be a failure in the future. They will be lazy and put off things until the next day.
When s /he grows up, s/he might go to work late, can’t have his/her work done in time, and will become an irresponsible person as the end result.
Especially when it comes to girls, they should wake up early everyday in order to have a successful life and avoid a divorce case when they grow up. It is acceptable to wake up late in case of sickness only.
There is a poll, which was researched from all over the world that states that one of the causes of divorce is when the housewife wakes up late. If husbands wake up before wives, they would see the pale faces and the messy hair of the women sleeping. The husband feels like he sleeps with a ghost. It causes boredom and leads to other issues later until they become divorced.
Wake up before aroon. It’s a point that the grandparents tried to train the children with. They should follow this easy rule so that they can wake the girl up for her to cook the rice (for offering). The truth is that the parents can cook the rice. But the grandparents want the girl to get up at aroon so she will then cook the rice. So I will give this story to the parents to train the daughters.
2) Teach children to go to bed on time.
Letting children go to bed late causes many problems. When children are small they are very lovely and not naughty but now they will talk back to the parents, and lie to them (some can be good liars) and the parents don’t know why. They might become aggressive children and argue with the parents all the time. Because once they go to bed late, they can’t wake up early. When parents wake them up, they will have all the excuses to go on sleeping. It’s like they practice lying to parents every morning, and the parents become a partner to the lying because the parents accept the lies.
How do you solve this problem? It is easy. Parents should set the children’s bedtime to be not later than 8 or 9 pm, and not passed 9 pm.
If you let the children go to bed at 1 0 or 11 pm then the child will have the habit of sleeping late. The first subject of children going to bed late is because the parents let them watch TV. This is because the parents are watching the TV too so the children don’t want to go to bed. They want to stay up with the parents and watch TV.
If parents can control children’s bedtime and wake up time, it will be easier to plant all good habits into them. If they don’t the children will talk back to the parents, and train them to be a liar everyday. They will become callous. They don’t have to wait to grow up to build “Sab” because they are building up the “Sab” all the time. But if you train them to go to sleep early and wake up early all the time at least the parents will have good children who don’t talk back to the parents, are neat and will have good Dhamma going into their minds. The parents can say, “My children are not ‘Sab’.”
3) Teach children to eat at the proper time.
As we know the parents who feed the children on time and feed different children at different times are able to build habits differently. With this subject we have more stories to add. They are:
If you want your children to love each other, everyone should eat at the same time.
If any house has more than three to four children they are going to find a problem that the children are always fighting. If they are looking to know why, they will find that they don’t eat together. How does this happen? If someday the mother cooks delicious food, the children who get home first eat first. On a regular day they have enough food but the day that the food is delicious, they will find that the parents did not make enough food. The children who work hardest in the house won’t have enough food to eat because they came home late. The mother made the food for that child too but he/she won’t get the food. The child will have to eat something else. Then he/she becomes hurt and heartbroken from the mother and the brothers and sisters.
This hurt will be stored deep down inside, and in the end one day all of these hurts will come back up. His/her hurt will come up later on in years. Even if a brother a sister or a mother has broken one glass or has ripped one page out of a book, this child will say you are not my mother, brother or sister anymore. Even if the mother will buy the new glass the child will not want it, say it is not the same and that child will still be mad at the mother the sister or the brother. With this, the child keeps the heartbroken sin inside and then it comes out. If any mother lets the children not eat together, especially dinner, which is when the parents should eat with the children, there will be fighting among the children. But parents do not practice that way.
Later on when the children grow up they are not going to care for one another. They will stay separated, and if there is something they don’t like then they are going to fight. Even while the parents are still living they will still be fighting and if they die the children will kill each other whenever.
So if the parents want the children to be good, the parents must plant the Dhamma foundation. It begins from eating, sleeping and waking up. When the schedule is well plotted, not only will the children have good behavior but they will have good health, and they will be strong too.
If your children do not sleep or eat on time it makes the elimination systems not function on time either. If the elimination systems do not function on time what will happen? When the children are in the class and they have to go to the bathroom, they cannot so they hold it. The end result is that chronic constipation occurs. Some children will have chronic diarrhea because they lose their proper function. It makes these children have chronic diseases.
If the parents take care of the schedule the children will not only have good health and good habits, but the parents even if they do not know about the Dhamma, are helping to prevent the “Sab” from occurring in the child. Then the Dhamma, even if you don’t know the name or meaning like Hiri-Otappa (moral shame and moral dread = the fear of doing the wrong thing and the fear of the consequences of doing the wrong thing) will develop. This is the easy way to plant Dhamma for the child.
But if everyone in the family has their meal at the same time, they’ll share it equally. That means parents plant the habits of staying together in peace for them.
3) Cleaning Behavior
If you want your children not to be “Sab” you must train them not only in time management but also with regards to cleaning behavior. If any children don’t like to be clean then they will have difficulty in taking care of themselves. Wherever they go and whatever group they will want to be in, nobody will want them. Children especially must know how to bathe.
Parents should teach them the proper way to bathe. They must learn how to take a clean bath by using less water, soap, and less time.
Clothing should also be clean. It should be taught from when they were born. Parents should often change diapers for the baby to keep him/her clean. When they grow up, they will get used to being clean by themselves.
4) Organizing Behavior
Without organizing behavior, children will not know any procedures to organize things well. Others will be tired from follow-up cleaning for them.
For example, doing laundry is one of basics in cleaning. When the children grow up you should train the children to wash their clothes. But the parents do not teach them. They use the servants to do it or the parents do it by themselves. So the children will have no responsibility or they will not know how to be organized.
At the same time one of the mothers sees that another child can do their laundry so this mother trains the child to do their own laundry. The child learns with small items because the big clothes are too heavy.
When they grow up a little more they train the child to wash the socks, then the shirts, the skirts and the pants. She trains them from the easy to the hard and builds up the habit of responsibility and organization for the child.
In the end the child will have the habit of organization from the beginning. When they go to work the big job will be easily organized and they will know how to look at the big picture to plan the job. This concept is difficult to teach, but the child will learn from the beginning.
At the same time another child’s parents did not train them. When they grow up they don’t know how to accomplish things. Even the parents take care of the clothes or a maid prepares the clothes for them. When the time comes the child just wears the clothes. When the child finishes wearing it, he/she will bring it to the parents or the maid.
If the parents raise the children like this then the parents are responsible for the child step by step and the child won’t know how to take care of his/her belongings. The children will not know how to wash clothes, will not have any responsibility, and will not be organized.
At the same time the mother who trained the children to wash and trained them for self-responsibility will wash the clothes by themselves after playing, even if they play hard.
So the child must be careful ands/he must take care of his/her clothes. This is the way you train the habits of responsibility and organization. The group who knows how to do laundry and the group who doesn’t know how to do laundry have habits that are not the same. The habits of organization are not the same. That is that one is ready for responsibility and organization and the other group doesn’t want the responsibility. They also don’t want to know rules and regulations.
The mother should teach the child how to hang the clothes to dry by categorizing. She can also teach children to know what should be done and what shouldn’t. The handkerchiefs should be on the top round, the middle should be pants and skirts, and the bottom should be the socks and underwear. White and color cloth need to be in different sunlight. These rules can make children to become dedicated to doing everything neatly.
When the child grows up, he/she knows how to separate, will know what to do, what gets hung low on the clothesline, what gets hung high on the clothesline and what to do and not to do. But some households did not teach the proper way to hang and they put all clothes on the same rounds. So this child, when s /he grows up will not know which goes low and which goes high and this child will face problems in his/her life. For example, people don’t separate the clothes and put all of the clothes in the same container, and when this child gets married whoever marries him/her will see that s/he puts the handkerchiefs with the underwear and hang dries them together but they can’t stay with each other. They have to be divorced. This happens to many couples. This results from the parents not training them from when they are very small.
5) Dhamma Rule Behavior
Dhamma rules are also important to childrens’ lives because it’s the factor for them to judge what is good and what is bad. When they grow up, they will be able to control their thinking, speaking and doing to be in the Dhamma rules frame. It leads them to develop themselves to be mature and so forth.
To have Dhamma rule behavior, kids need to know the 5 Dhamma rules:
1) Not killing any life.
2) Not stealing.
3) Not behaving wrongly with regards to sex.
4) Not lying.
5) Not drinking alcohol.
If the parents observe, they will find some strength in Thai society that all Thai people know about the 5 Sila (precepts). If they are asked why we must observe the 5 Sila then they are not sure of how much they understand. The parents should practice Sila so they can effectively plant the examples to the children. If they want the children to observe the 5 Sila then they need to practice and know them well first.
1) Why must we not kill any life forms?
The thing that we love the most in our lives is our own life, which includes all the organs and components in ourselves. So others also love their lives the most, don’t they?
Animals also love their lives, don’t they? There are elephants, horses, cows, buffaloes and other animals who love their lives. Animals never tell us that though. When someone tries to hurt them, they just run away to save their lives.
It’s our nature that we shouldn’t kill any life because everyone loves his or her own life. So the first rule is no killing.
2) Why must we not steal?
How can we survive? We can survive by the 4 factors of life or by property.
Can we survive without food? No.
Can we survive without clothes? No.
Can we survive without a residence and medicine? No.
So the 4 factors of life mean property for survival. If our property is stolen, we don’t have to kill each other but we will exist in poverty and we will be in trouble.
If you work but get no raise in income it is very bad. If your employer tries to lower your salary then you will be unable to survive. So the second rule of Sila is that you can survive with your property and you shouldn’t rob each other.
That’s why the second rule is: do not steal any one’s property.
3) Why can’t we sexually misbehave?
Even if you don’t kill, and don’t steal there will be someone to take your loved one away. The love of the human involves the love of your husband, wife, parents, children and family. Dukkha or the most suffering you could have in your heart is to have your loved one taken away. You want to die and you don’t want to know anything. You seem to be dead even though you are alive when you lose your loved one.
As you know, everyone loves their children, loves their wife, their husband, family and all of their loved ones. Common sense always warns you that you should not sexually misbehave. This is the most important point of observing the third Sila Rule of the Dhamma Rules.
4) Why can’t we lie?
We can’t lie because lying is not a sign of sincerity or a true mind.
No matter how much love you give to your children, wife, or husband in the most tremendous way, if it is discovered that you don’t have honesty among each other, even though you love them so much, they will disappear on you. The person who loves you a lot, no matter how much they love you, the love will be reduced daily and in the end they will separate because of mistrust.
So the fourth rule of Sila is as follows: do not lie to each other because everyone wants the truth, the true heart and the true mind, so there shouldn’t be any lies.
5) Why can’t we drink alcohol?
The Lord Buddha pinpointed the following so that we see that as long as we don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t perform sexual misconduct, don’t lie, and never make mistakes with the four Silas is because we still have our consciousness. It is a very strange thing about consciousness.
Even if you are sick like you are going to die, hungry like you are going to die, starving like you are going to die, if you still have consciousness, you can stop your mind from killing, from stealing, from lying etc., but if you are drunk you can kill, you can steal, you can commit sexual misconduct and you can be a good liar.
So for you to keep the best of these rules preserved, everyone should not drink or become a drug addict to keep your consciousness for yourself to be normal. Then all five Sila will be kept properly. Whenever you lose consciousness the opportunity that you will be an animal in a human body will cause you to damage the people in society all that time.
As long as a person has consciousness, he/she would be able to force him/herself not to do anything destructive. If we drink alcohol or take drugs, we can do all bad things easily.
If parents can practice, then they can teach these 5 Sila rules to the children more effectively, and they will be good people who are strong in the Dhamma. It’s also a guard for them from becoming criminals in the future.
The truth of what is happening in Thailand now is that the parents do not lay the basic groundwork for the children when they are small. The people of Thailand will then not be able to take care of themselves. For example, with regards to the question about criminals or the problem of people getting killed, where do the criminals come from? The answer is that they first killed small animals until they got used to it and then killing became normal for them. Now what will happen? With this they will soon see that there will be killing every day. We will lose the profits from foreign countries, because the foreign people won’t want to come to Thailand when they read the newspapers. They will not want to come and will want to stay home. They will say that there are too many criminals in Thailand. Why is there so much crime in Thailand? It starts with the killing of small animals until they become used to it plus the news of criminals is normal, so the people get used to killing.
Where does the problem of corruption in Thailand come from? It begins from stealing. It starts with small robberies and then it grows. You come to work late, then you finish work early and you build up the stealing habit little by little until you are used to it. So when you have the opportunity to steal more you will, like at the end of the year 2539BE when the economy in Thailand went down. The news of the corruption in some of the banks in Thailand was released and it was reported all over the world. The value of the baht went down and it was unstable all over the world. That was a result of the stealing little by little until they got used to it. Sincerity between countries was ruined because of those corruptions.
Where did AIDS come from?
Millions of people got AIDS because they misbehaved in sex. They went to the bars and the clubs and they went to the brothels and AIDS spread. So we cannot deny that Thai people are not part of it. Because even if you say we are not involved and you just ignore it, then you are just in agreement with the guilty. So no one gets away from the subject that you have nothing to do with the spread of AIDS.
Where does unfaithfulness in the country come from?
It comes from lying, which starts in the family and the children and the wife, then with the boss in the office and with the co-workers, and then the nation. If you have the opportunity to become the Prime Minister, you will lie to all the people in the whole country and there’ll be huge problems for the country. This is misconduct little by little and eventually it becomes a big problem for the country.
Why are drug abuse and alcoholism widely spread so heavily in our society? Where does it come from?
This is from the inventory of the names of the alcohol brands that are sold in Thailand. The result is that in Thai – land they have all of the famous brands of the alcohol, wine etc. Every name brand is for sale and it is easy to say that you can buy every brand of alcohol in Thailand. It means that the picture of Thailand in the eyes of the world is alcoholism.
So in the year of 2539BE the loan institutions from other countries see Thailand, and think, “If Thailand looks like this, how are they going to get money to pay the IMF?” They will not be able to pay back the loan at the designated time. If you don’t have money to pay them back on time then they will not be granted an extension to pay later on. It is because the interest each year is less than the money that pays for the drinks for the whole country to consume in one year. So it appears that when you look for reasons why from the beginning, what happens is that you will find that the base of the problems of both social and economic natures in general is because of the lack of ALL five Sila and the 5 good Dhamma rules.
This story is about the past painfulness of not teaching the children the 5 Sila when they are small. The parents must see through this first and then help each other to train the children to have 5 Sila from the beginning until they grow up. They will be able to have important energy to bring the country forward in progress. They will then not be a part of the ones who damage the country. That will be a big source of pride for their parents because if the country is safe then the parents and all of the family members will be safe also.
The conclusion is that the parents want their children to grow up to be benevolent citizens in society and in the country. The five rules are:
1} The rules of speaking.
2} The rules of time.
3} The rules of cleaning.
4} The rules of organizing and 5} The rules of Sila.
The parents must train the children with the four factors of life and the household work.
4 How To Build The Habits Of The Children To Be Sincere And Clever (Mai Ngo)
All of the parents in the world want their children to be clever.
The cleverer they are the more the parents will be proud of them.
How to raise the children to be clever is not easy because there are different categories of cleverness. Some can be clever to rob or deceive you.
Some are clever but are really tricky etc. They can be clever in the wrong way. This type of cleverness always makes trouble but never ends.
The thing that the sincere parents want is the type of cleverness that makes the children grow up and progress in their life where they are able to make their living by them-selves, be useful to others and mostly be clever as well in technology.
But when we continue to observe, we found that to be clever in technology is not enough. This is because the person who graduates at the highest level to become a doctor, a professor etc. could be a person who makes trouble, and trouble of a more serious nature; even more dangerous than a criminal of the fourth grade in grammar school.
For example, a pharmacist knows about chemistry and graduated with honors, but instead of using his/her knowledge to take care of sick people by making medication; s /he made heroin and all of the drugs for the drug addicts. These kinds of drugs harm human life. They always make trouble and it never ends.
When we make this observation, the parents who love their children very much continue to have a question: they trained their children to go to upper level schools, and to be clever, so what are they missing?
The parents who study Buddhism know the answer. The cleverness or the stupidity of the people depends on two factors:
1) They are clever in the way of the world.
2) They are clever in the way of the Dhamma.
Those who are clever in the way of the world are able to study and learn everything with understanding. When they graduate they are able to use their education to get an occupation and take care of themselves.
Those who are clever in the way of the Dhamma have Dhamma rules, combined with a decision as to what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, what is boon, what is kamma, should or should not, and they pick to think, pick to talk, and they pick all the good things to do.
Both clever roads do not go together. The person who is clever in the world way but not clever in the Dhamma way will not be able to go past the trouble because they are missing the cleverness of the Dhamma. So therefore, knowl-edge of the way of the world has to get along with Dhamma knowledge.
When the parents saw the picture of how to train the children they saw:
How To Raise Children To Be Smart Both In The Way Of The World And In The Way Of The Dhamma
Our grandparents knew that intelligence is one of the habits which can be planted in children if parents know the heart of intelligence. What is it?
The answer is unbelievable. The answer is that the heart of intelligence is respect. Respect is the origin of all intelligence. If children know how to pay respect to their elders, they’ll be beloved. Whatever the elders know they want to teach to the children. But if the children are rude, no one will want to teach anything to them. This is because they are not going to listen and they will not be able to observe what is respectful and what is not.
What does respect mean?
It means we should keep watching those who have good kamma and try to bring it into ourselves. Don’t imitate when seeing someone else’s mistake and don’t bring it into yourself.
Respect Is Watching Someone’s Good And Trying To Emulate Them.
For example, chemists try to find out the value of some of the elements in nature to discover what is good in them and what is bad in them. S/he has to look carefully, like with copper, which is the best conductor of heat. There-fore copper is used with electricity. Then later they find out more and use it for a plug and a wire. But copper is very soft and not strong like iron. They will not use copper to make a knife, because the knife will not stay sharp. Iron can be used to make a knife or heavy equipment. Iron is not soft so it cannot be used to make an electrical wire. The chemist observes the value of the elements to utilize them in a useful way for the world. At the same time the parents want the children to be very clever so they have to train the children to look at the Dhamma knowledge and the qualities of those who practice the Dhamma well and bring it into themselves so that they might be cleverer in their life. So respect is at the heart of cleverness.
Respect And Showing Respect: Is It The Same Thing Or Not?
It is not the same thing.
The way to show the respect is to “wai” ( the bow) and to walk on all fours. This is the outer form of showing respect. But in the meantime, while you are performing the “wai,” what if your inner thought is that you wish to kill that person?
With the respect of Dhamma in their minds, they must look to find out the good deeds from the others and duplicate them. Don’t look at the other person’s mistakes. What are you respecting to build up your panna (wisdom)?
The grandparents designate clearly the qualities that we must respect, and lead us to possess panna. They are the following 7 factors:
1) Respect in the Lord Buddha.
2) Respect in the Dhamma.
3) Respect in the Sangha.
4) Respect in your studies.
5) Respect in your practice of meditation (bhavana).
6) Respect in non-carelessness.
7) Respect in greeting and talking.
All of these seven qualities are the paths of good consideration. The more our children will follow these seven qualities the more they will catch up and bring more goodness into their hearts.
The more you do repeat thinking, repeat talking and repeat practicing of the seven factors, the more you gain the wisdom and the responsibility of what is right and what is wrong.
At the end they will be able to teach themselves and teach the others the knowledge that they have within themselves. Then they will bring it out to be more useful to the world.
The pride of the parents should be that their children are born to do what is useful for themselves, for the family and for the world. However without rushing too much, the grandparents already explained previously why:
When You Respect The Lord Buddha You Are Clever
People, after they are born as humans, whether they are a child or an adult, cannot observe who is a good person and who is a bad person because they are not clever (no common sense). S/he may be a graduate with many a degree such as B.S., M.A. or PhD, but will be unable to tell who is good or bad. If you cannot tell the difference then someone may cheat you or lie to you (hoodwink you) or more than that, you can bring a bad person into your house. The household will then have a problem. The family will lose their good name. They will always have problems and they will never stop.
Sometimes one generation will die and the problem still never ends. The younger generation will still feel the repercussions of the problems. You can still see the results often in the present. The reason is because they are not truly sharp to distinguish the good people from the bad.
But for someone to see who is good or who is bad it is necessary to be trained with the two factors:
1} Know the good patterns to use to distinguish the desirable people.
2} Teach very strictly from a young age all of the good habits.
When you complete these two factors, then when you grow up you will know how to pick the good person for a kalyanamitta (good noble friend) and know how to observe the good people from the bad people.
Be able to observe persons and see how they are able to succeed and see how they are able to become very wealthy. Also observe how other persons have become bankrupt. You should be able to separate the reasons and understand the peoples’ behaviors and temperaments. You will be able to know people and predict their next move. You will be able to tell who has wisdom and you will know the deeper reason and the origin of their good and the “measure” of their good.
The end result is that they will have guides to think about, before doing or creating anything that will make them assess:
1) What is good, real, and useful and how can I best learn from that example?
2) How do I make the best out of that example?
So this way they will do only good things in their lives, in their jobs, and for their nation.
That is the power of the good deeds and the habits that they try to learn which is to learn only good things.
On the other hand, the children, who have never been taught to have a rule for measuring good people, bad people, boon, kamma, should or should not never got trained to do good deeds and will have to struggle by trying to do right and wrong things by themselves. They will not know how to separate wisdom in terms of bad and good. These children will have a life of trials of right or wrong and will be very unfortunate.
If they have a habit of observing peoples’ bad deeds, it will make their lives worse. It would be like the parents trying to take care of a thief.
A thief might not want to be bad, buts/he acquires a wrong concept that being a thief is good. They think wrongly because they see wrongly so the child keeps on observing others and cannot distinguish the good person. The things that the children see are the misconduct and as a result their minds will be full of bad things. S /he will think that everybody in the world is bad except him/herself.
If this situation happens, the child will be the most unfortunate person. The chance for him/her to be successful will be lessened. S /he will keep on repeating thinking, speaking and doing only bad things all of the time and they have a clouded mind forever. The parents and the family will be suffering from his/her behavior. The child will have no clue that what s/he is doing is wrong. The parents will be sorry but will be unable to find where they went wrong in teaching their children wisdom so they let their children get away with everything. This is because the parents don’t know how to correct it.
How To Train Children To Be Able To Realize The Good
To protect children from bad situations occurring in the family, you must train the children to be good. Our grandparents always say that men should become bhikkhus (monks) for at least one rainy season before marriage to learn the Dhamma for themselves and to know how to teach it to their children. And women should learn the Dhamma even more. When they marry and they become parents they will both have Dhamma and will prevent the children from becoming bad. They will only teach the children to be good, and in the correct way of the Dhamma. This way they can teach the Dhamma to their children properly in the future.
When you prepare to get married and become parents of high quality, the grandparents then give permission for you to get married and to have a family. Whenever you have children they will keep teaching you that you must impart only good to the children by putting forth the rules and regulations as per the following:
1) One must find superior examples (prototypes) of good behavior.
2) Parents have to be good prototypes for their children because the best examples for the children to measure good or bad come from the parents.
3) Parents must find good friends for their children because then in the future the children will know the difference, when they find their own friends.
4) Children must be trained to observe good deeds from people around them. They shouldn’t look for other peoples’ mistakes. They will have the ability to create widespread goodness.
The basis of the four subjects above is very important and is at the heart of teaching them.
The first 3 rules are about “finding good examples for children” and the last rule is “to train them to absorb good deeds from others so it will become their habits.”
Our grandparents chose “The Lord Buddha” for children to observe how to be good from.
Why did the grandparents choose the Lord Buddha to be the example?
The answer to this question is one that many parents wonder about too. However, because the grandparents have pure minds, they are able to see that the Lord Buddha is the greatest person in the world. There is no-one in the world better than him. This is due to:
1) His knowledge of getting rid of greed, anger, and delusion completely by himself. No one is as wise as he was.
2) His pure Sila. He never did, said, or thought to hurt anyone. He never caused hurt to anybody, he never used hurtful speech nor did he ever think about hurting anyone. No one is as wholesome as he was.
3) When he had no more suffering, he didn’t forget to help others. He never stayed still. He never ignored others. He was very kind, and very strict in teaching and advising others to help them eradicate their own suffering. He taught people how to stop greed anger and delusion. No matter how hard it was, he never complained or got tired of helping others. On all the pathways that he walked he taught and he was kind. He never had a drop of blood on his pathway (no fighting). No one is as kind as he was.
Grandparents are able to see this so they set down rules and regulations and they practiced all the way down the line until it became part of the Thai culture.
It has become a Thai tradition that as soon as you teach children to call, “Dad” and “Mom” clearly, then the very next thing you teach the children is to train them to pray, “Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhassa” to place the children immediately with the pattern of the Lord Buddha. When they finish praying they teach the children to bow on the Lord Buddha with the parents.
Question: did the children understand the reason from the parents of why they should pray or not?
Children might not understand why they have to pray. In fact, parents are planting habits into their children to get used to respecting the Lord Buddha, to build them up getting used to the Lord Buddha and their religion. However that is not enough. In Thai families years ago they were very strict. When the bhikkhus walked past the house or you happened to walk into the bhikkhu the mother always taught the children that if you see the bhikkhu you must always say “Dhu!” The children don’t know what “Dhu!” means. The mother says “Dhu ! ” and the children must follow the mother’s words. The word “Dhu” comes from the word “Sadhu” so the children must say, “Sadhu.”
What does “Sadhu” mean? It means good and correct. Grandparents have a way to start planting this in children from the beginning. It is the way to insure that the children will follow the adults’ words. After the children pray each night before bedtime, it is to develop the base of mind of the children in one step. Then the child asks the mother, “Why do we have to pay respects to the Lord Buddha?” You as a parent must realize that this is your biggest day to plant wisdom into your children. The parents will train the children to be good or bad ON THIS DAY. Children will be able to realize if something is good or not depending on the parent’s answer.
If the parent’s answer is good then they will say that today is the day to give the gold to the Buddha. If the answer is not good then it would be the day to take down the Buddha’s altar!
If the parent’s answer to the child is that this Lord Buddha is “very auspicious” and he will make you rich and help you to win lotto and win at gambling then today is the day to bum your altar. If this is what you teach the children then the parents are trying to train the children to gamble. That means that parents are teaching children to wait for luck. They will be lazy and not do anything by themselves.
If the answer is that the Lord Buddha protects the house to be saved from burglary, it will be bad. That means they are using the Lord Buddha as a guard and they will not to be trained to be careful.
But if the answer is that the Lord Buddha will never be harmful to anyone, never talk badly, never think badly, then the Lord Buddha will be more auspicious. That means that we are showing the purity of the Lord Buddha’s mind to children and they will be able to absorb the good lessons from his example.
Then when the children are born as humans, if they want to be auspicious, and if they want the people in the whole nation to respect them, then they must not think badly, must not talk badly and must not act badly to anyone. This is why you must answer them in this correct manner.
“Being a respectful person has to be a way of thinking, speaking and doing no harm to anyone.” This answer will promote children to be good people and they’ll never make parents feel sorrow.
In the future if the children ask why you have to bow and pray to the Lord Buddha then you will have another answer for them:
“My child this Lord Buddha is very clever in the world because he pays attention in school, and reads a lot of Dhamma so in the future my child when you grow up you will ordain for mommy.” This aim will ensure that the children will catch up with the benefits from the Lord Buddha’s merits.
If the answer is that the Lord Buddha is intelligent because he concentrated in studying Dhamma, then the parents should recommend that children pay attention in classrooms and become bhikkhus for a period of time to learn the Dhamma when they grow up. This answer shows the wisdom of the Buddha.
If the answer is that the Buddha is willing to help others in the world, this shows the generosity of the Buddha.
These are basic reasons why we should pay respect to the Lord Buddha. Our grandparents teach everyone to respect the Lord Buddha and to learn the Lord Buddha’s Dhamma for their foundation. When children know these basics and start to ask these questions, it’s time for parents to teach them to observe their fathers’ good deeds and pay respect to their fathers before going to bed.
If children have a question as to why they have to pay respect to father, the mother should prepare beneficial answers well such as,
“Your father never tries to hurt you, son. He’ll beat you only when you are disobedient.” Or,
“Your father is so intelligent and he has a good job and is able to take care of us well. He can do that because he follows the Lord Buddha. That is why you must pray and pay respect to the Lord Buddha every night. So you should pay attention in classrooms and not be stubborn.” After a couple of months, the child may ask again, “Why do I have to pay respects to my father?” It’s the parent’s job to repeat clear answers to the children because the children will develop good behavior. If the parents answer incorrectly then the children will learn the wrong behavior. Now you have to say to the child,
“Son/daughter you should help your dad to do whatever you can. Your dad works hard everyday in order to take care of us well. So you shouldn’t do anything to make him disappointed. Just concentrate in your studies and don’t be naughty. Always be good.”
With all these answers, children will be willing to pay respect to fathers or mothers all the time. That will make parents become the Arahants of their homes, which will be the examples to measure good by observing the good, not the bad.
Before both father and mother can answer children’s questions well, they have to be disciplined, responsible, clever, pure, kind and generous to each other. So parents can teach children about the good in themselves easily.
If a father is a drunkard, it’ll be hard to answer children as to why they have to pay respect to him. Anyway, the mother will have a hard time to explain to the children that the father is not good. The mother should not pick on the father and the children will learn from her example. We have to be careful because if children can look down on their father, they’ll be able to do that to anyone in the world. They’ll become pessimistic and harmful to others and the parents will have a hard time to correct the children because the children have already developed distrust for everyone.
So the best thing that the parents should do is to set a good example to the children and the children will follow. The wisdom that the children will gain will help them to grow up properly. The education that the parents send the children to school for will help the children to do well and develop a good reputation for the family.
Regarding focusing on others’ bad deeds, the grandparents said it easily causes trouble to society. These people will not focus on their duties but will keep on blaming others as to why they are bad. Then you can expect to receive a poison pen letter listing all of your bad traits. The people who don’t want to progress come from where? The grandparents answer with understanding that the parents never taught them to observe good people’s behavior. They only looked for the bad traits of others. They don’t want to work and they sit around and write poison pen letters.
So if you want the people who watch other peoples’ mistakes out of this country, we have to train our children to observe the good deeds by following the four factors of life that we mentioned before.
When the grandparents advise the children more to look at the others’ good deeds, they stress the Dhamma more deeply for the children to learn. They will be able to know how to teach the teachers etc. and they will be able to report what the good traits are in all of those people who the children come into contact with regularly. Look at the world through the good deeds. See things from a broader perspective. When they have a problem in their life then they will be able to correct it. It will not be easy to become suicidal this way. When they are able to look at others’ good deeds, they should look deeper by studying the Dhamma. If children can observe the good deeds of the relatives, teachers, and friends and talk about that to their parents everyday, they will be optimistic and be able to get through all the problems easier. However, in training the children to be good, the grandparents advise the parents that they should know how to praise and respect the good people. Also it is important for them to know, “When you do well you get good results. When you do badly you get poor results.” Children will then believe in doing well.
On the other hand, if parents just ignore when children behave well and give punishment when they misbehave, children will wonder whether doing well yields good is true or not.
When the children do well the parents have to recognize the good. But when they do wrong you have to explain to them what they did incorrectly and then punish them. If you do this quite often then the children develop confidence that when you do well you get good results, and when you do badly you receive bad results. It will make the childrens’ minds strong.
In the opposite way if the children do well and the parents ignore it and if the children do wrongly and the parents punish them, then the children will wonder in their minds, “If you do well are you going to get good results???”
If they do well, they never get recognized, and when they do wrongly then they get punished.
After this story the grandparents should and must pray with the children to train the children to know and recognize the best of the Lord Buddha.
Our grandparents believe that no one can be as great as the Lord Buddha. His good can be compared to sunlight, but our good is just the light from the lightening bugs.
If we still can’t realize and praise the greatness of the Lord Buddha:
1) Don’t be curious as to why no one ever praises and gives compliments to you when you are doing good deeds.
2) Don’t be sad that your children never pay respect to you.
It is because they have the same attitude, which is, when others saw them behave greatly they never received praise.
Thus, parents should teach children to pay respects to their grandparents also, and then children will not have any question as to why they have to do the same thing to their parents.
Our grandparents always say, “Don’t keep company with anybody who never realizes the good of their own parents because they will never appreciate you no matter how well you treat them.”
Therefore, parents should teach children to be wise both in the realistic way and in the Dhamma way. They should be trained to realize the good and respect the Lord Buddha, parents, grandparents, and relatives. Moreover, parents have to be the best example for children to use as the measure to judge good and bad people. Then they’ll have the habit of observing others’ good deeds. They’ll become wiser and have a broader point of view in their lives as a result of having respect in the Lord Buddha.
When You Respect The Dhamma You Are Clever
Also it will teach you to get rid of all kilesa (derangements and defilements). Then you will become an Arahant and go to Nibbana.
The aim of all the instructions is to teach humans to get rid of kilesa in order to have no more suffering from birth, old age, sickness, and death (samsara).
The Lord Buddha’s Dhamma can be used as the rule to measure right-wrong, good-bad, virtue-sin, proper-improper, and useful-useless in order to think, speak and perform good deeds confidently. It also develops all good habits in children later on.
In previous lessons, we learned that the origin of childrens’ habits is to train them to repeat thinking, speaking and doing by parents.
1) Repeat thinking, speaking and doing in the right way will develop good habits and train you to be a good person.
2) Repeat thinking, speaking and doing in the wrong way will bring bad habits and train you to be a bad person.
It can be compared to installing computer programs. If we install good programs, it will be useful for us. If we put viruses into the computer, all the good data and the computer will be destroyed.
So if parents install good programs for children, they will become good people. If parents install bad programs for them, they will become bad people.
The important factor is how parents can be sure that the programs, which they will install for their children, will be the right, important and useful programs for them so they are thinking, speaking and doing the right lessons for the children. It should be right, good and useful.
The rules that we will use to measure the good programs are more important than anything. In some eras, without the life of the Lord Buddha on earth, people understood that killing and robbing were good deeds. Then there were many criminals in the world.
But later, the Lord Buddha taught people to get rid of all kilesa. Then people learned to judge good and bad deeds. This was the origin of the true teachings in the world.
That’s why our grandparents keep on saying that everyone should learn the Dhamma before getting married in order to be able to teach Dhamma correctly to their children in the future. The knowledge in Dhamma can help everybody to develop life in a good way.
For example, they should be able to classify right, good and proper.
Right is something that we don’t know whether it’s useful or not, but it becomes useful later on.
Good is something that we know is right, and do it carefully until it’s done.
Proper is something that is not good or bad, but doing it is better than not doing it.
If children study and practice Dhamma well, they will be able to classify right, good and proper well, while there are many people who will never know and won’t be able to classify those for all of their lives.
To train children to respect the Dhamma, our grandparents would teach children to pay respects to and pray to the Lord Buddha since they were really young. The grandparents taught the children from when they were very small. Then they will bring them to the temples when they grow up. When the monks teach the Dhamma lessons, children will memorize them and come back home to review. If there are any mistakes, grandparents will help to explain to them correctly. That will promote the children to develop Dhamma knowledge.
If parents would like children to be good kids, they have to learn and understand the Dhamma correctly. Respecting and practicing the Dhamma is an important example for children to follow.
Parents should teach children to pay respect to them. Parents might bless the children before going to bed by mentioning the good things of that day.
For example, “Son, even though I was taken advantage of, I never lied to anyone. With my good, I’ll ask you to be a good child, to concentrate in class, to not take advantage of any one, and to not lie to anyone.”
If parents often do that, the children will be obedient. They will be able to develop their good analysis, and classification of the right-wrong, good-bad, boon-kamma, and proper-improper.
However, before blessing children, parents should learn the basic Dhamma rules, which are the truths of life and the world, called:
The 8 Factors of Samma-Dhitti.
These Dhamma rules teach us to look at the basic realism of the world, while we are still in the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and death, in order to avoid any mistakes in life. The 8 factors are:
1) Donating is good, we should do it.
2) Respecting respectful people, we should do it.
3) Welcoming good people and talking with them, we should do it.
4) Parents are great; we should be great in return.
5) Doing well yields good, doing badly yields bad.
6) Death is not the end where you disappear.
7) Hell and heaven exist.
8) Phra Arahants, who get rid of all kilesa, exist.
These 8 factors of Samma-Dhitti will influence lives, which are still in the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and death, as long as they exist.
If parents still don’t understand any of these factors, they should try to learn them. Otherwise, we will be judged as people who don’t respect the good and the Dhamma. The chance to make a mistake in life will be increased as well as more chances to be sinful. That might impact the children’s habits as they focus on bad deeds of their parents.
The 8 factors of Samma- Dhitti are the basis of life development. It shouldn’t be overlooked at all because in the future, it’ll have a huge impact on our lives and the next life. One day in the future when you will understand the 8 factors it will send tremendous results directly to the parents. Especially when the parents die, they will leave this world and be unable to predict the future. Children will go on to do Sanghadhana (prayer ceremony to send virtue or merits to deceased relatives and loved ones), doing virtue and giving the merits to the parents or not. It will depend upon their understanding of Samma- Dhitti. The children usually give the parents merits on the day of cremation but will they give merits in the future beyond the cremation day? This will depend on the children’s level of understanding the Dhamma.
In summary, respecting the Dhamma will help parents to be able to classify the good-bad, right-wrong, virtue-sin, and proper-improper. Then parents can have wisdom, plant good habits for children properly, and also protect them from bad behaviors.
Moreover, parents will have happy lives and good children in this life and the next life from the virtues, which are made from their children by offering Sanghadhana.
Why Are We Clever If We Pay Respect To The Bhikkhus?
Parents have to teach children who the bhikkhus are:
The word “Phra Sangha” is combined by 2 words:
“Phra” means great and
“Sangha” (pronounced Song) means group.
“Phra Sangha” means the group of people who have great minds.
What makes their minds great?
They have no more kilesa; meaning no more greed, anger, and delusion in their minds.
The way to get rid of greed, anger, and delusion is not easy.
Then there are 2 kinds of monks:
1) Som Mutti Sangha means a person who ordains as a monk in Buddhism and focuses on practicing the Dhamma rules strictly in order to get rid of greed, anger, and delusion until becoming Phra Arahant.
2) Phra Ariya Sangha means persons who have no more wondering of the Lord Buddha’s enlightenment, since being trained to practice according to the Lord Buddha’s Dhamma, and these persons finally become Phra Ariya Bukun, also known as Phra Ariya Puggala (reach higher states of holiness). They are Phra Sotapanna, Phra Sakidagami, Phra Anagami, Gotrabhu and Phra Arahant. (Ariya Sangha people don’t have to ordain to be monks, they just focus on getting rid of all kilesa as a rule to their practice).
Most people can’t classify the needs and the excesses in their lives. They are the result of many troubles in our world.
Therefore, monks’ lives are an example of living for us to measure the need of life. There are only 4 factors of life remaining for them to survive. There are 3 sets of clothing, 2 meals a day, a tree as their residence, and medicines when needed in order to avoid wasting time to arrange unnecessary excess things. There’ll be more time to practice the Dhamma. They can get rid of kilesa sooner and they can be great people to inspire others.
So we should support them to be able to practice their Dhamma as much as they can. The more they can practice and learn the Dhamma from the Lord Buddha, the more we can learn the Dhamma from them as well. Then we can know right-wrong, boon-kamma, should-should not etc. Learning the Dhamma from a Phra Sangha who practices well and directly from Phra Nibbana will guide you to know the truth of the world and life.
As the result of learning the Dhamma, it makes us know more reality of life and right from wrong in that:
1) Death is not the end of life. We still have to be reborn and be in the cycle of life endlessly (samsara) unless we can get rid of all kilesa.
2) As long as we are still in the cycle of life, all the lives will be influenced by kamma that we caused in the past. That means whoever did well would be happy; whoever did badly suffer.
3) The quality to utilize in the cycle of life’s journey is virtue. Virtue has to be developed by ourselves; no one can create it for others.
The truth of life also makes the great monks know that everybody has their “work of life”. There are 4 main factors one must abide by in order to follow the routine of the Lord Buddha and the Phra Arahants who have knowledge and Dhamma and who know that each person has a duty in their life.
1) Work for a living with honesty. It’s also called Samma Ajiva (pronounced sam-ma-ar-che-wa) to fit in with your sex and age in order to live proudly in the world. Don’t depend on others and don’t be harmful to others.
2) Work for creating good Dhamma for yourself. Protect the mistake of making bad kamma by using body speech and mind to build up the bad kamma, but support and use your body speech and mind to make good kamma and virtue as much as possible. Make up your mind to get rid of the bad, and do well or fulfill your practice of Parami (perfection).
3) Work for creating good Dhamma for others. Build a good environment, which means surrounding yourself with good people. Begin with your home, your job etc. and support them to make good kamma. You should not lose time, or lose emotions, which give you the opportunity to create worse kamma. There’ll be no one against you making good karma.
4) Work for getting rid of kilesa from your heart and mind completely. This is in order to have no more suffering and cycles of life. Follow the Lord Buddha and all of the Arahants to concentrate on Bhavana (meditation).
Therefore, paying respect to Phra Sangha is to realize the goodness of them. They have good Dhamma from good behavior and they follow the Dhamma rules strictly. So we should often learn and practice the Dhamma from them. We should support them to be great people as much as we can. The Phra Sangha will be the best to make boon (merits or virtue) for and they are the best teachers of Sila for the world’s people.
Our grandparents realized the importance of learning from Phra Sangha so they train their children to get used to Phra Sangha and Buddhism by getting up early, and by offering food for the monks every morning. Then the monks have food to eat and have more energy to learn and practice the Dhamma effectively.
If we train children to offer food to the monks every morning, they will learn to share and donate to others when they grow up. They’ll know the need and the excess of their lives. They will know how to offer Sanghadhana for those in their family who have passed away.
When they grow up and are working, they’ll know how to manage their assets, they will know how to earn, collect, spend, save and train the next generation to donate and make Dana (generosity) well. This is because they got used to the simple lives of the Phra Sangha since they were young. Then they will be realizing the very importance of taking care of Buddhism in the tradition of their grandparents. They will make Sanghadhana and send the merits.
In the opposite way, if the children are not trained to respect Phra Songha when small, then when the parents pass away, of course they will not find people to give Sanghadhana because they never trained the children to respect Phra Sangha and the children were never trained in the Dhamma.
Why Are We Clever If We Respect Education?
Education either in the reality or in the Dhamma consists of 4 factors. The parents must know that the wisdom of their children comes from 4 factors:
1) Having good people as teachers.
2) Listening to teachers.
3) Thinking along with the teachers’ words.
4) Behaving as per the teachers’ instructions.
The first factor relates to the quality of the teachers. The other 3 relate to the respect for education of the students.
Without these 4 factors, it’s hard for children to be intelligent. For example, if children have a good teacher, they don’t know how to respect the teacher as should be trained by the parents. They will not listen to the teacher, they will not think about the teacher’s words, and they will not behave according to the teacher’s instructions. They will not get the knowledge as much as they should even if they have the best teacher in the world.
It can be compared to using a small and narrow necked bottle to fill with rain that is raining down heavily from the sky. There is so much rain for us to collect but we just can’t get the water into the bottle because the neck is too narrow to allow the water to stream in.
On the other hand, if children have a bad teacher, even though your children respect the teacher, the children know how to think cleverly and perform duties with concentration. With all the intelligence they have they will not be able to extract any good from this type of teacher to use in their own life.
Therefore, children will be good and smart when they have good teachers and learn to respect their teachers well.
What Qualities Must Good Teachers Have In Order To Train Children To Learn Respect?
1) Teachers must command respect because they impart knowledge to the students.
2) Teachers must supply textbooks because they are instruments to help in the education process, to be more convenient, and they are easy to review.
3) Teachers must have education as a priority because it leads to showing respect to teachers and encourages the students not to look down on education.
4) Teachers must teach the students self-respect because we have a duty to be good students and teach ourselves to be good people.
Parents have to teach children to respect these 4 factors so they will have wisdom.
However, it’s hard for a good teacher to take care of 30 students in a classroom individually.
So parents have to have a role in helping the teacher, too. After work, parents should help children to read and review homework everyday. That will make the children want to study, and read and write and to know that everyone pays attention to education. Then they will be enthusiastic and focus on their education as well because they see the parents are still studying.
Why We Should Meditate Faithfully To Increase Intelligence {Mai Ngo)
Meditation (Samadhi) is a major instruction from the Lord Buddha, which involves the concentration of your mind. That means that the actions of your mind have the sum total of your thoughts and your emotions together. When you have concentration you are not irritable and you do not get influenced by external stimulations. The external stimulations can cloud your mind by pervading it. It can make you uncomfortable give; you a bad mood and lead you to wrong decision-making, an inability to study well and could lead to the making of many mistakes at your job etc.
Respecting meditation means practicing meditation everyday, in order to stabilize your mind, be rational, have good emotions, be good at studying, memorizing, and for working effectively without thinking of anything else.
A meditative mind is compared to using a magnifying glass to combine all the widespread sunlight to become a powerful spotlight. It builds up the hot energy to burn out the material to make a fire. Then the mind with meditation becomes the same thing. A meditative mind can also stop the mind, which worries about many things, and create the ability to focus on only one. In Buddhism, there are 40 ways of meditation.
A person with a meditative mind will be able to handle the pressure better when they have to face any problems. They will not be easily stressed and nervous with troubles. Yet, they will be able to solve any problems correctly and easily.
If parents train children to meditate from a very early age, they’ll have stable emotions, good memory, rationality, and will not be short-tempered. They will be able to teach themselves, and they will be able to think with sound judgment. They will grow up to be successful adults. They will handle responsibility well and will be able to face the whole wide world with security and confidence, the way that the parents want their children to be.
The easy way to train children to meditate is to start them meditating for 5 minutes before going to bed every night. Then they should repeat it again in the morning everyday until it becomes their habit.
An easy way to meditate is to close your eyes and focus on thinking “Bud-dho, Bud-dho, Bud-dho” and so on until the mind can follow through for 5 minutes. Or it can be done without thinking of anything as well. Just like that the mind will be led to its natural origin, which is at the middle of the abdomen. Then let it be calm and stabilized, which is its nature without being forced. This is an easy way to train one in meditation in the Buddhist tradition, and to train a quiet stable mind in children.
Besides that, parents should teach children to do meditation for sharing merits (*see the metta/lovingkindness or dana/generosity prayer below) to others 2 times a day; before going to bed and in the early morning. Children will be kind and know how to be merciful to animals and human beings who are all our friends. They will not be fierce and will not destroy others as well.
* “Sut-tung- lie-tee-pen-pern-took-gurt-geh-jeb¬tie-duay-gun-mo-tung-sin,
Jong-pen-sook-pen-sook-tuhd-yah-dai-mee¬wane-daw-gun-lae-gun-luy.
Jong-pen-sook-pen-sook-tuhd-yah-dai-beaud¬beaun-sung-gan-lae-gun-luy.
Jong-pen-sook-pen-sook-tuhd-yai-dai-mee¬kwam-took-guy-took-jai-luy.
Jong-mee-kwam-suk-gai-suk-jai-rak-sah-dtone¬hai-pone-jak-took-phai-tung – sin-tern.”
The English translation of the metta/dana prayer is:
All the animals that are born in this world are the friends of suffering for birth, old age, illness and death that we are all in together in the cycles of existence.
Be happy in happiness and don’t join in kamma together.
Be happy in happiness, and don’t exploit each other.
Be happy in happiness, and don’t have body suffering, and mind suffering, but be happy physically, with a happy mind and take care of yourself to erase all suffering.
Only this prayer will make the childrens’ minds very pure, and very soft. If you train the children to share the merits like this regularly, not only will you train them for meditation but you also plant the seeds in the mind for the children to have metta (loving-kindness) and karuna (kindness) to all of the animals, all the humans and all of their human friends. They will not have wicked minds, and the children will look at the world to not destroy it, but will look at the world as a creation.
In summary, if parents would like their children to have meditative minds, they will be able to teach them to have a good memory, to be happy, to be talented, to be rational, and to be responsible. Parents should train them to do meditation everyday until it becomes their habit.
Why Are We Intelligent If We Respect Being Careful?
“Careless people, even if they’re alive, are not different from the dead.”
Being successful 100 times can’t guarantee that the 101st time will be also be successful. It’s because the heart of success is “being careful.”
Careless people will make mistakes all the time. The more mistakes they make the more they will lack confidence. They will dare not to do anything. Then they will have no resume (list of experiences needed to apply for a job). They will also have an inferiority complex, and have envy of others. They will continually search for the mistakes of others. In the end they will become troubled and will lack hope in their lives.
So we have to be respectful and careful if we want to be successful.
What is being careful?
It is to be conscious in thinking, speaking and doing and to avoid doing anything bad at all times.
What is conscious (sathi)?
It is being aware of the right and wrong, good and bad. It will alert you to think, speak and do in the right way by using your brain for consideration.
What is the enemy of conscious (sathi)?
It is a bad drive (abai ya mook). It is the entrance to destructions, which are alcoholic drinks, prostitution, gambling, and laziness.
We should teach children since they are young how bad these things are so they won’t want to be concerned with them.
What should we be careful about?
1) Careful in timing. Children should be taught to keep on reminding themselves that time passes by and never comes back. What are we doing now? This question they should ask is a way to decide that they will not spend time playing cards, boasting, or watching concerts. They will have more time to focus on working and studying. Use all of your time to race with your life because time will pass and will not return.
2) Careful in age. Children should be taught by the parents to keep on reminding themselves, “Don’t think that we are still young and we just play for fun day after day.” This is because from birth until now each individual has so many life cycles that they have already passed.
3) Careful in health. Children should be taught to keep on reminding themselves, “Don’t think that we will be healthy forever.” Whenever the bad karma that we made in the past catches up with us, we might become sick. So we should do well as much as we can when we are healthy. Be good children to your parents, pay attention to everything that you do when you are strong and do the best that you can.
4) Careful in life. Children should be taught to keep on reminding themselves, “Our ages are actually long. It’s just short when breathing. No one knows when the death will come.”
The Lord Buddha said clearly that a human’s age is as short as the breath; inhaling and exhaling. Only exhaling or inhaling, a human will die. So a human’s age is as short as 5 seconds – that is exhaling and inhaling only.
There is no warning sign for death to let us know how, where, and when we are going to die. We should perform good deeds and make our mind happy all the time and seize opportunities.
5) Careful in work. Children should be taught to keep on reminding themselves, “All work should be done to our best ability.” All work should be done with the right purpose. We should not get tired doing it. Don’t leave it for tomorrow. Otherwise, you will not have quality in your work.
6) Careful in education. Children should be taught to keep reminding themselves, “We should use all of our efforts to gain knowledge.” Don’t ignore reading what you should. Realize the value of knowledge, which is the key to succeed in life and to solve any problems.
7) Careful in practicing the Dhamma. Children should be taught to keep on reminding themselves that they have to respect the Lord Buddha, the Dhamma, and Sangha (Phra Bhud, Phra Dham, Phra Sangha), education, meditation, and welcoming. These should always be practiced because it’s the way to wisdom in terms of right-wrong, good-bad, boon-kamma, should-should-not etc. The result is that you are a good person, with good thoughts, good speech and good Dhamma. The Dhamma should be learned and practiced now. You shouldn’t be old when you start because you have deafness in your ears when you are old and you can’t hear Dhamma talks. When you get old you have aches and pains, and when you want to read you can’t see. When you get up you moan, when you sit down you moan so, when you know about this you should pay attention and practice the Dhamma. This will make you have happiness in this life and in the next life.
If parents teach children to be careful, they will be talented, and will conscientiously do their best in everything. Others will not take advantage of them. They will not waste time with nonsensical activities, but will spend time doing good deeds instead. The shadow of success will follow them forever.
On the opposite side, if parents teach them to be careless in these things, it’s a big mistake. They’ll lack carefulness in their lives, which will lead to all the mistakes in the future. They won’t know the reason for the mistakes and how to solve them properly. It will be hard for them to be successful. It’s like a careless person is a dead person.
Why Respecting Welcoming And Greeting (Bat-Ti-San-Tan) is Clever (Mai Ngo)
Bat Ti San Tan means “greeting”. It means that you know how to greet a good person to come in your group.
From the grandparents’ experiences they give us 3 important useful factors:
1) To practice talents for examples to the children.
Many parents have children who are lovely but at the same time the parents always wonder how to train the children to be talented. In Buddhism, we have an easy lesson to train the children to be talented. But most of the time they don’t know that this is a lesson for talent.
How do we train the children to be talented?
The parents must use greetings to train them.
Children should be trained from when they are young. Whenever a relative or teacher from school comes to visit at the house, parents should tell the children to come in no matter where the children are playing. You must send the servants to call them. When the children arrive they must bow to greet and pay respects to the visitor. Children should learn to offer refreshments and report themselves to the visitor, as to what their first name is, what their last name is, what grade they are in, the name of the school they are in, the name of their teacher and what their latest grade was. They should answer all of the questions properly.
That is how the childrens’ talents will be created.
It looks like you get nothing from that but the truth is that the visitor will look at the children as if to say that they are very good. They will ask the children about school etc. Now the talents of the children begin.
Sometimes the visitor has some fun questions. Will the children will be able to answer them? Yes they will be able to answer them, which means that the parents train the talents for the children at this point. So if any parents did not teach the children to greet the visitors, they have to be warned that they are making a mistake because the children’s talent starts from here. All of the information about the children is brought out at this point.
Furthermore, our grandparents can make a very good point, for instance, after the children have a question from the visitor, the grandparents will interject, “This uncle or that aunt has a good reputation, like the best mayor, the best judge or the best doctor,” and will comment on how well each person is doing, such as they are doing the best at their job.
All these pictures will be impressed into the childrens’ minds.
How will these pictures be impressed into the childrens’ minds? If each person they are referring to is a good mayor, good judge, or good doctor they must have a personality like that, even if the children don’t have all the information. But the true picture of the talent and common sense will begin the training right from this spot.
In the opposite way if the visitor is a bad person (Sab) and comes to visit, it doesn’t matter what the child is doing. If they are reading or playing, then the grandparents should yell out, “Children we are going to talk business, we want you to play someplace else!” Children must hurry up and go. They must leave the area and not stay there. In the future when the children get older, and they see the bad visitor coming to the house, they will hurry up and leave. Otherwise they will be chased by the grandparents. But on any day when they see the good visitor come into the house, it doesn’t matter where they are at. The children will be summoned to the house to serve the refreshments and report themselves and the children will be able to distinguish the good visitors from the bad ones from this point on.
Every parent wants their children to have talent to be able to see who is good and who is bad. They want their children to know that but if all this was not taught to the children, the parents must complain to each other, “How could our children be so stupid?” The truth is, it is not the children’s fault but the parents, who never taught them. All these are easy lessons that the grandparents not only trained their children in but they also trained their daughter in- law, their niece-in-law and the servants, so everybody knows how to welcome people well and knows how not to chase people. The house will have a good reputation all over. If the family knows how to keep company with others well, the village will be willing to share knowledge and news to that house because they have good wise contact with the community. That will make the family to be more beloved and have a wider point of view.
The Lord Buddha realized how important it is to train in this talent so he established ‘respectfulness towards greeting’ for us to practice.
2) To maximize the good.
If the person does not have a blinded mind, s/he will become a big billboard to announce our good deeds. It doesn’t matter if anybody says we are bad. That supportive person will guarantee, “It’s not true. I worked with them before and they are not the way you say. You shouldn’t talk badly about them. These people have a good reputation.” When someone claimed that we are not good, that person might say, “It is not true. I went to his/her office ands/he is a good person. You should know him/ her better before judging him/her.”
So without good welcoming, guests might become big billboards to announce our good or our mistakes to others as well.
We all possess something strange. Sometimes we meet each other today but you never know if in the next life we will meet again, so that anything we make or say will be an impression. We then give a comment in this life. If you curse them in one life you build an enemy from this greeting. You can make a kalyanamitta and have a good friend in the future too depending on each impression.
Our lives are so short so we should make impressions to others when we can. It will be a friend or enemy depending on your welcoming.
3) To increase our credits.
Knowing to invite good people to our home or job is one of our virtues. If we are not good, good people might not want to visit us either. It is a good guarantee to us; if we are good, good people will come. If we are not good people will not come to our house.
If the king visits our district, we will be so proud. The people will be pleased by his kindness so we will prepare to welcome his majesty as good as we can.
Welcoming is increasing our knowledge and credit so it is the starter of wisdom.
When parents understand the reasons to respect these 7 factors well (mentioned below), they will know that practicing building them up pulls the childrens’ minds up so, practicing them is necessary. You can tell the children true stories based on the experiences of the parents. So the parents should tell the stories to children by using the parents’ own experiences and the chadoke or the stories of the past lives of the Lord Buddha. They should pick the associated story to relate to the point that the parents want to teach at that time and they should tell the children the way they like to be told. At the end the parents should ask the children to practice what they learned right away and when the children are able to do that, the parents must know how to give recognition to the children. After that, parents should convince their children to start practicing immediately. If they perform it well, parents should give them some rewards. That will make children realize that doing well yields good results.
The more stories that parents tell children, the more Dhamma the children will have in mind. They will have the habit of observing other’s good. They will be rational and have more wisdom built up later on.
In summary, parents would like children to be intelligent, conscious, have wisdom and be able to judge right-wrong, good-bad, proper-improper, and be great people. The children, when they grow up will have good knowledge, good skills, good Dhamma and parents should train them to have respect for the 7 factors, which are respecting the Lord Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, education, meditation, not being careless, and welcoming and greeting.
5 How To Plant Habits Into Children To Be Kind And Generous (Mai Lang Num jai)
Parents teach children not to be harmful by using behavior rules. They teach them to be intelligent by using respecting rules. The way to teach children to be generous is by planting patience into them.
What is patience? (Od-Ton)
Od means to want to have but doesn’t have.
Ton means to not want to have but does have.
Patience means knowing to maintain our normal circumstance when it is affected by anything that we want to have or not.
How does patience cause generosity?
If someone can’t be patient, s/he will not be able to help him/herself. And then s/he will not be able to help others as well so s/he won’t be generous to others.
How do you teach children to be patient?
To begin with they should be trained to be patient regarding these 4 factors:
1) Being patient towards difficulty.
2) Being patient towards suffering.
3) Being patient towards conflict.
4) Being patient towards stimulation of kilesa.
1) Being patient towards difficulty is patience to climate condition. No matter whether it’s too hot or too cold, too watery, too dry, too hard or too soft, we should be able to be patient without pretending to give up.
People who lack patience towards difficulty always use the weather to be the excuse to ask for a day off. Actually, it is the excuse of lazy people. Whether it’s hot/ cold, morning/evening, they will use the excuse not to go to work.
If parents always baby children when they have a little obstacle, children will have no patience. When they grow up, they will be lazy and take advantage of others.
Therefore, parents have to train them to be patient towards difficulty. When they fall, they have to learn to stand up by themselves. If they cry, they’ll stop when no one pays attention to them. This can help them to be patient.
Besides that, parents should support them to play sports (football, basketball, volleyball, swimming etc.). Sports will help to strengthen their muscles and to be healthy. Children will not be afraid to be tired. When they grow up, they will be ready to fight any troubles without any fear.
2) Being patient towards suffering is patience towards illness. Parents should teach children to take care of themselves well.
For example, when children get cut or fall down, they should be taught to take care of their wounds by themselves, so they’ll learn to be patient and avoid letting it happen again.
If parents don’t teach them to be patient, children will pretend to be worse. For example, if children just cough without any fever, parents baby them by allowing them not to go to school. Next time, the children will do the same thing when they are lazy.
There is a story of an Australian teacher. She knows how to teach her children to take care of themselves.
One day she was staying at another teacher’s house, and her 3 year old son asked to hold a knife. The mother refused to give it to him and explains to him that he might get cut. But the boy still asks to play with the knife. Finally, the mother agrees under the condition that the boy can’t cry if he gets cut and he has to take care of the wound by himself. The boy agrees.
Five minutes later, the boy got cut and he cried. The wound is just a minor cut so it’s fine. The mother stated the claim based on the agreement. Then the boy stopped crying. The mother gave the child iodine. The child put his hand behind him so he would avoid the iodine. The mother said, “If you don’t take care of your wound I will dip the finger right into the iodine. Here is the cotton so you must wet the cotton with the tincture and you must apply it to the wound. If you do not do this well the wound will become infected. If it becomes infected then you have to cut the finger.”
The boy had to put the dressing on and wrap it around the wound. The mother told the boy that if he gets dust in the wound, you still have to cut the finger.
Then he asked his mom to take care of the wound. The mother refused to because he already promised that he would do it by himself. Then the boy has to do so by himself.
The mother said that the wound might be worse if it gets wet. So the boy has to beware of water when he’s showering. The mother doesn’t allow his sister to help him by preventing her from assisting him as well.
Then at night, the mother taught him to fix the wound and now he can do it well.
The child was sent out to play, and she told him not to get the finger wet and not to get dirt in there, and if he gets dirt in there then the bacteria will get in and you still have to cut the finger. The wound is like a cat scratch but the child is afraid of infection. When he bathes he holds his hand up high because he is afraid to get the hand wet. When he takes a bath sometimes he gets himself clean and sometimes not, but the mother lets it go. So at night the mother shows him how to put the dressing on. When she was finished she asked the boy,
“Can you put it on like this?”
The child says, “Yes it is easy,” so the mother removed the dressing and told the child to do it by himself. He tried many times and at the end he was able to do it.
The Australian mother trained the child this way but the Thai mother may punish the child from when he first gets the cut.
This example is very good for children because they will know to have patience to take care of themselves whenever they have any trouble in their lives.
3) Being patient towards conflict is patience to anger and dissatisfaction, which is caused by others, such as bad words, impolite manners, stressfulness, and unfairness in society.
One day, children will have to live with others. Parents have to prepare them by teaching them patience towards conflict because everyone has different habits so it is hard to avoid conflict with others.
When conflict occurs, we respond with anger. It is easy, but it’s useless. The worst part is that we create enemies and become hot-tempered.
But controlling the mind to forgive and forget is more useful but harder to accomplish. If children are taught to forgive and forget, they’ll be able to control themselves and be rational.
Children should be trained to work as part of a team so they know how to brainstorm and be responsible to have the share of their work done. They will practice to listen to others’ opinions and to adapt themselves to deal with others to have the best teamwork. The work will be well done if everyone is open-minded. With teamwork it is necessary to think of how the work will be done. They must know what the quality of good work is and they must know how to divide the responsibilities for the job and know how to manage it well so the job will tum out successfully.
This is also a way of learning how to control your moods, how to listen to the other people, and how to give recognition to others in the meeting. In the beginning you may or may not agree. You may not like the idea, and that is natural for people who have never worked as a team. However, if these are responsible people and not bossy, they will adjust themselves to work together and learn to know and adapt to everyone else’s behavior. In the end the job will be a complete success and everyone will have an open mind.
Most of the problems happen because of Ti-Ti Mana (hotheaded temper). This happens because of pride. It causes the habit of looking down on others and focusing on others’ mistakes. No one would like to live with conceited people.
There are 3 types of pride:
1) Pride to think that we are better than others.
As an example, an employee thinks that s/he is better than the boss.
2) Pride to think that we are the same as others (when we are not).
As an example, some boss keeps working hard; as hard as the servant. And the servant makes him/herself like the boss. The person thinks s/ he is at the same level as the boss.
3) Lack of pride to think that we are worse than others.
Somebody keeps on focusing on the bad points so s/he keeps thinking that s /he doesn’t have the capacity to do anything.
Therefore all kinds of pride are negative.
The Lord Buddha said that,
“You should treat yourself as a cloth so you can be patient towards conflict, towards good and bad and to keep on observing others’ good deeds.”
If we already have pride, how can we solve it?
If children always think that they are better than others, parents have to order them to clean the restroom often. Cleaning restrooms can lessen their pride (ego) because they have to be patient towards doing what they don’t want to do.
When they work with their friends, they will have another chance to think that others also have good points.
If children always think that they are worse than others, parents have to cheer them up. Parents might ask them to do something easy and step up to something harder little by little. So they will have more confidence that they can do it. They will know and respect themselves better.
The persons who hold themselves up too high have an inflated ego. The truth is that they are the same as the others. They think they are not like the others. This is a lesson that the parents should keep in their minds. Then they will not have the conflict occur but they will all be in agreement together. In the opposite way if the parents do not observe the children, they never train them to be patient for any conflict.
4) Be patient towards stimulation of Kilesa is patience towards avoiding sensuous desires and towards anything that we would like to do but we shouldn’t do. We should have patience not to go out at night, not to gamble, not to be a drug addict, not to be corrupt, not to be involved in crooked deals, not to rob others. There are different kinds of stimulation you should train the children to avoid so that they will be provident and egoless.
What are the drives that we should be provident towards?
The grandparents regard the following 4 drives that we should be patient towards:
1) Drugs and alcohol.
2) Sexual misconduct.
3) Money.
4) Exaggeration.
Train children to be provident towards their desire drive to use drugs and alcohol.
It also includes all bad drives (abai ya mook), which cause you to lose conscious self-control and the impairment of decision making.
Abai ya mook (bad drive) means the entrance to destruction.
The grandparents said that whoever gets concerned with bad drives will lose control of decision making and make wrong decisions. For example, when we are drunk, we might be able to hit our parents until they require hospitalization or until they die.
There are at least 6 kinds of bad drives.
1) Drinking alcohol.
2) Going out at night.
3) Entertaining.
4) Gambling.
5) Keeping company with bad people.
6) Being lazy to work.
These bad drives will ruin our conscious state of mind. As a result of doing wrong things we are not ashamed to do bad and not afraid of kamma.
In order to protect children from these things, parents have to:
1) Teach children the bad results concerning bad drives.
2) Be good examples for the children.
3) Tell them to stay away from bad friends.
4) Support children to do activities that are good for their health.
What are the negative effects from bad drives?
1) There are 6 negative effects concerning drugs and alcohol:
1.1) Wastes money that is visible.
1.2) Causes fighting due to emotional loss.
- 3) Causes illness.
1.4) Causes loss of your good reputation and name of the family because of losing your conscious mind. You do what you are not supposed to do.
1.5) Causes loss of self-control because you are no longer ashamed to do bad things. You perform sexual misconduct and you lie to everyone.
- 6) Causes loss of intelligence because it will ruin your nervous system and brain cells.
2) There are 6 negative effects from going out at night:
2.1) Not taking care of yourself.
2.2) Not worrying about others in the family.
2.3) Not taking care of your assets and your family name.
2.4) Others are apprehensive of you.
2.5) Will always be blamed by others.
2.6) You cause many problems continuously.
3) There are 6 negative effects from continuous entertaining:
3.1) Not being interested in earning money for a living.
3.2) Wasting money unnecessarily.
- 3) Wasting time to watch the entertainment.
3 .4) Being irresponsible at work.
- 5) Performing sexual misconduct.
3.6) Building castles in the air (daydreaming).
4) There are 6 bad results from gambling:
4 .1) The winner creates vanity because the one who lost loses his/her faith.
- 2) The loser tries to seek revenge because s /he lost money.
4.3) The loser wastes a lot of money unnecessarily.
- 4) You are not trustworthy.
4.5) Friends always look down on you.
4.6) No good people want to marry you.
Our grandparents said that the house on fire 10 times is not as bad as one loss in gambling. It is because fire will destroy only the house. We’ll remain having the land, but gambling and losing once will make you lose everything. You lose the house, the property, your fame and it will bring bankruptcy. All the assets, land, and friends will be gone from the gambler. The base personality of a gambler is one of a thief, con-artist and swindler who will rob you in any ways/he can. So the parents must teach children to beware of gamblers and they must be a good example.
5) There are 6 negative effects from keeping company with bad people:
5.1) Leading you to gambling.
- 2) Leading you to sexual misconduct.
5.3) Leading you to be a drunkard.
- 4) Leading you to be a bad example to others.
5.5) Leading you to cheating.
- 6) Leading you to be a gangster.
All bad drives are leading children to keep company with bad people. So parents should consider and teach children to stay away from friends who always invite them to do bad things. Even if the children didn’t do anything bad, they might develop bad habits and be a victim from bad friends. If the police catch them and your children who don’t know the bad friends’ tricks, then the innocent ones may get the blame. We see this often everyday.
6) There are 6 negative effects from being lazy toward working. There are two types. One type is lazy from their habits, the second type is lazy from the example of the bad people who they get involved with. The actions of the lazy working people always find the following excuses not to work:
6.1) Giving excuses that it’s too cold to work and then they don’t go to work.
6.2) Giving excuses that it’s too hot to work and then they don’t go to work.
6.3) Giving excuses that it’s too late to work and then they don’t go to work.
6.4) Giving excuses that it’s too early to work and then they don’t go to work.
6.5) Giving excuses that it’s too dark to work and then they don’t go to work.
6.6) Giving excuses that they’re too thirsty to work and then they don’t go to work.
People who always ask to push the day back to start work tomorrow; they will always be lazy and never want to work. When they don’t work, they won’t have money. Then they will have more debts. They like to get involved with gangsters and bad people. Then they will have problems with their health. In the end if they are not thieves they will have psychiatric problems, or become suicidal. The people who can get away from these bad people must say that if they could go back in time, they would have never gotten involved with bad people.
Therefore, in terms of bad behaviors such as alcohol and drugs, parents shouldn’t get involved with these bad drives in order to be good examples for children. Parents should warn about the negative effects of the bad drives and teach them to be away from friends who suggest to them to do bad things.
Train Children To Be Provident Towards Sexual Misconduct.
The truth is that we should avoid stimulation towards sexual misconduct. Parents should be careful because catching the wrong point can be harmful for children and could kill the children in cold blood.
There’s a family with a 4 year old daughter in kindergarten. The person who brings the danger is nobody else but the child’s own mother. The mother is a beautician as her career and sells cosmetics. She always puts on makeup for her daughter since then. The daughter thinks it looks pretty. When the daughter grows up, she just keeps on doing that. The mother is pushing the daughter to grow up faster than she actually is. She isn’t interested in school at all.
So instead of developing her education and her career, she just wants to be beautiful to attract the opposite sex, which might cause pregnancy before marriage. And the person who is hurt the most is the mother. It prevents wisdom from developing in the child. If the child is a boy and the mother does this, the boy will grow up gay. If the daughter gets pregnant before marriage then the mother will tum out to be a servant to the child and to the grandchild. The child will not be interested in working whether it is hard work or easy work. She will only be interested in fashion. To make a good deed, the parents shouldn’t push the child to get into fashion, or makeup or lipstick because the child will try to grow up before his/her time and then it will be like the parent is trying to kill the child in cold blood.
In order to protect this situation, parents shouldn’t teach their daughters to put on make-up before their proper age. Boys shouldn’t be rushed to become mature because they will rush to get married earlier and just think about the opposite sex only, and will not be interested in school. He will be unable to work, and have no wisdom. He will only think one way, which is to find a daughter-in-law for the parents. It’s like the parents are killing him slowly. The parents must pray that their son does not make a girl pregnant.
If parents don’t teach them to be patient towards the opposite sex, they will have problems continuously. They should be taught to focus on studying and working instead. When they have knowledge, they will learn to control themselves to be patient to the opposite sex. If the parents don’t lay the foundation down when the children are of working age they will find out that wherever they work they will have problems with sexual misconduct. With that they will add more trouble. If the boy meets the girl, gets involved and the girl starts to get attached to the boy, she will start to serve the boy and manipulate him like playing a trick. The girl must be careful if the boy is somebody else’s husband. If you can’t think of providence, you cannot get away from this situation and the girl could become the boy’s mistress.
The next category is the gentleman and the lady. The parents shouldn’t rush for the children to grow up before their time. Don’t let the children get interested in dressing. They should only be interested in school and training for a career, so they will learn to have responsibility. When the children grow up they will learn how to control their minds and learn how to control themselves and prevent loss of reputation with regards to the opposite sex.
Train Children To Be Provident Towards The Desire Drive Of Money.
Our grandparents always say that honesty offers good things continuously while cheating gives us something for just a short period. Parents should teach and be the example for children from when they are young that will stand out in the childrens’ minds.
If children get the wrong image that money can buy everything, they will respect money more than they respect parents.
They might be able to do anything to get money by cheating, stealing, and selling their bodies without being ashamed.
In fact, money can’t buy everything, especially purity of mind. You are unable to buy it. The word is that if you have honesty, you have something all the time. But if you cheat you only have something for a while.
Most people become bad because of being a slave to money. They want to be rich, famous, and powerful so they use money to corrupt others and buy their position. The corruption is on the table and under the table. This is the cause of slow improvement in Thailand. Thailand has a complete sustainable nature and land but they will not progress because there is too much corruption.
Dishonesty or impatience towards the desire drive of money happens because of lack of training to be patient enough. It is also the effect from parents buying everything that the children want. So they can’t classify the need and they buy the unnecessary things.
How To Plant Providence Towards Desire Of Money To Children
Parents have to teach children to understand that:
1) Money can’t buy all happiness.
It can’t buy family,
Or lead to solving problems,
Or understanding each other,
Or purity of minds.
2) Human being’s happiness comes from:
2 .1) Having money.
2.2) Spending money.
- 3) No crookedness in work.
2.4) No debts.
This happiness occurs when the money is from honesty.
3) If we have crooked money, we will have 4 sufferings:
3.1) Suffering from having money that is dishonestly obtained.
3.2) Suffering from spending money that is from a dishonest origin.
3.3) Suffering from working with effects without knowing when you will be punished.
3.4) Suffering from being in debt, especially debt of sin.
4) Saving habits are good.
A sign to tell children to be patient towards the desire of money that will create stability is saving. Parents should ask the children if spending the money is necessary or not. If the children cannot furnish good reasons for the money then parents shouldn’t give it to the children.
To train children to save, parents have to save to be the examples for them to abide by these rules. Don’t let the children think that money can come easily.
4 .1) Train children to know the value of money.
When children ask for money, parents should ask for reasons why. If it’s irrational, parents should explain the reason for refusal. Don’t just give money because the children are annoying you for it. They should know that parents have to work hard to earn money so they should spend money wisely.
4.2) Train children to skip unnecessary purchases.
Parents shouldn’t buy any unnecessary things for children. Parents should teach them to use things that are worthy and take care of their belongings well.
- 3) Train children to spend time wisely.
Children should be taught to create their own belongings or toys, so they will be creative and proud of themselves when it’s done.
4.4) Train children to save money.
Parents should find some saving box for them to save money every day. When they get money gifts from relatives on special occasions (birthday or New Year’s etc.), parents should bring them to deposit it in the bank. This way they learn to save money for future needs and education.
4.5) Choose friends with saving habits for the children.
Children should have friends with saving habits and habits to help parents. A void people who don’t use their money wisely.
4.6) Train children to know the needs and the excesses of life by practicing the 8 Dhamma rules on special occasions and Buddha Days.
Parents should bring them to the temple to let them learn the 8 Dhamma rules. It will teach them to know the needs and the excesses of life, which is based on the 4 factors of life.
Children will realize that making up, watching soap operas, and going to the movies, and being fashionable are not necessary things in life at all.
Practicing the 8 Dhamma rules will train them to save and know how to spend money more wisely.
If parents can train children to follow as these 4 rules, they will be able to get through the desire drive of money which is illegal and dishonest. Even if someone tries to force him/her to do so; they will be able to use their intelligence to solve the problem well.
Train Children To Be Patient Towards The Desire Drive Of Compliments.
“One does not get easily angry when getting complimented. Not smiling is very hard, but not appreciating when getting compliments is harder.”
This statement is real in our society. It has spoiled many peoples’ habits. When people get compliments all the time, they will stick to the praise.
When someone complains to them, they will be angry and ready to fight with that person. Finally, no one will warn them when seeing any mistakes because they became the praise hungry already.
The praise hungry will always be fussy when no one gives them compliments. Then it becomes an automatic force that no one can complain to them, but will only compliment that person for their work.
They will not want to work without compliments. When someone else is about to be successful, they will try to help him/her to finish the work so they will get compliments too.
We can see that the work will not be effective if we are going to stick to the praises and compliments.
How To Train Children To Be Provident Towards The Compliment
The easy way is not to give so many compliments to children that they will stick to it, such as “Son, you are the greatest. You are clever and no one can be as good as you.” This a no-no. This will make them believe so. In fact, they can be good because the parents teach them.
Parents and teachers have to train and teach them so much in order to make them intelligent. They are not intelligent by themselves.
If children are intelligent, parents should tell them, “You are intelligent because mom and dad support you to study. Teachers have to train and teach you so hard. Your uncle brought good books for you to read. So you should pay respect to him.”
This will teach children to feel thankful to good people instead of thinking that they are better than others.
On the other hand, if children are not good at studying, parents should encourage them and give them cheer. Give inspiration to them that they will be able to do it.
Everybody has good points. So whenever children are upset or depressed, parents should catch their good points to inspire them. And when they are successful, parents should tell them to think of the helpful persons.
For intelligent children, parents have to be careful. If they always get the top scores, they will be very disappointed when they get less.
There is an example of a Thai medical student. He was so intelligent that he always got the best scores. He hoped to get honors, but he missed them. He was so disappointed that he committed suicide.
So parents can give compliments to children when they are good. But don’t give it to them too much that they stick by it. Parents should support them to think of helpful people who assisted in making them intelligent. Then children will be willing to help others.
Therefore, children who pass these 4 training rules will be able to rely on themselves. They can live in the world proudly. They will be willing to pay back the support from parents and other helpful people as best as they can.
6 What To Do To Make Your Children Good All The Way Through
From the five lessons, the conclusion is: 1) If you want the children to be disciplined and responsible (Mai Sab), you must train the children to be repeat thinking, repeat talking and repeat doing in the subject of rules and regulations. 2) If you want the children to be clever (Mai Ngo), you must train the children to be repeat thinking, repeat talking and repeat doing in the subject of respect. 3) If you want the children to be generous (Mai Lang Num Jai), you must train the children to be repeat thinking, repeat talking and repeat doing in the subject of providence and patience.
Your children will have the qualities of good persons. They will be disciplined, responsible, clever, intelligent, kind, generous and be able to use the basic Dhamma to develop themselves. If the parents have this type of children then the country will grow.
However, if it looks like the job of the parents is done you must see that if the parents look at the future they will realize that people do not live forever. They have to warn the children that their life is birth, old age, sickness and death, which nobody can get away from. So this way the children will know how to be responsible to themselves.
In this world the children have to realize that life is not like the stories in the books, the movies or the TV. It will not be like the complete life of the stories of the people in the soap operas. The true life is that the bad people come in many different forms. They could come in as your family, your friend, your teacher, your spouse, your employee and these people can make your children good or bad.
The children must practice Hiri-Otappa or moral shame and moral dread, which are the fear of doing evil and the fear of the consequences of doing evil, because the children can become bad from all of the people around them.
The conclusion is that now the parents know how to raise the children to be a good person and how to raise the children to be good all the way through.
The thing to think about is that the parents should be able to build up the money for the children to use until they grow up but the parents realize that the money will not buy a good child and the child could become bad and the parents will be heartbroken. They will want to exchange all of their money to have a good child instead. The money will not be important anymore. They won’t want money anymore. They will only want the good child. On the other side, if one parent has no money for the child and has no assets, the good children in this case have no problems and they will be able to survive with no parents in the world.
Train The Children To Build Up Being A Good Person
The grandparents, from experience said, even if we can do everything by ourselves, we cannot live alone. You have to live together to build up a good group.
With this the person who is good all the way through has to live with the good people all round them, so they will be good and be good leaders of the country in the future.
How To Build Up The Good Person
Ask the people around you to continue as a team and as a system to make a good environment, get away from bad, make a clear mind, continue until you die, support a good society and a good economy of the country. That means that the parents succeeded in developing the children to be the leaders of the country so that the country will not lack goodness, will have good Dhamma, and can manage the country to progress.
To train up to this point the children must have fine qualities of the person who helps to shape good people.
Qualifications Of Persons Who Build Up The Good Person
From the beginning the parents trained the children to be good, disciplined, responsible (Mai Sab), to be clever (Mai Ngo) and to be pure, kind and generous (Mai Lang Num Jai). Now the parents train the children to be good leaders in the future. Our grandparents give the quality to them for their foundation.
First, they should have a regimen, respect and providence.
Second, they should see the truth about life and the world.
Third, they must know right from wrong. Fourth, they must have a goal for their life.
Fifth, they must be responsible for the society and the economy of the country.
Sixth, they must know the true friends and the wrong friends.
Seventh, they must have the qualities to build up good teamwork.
Eighth, they must build up the good persons. Ninth, they must have the heart of the richest person. Tenth, they must practice the Dhamma to end suffering.
So these are the ten rules. The most important thing is that when they become in charge of the country, they can manage it by letting go of their personal life and help the country to have good qualities. The country will have good persons and no thieves. When you look into the peoples’ homes you will see good families and never see broken homes.
When you look in the school, you will see good students and good teachers, and you will not see abai ya mook (bad drives) in school.
Look at the people who begin the life of a husband and wife and they are responsible for their own family.
When you look at their job, you see the boss and the employee and no corruption.
When you look in the temple you will see the bhikkhus and the persons who come to the temple and take care of Buddhism and the progress of the temple.
With this, it is the picture of a good society and economy that we desire to build up. It is a good country that can join the world and bring the good people of all the countries together.
The way to take care of the children of Thai people is to see the most Dhamma, which the grandparents already prepared through Buddhism.
The final conclusion is that the children will be good persons all the way through. The answer is to know how to train the children to know how to build up the good person.
About Phrabhavanaviriyakhun (Phra Phadet Dattajeevo)
Monastic Titles
Member of the Royal Order (Ordinary Level) with the title ‘Phrabhavanaviriyakhun’
Name and Dhamma Name
Phadet Dattajeevo
Born
21 December 1940, Kanchanaburi, Thailand.
Ordination
19 December 19 71, Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen, Bangkok, Thailand.
Qualifications
B.Sc. Agriculture and Animal Husbandry from Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand.
M.Sc. Dairy Technology, Hawkesbury College, Australia.
Dhamma Studies Grade I, Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen, Bangkok, Thailand.
Positions
Acting Abbot : Wat Phra Dhammakaya.
Vice-President : Dhammakaya Foundation.
Vice-President : Dhamma Missionary Outreach Sector 8.
President: Dhammakaya International Society of California, USA.
Publications
Authorship and compilation of more than eighty book titles including these following books divided into 7 categories:
1) Dhamma for Family:
– The Virtuous Person the World Awaits.
– The Origin of Thai Etiquette.
– Jataka Tales.
– The Genesis of the World and Humankind.
2) Dhamma for Education:
– Respecting One’s Teacher.
3) Dhamma for Marriage:
– Jataka Stories on Women (ltthi).
4) Dhamma for General Management:
– A Buddhist Way to Overcome Obstacles.
– Good Employee, Endearing Millionnaire.
– Strategies Toward Success.
– Strategies for Decision-making.
– Buddhist Principles of Administration.
– Thoughtful Vision.
– Warrior Progress.
– Virtues for an Army General.
– The Secretary’s Handbook.
5) Dhamma for Social Administration:
– The Ten Virtues of a Monarch.
– Following in the Royal Footsteps.
– The Marks of a Great Man.
– Singalovada Sutta.
– A Recipe for Success in A Developing Society and Economy.
6) Dhamma for Temple Administration:
– Ovadapatimokkha.
– Ordination to Pursue Perfection.
– Readiness To Go To The Temple.
– Complete Generosity.
– Merit on One’s Birthday.
– To Pursuers of Perfection 1-3.
– The True Monk.
– Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta.
7) Dhamma Miscellany:
– Jivaka Komarabhacca: Celestial Physician.
– Something To Know.
Meditation for Beginners
Meditation is something which we already do in everyday life allowing us to focus on the task at hand – but the depth of meditation is superficial.
The events around us in the world soon rob us of our attention and our concentration is gone. The mind that wanders outside our own body is the source of all types of suffering.
By deepening our meditation until our mind comes to a standstill we can unlock the potential and unused ability within.
We maintain a balance of mindfulness and happiness for ourselves bringing contentment and direction to life in a way not possible through any other technique.
Step-by-Step Instructions for the Meditation Technique
1.The sitting posture, which has been found to be the most conducive for meditation, is the half-lotus position. Sit upright with your back and spine straight, cross-legged with your right leg over the left one.
You can sit on a cushion or pillow to make your position more comfortable. Nothing should impede your breathing or circulation. Your hands should rest palms-up on your lap, and the tip of your right index finger should touch your left thumb. Feel as if you are one with the ground on which you sit. Feel that you could sit happily for as long as you like.
2.Softly close your eyes as if you were falling asleep.
Relax every part of your body, beginning the muscles of your face, then relax your face, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, trunk and legs. Make sure there are no signs of tension on your forehead or across your shoulders.
3.Close your eyes and stop thinking about the things of the world. Feel as if you are sitting alone – around you is nothing and no-one. Create a feeling of happiness and spaciousness in your mind. Before starting, it is necessary to acquaint yourself with the various resting points or bases of the mind inside the body.
The Seven Bases of the Mind
* The first base is at the rim of the nostril, on the right side for men and on the left side for women.
* The second base is at the bridge of the nose at the comer of the eye – on the right side for men and on the left side for women.
* The third base is at the center of the head.
* The fourth is at the roof of the mouth.
* The fifth is at the center of the throat above the Adam’s apple.
* The sixth base is at a point in the center of the body at the meeting point of an imaginary line between the navel through the back and the line between the two sides.
* The seventh base of the mind is two fingers’ breadths above the sixth base. This base is the most important point in the body. It is the very center of the body and the point where the mind can come to a standstill.
4.Feel that your body is empty space, without organs, muscles or tissues. Gently and contentedly rest your attention at a point near to the seventh base of the mind – at the center of the body. Whatever experience arises in the mind, simply observe without attempting to interfere. In this way your mind will become gradually purer and inner experience will unfold.
5.If you find that you cannot dissuade the mind from wandering, then your mind needs an inner object as a focus for attention. Gently imagine that a bright, clear, crystal ball, the size of the tip of your little finger, is located inside at the center of the body. Maybe you’ll find you can imagine nothing, but later you’ll be able to see a crystal ball of increasing clarity. Allow your mind to come to rest at the very center of the crystal ball. Use the subtlest of effort and you ’11 find that the crystal ball becomes brighter and clearer. If you see too much effort you will find that it gives you a headache.
6.If you find that your mind still wanders from the crystal ball, you can bring the mind back to a standstill by repeating the mantra, “Samma-Araham” (pronounced Sa-Ma-Ah-Ra-Hung) silently, as if the sound of the mantra is corning from the center of the crystal ball. Repeat the mantra over and over again without counting.
7.Don’t entertain thoughts in your mind. Don’t analyze what’s going on in the meditation. Allow the mind to come to the standstill – that’s all you need to do. If you find that you can imagine nothing, then repeat the mantra, “Samma-araham” silently and continuously in the mind. If you find that you’re not sure about the location of the center of the body, anywhere in the area of the stomach will do. Persevere because today’s day-dream is tomorrow’s still mind, today’s darkness is tomorrow’s inner brightness, today’s perseverance is tomorrow’s fulfillment.
Don’t be disappointed if you find your mind wandering. It is only natural for beginners. Make effort continuously, keep your mind bright, clear and pure, and in the end, you will achieve your goal.
8.Keep repeating the mantra and eventually the sound of the words will die away. At that point a new bright, clear, crystal ball will arise in the mind of its own accord. The crystal ball will sparkle like a diamond.
This stage is called pathama magga (primary path). At this stage the shining crystal ball is connected firmly to the mind, and is seated at the center of the body. You will experience happiness, with continuous observation at the center of this crystal ball, it will give way to a succession of increasingly purer bodily sheaths until it reaches the ultimate one called “Dhammakaya”, the highest level of attainment of supreme happiness.