EDUCATION ISN'T WHAT YOU KNOW, IT'S WHAT YOU UNDERSTAND

You have Children, whether that is a blessing or not depends upon your view, 

but how to educate them has nothing to do with you. The state decides and

the church supports and the result is that the schools from the most elite to 

the simple turn out children in the same way that laboratory suppliers turn

out white rats.

They are all the same.

Most teachers that are worth anything at all are aghast at what the system 

does... but after all they are just teachers and they have to teach without 

being really concerned what the students are learning. Individual differences

don't count for anything ... except as male and female.

So what do you want to do? 

If you have a social or economic advantage you want them to race with all 

the other better rats to the end of the tunnel but get there first. 

But supposing they don't want to run because a whole lot of the rats are just 

cruising along nibbling at whatever garbage is laying oround.

      Blind Dharma will declare, that's all right they will grow out of it.

       Psychologists will say they are slow or alternatively hypersensitive

Really it is you who are slow... or something akin to that, because simple 

statistics will tell you that in any particular tunnel only one rat can be first... 

and that all that there is at the end of the tunnel anyway is a chunk of rat 

food and another tunnel to enter.

Do you really want your child to be running in tunnels for the rest of its life. 

Well you ran and it was a lousy tunnel and very, very dark... All that you can

hope for really whether your own little "rat" is highly intelligent or not is a 

tunnel with more light in it. You want him to be happy, but you teach him 

or her that only winning counts or if you are of the old school, "how to be

a good loser".

Today nobody wants to be a good loser, yet everybody, almost without 

exception, is  a loser. Why? It is because they are afraid to win and find out 

that there is no reason at all for all of this. Neither the bad nor the good...

There is no hanging onto anything, for it all goes eventually and you don't 

even really exist apart from everything else... Everybody yearns for peace, 

but there is none because the natural world is in constant conflict.

We have all our lives been watching a magician and we believe his illusions 

are real. We have been fooled completely and we have let ourselves be fooled...

and we really believe that illusion although wise men for thousands of years

have warned us... We have been aided in this delusion by the state, the

religions and most of all by education. Now it really is time to start changing 

all for the sake of all future children... But that is Dharma and difficult and 

few get to the other side of the Dharma stream... so what can you do? 

Try Blind Dharma.

The first Blind Dharma advice is to realize that you can't change anything so 

you must flow with it... Just like everyone flowed in the 1930's in Germany 

with the Nazis. Let it all flow around you and you will be safe... send your 

children to school and they can make their own choices. Well done. 

When have children ever made their own choices?

The second Blind Dharma data tells you that have to find the middle way.

And that means your children can't live with True Dharma and so they must

go to university and have something to fall back on... What they fall back on

however will be the sharp stakes of suffering with only one way out... 

to follow the same path as you, but because they are smarter than you,

you hope that they won't make the same samsaric errors.

But you have sent them unprepared into the samsaric den of hungry social lions.

The third Blind Dharma way is to talk to them. Now that is a wonderful idea. 

What are you going to show them? How well you have done staying clear

of Samsara's traps?

The best way of communicating is by example. Not with a blind Dharma way

of life for yourself. You don't need rhetoric about compassion and benevolence. 

What you need is to show them that you understand the oneness of all things,

not in a transcendental way, but by linking yourself with every living thing 

and the environment, with music that is eloquent, with art that is not Identity-

ridden or pretty, and with anything that shows a love of life... 

and of death as part of the whole.

The most foolish Blind Dharma tap of all is to believe that you have time.

Now let's look at the Sanskrit word, "man", means to think. Manu was the first 

of the human race with its power of thinking. There is a saying in English :

"Man is a thinking animal. " 

But is he really a thinking animal or is he an animal that uses thinking for

egocentric survival? With thinking can your children find the answer?

That is a Blind Dharma trap... With thinking no one can find the answer... 

What is the question? There is none. That is why there is no answer... 

Now that sounds crazy but that is the way it is... One has to simply allow 

the human creature to emerge and not control thinking.

Buddha presented this dialogue:

"Imagine that the whole earth was covered with water, and that a man 

were to throw a yoke with a hole in it into the water. Blown by the wind, 

that yoke would drift north, south, east and west.

Now suppose that once in a hundred years a blind turtle were to rise to

the surface. What would be the chances of that turtle putting his head 

through the hole in the yoke as he rose to the surface once in a hundred years?"

"It would be very unlikely, Lord."

Well, that is about the likelihood that thinking alone will bring an answer to how 

one should educate your children and yourself.

Of course, there is another wonderful last-ditch Dharma Blindness solution:

it is to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Then it will all work out 

alright... Your children will find the way. How exactly does that work?

That is rather like the three little pigs who took shelter in various houses

made of flimsy material... One huff and one puff and the house falls down.

If you don't understand Dharma and do not understand that the Buddha that 

you take refuge with is within yourself as your natural Dharma and that the 

Sangha is your realization that all creatures have an available Dharma inside 

themselves that will lead the way, then you are building straw houses to 

house education.

Education must be based upon learning how to understand the oneness 

of all things. Then one understands oneself and learning becomes a magic

experience without strain and effort and everything falls into its correct place.

Certainly your children may never be rich or famous, but they will live with 

constant well-being.