The Boy Monk

NMADDP

I read the post "Do you think I am too young to be on this site." Made me remember story I read awhile back (2003) of a boy from US that becomes a monk. He is Konchog "Kusho" Osel, the youngest student at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, run by the Tibetan Government in Exile. He is the first foreigner ever accepted at the esteemed Gaden Shartse monastery in India in its 600-year history.

Found the story.

http://www2.ocregister.com/features/monk/

Enjoy...

Sile

Thanks for this story!

hermitwin

if i am not mistaken he left and is not much into buddhism anymore.
correct me if i am wrong.

hermitwin

sorry, wrong boy monk. the one i mentioned is from spain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19702122

Cinorjer

Both of these stories just make me sad. The burden of a monk's vows should be undertaken only by adults with full knowledge of the sacrifices and hard work involved. Anything else is an indictment of the illusions that even Buddhists cling to.

Sile

What is sad about this story? Many young boys at English and European boarding schools are just going through the motions aimlessly, bored and doing drugs. What this young guy says sounds determined and hopeful. Most 16 year old boys in my neighborhood here in the States (truly, most) have no fathers around, and divide their time between video games in their mom's smokey apartments, and dealing, or hoping to deal, crack.

The article on Kusho Osel ends:

"Kusho is happy at the institute, but he knows that he cannot enjoy its freedoms forever. Someday he must go back to south India, to Mundgod, to the rigidity and rigors of the monastery where he took his vows. He belongs to it now, just as a new child belongs to its family. It was overwhelming for him as a boy, but by the time he returns, he will be older, stronger, wiser. He knows that 20 more years of intense study loom before him - maybe more - before he earns the geshe degree he has wanted since he was 8. So much can happen in 20 years. So much can change. But Kusho says he will not be deterred. "I'm totally certain about what I want to do," the 16-year-old says. Quitting is simply not an option.

Kusho aspires to a different kind of upward mobility, a different kind of American dream. In the next life, he says, he would like to return as the Buddha of Compassion himself.

"I do sometimes ask myself, what am I doing here?" Kusho says. "Out of all the people my age from the West, why am I the one that's doing this? But then, you kind of think about it, you kind of try to remember what it was you came here for in the first place. And when you think about that, you kind of reconnect everything else, and then it starts to make sense again. You kind of get yourself back together.

"I came here for a reason. I'm going to try to achieve my goal."

I don't find it sad when young people have a vision and then act on it, even if there is hardship along the way. All life has hardships; it's what you with it that counts. A lot of precocious kids try out high school or college level classes, as it seems he did, and find that the age differences are too much and they need to go back to their own age group for a while. It sounds like Osel is handling his life wisely to me.

Cinorjer

A twelve year old boy is too young to make a life-long committment to be a monk. Period. Nor can you point to any of his statements now as evidence he knew what he was getting into or knew what he was doing at the time. It was obvious he didn't know what he was getting into, because by his own admission he was miserable before, once he had to live a monk's life.

That's what you expect from children. They want to be firemen and astronauts and soldiers, but have no concept of the hard work and boring chores and only see the image of the man in the uniform having fun. Now it's the adults who refused to simply pat him on the shoulder and let him be a normal boy living a normal life. They all confidently predict he'll eventually come to accept the life of a monk. Now he has the pressure of living up to the adult's expectations and saying what the adults expect him to say.

Pointing out hey, it's not such a bad life compared to other kids who grow up lazy and unproductive? Stop and think about what you're saying. When we ripped children from the native families both in America and Australia and sent them to government schools, we used the same excuse.

In Osel's case, the parents should have told him that when he gets older and if he still feels the same way, then it will be his choice. And as for the other case, where a two year old is yanked into a temple and treated like a tiny God? That's not just sad. It's wrong.

If you have compassion for the boy and stop buying the delusion that they're just little old monks in a new body then you see what is wrong. Hey, the old monks in that boy's head won't miss sex or doing a bit of exploring in life! Only normal children would have a problem with that.

So let them be children. It's what they are. The Dharma requires a mature, voluntary committment. Children are not things to be molded into monks.

Jeffrey

Different strokes for different folks, I feel.

Dakini

Cinorjer said:

A twelve year old boy is too young to make a life-long committment to be a monk. Period. Nor can you point to any of his statements now as evidence he knew what he was getting into or knew what he was doing at the time. It was obvious he didn't know what he was getting into, because by his own admission he was miserable before, once he had to live a monk's life.

So let them be children. It's what they are. The Dharma requires a mature, voluntary committment. Children are not things to be molded into monks.

Young tulkus are starting to go public about their experience. Gomo Tulku, who gave up the monastic life and became a rapper, bares his feelings in one of his raps:
"All is gone, all is gone, I miss my mama's kiss/Tryna make a child grown/By leaving him alone/Destined to be on a throne/...why didn't you, why didn't you stay?" He says in a media interview that he "had a hard time, not because of what he was given, but because of what was taken away."

The young reincarnation of Kalu Rinpoche, now in his 20's, was the boldest, making a youtube video in which he "confesses" to having experienced repeated sexual abuse as a 12-year old monk, and later, a murder attempt by his tutor. In the article linked below, he goes into more detail, clarifying that the sexual abuse involved routine rape. A tulku now living in New Jersey is awed by Kalu Rinpoche's courage, and says he, himself, had never had the nerve to tell anyone, not even his girlfriend, of his rape at age 5 by his tutor in the monastery.

Kalu Rinpoche is now dedicated to building schools where children of the poor can study both a modern school curriculum and receive dharma training, rather than be given away to monasteries that don't prepare them for jobs in the secular world they face if they opt to leave the monk's life. He says he will forbid the induction of children to the monasteries he's in control of.

http://details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201208/leaving-om-new-buddhist-lifestyle

Cinorjer

I must admit this is one of my "buttons" that I must work on. You see, as a boy I was practically raised in the Evangelical church. My family meant well, and we loved each other, but they were themselves ministers and their life revolved around the church, and they had somehow been "told by God" that I was destined to be a preacher and save souls. I was quiet, polite, caring, and very intelligent. Sure, I enjoyed the attention, but when other boys in the small town were out playing, I was sitting in church. I was expected to get up and testify, and talk about how great God was in my life, and such. I was not allowed to watch television or see movies, my only radio stations were religious, only reading was religious. I was being groomed to be a Christian Leader.

All I really wanted was to be allowed to play and watch cartoons on television once in a while and relax and be a boy. But I had to pretend I wanted to be in church, because I loved my family and couldn't let them down. The hardest thing for me was when, as a teenager, I finally rebelled and told them I didn't want to go to church anymore. Then I had to stand up to their pressure, the prayers and annointing and trying to drive the devil out of me. The guilt I felt was overwhelming. But I was stubburn enough to see it through.

So when I read these stories, I am once again that little boy being told he has to get dressed in those clothes he's not allowed to get dirty while the other boys get to play, told I have to sit there quietly and not squirm, forced to listen as old men recite boring scripture I'm expected to learn. And I know how miserable that boy is, and it makes me want to cry.

RebeccaS

Given what little I've heard of the story I think it's cool. Maybe he's just super holy.

karasti

I think it's possible that not all children/young men and women would be as miserable, though. Overall, I agree with your post that kids should be allowed to grow up and be kids, but at the same time they have a capacity for learning and understanding that is ripe for such practice that as adults, we cannot even comprehend. To neglect to teach them if they are asking for it, I think, is also a bad thing. I think there has to be a balance, but sometimes you really do have to let them try. Look at the kids who climb mountains and sail around the world. They are really no different, and I support them in their efforts at knowing what they want and what is important to them at young ages. I think we do not give kids enough credit, especially in today's helicopter parenting world. A hundred years ago, kids got married at 15 and had jobs and families around the same time. Just because we cannot imagine it now because we've babied children to the point they aren't adults until they are in their late 20s now, doesn't mean it was bad for the kids who grew up in that time frame and culture.

So, I think caution is warranted but I think also much harm can come in shutting down a child who expresses an interest in something. Remember there is always more to the story than the media tells because their only job is to get viewers and sell stories, no matter what angle they are coming from. Many kids grow up just as kids, pigging out on Lucky Charms and chocolate milk and play Playstation for hours a day, and sure, they have fun, but not all kids want a life with no meaning and mindless activity.

I have a son who is about to turn 16 and he is the one who renewed my interest in Buddhism, more than 2 years ago now. He has for the past 2+ years expressed an interest in monastic life, but later on, not right now. He's busy in sports and youth groups, and he's happy. If he were to wake up tomorrow and say it was time for him to look into monastic life, we'd look into it together, and talk to people, visit monasteries, get guidance, etc and go from there. I wouldn't shut him down, but I wouldn't shoo him out the door, either.

Dakini

I like Kalu Rinpoche's idea of setting up schools so kids can get the monastic curriculum together with secular schooling, as a compromise between all monastic or all secular. Kids with an interest in spiritual studies could study there to 18 years of age, then transition to a monastery, if that's what they want.

Cinorjer

@karasti sounds like you have a good son and a good handle on things. The thing to realize is that real life monasteries are rarely like the public personna. The few monks I've gotten to know and call friends tell a different story from the enlightened face presented to worshippers. Buddhists are just people, and the halls of the temple can be filled with senior monks with minds and attitudes that contain desires that match anything in a busy corporation. The infighting and petty hazing of the new kids and jockeying for power and position in the temple can actually be harmful to his personal spiritual path if he's not ready. If he's mature enough to know when and where to draw a line, he should be fine.

What does it say about our blindness to reality by embracing our own fantasies and illusions, when a tulku who left the temple can complain about the regular beatings and sexual abuse, and say, "I met Richard Gere and Steven Seagal, and they didn't see any of this. When celebrities or outsiders are around, you don't beat the kids." Yet, if you tried to tell these famous and rich converts there is a huge problem, they make excuses while continuing to bow before the robed Lama and talk about how great it is that the next reincarnated tulku was found.

And this does not mean Tibetan Buddhist monks are evil or heartless, just human. The Buddhist temples have a wall of silence that beats anything the Catholic church had. Our more open Western Zen communities had to struggle with the fallout from deciding the Sangha had to clean up its house, no matter how painful that was. The Eastern Zen temples still resist being open about it. Combine that in the Tibetan's case with the secrecy that always comes with a political power fighting a propaganda war, and we have the recipe for a huge problem. Perhaps exposure to the West will bring about some needed reforms, although it may take another generation. Karma being what it is, their time in exile might in the end be turned into a positive thing.

Sile

It's really odd to turn every thread on monasticism into allegations of sexual abuse, particularly when the OP is not about a boy complaining about abuse, but about the rigors of studying as an adult.

Shouldn't your arguments against rushing someone into an adult-level education stand on their own merits, rather than invoking crimes no one is implying in this story?

Cinorjer

Sile said:

It's really odd to turn every thread on monasticism into allegations of sexual abuse, particularly when the OP is not about a boy complaining about abuse, but about the rigors of studying as an adult.

Shouldn't your arguments against rushing someone into an adult-level education stand on their own merits, rather than invoking crimes no one is implying in this story?

Probably. As I said, this is a hot button issue for me so I'm more emotional than usual on the issue. However, putting it as a problem of adjusting to "rigors of studying as an adult" as a vast understatement of the basic problem, in my opinion. That's trying to equate being shoved into a robe and forced to act like a monk every moment of your waking and even sleeping life as being no different from, say, a teenager going to college. Being a monk is not a matter of attending classes and memorizing sutras.

Jeffrey

What about the olympic gymnasts? They are absorbed into the whole thing, but they choose it.

Cinorjer

Jeffrey said:

What about the olympic gymnasts? They are absorbed into the whole thing, but they choose it.

Beats me. I don't know any olympic gymnasts. Hard to believe even the most dedicated young olympic gymnast wouldn't have some time for family, friends, and being a child. But I may be wrong.

RebeccaS

I don't think they get that time. They peak at like 15 so they have to work constantly until then.

It's not like swimming where you can go into it as a teen and train for 20 years afterwards.

They have this tiny window of opportunity.

It's totally bananas.

Cinorjer

I'll have to dig through the library. Surely an olympic athlete or two as written an autobiography of their life? Of course, even then I'd have to keep in mind that the story might not be typical. For instance, some child stars are pushed by obsessed parents and some love the stage and attention.

karasti

Olympic gymnasts are generally retired by the time they hit 20, if they don't grow too tall before that. They and their families make a huge commitment to eat, live, and breathe gymnastics, often moving the entire family across the country to find a good coach just hoping to have a tiny chance. They do not grow up as normal children, and often develop eating disorders and other problems by the time they are 10-12 years old. For many of them it is a pursuit that begins as a preschooler and lasts until college, taking up their entire childhood. They train more hours a day than most adults work by the time they are around 12-14, and many of them don't even attend school, but have on-site tutors where they do homeschooling when they aren't training. Some of them don't even live with their families, like the young woman who won gold this past olympics (her name escapes me at the moment). I was a gymnast, though hardly elite level, lol, but I did learn alot about it and meet several elites in the process. I got to be too tall by the time I was 12 to continue but I still love it.

Anyhow, just as there are teenagers who go to college because they have the brains to do so, they are usually guided by parents and others who help ensure them a more typical social development. Though, you will find kids with the capacity and IQ to learn that way, do not WANT to be part of the normal social development that most kids go through, and it is entirely possible that kids that select spiritual paths are the same way. Would you insist that a kid with high IQ who could do calculus by the age of 8, stay in a normal school so that they can "stay a kid" or would you allow them to reach for the stars, within reason and with guidance, and support their desire to go to college at age 14? Sometimes letting a kid run off is the worst thing you can do to them. Sometimes, holding them back is the worst thing you can do. Not all children, parents, families, and situations are the same.

vinlyn

Cinorjer said:

Jeffrey said:

What about the olympic gymnasts? They are absorbed into the whole thing, but they choose it.

Beats me. I don't know any olympic gymnasts. Hard to believe even the most dedicated young olympic gymnast wouldn't have some time for family, friends, and being a child. But I may be wrong.

We had a young lady in our school who was training to be an Olympic skater. While she had an extensive skating regime, including very early morning rink time, and was an excellent student, she still had time to be a kid. Not as much as most kids, but the world of teenager was not shut off for her.

Dakini

Cinorjer said:

I'll have to dig through the library. Surely an olympic athlete or two as written an autobiography of their life? Of course, even then I'd have to keep in mind that the story might not be typical. For instance, some child stars are pushed by obsessed parents and some love the stage and attention.

I think Nadia Comaneci wrote an auto-bio. Those E European gymnast schools were particularly intense.

Dakini

karasti said:

Would you insist that a kid with high IQ who could do calculus by the age of 8, stay in a normal school so that they can "stay a kid" or would you allow them to reach for the stars, within reason and with guidance, and support their desire to go to college at age 14? Sometimes letting a kid run off is the worst thing you can do to them. .

Has anyone read the story the OP posted a link to? The parents decided to "let their kid run off", because he showed uncanny interest in Buddhist teachings at a very early age. At 12, they let him live in a monastery in India. He was miserable there, for a variety of reasons. Suffice it to say that as a child, he couldn't have anticipated the culture shock, the strict discipline, the austerity. After a couple of years, his family transferred him to a non-monastic environment, though he continued to live as a monk, and attended classes in robes, as did some of the other students. He did better in that environment. I don't think you can compare a kid going to college at 14 to life in a monastery.

Jeffrey

I definitely think he/she should be in contact with parents to make sure he/she is happy with things. Even at 20 years old if I were unhappy at college I could always choose something different. That's how I think it should be. But I don't think anyone should be limited to 'the normal golden boy/girl stereotype of a kid'.

That said I actually failed out of grad school with a mental illness and the amount of change in changing away from school was devestating in itself. It would be 'hard knocks' for a boy who 'failed out' of 'monk school'.

Sile

I doubt it's any more austere than many British boarding schools or Rawhide ranches. Young people throughout history have taken on challenges; some people are just driven to. There's no guarantee he'd be any happier in an intellectually frustrating (beneath his skills) environment.

Dakini

Jeffrey said:

I definitely think he/she should be in contact with parents to make sure he/she is happy with things. Even at 20 years old if I were unhappy at college I could always choose something different. That's how I think it should be. But I don't think anyone should be limited to 'the normal golden boy/girl stereotype of a kid'.

The kid the OP is about was in touch with parents regularly, but he didn't want them to know he was miserable, so he put up a brave front. When they came to visit after 2 or 3 years, his sister was very persistent in asking if he was sure he wanted to stay. Finally, she figured out what his refusal to respond meant, and the family transfered him to the DL's Institute of Dialectics in Dharamsala, which is more of a collegiate environment, with a more normal daily schedule, lots of free time, etc.

Brit boarding schools have indoor plumbing, at least, and allow the students free time. They also have adequate food. This kid had to be up at 5 a.m. every day, and pray, study and practice debate until 9:30 p.m. There were only 2 meals a day, and one of those meals was tea and a crust of bread.

karasti

@Dakini and perhaps in the case of this boy, they should not have let him go. But perhaps they thought they were doing the best (as most parents think) by letting him try. If he thought he had to be dishonest about how he was feeling about it he wasn't picking up the teachings very well. I'm not saying this particular situation was dealt with ideally. I'm just saying, you can't base what is right for all kids on what the experience of one kid was. I personally thrive in very minimal environments, and have since I was a small child, including living without electricity, running water, sewer, etc. It is how I prefer to live, though having a family I can't exactly expect them to live that way, lol. But what we can't imagine as a way of life, is exactly right for some people. Again, I'm not saying that was the case for the boy in the story. Just that it is right for other people.

There is a boy in MN who is preschool or kindergarten age who was selected as a reincarnated tulku. He will study normal school in Minnesota and Buddhist study as well, until he is 10, and then he will go to live in a monastery, all under the direction of the HHDL himself. Will it be the best thing for the boy? I don't know. Neither do his parents or even himself yet, but they are doing what they can to prepare for what is coming up.

Dakini

Well, in the end, they struck a compromise, that so far seems to be working out. So it was a matter of finding a good fit. But as we discuss this, I can't help wondering why, if he showed such a gift for grasping Buddhist teachings, they didn't have him study with a lama or other Buddhist teacher in his hometown for a couple of years. He didn't have to go all the way to Asia and separate from his family in order to study the dharma under a qualified teacher. He could have started out at home, and then he and his parents could have explored options after that. It's the separation from mother and family that is the most difficult adjustment. Some never adjust. But this boy seems to be doing ok, now.

. It's interesting to follow the "careers" of these Western child tulkus. If you're interested, Gesar Mukpo made a film about this very topic, interviewing adult Western tulkus. Film title: "Tulku".

http://www.buddhistfilmfoundation.org/festival-media/tulku/ for the trailer

Patr

Well IMO, the Tulku system should be done away with.

Its open to manipulation, its divisive (read Kagyupa) the Buddha didnt start it, neither did Tsongkhapa, Padmasambhava or any of the relevant masters, plus all the relevant problems mentioned in this post.

If anyone at all was destined to be a great monk or great master, by his own path he/she will make it. Otherwise, let them be born with all their previous memories intact, then can assume new post straightaway, why the trouble.

Bah!

lobster

Patr said:

Bah!

Bah! Humbug?

Sile

Ah, my farm kids get up at 4:30 am, do heavy chores until breakfast (if they make it in time) and then go to school for 8 hours and come home to more chores. Some of the Hocak kids don't have running water, i.e., more chores (the endless water carrying, heh).

Kusho was getting the same schedule and diet as an other boy at the monastery; he's just a focused kid who has some unusually clear goals and is willing to put out a lot of effort to achieve them. He didn't run away from the monastery, and he didn't beg to leave the system as a whole; he had a difficult time at one institution and moved on to another one, which is wise and no different from any other young person who isn't a good fit for one place but fits well in another.

I have a similar 11-year-old kid in my community who is a very unusual musician, learning instruments effortlessly within months or sometimes weeks, making his own flutes from pvc pipes overnight, just really unusual. We've learned it's best to give him what support we can and then just basically get out of his way. Some people are simply their own person, almost from birth, and all you can do as an adult is be on standby as best you can, lol.

But on the serious side, kids like this who are shackled by parents or a society trying to keep them "normal," can end up very damaged and depressed. Those around them need the wisdom to recognize such a person's special needs and try to find ways to deal with the reality of an unusually driven and/or gifted mind.

This doesn't sound to me like someone who is on the wrong path:

"The suffering you see here is more physical. But in the West, it's more mental. Even though you have everything you could want materially, you're not happy inside. And here, even though you don't have all the necessities that you need materially, you are happy mentally."

vinlyn

I can only wonder what the posts would be like in a similar thread where the subject was a similarly aged boy who was put in a full-time program to become a Catholic priest.

karasti

If it is what the boy wanted and he expressed the usual interest and ability to learn that this kid did/does, and others like him, I still wouldn't have a problem with it. I know 2 brothers who are now priests who very extremely involved in the church from a very young age, at their own will and of their belief it was their calling...from ages 6 or 7. Now of course they don't have a system where as child you can go live somewhere else to study scripture, but if that were available, I have no doubt they would have gone that route, and it would not have bothered me in the least. They have a healthy, stable, supportive family that supported their kids from a very young age with their wish to serve in the Church. Not my cup of tea, but it was a path they got on early and are in their late 20s now, just finishing and getting their first assignments.

I wish there was more beyond typical public and private school available to kids who express such interests. My son is very, very science minded. We do what we can to get him hooked up with people who can further his interests, but if he were able to go to a science specific school and start earlier than college or PSEO focusing on his science talent, he'd be much better off, and so would the science world. Rather than forcing him to take band and German so he's "well rounded" when it's obvious he has talents that lie elsewhere, and he'd biding his time until he can fulfill what his abilities and talents bring into his life. I'm all for kids trying things so they learn what they like. However, when it's obvious a kid has a talent in one area, I don't see the point in forcing them to take languages, arts, (or whatever) for years at a time to fulfill some government obligation.

No matter the subject at hand, I am completely fine with younger kids immersing themselves in their giftedness, their talents, etc. when it is done with the right motivation and intention on their part and their parents.

Sile

I can't speak for anyone else, but my posts would be the same. Personal conviction is something I really respect. People often show their predispositions at a really early age, if those around them are really paying attention. In the old days it was assumed many young people would apprentice to a vocation of some kind right around the age this lad did.

vinlyn

karasti said:

...Rather than forcing him to take band and German so he's "well rounded" when it's obvious he has talents that lie elsewhere, and he'd biding his time until he can fulfill what his abilities and talents bring into his life. I'm all for kids trying things so they learn what they like. However, when it's obvious a kid has a talent in one area, I don't see the point in forcing them to take languages, arts, (or whatever) for years at a time to fulfill some government obligation...

I can't tell you the number of kids I've known who have decided what they wanted to be in the world with great passion...and later switched fields completely. I've even known adults in their college years who have completely changed their majors.

What the heck is the rush? Let a kid be a kid.

And if you don't think adults make life-changing decisions, were you raised as a Buddhist? Most of us here were not, and made a major belief choice when we were over 18.

karasti

If the kid wants to be a kid, then great. But not all kids want to be kids as long as others and they shouldn't have to be held back because we've evolved into this tendency as a society to baby children until they are 20 years old. We aren't talking about parents pushing kids into something they aren't ready for. We are talking about kids who are saying "I'm ready" and a world that wants to hold them back.

vinlyn

karasti said:

If the kid wants to be a kid, then great. But not all kids want to be kids as long as others and they shouldn't have to be held back because we've evolved into this tendency as a society to baby children until they are 20 years old. We aren't talking about parents pushing kids into something they aren't ready for. We are talking about kids who are saying "I'm ready" and a world that wants to hold them back.

Welcome to Sheldon Cooper.

karasti

My son is already Sheldon Cooper, lol. What should I have done, forced him to be a child? Made him play with toys when he wanted telescopes and chemistry sets? Not all kids are the same. Not all of them should be treated the same. That mindset ruins kids. My son (and other kids) are who they are, and doing something different wasn't going to change Sheldon Cooper, because he is pretty much the poster adult for Aspergers. If he were a real person, that is, lol.

vinlyn

Karasti, raise your kids anyway you want. If later they are on the fringe of society, fine. It'll be your responsibility if they are not well-rounded, or are isolated, or are shunned, or are limited.

karasti

Except my son is on the fringe of society because he has a mental disorder. I can only do for/with him what he is able to do in the confines of his illness. People can be well-rounded and well-adjusted, functioning members of society without before forced to take band, lol. The point is, you cannot force someone to be who they are not. Doing so, risks causing them great harm that is very difficult to get over, if they ever do. It is OK for people to be different as long as they aren't hurting anyone else. If being myself, or raising my kids to be who they are causes us to be on the "fringe of society" it just reinforces my belief that that society is not one I want to be a part of anyhow.

karasti

And for the record, my son doesn't only march to his own drummer, but he has an entire band the rest of us cannot hear. However, he is still loved, accepted, and treasured for who he is, even in the viciousness of high school. His teachers adore him, his friends, coaches, classmates and teammates appreciate him for his crazy self and I have no doubt he will find his place in this world, and be leagues happier than most of the rest of us are, simply because those filters the rest of us have to worry about what society thinks, are absent for him. He knows they exist, and he learns to operate within them, but he will never understand them without having them explained to him, and mostly, he is actually better off for it. It does, however, make me thankful that you were never his principal.

Sile

Plenty of kids are on the fringe of society having been held back against their nature, or put right where they should be, or having been pushed too hard. There are no guarantees. However, when an 11 year old is making pitch-perfect flutes overnight in his basement, he's already on the fringe, so vive la fringe! Anyway, if it weren't for the fringes, how would the rest of us know we're "normal?" o_0

I'm pretty sure Einstein was on the fringe.

Dakini

vinlyn said:

I can only wonder what the posts would be like in a similar thread where the subject was a similarly aged boy who was put in a full-time program to become a Catholic priest.

Why would they be any different?

RebeccaS

I think there is a difference between these fringes. People laughed at some of the greatest minds in history, but that doesn't mean that everyone on the fringe is a super mega genius.

There's probably a good fringe and a bad fringe.

Pitch perfect pipe flutes is just awesome fringe. What an amazing story.

Sile

I suppose there would be some divergence in the conversation - Catholic priests, for example, are squeezed into an incredibly narrow vocational field compared to Buddhist monks. Monks in the Asian tradition, making up as they do a much wider section of society, might take up anything from cooking to gardening to musical study to religious artisanship to medical services to spiritual teaching.

Dakini

karasti said:

Rather than forcing him to take band and German so he's "well rounded" when it's obvious he has talents that lie elsewhere, and he'd biding his time until he can fulfill what his abilities and talents bring into his life. I'm all for kids trying things so they learn what they like. However, when it's obvious a kid has a talent in one area, I don't see the point in forcing them to take languages, arts, (or whatever) for years at a time to fulfill some government obligation.

I think a kid can focus on what he loves and meet basic requirements for a "well-rounded" education. There's no reason for those things to be mutually exclusive. Being well-rounded isn't a bad thing. German could come in handy someday, for someone with a love of science. Do schools even teach the arts anymore? I thought that had been abandoned long ago.

I don't think the argument is about forcing a kid to be "normal". It's about being wise in going about choosing options for a kid, and researching the options. Small kids are going to have a problem being separated from their family for years with no visiting, that needs to be recognized. All possible options should be explored. This boy showed a very early interest in Buddhist teachings, yet his parents made no effort to find a Buddhist teacher for him near his home, which seems odd, in hindsight. Did they even buy him any Buddhist books? There was an odd all-or-nothing quality about the options presented him, with no in-between. It will be interesting to see what he does in his adult life.

Sile

An Asian monastery is basically what we would think of in modern terms as a magnet school, i.e. a school with a certain focus. In the case of monasteries and nunneries, they are largely boarding schools - also a tradition in the Western world. I'm not sure why such a learning environment would be considered so unusual, since we have the same basic components--focused curriculum and residency--for young people in the West already.

Also, since Asia traditionally has a wide section of its population in monastic vocations, it's a very logical magnet school for Asian parents to consider.

Honestly, I think we're thrown by the robes, which are really just another uniform in the end.

Jeffrey

A person should be valued for their heart not because they are successful or gifted.

karasti

@vinlyn, I wanted to apologize for my last comment to you. I don't know you or your principal abilities, so I am sorry I said that. I tend to get worked up where my kids are concerned and the public school system that we have to deal with, but that is not your fault. So I apologize.

The only "art" option available here is band or choir. Art is no longer a class, after the teacher retired they did not replace him. So, in order to meet Mn grad requirements in the arts, he has to take choir or band. I am all for kids trying stuff, but some of th0e requirements to me seem off. I can see requiring a kid to try the arts, but to force them to be in it for X # of years to meet a requirement is pointless. Especially for band, because if you don't start when band starts (5th grade) you cant exactly jump in and start playing 4 or 5 years later. So, you have to start band and stay in it for 5 years just to meet graduation requirements if you can't sing.

@Jeffrey, I agree, but often times people's talents come from the heart, and are meant to be truly shared with the world. What a boring world we'd live in if we all sat in the house meditating all day long and had talents or gifts to share with the world. I should say, when done right, all talents/gifts come from the heart. For some people that means more traditional things like science for my son. For other people it means something entirely different. That we can see pictures of our universe due to the science of other people is amazing and awe-inspiring to me at least!

Dakini

Kids at Western boarding schools go home on holidays, or at least for summer break. Sometimes parents visit. And they allow the students plenty of leisure time. The sense of isolation from family, even abandonment, that children in the monastic system feel can be traumatic. Monasteries can't be reduced to mere "magnet schools". The description of the rigid routine in the articles makes that clear. The institute where the boy is studying now might better fit those descriptions.