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The poem is kind of bleak for children. You know, kids are kids! Are Buddhism not meant for kids? But we started our conditioning when we were kids. Where should we draw the line here?
That is a lovely gift! I went to the author's blog site from the link on the page and I'll have a marvelous time exploring it.
Bleak? I'd call it joyful celebration. Bleak is "...if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." But children can handle exploring the concept of death. Some of my fondest childhood memories is of the neighborhood gang maintaining a little animal cemetray and if we found something like a dead bird, we have a little funeral complete with shoebox coffin, picked wildflowers and took turns giving the "Dust to dust..." sermon. Sometimes we'd actually cry, if it was a beloved pet hamster or turtle. Then we'd go work on our treefort or something.
Bleak as in not giving kids the room to imagine. The concept of nothingness is too abstract for kids but it's appropriate to introduce the idea that 'thoughts are things'.
it would be more experiential. give cereal to child to eat. oh hey look now your cereal is gone, the bowl is empty. where did the cereal go? it went in the tummy and now it is going to become part of you. some of it is also going to turn into poop and then that poop can be used for the soil to grow plants.
or the cereal was just there, but you ate it. notice how there isn't anything left. we humans enjoy the cereal but we never appreciate the lack of cereal. etc etc etc
just gotta be creative in application. children can understand a lot of things. just make it straight forward and experiential.
Comments
The poem is kind of bleak for children. You know, kids are kids! Are Buddhism not meant for kids? But we started our conditioning when we were kids. Where should we draw the line here?
Bleak? I'd call it joyful celebration. Bleak is "...if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." But children can handle exploring the concept of death. Some of my fondest childhood memories is of the neighborhood gang maintaining a little animal cemetray and if we found something like a dead bird, we have a little funeral complete with shoebox coffin, picked wildflowers and took turns giving the "Dust to dust..." sermon. Sometimes we'd actually cry, if it was a beloved pet hamster or turtle. Then we'd go work on our treefort or something.
then that poop can be used for the soil to grow plants.
or the cereal was just there, but you ate it. notice how there isn't anything left. we humans enjoy the cereal but we never appreciate the lack of cereal. etc etc etc
just gotta be creative in application. children can understand a lot of things. just make it straight forward and experiential.