Hello Lal,
I’m trying to teach my kids (2 upper teen girls) Dhamma. It’s challenging to say the least. I find ways to work it in, but until recently have never gotten technical. I put a message (long text) and sent it to them (below) and only one of them responded with something like “mom, I already knew all this, you’ve told me all of this before”. I was surprised…I guess working it in in everyday terms/words/examples actually does help.
Any other thoughts on how to teach Dhamma to young people?
Text message:
Hello Girls,
I have a responsibility to you as your parent and one who understands the truth about how this world works, not only from teachings, but from personal experience. It would be totally immoral of me to not have at least tell you the basics. It’s your choice as to how, when or if you apply it to your life.
Over the past 7+ years you’ve seen me in a concentrated effort to figure this out, with all kinds of weirdness and failures. The biggest failure was the inability to continually provide you with a stable home and I’m very sorry for that. I hope to pay back this debt before I die in some way. Instability is a part of life in this universe that’s not within anyone’s control and this is the nature of this world. Look around you, you’ll see it everywhere, especially in older people when bodies are open to a whole array of disease, decay and lives unfulfilled.
Some call it chaos, continuous change, impermanence, but what you have to be good with is nothing in this world can provide you with permanent happiness or peace. So, how to make the best of what you’re dealt with in this life so as to set yourself up with a potentially better next life…the key is, DO MORAL. That is, live, act, speak and consciously think morally. Kamma is a how everything comes back to you, energy in, energy out, but with interest on the repayment side, good or bad.
What is moral living…here are the big culprits to avoid:
1.Killing, not only people, but animals too. Tell me you can’t see that animals suffer when, for instants, a fish dandles from a hook or a dog is hit. Fish don’t shed tears, but they have feelings.
2.Stealing, that is taking what is not given. Many consider “borrowing” not stealing, but if it wasn’t given to you to temporarily use, it’s stealing.
3.Sexual misconduct, is sexual relationships with other people that are already in a relationship with another, deviant practices and even intent to do something is immoral. Intent is immoral and counts in negative energy even if you never execute in any of these 10 items. Ignorance like in the court of law will not keep you out of jail (i.e., accumulating bad kamma/energy).
4.Lying, no explanation needed here. This one’s easy to see, liars flock together like birds of a feather.
5.Slandering, making false and damaging statements about someone or a company, etc. Anytime you hurt another it’s immoral and will come back you with interest.
6.Harsh speech, yelling, abusive, rude, short or lewd speaking not only out loud, but in your head as well about someone or yourself. You can hurt yourself here too.
7.Gossiping or frivolous talk, this is a tough one, but people get hurt as you know and it comes back to bite…hard.
8.Greed, for other’s belongings or what one wants beyond what one needs. This one is huge which leads to corruption of the mind and hatred.
9.Hatred, leads to killing and the niraya (the worst realm to be reborn into) where suffering is constant and you’re continually be reborn there until the kammic energy is gone which is usually aeons.
10.Wrong views (aka, mica ditthi), this means having the wrong beliefs about the following:
•Giving, generosity and caring has no merit.
•Being grateful, responding in kind, repaying debts for what others have done for oneself has no merit.
•Respecting and making offerings to those with higher virtues has no merit.
•What we enjoy and suffer in this life is NOT due to kamma vipaka (energy/actions from pas actions, speech and thoughts/intentions), but they just happen.
•This world does not exist.
•When one dies it is not possible to born in paralow which is a netherworld (transitional state here until a next appropriate womb is available based on personality/habits from the previous life).
•Mother is not a special person.
•Father is not a special person.
•There’s no instantaneous births in other realms of this world.
•There are no Noble persons/yogis who have cultivated their minds to be free of defilements/wrong thoughts and thus can see other realms and previous lives.
Some of the wrong views may be out of your scope of understanding, but at least you’ve been exposed if it becomes relevant to you.
You two girls having had some science background and know a bit about the nature of this world which is cause and effect. Like in chemistry, you add water to concentrated hydrogen sulfuric acid you get an explosion! This is what is going on everywhere here in this world/universe, but with time delay until the conditions are right for the payback to occur. Like a seed of a tree, it won’t grow until the conditions are right…sunlight, water, nutrient soil conditions, etc. For example, when I created the conditions, no stable job or income this allowed an old kamma seed to grow and explode into homelessness, multiple times. I don’t yet know the original bad deed I did in past lives to have this happen, but I’m guessing it was excessive greed and making others homeless.
Some kamma you’ll see in this life, but a lot comes in future lives either by being born in higher (less suffering/more pleasurable) realms or lower (4 lower including the animal realm we can see where suffering is higher) realms. There are 31 realms total, 4 below the human realm and 26 above us and a mind plane that we as sentient beings have access to depending on how covered the mind is with habits and cravings (aka, defilements) and brain function. Obviously, dogs, cats and all animals have different levels brain functioning to access the mind plane.
There is a way to reduce the chances for bad kamma seeds from growing, don’t create the fertile ground on which to sprout them and that is by staying away from the big ten above and doing meritorious deeds (giving, charity, helping others, etc.). All these good things you do, brings about a different kind of happiness, that good feeling inside that’s not like eating really good pizza, but like when a headache goes away. Relief. That’s that the happiness to aim for!
There’s so much more to Buddha Dhamma, but I’ll leave it at that. If you’re ever inclined at some point in your life to learn more it’s here: https://puredhamma.net. I’m forever grateful to Lal, who translated the lost teachings from Sinhala to English from 1500 years ago when they were mistranslated.
Know what you’ve learned here is more valuable than any pleasurable thing in this world and is your ticket to at least a better life in the future and if you investigate further, your ticket out of suffering forever!
With metta (loving kindness) always,
Mom