{"id":2097,"date":"2011-11-11T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=2097"},"modified":"2011-11-11T15:20:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T20:20:00","slug":"the-buddha-was-a-teacher-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/11\/the-buddha-was-a-teacher-too.html","title":{"rendered":"the Buddha was a teacher, too ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday in the undergraduate class I teach, everyone was quiet. Working. Drawing and colouring.\u00a0 Thinking. I often use ‘childish’ tools and practices in my classes, even though I teach university students. Or retired adults. I do this because of the effects: it makes learning almost effortless. The assignment wasn’t easy ~ to construct a metaphor for what your portfolio shows about your writing (thus what you’ve learned) this semester. I asked them to draw and colour this ‘metaphor,’ calling the whole process ‘drawing the arc of your portfolio.’ What would have been an ‘OMG!’ moment instead became a moment of discovery, of happy sharing and quiet intention.<\/p>\n

The entire room was raptly writing.\u00a0 Open windows flooded the room with autumn light. Music from one student’s laptop gave us a soundtrack from Florence & The Machine. This is when a writing teacher’s heart is happiest ~ when the room is broken only by the clatter of pencils, the soft swishing of crayons \"\"<\/a>and pastels on paper. An occasional walk to the centre of the room to pick up new colours, or another of the home-made chocolate chip cookies one of my students had brought to share. Writing as learning.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure why this kind of learning — learning that’s engaging, where you’re comfortably\u00a0 enjoying the process — isn’t felt to be ‘rigourous.’ Why must learning be ‘not-fun’ to be legit? What dark legacy of Puritanism is this, that the joyous exploration of knowledge we have at 2, or 3 or 4, should become hated slogging by 20, 30, or older…<\/p>\n

It’s much the same way, I think, w\/ beginner’s heart. If we’re enjoying our practice, if we begin to feel good about compassion, or derive pleasure from helping someone else, we begin to question our motives. Am I in this for the strokes?<\/em> we ask ourselves. What if my motives aren’t pure?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But when I pet the cat’s silky fur, I give us both pleasure. Do I pet the cat just to feel the softness on my own skin? Don’t I also enjoy the throaty purr, and the cat’s happiness? Isn’t the tactile comfort just a bonus? Why is it we distrust the pleasure that giving pleasure brings?<\/p>\n

Every day I teach, it’s my beginner’s heart that learns the most. I think about the Buddha, teaching us 2,000 years ago\u00a0 how to be happy. And I’m absolutely certain that brought him happiness. I also bet he did not disavow that happiness. But he may not have had a third chocolate chip cookie…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday in the undergraduate class I teach, everyone was quiet. Working. Drawing and colouring.\u00a0 Thinking. I often use ‘childish’ tools and practices in my classes, even though I teach university students. Or retired adults. I do this because of the effects: it makes learning almost effortless. The assignment wasn’t easy ~ to construct a metaphor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,43,58],"tags":[11,1181,1187],"class_list":["post-2097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-teaching","category-writing","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism"],"yoast_head":"\nthe Buddha was a teacher, too ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday in the undergraduate class I teach, everyone was quiet. Working. 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