Essential Education Programs
In the thirty years since Lama Yeshe first laid out his vision, Buddhist educators all over the world have been creating innovative programs and projects that share the aims of Essential Education: to create a more peaceful world by helping people to develop their natural capacity to be kind and wise. Ancient methodologies such as mindfulness and yoga have been successfully brought together with scientific insights, modern technologies and the arts. However, much of this pioneering work remains relatively unknown.
One of the functions of the Foundation is to showcase the work of programs that share its aims, values and methodologies, through supporting the creation of training resources, helping to organise training tours and events, and promoting them through its website and publications.
The first three Essential Education programs, selected with advice from Lama Zopa, are:
Maitreya Education
(India)
The aim of Maitreya Education is to inspire students to bring peace, happiness and well-being into the lives of others through the practice of kindness, compassion and universal responsibility, and to become leaders in their communities. Its curriculum combines academic achievement with ethical and spiritual development and includes: a daily assembly that encourages children to celebrate their own individual spiritual traditions; special activities to develop good qualities and values; meditation and yoga classes; and extensive creative arts and social work programs.
The first Maitreya Education School in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, offers primary, secondary and vocational education to approximately 400 daytime students from Kindergarten to Class 12, and evening informal classes for up to 130 children and adults who cannot attend during the daytime. The school is also providing teacher training for new educational projects that will be set up around the site of the Maitreya Statue in Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh.
Seven Steps to Knowledge, Strength and Compassion
(Lama’s Vision for Kids Training Tour June-July 2009)
The Seven Steps to Knowledge, Strength and Compassion is a unique, secular educational methodology inspired by the late Lama Yeshe and developed at Tara Redwood School in Santa Cruz, California. It blends the best of Eastern and Western approaches for educating the hearts and minds of children.
The Seven Steps program has been developed over a period of 18 years and is suitable for children of any faith or culture. Lama’s Vision for Kids – a name given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche – is the organisation set up to make this program available worldwide.
A range of training packages in The Seven Steps are now available, with curriculum and resource materials for teachers working with children 3-9+ years. They are being presented both at Tara Redwood School in California and via international training tours.
Transformative Mindfulness
(Lamp on the Path, Canada)
Transformative Mindfulness addresses the underlying causes of pain and suffering through teaching a series of simple yet effective meditations, visualisations and exercises. They have been designed to deepen our inner ability to cultivate universal compassion and understanding by drawing on the power of the mind to increase positive mental states, to overcome the inner suffering of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual challenges, and to clarify and set new habits and life options.
Transformative Mindfulness has been prototyped and practised for over twenty years in Australia, Europe and Canada, and is being used individually and with groups in palliative care, children’s programs, cancer support, weight loss, senior’s programs, writer’s workshops, abuse groups, wellness programs, mindfulness mental health programs, schools and career counselling. It is also undergoing scientific evaluation.
The tools of Transformative Mindfulness are offered online and free of charge by Lamp on the Path. There is an international training programme for certified facilitators, run and supervised by Dekyi Lee Oldershaw, and courses and presentations are available worldwide.
Contact Details
For more information visit www.essential-education.org, and join the mailing list for regular newsletters and updates.
The Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom
The Old Courthouse
43 Renfrew Road
London SE11 4NA
UK
Tel +44 207 820 9010
info@essential-education.org
www.essential-education.org