Yoga, Meditation and Discussions

As Puja and the Hymn Singing session ended, Bro. Chook announced that Sis. ------------ is going to give us a dhamma talk, so students from age 9 to 17 is told to stay back. However, Sis.------------ have not arrived. As Ananda is in charge of today, Sis. Khoo is told to keep us occupied for 15 minutes, unprepared, she hand over her to Bro. Nathan who taught us how to sing a certain pali song.

After the pali song. Everybody retreated to the chairs. But before she did an introduction, she called all of us, students, teachers and parent to sit on the floor closer to the stage. She begin by introducing a certain yoga beginning with a leaping frog, followed by a foetal position (baby position) and then demonstrated how to do the "Tree Position" (One leg neatly crossed the other at the front of the knee and arms at the side and then over the head, then the other leg that is standing , bend, as if we're sitting). The trick is to focus on a point and never to waver. A lot of students hopped around unable to keep this position. As time pass, and they got use to it, they begin to caught hold and stand steady.

Next, she told us each to find a partner and sit back to back with the right hand over our mouths and the left hand over our stomach. The right hand covers the mouth to symbolize right speech: No lying, No harsh speech, No slandering and No idle talk. We put the left hand over the stomach to feel our breathing.

Then she did a little game to excite the little ones by asking : Why do you come to Sunday School? Is it because your parents send you? Who is happy to be here? And told us where to stand if that such and such is our answer. Astoundingly, many students are happy to learn the dhamma and rushed to the stage as Sis. ------------said to stand if we're happy. However Ananda students did not budge. Maybe because we're tall and don't want to run around silly like the younger ones, or probably, we're just neutral. Later, she had us in a line and we had to observe the feet of the person in front and follow their steps. This is also a sort of meditation. Sister Khoo said that this is called "Walking Meditation". We walked around the hall a few times and finally stopped. We were told to cover our ears with our thumbs and place the other four fingers over our eyes and concentrate on breathing. Then we all lay down in the "Corpse Position" Sounds gruesome, doesn't it? But its pretty comfortable and relaxing. We're told that if we're studying, and our eyes get tired and heavy, we can do this "corpse position" to relax and to re-focus.

As lunch wasn't ready, we went to our respective teachers. Sis. Khoo prepared paper for surveys.Teacher Khoo and Sin Yi handed out forms and there were questions like: Personal details (Name, Date Of Birth, Hobbies, Likes and Dislikes...), and to rate our knowledge on the life of buddha, the dhamma, or whether do we practiced the dhamma at home from 1-10. Besides that, we're told to list down at least 3 or more of our preferred activities which is listed on the back of the paper, and how are we going to make it happen (the activities). Everybody wrote all sorts of answers and Teacher Khoo laughed out loud when she read them. ^^ Teacher Khoo talked for awhile about dances. languages and cooking at her house. We are practically more excited about going to her house to cook (we did this once before, we did gnochi , a type of pasta and bread and butter pudding, we also learned how to grill green and red papers over the stove fire to make the peeling of the skin much easier, and bacon and cucumber finger food. We also tried a variety of cheese with grapes and such, it was a lot of fun)

Then we had a wonderful lunch, courtesy of the volunteers at the kitchen. Three Sadhus to them! WESTERN BREAKFAST! We had sunny side up (egg), cucumbers, potato chips( almost like French fries) bread and sausages. Jong Shyan and Tian Hao did the contemplation before meal and the contemplation after meal.After lunch, everyone was free to go home. I am sure that everyone had a good time today.*******

Clear Water

1st lesson of 2008, Sis. Khoo told us of her experience in London, where she relate a certain game called 'Chicken'. It is a game where teenagers dare each other to do the 'STUPIDEST things'. There's one incident where a teenager dare another to beat up an old lady while taking a video of it. According to a recent survey where interviewers ask senior citizens what are they most afraid of, the highest score wasn't on height or rabid dogs and such, but teenagers! Why would teenagers do such thing?

Sis. Khoo showed us an example by giving each a clear glass bowl to be filled with water. A question was asked. "Why is water special?" The answer is, as exactly as clear as water, that the water is clear as glass. We can see through water, it is clear, it is calm. That is a pure mind. Babies has pure mind. Babies can't differentiate boy and girl. They don't know whether they are boy OR girl. Only when they grow older, they start to differentiate and condition. Boy would go "eee...I don't want that pink hello kitty bag!" and girl would say "I don't want to play ultraman! That is boys game!" Sis. Khoo asked Tian Hao "Do you want a hello kitty bag?" Tian Hao responded shaking his head.

As we grow older, dust get into our eyes to the point where sometimes we can't differentiate what is wrong or right. Our mind becomes unclear. Difference in thoughts causes misunderstandings and even fights. All these are caused by conditions where we don't accept other people opinions. Dust gets into everyone eyes, sometimes even in our parent eyes. What can we do to remove this dust?

Sis. Khoo then gave us each a small painted porcelain figure of an elephant with coloured candles within. We each took turn lighting the candle with a lighter. (some of us never lighted a candle with a lighter before)"Why is the light placed at the altar when we offer puja? Why is it special?" Light symbolize wisdom, light spreads across the room, when one is in darkness, light can show us the way, when one flame lights another it will not die but continue to light. That is what light symbolize and that is why light is special.



We had a short meditation then. As we meditate, we notice the sounds around us, we notice the discomfort that the body is feeling. We notice our mind, what are we thinking, and why are we thinking so. And then we notice our breathing. Breathing is something that the body does automatically. We often take it for granted. Breathing in....and breathing out.... and we open our eyes later. Everything looks much clearer. That is one benefit of meditation, it clears our mind, it lets us feel calmer. Some felt sleepy too.

We were separated into three groups randomly by numbers such as 1, 2 and 3 to do a little discussion of what do we want to do in the class this year or what do we want in this blog. There are three categories that we have discussed as we each broke into our own groups. Some are shy and quiet, some kept spewing ideas, some explain, while some try to drag others in the conversation, some felt competitive as they want more ideas than the other group, and some calmly join in accepting and giving ideas happily smiling.

The results of our discussion are as in below:

Spiritual
Song/lyrics compose
Learn different types of chanting
meditation
Get to know others religion

Social
Food fair stall(raising fund for BMSM building)
Visiting old folks home
Publishing magazines
Film short movies
KSDS idol

Interesting
Sudoku competition
Dancing class
Create Buddhism related games
Acting
Learning foregin languages(spanish,japanese...etc)
Eat and cook session
Yoga classes

And so the 1st lesson of 2008 ended =)

Happy Birthday!

Welcome readers!

Today is the birth of KSDS Ananda youth blog!

Purpose of this blog:

1. To attract and introduce youths from age 13-17 and above to the dhamma (teachings of the Buddha)
2. To account every lessons and activity learned and attended.
   
3. To let the students express and comment freely about the activities so we can improve.
4. For the students to keep in touch outside class =)

Let's have fun learning the dhamma together!

The class also promotes

• self development skills!!