Ven. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chekinda

　　International Theravāda Buddhist Missionary University, Yangon

　　In this age of free-thinking and globalization, some lose faith in their own religion and some retain it even stronger than before.  This paper will look at the experience of the Buddhist youth of Myanmar.  In so doing, I will use my own experience of working with youth for many years through special Buddhist trainings for youth and how in those trainings, the Mangala-sutta and the Dhammapāda have been applied not just to activate and energize but also to widen and deepen the Buddhist ethical views among the youth.

　　A number of ethnic groups reside in the Union of Myanmar.  Each of them is allowed to follow religion of their choice without restrictions.  However, the majority of the population follows Buddhism.

　　As a matter of fact, the Buddha [not Siddhatta Gotama] and Buddhism was originally established, around Buddhagaya, India.  Having flourished for more than two thousand and five hundred years, Buddhism has spread around the world and continues to spread at present.

　　As for Myanmar, a neighboring country of India, Buddhism has reached us since the time of Buddha.  The cultures and traditions within Myanmar are much influenced by the teachings of Buddha and has also prospered under this influence.  Many people within Myanmar reflect their ethical-morality through their presentations of heroic images of Buddha and other ideal persons from the early Buddhist era.  People have been living peacefully under the teachings of Buddha for so many years.

　　Although Buddhism, as designated, comes under the name of isms, it is in fact the teachings of Buddha practiced by people in daily life, in social and business circles, and in education - in accordance with and to the extent they perceive and understand.  Those who follow and practice the teachings of Buddha are regarded as Buddhist.

　　All leaders of the nations around the world accept the fact that “next generations are the invaluable assets of a country.”  Like wise, religious leaders should also accept the same - “the youths are the priceless jewels.”  In the future, these generations will takeover the responsibilities for their country from their forefathers, so is in the sense of religion.  In the light of this, the immediate duty of present day leaders of Buddhism is to encourage the young generation to learn Buddhism from its very basic to its highest insight as well as to study and observe it thoroughly.  We have to focus our aim on the future of Buddhism and hand it down to next generation with a properly structured plan.

　　In the past, for many centuries, Buddhist monasteries played a vital role in our country’s education sector from the basic level to the advanced level.  As an outcome, both the public and the leaders were able to make development and achieved social and spiritual success under the teachings of Buddha.  However, for some period of time, Buddhist monastic education system has been extinct, resulted in the decline of development both in religious and national aspects.

　　Nowadays, Buddhist monastic education system has been re-activated and this produces opportunities for the young generation to be in touch with the teachings of Buddha again.  However, the ratio of the number of Buddhist monasteries and the youth population is overly imbalanced.  Therefore, in order to bridge this gap, we hold dhamma talks occasionally at the State’s primary schools, middle schools, high schools and universities.  We also organize training courses on Buddhism.  In addition to this, dhamma talks for youth and Buddhist ethic training courses are also conducted throughout the country.  Moreover, during long holidays, we organize Buddhist-ethics training courses for different age groups at our “Dhammaduta Monastery” so as to provide better understanding of the teachings of Buddha for the children and young people.

　　When providing such education, the approaches are based on either age or education background.  Sometimes, it depends on social back-ground like those from the urban area and those from rural area.  It is evident that, at times of Buddha, the Buddha himself delivered sermons addressing directly to the children.  Therefore, there are several discourses in Pāli texts and in commentary, which are suitable for young people.  As in our case, our teachings are based on best-known suttas common to every Buddhist in Myanmar, such as: “Mangala sutta” and “Dhammapāda verses.”

　　According to “Mangala Sutta”, there are altogether 38 rules to be observed in order to achieve social, economic and educational goals. They are the rules of success for everyone, regardless of race, religion, time and space.  In fact, this particular teaching has also been accepted by non-Buddhist who holds negative views on Buddhism, as they could not find any flaw to criticize.

　　With reference to “Dhammapāda verses”, each verse is found to generate moral and wisdom for individual observer. In fact, the verses convey multiple benefits not only for individuals but also for organizations as a whole everywhere.  Without discrimination between Buddhist and non-Buddhist, these verses could tame and soften human-minds to become peaceful and calm, thus we refer Dhammapāda as the “Heart of Buddhism.”

　　Therefore, as I believe that it would be wise to let our next generations inherit the rules of success from “Mangala sutta” and mind-purifying factors from “Dhammapāda,” I have been taking initiatives in order to let the youth get in touch with the teachings of Buddha.  These teachings coincide with the three core teachings of Buddha: “Not to do evil deeds; to do good deeds and to purify the mind.”  They also reflect the three major practices of Buddhism - sīla [morality], samādhi [concentration] and paññā [wisdom]. 

　　That is why I particularly based my dhamma teachings for youths on these discourses.  As for my approach, I address to young students from first and second graders to tenth graders of state schools in accordance with their age.  One section lasts for one hour and I also encourage them to mediate for about 15 minutes in an hour time.  For the university level, I focus on the development of morality and cultivation of better attitude.  Besides, I stress on the fact that young people are invaluable assets for our country and we are really looking up to them. Hence, they come to understand and appreciate the teachings of Buddha: especially the obligations of a teacher; obligations of a student; obligations of parents and obligations of sons and daughters in particular, then they apply in their daily life.  As a result, this lessens the day-to-day conflicts between teachers and students; parents and children, as well as the adults and young people.

　　Again, during my dhamma talks especially conducted for the young people and children across the country, I stress on areas such as “it is very important to value oneself; today’s child is the man of the future; a good child can grow into a better person where a better person can lead to better world”.  All these concepts are delivered in accordance with the teachings of Buddha.

　　As an outcome, young people across the country tend to value themselves, and put more effort in educating themselves to become well-educated persons.  The more they value themselves, the more they do valuable deeds in life and use up time efficiently. There we see so many such young people. From the teachings of Buddha, these young people learn much about ethics and how to behave themselves well. They come to participate in community works both individually or as a group. Thus they become as reliable and efficient as ever.

　　In particular, we witness tremendous benefits that are resulted from organizing Buddhist ethic training courses for children at our Dhammaduta Monastery campus. The three nights, four days Buddhist ethic training courses for children from age 8 to 12, able to generate stronger faith is the triple gems: Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha among these children.  They dare to approach the Sangha and they accept the fact that Buddhist schools are sanctuary for them where they can get the highest moral protection and can also attain wisdom.  Besides, they pay more respect to their parents, they listen to what their parents teach them and they can appreciate the value of wisdom after they have joined the Buddhist ethic training courses.

　　We also witness a great deal of benefits resulting from organizing Buddhist ethic training courses focusing on ethics for teenagers of age 13 to 16.  This particular age group is vulnerable to the impacts of their surrounding.  They easily imitate others.  So it is very important not to let them fall into the hands of wrong teachers whom they regard as their ideal or their hero.  Therefore, we introduce them to the best ideal-being of all - that is: the Buddha, his biography, his life-time works and his attitude, which are most appropriate to take as example.  After attending our training courses, their attitude and behavior have changed a lot.

　　In particular, during the Buddhist ethic training courses, we encourage and train these children to be able to become independent and self sufficient, to be able to get up early in the morning and prepare their own beds, to wash their own dishes and so on.  Moreover, we train them the proper time allotment and how to manage time efficiently.  Their daily schedule includes a time for prayers, a time to play and relax, a time for debate, seminars, and question and answer session.  No time is wasted in a day.  They are able to maintain the good habits they have learnt from the Buddhist ethic training courses and also apply in their dealings with family and community.  Now their parents can be proud of them. 

　　Again, we also hold special Buddhist ethic training courses for the age group of 16 to 25, most of whom are university students and fresh employees in industries, at least twice a month and teach them Buddhist ethics.  These age groups are still in deed of experience in life as they are very new to the responsibilities that they have recently taken over.  Therefore, in order to fill their requirements, we teach them from how to deal social relationships, and how to achieve organizational and personal goals in accordance with the teachings of Buddha.  Here, we highlight on the conflicts and misunderstandings between the youth whose knowledge has been developed is a haste and the adults who have matured experience.  Misunderstanding is the source of all conflicts.  Only if there is no misunderstanding between individuals, between institutions and between states, there will be no conflicts and the world will become peaceful.  Understanding creates trust between the counterparts.  The community embraced with trust and understanding is the community with sustainable development.  Therefore, we provide not only Buddhist ethics education but also variety of applicable knowledge for these age groups in accordance with the teachings of Buddha.

　　We have observed that those who joined our Buddhist ethic training courses for age groups of 16 to 25 are very active in social and community works.  Some of them also participate in blood donation activities led by myself.  Furthermore, they also participate in operation campaigns of volunteer opticians and eye specialists.  Besides, they have been making a lot of contributions in the recent cyclone relief works after our delta region was hit by Nargis.  Their volunteer works can bee seen in other religious occasions too.  They have been contributing whole heartedly.  All these actions taken for the benefit of oneself as well as for that of others are in fact the results of learning Buddhist ethics.

　　The most fascinating result is that- we can eliminate the misunderstandings between the parents and children.  We conduct meetings between the trained youths and their parents and also provide counseling so as to create happy families — leading to happy communities,  as a whole.

　　If these ethics are fully understood and practiced not only by the youths of Myanmar but also by the youths from around the world, all the conflicts shall be nullified and the world can experience global peace and prosperity.  To sum up, I profoundly urge Buddhist leaders and Buddhist people to hand over Buddhist ethics to the next generations and make the world a better place for all of us.