I thought this quote, by famous Buddhist philosopher and monk Thich Nhat Hahn, provides a very useful framework not only for working with our children, but also for considering how policy will affect our lives. We are frequently frustrated, made to feel powerless, and otherwise disenfranchised from the world of those who write policy. I am fascinated by the idea of thoughtful non-compliance, and I believe mindfulness is the way to truth within the structure of education policy.
"By paying attention to a thing and seeing it for what it is, rather than becoming drawn into its inertia, we are able to respond, rather than simply react.
According to the practice recommended by the Buddha, when the seed of anger or frustration is manifesting as a mental formation, we should not allow it to be there alone, we should try to invite another seed to manifest, usually we invite the seed of mindfulness to manifest.
The mindfulness is invited up in the mental formation as a kind of energy to recognize the other mental formation, we called it a practice of mindfulness of anger, mindfulness is always a mindfulness of something, when you breathe mindfully this is called mindfulness of breathing, when you walk mindfully that is a mindfulness of walking, when you are angry aware that you are angry, that is a mindfulness of anger.
The job of mindfulness is to recognize, to recognize things as they are, then to embrace whatever is there in a very tender way, like a mother embraces a child, when the child suffers, the mother is working in the kitchen but she hears the baby cry, she knows that the baby is suffering, so she goes into the baby room and she picks the baby up, she holds the baby tenderly in her arms, and the the energy of tenderness from the mother begins to penetrate into the body of the child, and after a few moments the child feels better. This also happens in the practice of mindfulness."
- Thich Nhat Hahn
