The Dewdrop Digest

The Dewdrop Digest
Connecting Children, Youth and Sangha
Clouds in Water Zen Center
Sunday, October 19, 2003

Becoming a peace-making family
Rebecca Janke shared some great ideas that would be wonderful to incorporate into our home practice.

A stand-out was the whole notion of consciously choosing to become a peacemaking family: a very compelling and powerful idea, and an excellent fit with our mission. Let us co-develop this idea throughout the rest of this program year, and, hopefully, forward into the future.

Gather your family together to talk about this! Here are some possible discussion items the path to becoming a peacemaking family:
· Say: Each of us, regardless of age or ability, can be peacemaker.
· Discuss the range of ways to make peace. Setting the table, helping a turtle, standing up for someone who's being teased, sharing, developing conflict resolution skills, mindfulness and meditation practice, using resources mindfully, picking up litter, and so on.
· Say: We can choose to become a peacemaking family.
· Say: Three types of peacemaking activities might be: cultivating inner peace, striving to live in peace and harmony with others, and creating opportunities for peace for plants, animals, minerals and people all over the world. [Comment: These are the three aspects of the Eightfold Path of Peace, as we are interpreting them this year; we are equating the Wisdom aspect with caring for the interdependent web of life. We can recognize that these three sorts of actions are not separate - for example, our personal practice of mindfulness and meditation is creating peace around us, not just "in" us.]
· Discuss: What would it look like if your family became a peacemaking family? What sorts of things would be happening? What would the atmosphere be? What would be new and different? What be preserved? What sorts of peace activities would be most exciting? The easiest to get going on? The most difficult to complete? The most meaningful for us?
· Choose which areas of peacemaking you want to focus on and where you will begin.
· Decide to be a peacemaking family.
· Launch yourselves as a peacemaking family with a peace action step (see below for ideas for family peace actions in two of the three peacemaking areas).
· Celebrate! A meal with candles, a photo, baking brownies?


Ideas for family action steps for "Peace begins with me"
· Set up a family altar. Maintain it beautifully and reverently.
· Perhaps, in your living space, each family member can identify a "place of their own", which might be a quiet place to read or daydream, or perhaps a place to breath, to find peace. For young children, it might be a blanket over a chair. For many children, it's their bed. The Preschool and K-1 classes are exploring this idea. Having a physical peace place is a metaphor for finding our inside peace place. For 2nd grade on up, it is great to articulate the metaphor. With youngers, we might simply help co-create little houses and let them experience it without labeling or analyzing it.
· Gather together daily for some sort of mindfulness practice. Ideas:
- Begin the day with a good morning song and a hug and saying "Let's make peace together today!"
- Offer incense. Light a candle. Sit and breathe together.
- Recite The Two Vows, The Five Wonderful Precepts, The Three Refuges and/or a Loving-Kindness Meditation
- Before bed, review the day, celebrate the peacemaking, mourn the trouble spots, and visualize the trouble spots with each person acting as a peacemaker (or Bodhisattva).
· Spend time out of doors each day, mindfully and joyfully.
· Bring mindfulness and reverence to your daily tasks of cooking and cleaning.

Ideas for family action steps for "Living in peace and harmony"
· Have regular family meetings. Celebrate what's going well. Find out what's not going so well, acknowledge feelings, validate needs, brainstorm ways to meet needs, choose solutions that work for everyone in the family.
· Use a talking stick or talking stone at family meetings. Pass it around; everyone listens to whoever is holding the stick. It encourages speaking from the heart, listening deeply, and showing respect for everyone's feeling and ideas.
· Keep a scrapbook of family peacemaking. Record your successes such as: working out a tough family issue, creating a space in you home (however small) for meditation or breathing or peacemaking, volunteering at a homeless shelter, eating more meals together.
· Use "I" messages which describe what happened, how you felt, what your need is, and what your request is -- rather than blaming others for not meeting your needs.
· Have regular fun time together. Go for a walk, eat popcorn in front of the fire, play cards, whittle, make muffins, do yoga, tell jokes and riddles from a book, read a book, cuddle! Remember: Video time does not count as together time.
Comment: We will be practicing and learning about the above and more during Winter Quarter when our focus will be on Wholesome Behavior.

Bake Sale: The Middle School Group is sponsoring a bake and craft sale today!!! Treat yourself and support for this fine community-within-a community!


posted by webmaster on 10/19/2003 01:32:00 PM | link

The Dewdrop Digest
Connecting Children, Youth and Sangha
Clouds in Water Zen Center
Sunday, October 19, 2003

"Being Peace" as an essential, all-ages Buddhist practice
As you know, our theme for 2003-2004 is "Peacemaking and the Four Noble Truths." Today we are welcoming Rebecca Janke, from Growing Communities for Peace, into our classrooms and afterwards, into the Zendo for an all-ages workshop on peacemaking.

I'd like to say more about this year's peacemaking teaching message using a Q&A format:

Why is our program for children and youth emphasizing "peacemaking" this year?

1. Because the ideas of peace and of peace interrupted have become such a huge factor in our daily lives, especially over the past two years. I believe that worries about the lack of peace, and longing for personal and world peace, are imbued in most people's conscious and unconscious, including children, including young children, including children who do not talk about it, including youth who are caught up in academics, sports, jobs, etc.

2. Because "peacemaking" - being peace - creates "peace for me" and "peace for others". In the midst of difficulties, of suffering and dis-ease, we find peace and are empowered to make peace.

3. Because "peacemaking" is something that we can ALL do, regardless of age or ability. It is wonderful to realize that each of us - even a three year old, even an overly-busy-working-single-mom, even I - can find a peaceful place and can bring peace to others through my practice.

4. Because being peace is an essential Buddhist practice.

5. Because the notion of "being a peacemaker" is more culturally familiar than the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths. Introducing new ideas by linking them with familiar ones helps us learn faster and to understand more deeply. It also gives young people some "languaging" which may help them communicate more effectively - and perhaps less self-consciously - when discussing beliefs and practices with friends who do not practice Buddhism.

What can we tell our children when tragedy occurs?
We reassure them. We tell them, "Yes, bad things sometimes happen. And someone will be there to care for and help whoever is in need. Someone will always be here to love and protect you." For very young children, you have just summarized the Four Noble Truths.

How can we empower ourselves and our children to live in the beauty of NOW when our own lives - or the lives of others - are not peaceful?
The Eightfold Path describes a way for families to live in peace and harmony even when our peace, and the peace of others, is interrupted.
· Cultivating peace inside ("Peace begins with me" - and the Mind Training aspect of the Eightfold Path - which we are studying this quarter)
· Cultivating peace with friends and family ("Peace for us" - and the Wholesome Behavior aspect of the Eightfold Path - which we will study in Winter Quarter)
· Cultivating a sense of caring connectedness with the whole world ("Peace for the planet - and the Wisdom aspect of the Eightfold Path - Spring Quarter)

Today's Lesson: Children as Peace Messengers -- and Four Noble Truths
?What do children want more than anything? They want a world at peace. They want to be recognized for their ability to make peace, reduce suffering and create new inventions for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence. They expect it to happen in their lifetime and they want us by their side to support them in their endeavors,? says Rebecca Janke.

Today, Peacemaker Rebecca will visit our classrooms to engage the children in multi-sensory Peace Dialogues to find out how our children wish to be supported in their ideas for creating a more peaceful, nonviolent world.

ALSO: The classes will also continue to learn about the Four Noble Truths, "peace begins with me" and mindfulness practice. We will use "Mindfulness of the changing seasons" as a pathway to peace that invites us to awaken to all of our senses, and also to the impermanent nature of the world. Preschool and K-1 classes will make leaf-rubbings. The kindergarten class will be introduced to the idea of having a peace place (a refuge such as one's bed, a blanket over a chair, a treehouse, a little nook) and how that relates to our "peace place" inside.

2nd/3rd and 4th/5th are making some artistic "mindfulness reminders" intended to support family mindfulness at home. The Middle School group is engaged in real-life Buddhist practice: making group decisions, fundraising to support the growth of their group's sense of community and planning a service project.

Question, suggestion, problem? Contact Children's and Youth Practice Coordinator Katharine Krueger at 651.222.6968 x10 or at cp@cloudsinwater.org.


posted by webmaster on 10/19/2003 01:15:00 PM | link