Practices for Children

Practices for Children

A Prayer for Children
Date Posted:
May 2013

Rinpoche dictated this prayer and short commentary as a response to a center’s request for a prayer for children to recite at an inter-religious event in Colombia. [Note: the actual prayer is the indented text in italics below.]

Lama Zopa Rinpoche relaxing with children and students at Waterlow Park, Highgate, London, 1983. Photo by Robin Bath.

There are seven fundamental methods to bring success for oneself and for the world. Each child can pray for happiness for themselves and also for the world. The first fundamental is kindness; to practice kindness day and night. You could say something like this:

May the precious, wonderful, dear children, who are full of potential, be able to eliminate their own problems and the problems of the world, of all living beings. May they bring all the happiness of this life and all the future lives, as well as the ultimate everlasting happiness, to all sentient beings. May they complete the cessation of all the suffering and the causes of suffering—the actions that create negative karma, and the wrong concepts, the obscurations and the disturbing attitudes.

May they complete the true path, the ultimate wisdom directly seeing the ultimate nature of the I and of all phenomena, and the peerless and perfect happiness. May they complete the qualities of the cessation of the wrong concepts and hallucinations, and may they complete the qualities of understanding in themselves. May the precious children, who are beautiful, enchanting, like a flower about to blossom, offer all the temporary and ultímate happiness to the world and to all living beings.

That is the description, now comes the prayer:

May we practice kindness day and night, forever, not only towards friends, but also to strangers, and especially to the enemy; not only towards human beings, but also to animals and other beings who want happiness and don´t want to suffer.

May we constantly enjoy our lives by rejoicing. May we constantly enjoy happiness by rejoicing in all the positive things that bring benefit to others and to ourselves. And may we especially rejoice when we see all the good things that happen to others.

In the world, we feel jealous and unhappy when good things happen to others. If somebody has any happiness, we feel jealous instead of rejoicing. So we can use this method of rejoicing to become sick of jeaolusy and to destroy it. Rejoicing is very good education; this is the education that we need. The world suffers so much—there are economic problems, wars and famine, so these happen because we didn´t create good karma. Instead of rejoicing, we feel sad when good things happen to others. Rejoicing is missing from children’s education. Our problems don´t come from outside, they come from the mind.

May we develop patience to achieve all happiness, temporal and ultímate, and to bring that happiness to others; not only to our family, but to all sentient beings.

May we develop all the 16 human qualities, an understanding which makes our lives different.

May we become skilled in not harming sentient beings, and may we become only the source of happiness for sentient beings, like sunshine.

May we practice contentment.

This is very important because so many people do illegal things; they go to prison and give many problems to the government. Even rich people destroy their lives due to lack of contentment, and it’s the same for poor people. Because of lack of contentment, young people take drugs, they don't find jobs, they destroy their lives with alcohol, so many things. By not having contentment and satisfaction, there are so many problems in their relationships, they kill, steal and so forth. This is another important thing that children need to learn.

May we learn contentment and satisfaction. May we learn to enjoy contentment, which  brings great freedom into our lives and brings us so much happiness. May we be an example to the world.

May we practice these good qualities and when somebody abuses or harms us, may we immediately forgive them. In daily life, when we make mistakes and harm others, may we immediately ask forgiveness.

This is very important, because it brings so much happiness and harmony to our lives—to our families, to the world and to all sentient beings. What we do in this life—if we are happy and if our conduct is positive —that becomes the cause for us to have a good mind and good conduct in future lives, so we don't cause harm to sentient beings.

May we be able to develop courage, to be an inspiring example and to be of benefit in so many ways for the happiness of others, not only for ourselves.

One person with a negative mind can destroy the world, and harm so many millions of people. This has happened in the world so many times. A child who develops a positive mind is like the sun shining, eliminating the darkness in the world, for all to enjoy. Therefore, a child who develops these qualities brings great benefit to the world, to millions and millions of sentient beings.

 

A Daily Practice for Children
Date Posted:
October 2005

Rinpoche suggested this outline as a daily practice for a group of children in Australia.

As a motivation, think:

By the kindness of all sentient beings and the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, I have not died yet. I am so fortunate to be a human being again today, and to be able to practice Dharma. What I am going to do from now on, especially today, is to not harm others and to give only happiness to all living beings. The only way for me to live my life in this way is to keep my mind in loving kindness, compassion, and bodhicitta all the time. With this attitude, whatever I do becomes a cause of happiness for all sentient beings and this causes me to have a happy, fulfilling life.

I am responsible for each and every sentient being’s happiness and peace. How? Without compassion, I give harm to others directly and indirectly from life to life, besides harming myself. Due to compassion, I stop harming others and instead benefit them. All other living beings receive so much peace and happiness from this, so that is why I have this responsibility.

Therefore, please, kind compassionate Lord Buddha, please help me to bring each and every sentient being to enlightenment.

Then, you imagine that Guru Shakyamuni Buddha is very happy and loves you so much, and emanates beams of light, which completely eliminate and purify all your obscurations and negative karmas (from which come all the things you don’t like), and you receive all the buddhas’ wisdom, compassion, and power within you.

Recite Buddha’s Mantra: TADYATHA OM MUNÉ MUNÉ MAHAMUNAYÉ SOHA. Recite this five times, three times, or more.

Then, you can pray to Chenrezig, the Buddha who is the essence of all Buddha’s compassion:

Please help me to be able to benefit all sentient beings, from now on, as you did, Compassionate Buddha, by giving me all your qualities, especially compassion.

Then, Compassionate Buddha, Chenrezig, is so happy with you and loves you so much. He grants you all his qualities, especially Buddha’s compassion, and blessings in the form of light beams, which you receive, while you recite the mantra: OM MANI PADME HUM. Recite this five times, three times, or more.

Next make requests to Manjrushri, who is the essence of all Buddha’s wisdom:

Please help me to be able to benefit all sentient beings from now on, as you did, Buddha of Wisdom, by giving me all your qualities, especially wisdom.

Then, Manjrushri is so happy with you and loves you so much, and grants you all his qualities, especially Buddha’s wisdom and blessings in the form of light beams that you receive, while reciting the mantra: OM AH RA PA TSA NA DHIH. Recite this five times, three times, or more.

Then, after that, pray to Vajrapani, the essence of all Buddha’s power:

Please help me to be able to benefit all sentient beings from now on, as you did, Buddha of Power, by giving me all your qualities, especially power.

Then, Vajrapani is so happy with you and loves you so much, grants you all his qualities, especially Buddha’s power, and blessings in the form of light beams that you receive, while reciting the mantra, OM VAJRAPANI HUM. Recite this five times, three times, or more.

Then pray to Tara, who is the essence of all Buddha’s action (success), to give all happiness, including enlightenment, to you and all sentient beings:

Please help me to be able to benefit all sentient beings from now on, as you did, Buddha of Action, by giving me all your qualities, especially action (success).

Then, Tara is so happy with you and loves you so much, and grants all her qualities, especially Buddha’s action or success, and blessings in the form of light beams that you receive while reciting the mantra, OM TARA TUTTARE TURE SOHA. Recite this five times, three times, or more.

To dedicate these requests, recite the following:

May the good heart, cherishing others, be generated within my mind and in the minds of every living being. May that which has already developed increase forever more.

Due to all my positive actions, all those I have done right now, whatever I have done in the past, and whatever I will do in the future, and also all the good actions done by others in the past, present, and future, may I be most beneficial like Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, Compassion Buddha (Chenrezig), Manjrushri, and Tara, for all living beings, achieve enlightenment, and lead each and every living being to that enlightenment, by myself alone.

Due to all the merits of the three times created by myself, buddhas, and bodhisattvas, which are like a dream, may I lead all sentient beings, who are like a dream, to enlightenment, which is like a dream, by myself alone.

Due to all my merits—the positive actions I have done—in the past, present, and future, and also those which are done by others, may every living being have a good heart. May there be world happiness and peace.

How to Control Children So You Can Guide Them
Date Posted:
October 2005

Rinpoche gave this advice to a school teacher who was having difficulty with the children. Although she wanted very much to help them, they wouldn’t listen to her and were being disrespectful.

Dear one,
There are many methods that can make children listen. For example, you can do Kurukulla practice or blessing the speech. And there are mantras you can recite to cause others to generate virtue and loving kindness in the heart. If you recite these mantras before teaching, it helps to generate virtue, loving kindness, and compassion in people’s hearts.

There are also different controlling deities that can be practiced depending upon the one with which you have more karma. For you, your karma is with Red Tara. If you have received a great initiation, you can generate yourself as the deity. But in your case, you haven’t received the initiation so you can’t generate yourself as the deity. Instead, you can visualize Red Tara in front of you and receive red light coming from Red Tara, bringing all the many qualities of the holy body, speech, and mind of Red Tara, especially the omniscient mind, perfect power, and having completed the mind training in compassion for all sentient beings. You also receive the power of controlling.

Also, request Tara to send red light into the children, whoever you have difficulties with, those who you would like to listen to you, to obey you, to do what you wish. Red light goes into them, completely burning wrong concepts, delusions, and superstitious thoughts that harm you and others, such as thoughts of dislike toward you. Everything is pacified. Think that they are generating the thought that they like you most; they are drawn to you most. They are so happy to obey you, to do whatever you wish. They also generate loving kindness, compassion, and faith in cause and effect so they abandon negative actions of body, speech, and mind which are the causes of suffering, and only engage in virtue, which is the cause of happiness. You can think they have generated the ultimate good heart, bodhicitta, and actualized the whole path to enlightenment. Do a strong visualization of this and chant the mantra:

OM TARE TUTTARE (insert the names of any or all of the school children you wish to control) WASHAM KURU SVAHA

Another deity that can be used for controlling is Dö-gyel, Hayagriva. There are many methods. Basically, you need controlling power.

The conclusion is that there are various practices that can be done but, of course, it’s all based on a good heart, compassion. It is because of your good heart and compassion that you want them to listen to you so you can teach them how to abandon negative actions and create good karma. This way you can lead them to happiness in this and all future lives, until they are free of samsara. Having to die and be reborn, that could be endless, so you are able to cause them to have happiness in future lives. Not only that, but the best thing is that you are able to bring them to liberation, because being in samsara is still temporary happiness. So, the best thing is to liberate them from all suffering and its causes. The very best thing is to bring them to peerless full enlightenment. This is how you are going to benefit them. That’s why you can use these methods. The motivation is to benefit them; it’s not ego or self-cherishing. You get controlling power so you can help them and guide them, so they don’t harm themselves, which is the small benefit, and instead benefit others, the country, and the whole world, bringing peace to all sentient beings, which is the great benefit.

Generally speaking, in daily life, if you always attempt to create good karma your merit or good luck will be great. Then, others do not interfere with your wishes. They support you. What makes you create a lot of merit every day is keeping in mind the good heart, the wish to benefit others. If your mind is kept in this, everything you do—eating, walking, sitting, sleeping—every action becomes pure virtue and has the highest result, enlightenment, while liberation from samsara, the end of all suffering, comes by the way.

As a Buddhist, there is an incredible opportunity to create merit because of faith in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. That opens up vast opportunities to create great merit. If one is not a Buddhist, one needs to create merit by having a good heart. Good luck is not created by God; your mind has to create good luck. This is the same meaning as “taking care of yourself,” “guiding yourself,” or “loving yourself.” When you live life with a good heart, not allowing yourself to become a slave to the ego or the self-cherishing thought, or a slave to ignorance and attachment, being controlled by them, when you practice renunciation and guru devotion, then that is loving yourself. From that, all success comes: success for yourself and for others. All happiness comes from that: this life’s happiness, future lives’ happiness, enlightenment for oneself and for all sentient beings.

When you practice renunciation, there is a definite emergence from suffering and from the causes of samsara, the continuity of the contaminated aggregates, which are in the nature of suffering. When your mind is transformed into the good heart, bodhicitta, the right view, that is your best love for yourself—transforming your mind into bodhicitta.

On top of that, the secret quick path to enlightenment is tantra. That is even more “loving yourself” because tantric practice is the quick way to get free from samsara and achieve enlightenment. When you follow the self-cherishing thought, you create many obstacles for your wishes to happiness being fulfilled. That means you become an enemy to yourself though you don’t know this. It’s the same when you follow ignorance, anger, attachment, and the delusions. You become an enemy to yourself, also you bring suffering. You hinder yourself from achieving happiness in this life, future lives, and liberation from samsara—the continuity of the contaminated aggregates, the body and mind, which are in the nature of suffering.

Violence in Schools
Date Posted:
October 2005

Rinpoche gave this advice to the director of a school in Switzerland for dealing with violence at school.

For half an hour a week, or up to one hour, have a meeting about achieving a better quality of life and peace of mind and happiness in life. Discuss the importance of a good heart for teachers and for children.

Read booklets by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and write down points about touching the heart. You can then make them into a booklet that also includes your own understanding.

Here is the psychology to teach the children: You don’t want people to harm you. You want people to praise you, say good things to you, and not harm you. This is what you want. Others also want exactly the same things. Everyone wants, needs, has the right to, and likes to receive respect, praise, and help from you. They have the right to receive these things from you. This is the foundation for the children and also for the teachers.

If this advice is constant, some children will change. That is the benefit. Not all will change—this would be a miracle—but some will change.

It is also important to act this way with the children, to play it out. Acting out anger, show the harmfulness of anger. Instead of talking about it, act it out, for example, “I am angry. Because of this, I make others angry too. I destroy my family, relationships, and material possessions. When you get angry, with anger caused by something very little, almost nothing, the consequences become so big. Therefore, it is so important to practice patience.”

An unsatisfied and degenerated mind is natural unless you get enlightened. The important psychology to teach—without using the words “karma” or “rebirth”—is to teach about karma in day-to-day life. If you start to dislike somebody, then you are sending that person bad vibrations and disrespect. It disturbs that person and makes him unhappy with you. The effect comes back to you. Therefore, what you are doing also makes you unhappy. This goes on and on with that person, and with many other people. You make your own mind and life unhappy, and are unable to make your life happy.

It becomes very important to change your attitude toward this life. Establish the concept to like others, by thinking of the benefits. When others disrespect you, you think it is totally harmful, but it has also an opposite side. It isn’t only harm. If you interpret others’ minds and actions as harmful, then that is what you see. You can also interpret them as positive, by seeing the benefits of the way the person thinks of you—with dislike, anger, undesirable actions, and so on—that they are helping you to develop compassion, loving kindness, a warm heart, and peace of mind. Then life becomes more satisfied and happy. The person is just showing how he or she is suffering by showing anger, being overtaken by anger. The person has not the slightest freedom. They became a slave to the demon of anger, which only makes that person so unhappy. These people are helping you not to have anger at all. At first it looks like only negativity, that this person is harming you, but when you look at the positive side, then you see that the person is helping you not to have anger at all. This way you will never find enemies, only friends. Then your life becomes peaceful and happy. Everybody loves you, and you love everybody. It is very important to emphasize how you look at things. Everything relates to one’s own mind, whether you see the positive side rather than the negative. When somebody is harming you, or angry at you, look at the positive side. Always tell people this, to look at the positive side. Because not having developed this side, the positive side, your mind is easily disturbed. If we have a positive outlook and develop the mind in this, then the mind becomes more and more stable.

This is the real psychology. It is very fundamental. The mind becomes stable. There is always peace. If your mind is at peace, your job will go well, your family life will go well, your life goes well. In this way, you don’t harm others, you only help them, bring joy to them, to your family, parents, school, and children.

That is the best way to teach.

Making Children’s Lives Meaningful
Date Posted:
September 2005

A student and benefactor drove Rinpoche to Malaysia from Singapore after the Vesak holidays one year. During the drive, they discussed a number of things, one of which was the benefactor’s family. He asked how to make his children’s lives meaningful. Rinpoche gave the following advice.

The reason that sentient beings are born into a Buddhist family is to meet the Dharma. There are great advantages for them in meeting the Dharma, learning it, and practicing.

One should bring up children by teaching them tolerance, compassion, and loving kindness, and by teaching them about their responsibility for the happiness of all sentient beings. One should also teach them practices they can do as part of their daily life, such as offering some of their food to the Triple Gem before each meal, prostrating in the morning and at night before they go to bed, and also other practices, such as offering lights, incense, or water. Even for them to offer one bowl of water is very nice. Each child can have his or her own bowl to offer and can offer it to different deities and buddhas. Each child can also have his or her own altar.

I have some relatives in Darjeeling who have very beautiful children, a daughter and a son. Every day, before going to school, they make three prostrations in the shrine room. The family has a very beautiful shrine room. There is a monk taking care of it, cleaning it, setting up the altar, and performing pujas.

A former center director in London has two children, both sons, and each morning they go to the meditation room before they leave for school. They each have their own cushion, alongside his and his wife’s cushions. The children chant some mantras—probably “OM MANI PADME HUM.” There is a bell on the table for them, and when they finish meditating they ring the bell and leave.

It is very good to teach children some traditional practices. Even if the children are small, it is good to bring them up in this way and let them become familiar with these practices.

In daily life, children could do prostrations, make offerings at the altar, and offerings before eating and drinking. They can learn to be generous to others. Parents can teach them how to be kind to others, how to respect others, and not to retaliate when others harm them or say rude words to them, but instead to be kind, have compassion, and think that the other person is suffering. This is the most important education.

By teaching children to have a good heart and be kind to others, they grow up to be very good human beings. With this good heart, they can benefit others so much, helping them as much as they can. Their hearts become good, tolerant, and kind. Then there is less negative karma in their lives and also less harm to others, which means that other sentient beings receive peace and happiness from your child. There are so many other sentient beings, and they can all receive peace and happiness from your child. Your child can become the source of peace and happiness for all sentient beings, the happiness of this life and of all future lives, as well as liberation from samsara and the highest happiness: enlightenment.

The children can make offerings, as many times as possible, to the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha each day. This enables them to collect so many causes for enlightenment each day. When they offer to the Buddha, it becomes a direct cause for enlightenment, and also creates the cause of a good rebirth for hundreds of thousands of lives. Because karma is expandable, the result is experienced many times. As Aryadeva said in his Four Hundred Stanzas: “If you cheat one sentient being, you will be cheated for one thousand lifetimes.” Therefore, because all happiness comes from good karma, these virtuous action take care of the happiness of this life along the way. And because all obstacles come from negative karma, so much negative karma is purified along the way, and some very heavy negative problems are prevented from ever occurring.

This is the correct way to proceed if you really want to help your child to have a successful happy life, a good life. It has to come from their mind. They have to create their own good fortune themselves with their positive mind. Making offerings to the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha creates very powerful merit, and is such an easy way of achieving enlightenment and to be liberated from the suffering realms. Also, by collecting merit in relation to sentient beings, by practicing loving kindness and the special attitude of taking responsibility for other sentient beings’ happiness, your children can make so many people happy. With this attitude, with a good heart and generosity, helping others in daily life, so many people are made happy. Then, as a result, so many people will also make your children’s lives happy.

Therefore, you should understand that if you educate your children in this way, one child can become a source of peace and happiness for all sentient beings. In this way, you, the parent, also become the source of peace and happiness for all sentient beings. If you have 50 or 100 children, and you educate them all in this way, even better! It would make the world happier, less violent, and more peaceful.

Of course, children also have their own karma, but, generally, a lot depends on their life situation and the example of people around them. Therefore, the parents become a key condition determining the quality of their life.

Each time the child practices tolerance, compassion, and loving kindness, it benefits others and makes its life useful for others. Similarly, through making offerings, performing prostrations, and chanting powerful prayers and mantras, they collect merit and purify heavy negative karma. This makes worthwhile all the effort of carrying the child in the womb for nine months, bearing so many hardships during pregnancy, and, after that, all the hardships, experiencing all the worry, fears, and concern for the child. Parents undergo all these difficulties and hardships, experiencing endless problems while taking care of the child. Then, each time the child does something good, all those years of life sacrificed for the child gain that much meaning. Their virtue gives meaning to the hardships and sufferings that the parents undertook for that child.

Otherwise, what is the point of having a child if he or she ends up harming the world and sentient beings. What is the point?