Two Lessons/Presentations IN ONE DAY

So I taught about Bodhi Day at church to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at 11 am today THEN made a presentation on "The Paradox of Affluence" to the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society at Southwest TN Community College at 3 pm. What a crazy day!!??!?

Going to post my notes here in case anyone's interested....need to figure out how to post a PowerPoint...it's a pdf, too...hmmm...

WOW! I did it! Here's my PowerPoint for the Community College presentation.







Bodhi Day Notes:

Neshoba Unitarian Universalist Church
RE – 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grade Lesson Plan
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Reflection on:
December Traditions & Bodhi Day (Tues, Dec 8)

Approx Time Activity/Discussion
11:15 am December is a special month in many major religions…b/c of the Winter Solstice (what is the Solstice?)
On that day, due to the earth's tilt on its axis, the daytime hours are at a minimum in the Northern hemisphere, and night time is at a maximum. (In the southern hemisphere, the summer solstice is celebrated in December, when the night time is at a minimum and the daytime is at a maximum. We will assume that the reader lives in the Northern hemisphere for the rest of this essay.)

11:20 Name some celebrations (use white board):
 Christians celebrate Christmas
 Jews celebrate Hanukkah
 Buddhists celebrate Bodhi Day: On DEC-8, or on the Sunday immediately preceding, Buddhists celebrate Bodhi Day (a.k.a. Rohatsu). It recalls the day in 596 BCE, when the Buddha achieved enlightenment. He had left his family and possessions behind at the age of 29, and sought the meaning of life -- particularly the reasons for its hardships. He studied under many spiritual teachers without success. Finally, he sat under a pipal tree and vowed that he would stay there until he found what he was seeking. On the morning of the eighth day, he realized that everyone suffers due to ignorance. But ignorance can be overcome through the Eightfold Path that he advocated. This day is generally regarded as the birth day of Buddhism. Being an Eastern tradition, Bodhi Day has none of the associations with the solstice and seasonal changes found in other religious observances at this time of year. However, it does signify the point in time when the Buddha achieved enlightenment and escaped the endless

11:30ish Meditation (5 mins): sit quietly (USE A TIMER)

11:35 Could you meditate for 7 straight days?
(USE WHITE BOARD and let a kid FIGURE IT OUT)
That’s 7 days X 24 hrs/day X 60 mins/hr = 10,080 minutes!
Buddha did it under the Bodhi Tree for 7 days!

Who is Buddha? (read info below)
11:40 What did he teach? (tell Monkey King Story)

11:45 Are you old enough to be “enlightened”?
Did you know the current Dalai Lama was only SIX years old when he started studying to be a monk? WHO IS HE? (Read info below)

11:50 Bodhi Tree Drawings or 8 spoked wheel?
(heart shaped leaves…what would you “wish” for on the leaves?)

Buddhists, Buddhism and The Buddha
Buddhists are people who follow the teachings of The Buddha. Most Buddhists live in South Asia (which includes India, Nepal and Tibet) and South-East Asia (which includes Japan and China, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia The Philippines, Borneo, Sumatra and Java).

The Buddha was a man who lived in India about 2500 years ago. His real name was Siddhattha Gotama but the people who follow his teachings call him The Buddha. It is not a name. It means the one who has gained enlightenment. For Buddhists, the word enlightenment means knowing and understanding how to overcome suffering.
Buddhists believe that The Buddha learned why there is suffering in the world and how to overcome it. They believe that if they follow his teaching they, too, will be able to overcome suffering.

The Story of the Buddha
Siddhattha Gotama was an Indian prince. He was born about 560 years before the time of Jesus in a place called Lumbini which is near the river Ganges in the very north of India, within sight of the Himalayas. When he was born a wise man prophesied that if he ever saw suffering he would become a religious leader instead of a king. His father decided that he must never see suffering so he decreed that Siddhattha must never go outside the royal palace and its grounds.

When he was 16 Siddhattha married a beautiful princess and they soon had a baby son. For a while he was happy with his wife and family and stayed inside the palace as his father had ordered.

Eventually Siddhattha became bored and wanted to know more of the world. One day, when he was 29 years old, he sneaked out of the palace while his father was not looking. While he was outside he saw 4 things that surprised and worried him. He thought about those things for a long time.

The 4 Things That Siddhattha Saw
1. He saw an old man. He had never seen an old person before.
2. He saw a sick man. He had never seen anyone unwell before.
3. He saw a dead body and relatives weeping around it. He had never heard of anyone dying.
4. He saw a holy man. He had never seen a holy man before. He spoke to the man who told him that he had left his home, his friends and his family and was wandering from place to place trying to find the meaning of life.
These things worried him. He asked himself why there was so much suffering in the world. He decided to become a holy man himself and to go off in search of an answer.

He took off his royal robes and put on simple clothes. He shaved his hair. He said goodbye to his wife and son and left the palace.

Siddhattha spent 6 years travelling around northern India. He spent some time with a group of monks who believed that if they ate and drank as little as possible and spent a lot of time thinking they would come to understand the meaning of life. Siddhattha found that this did not work for him. So he left the monks and travelled on.

He came to a holy fig tree and rested in its shade. For 46 days he stayed there thinking deeply and paying no attention to what was going on around him. This kind of deep thinking is called meditation. As he sat and meditated, he realised that he understood the answers to his questions. Buddhists say that he became enlightened. He became The Buddha.

He went back to Benares, the place where he had lived with the monks, and in the park there he told them about what he had discovered. They understood what he was saying and became his first disciples. The Buddha lived until he was 80 years old and during the rest of his life he travelled about teaching and preaching. After he died his disciples went on travelling and teaching the things he had told them. Today there are millions of people in the world who follow the teachings of the Buddha.

The Monkey King and the Mangoes
Once upon a time, the Buddha came into the world as a Monkey King and ruled over 80,000 monkeys. He was very tall and strong and had wisdom like the sun. In his kingdom on the banks of the Ganges River, there was a mango tree as big as the moon. The 80,000 monkeys jumped from branch to branch chattering and eating the lovely fruit that was big and sweet and delicious. Sometimes a ripe mango fell into the river.
One day, the Monkey King strolled downstream and came upon a river palace where a human king lived. "Soon danger will come if the mangoes float downstream," he told the monkeys. "Pick all the mangoes and flowers on the trees and take them deep into the forest."
But one mango, hidden by a bird's nest, was left unseen by the 80,000 monkeys. When it was large and ripe, it fell into the river and floated downstream where the human king was bathing.
The human king, who was very curious, tasted the beautiful mango. "This is delicious!' he exclaimed. "I must have more. Servants, find all the mangoes and bring them to me at once!"
Deep in the forest, the servants found hundreds of mango trees. In the trees were the 80,000 monkeys. When the human king heard about the monkeys, he was very angry, "The monkeys are eating my mangoes. Kill them all!" he ordered his archers.
"Very well," said the archers and chased the monkeys to the edge of the forest where they came to a deep cliff. There was no way for the monkeys to escape. Shivering with fright, they ran to the Monkey King asked, "What shall we do?"
"Don't be afraid. I will save you," said their king. Quickly, he stretched his huge body as far as possible and made a bridge over the cliff to a bamboo grove on the other side.
"Come monkeys, run across my back to the bamboo grove," he called. And so the 80,000 monkeys escaped.
The human king watched all that happened. He was amazed, "This Monkey King has risked his life to save his whole troop! And all I'm doing is being selfish. I have learned a great lesson." Then he called to his archers, "Put down your bows. It isn't right to kill this King of Monkeys."
Forgetting about the mangoes, the human king went back to his palace by the river and ruled kindly and wisely for the rest of his life.



His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is both the head of state and the spiritual leader of Tibet. He was born on 6 July 1935, to a farming family, in a small hamlet located in Taktser, Amdo, northeastern Tibet. At the age of two the child, who was named Lhamo Dhondup at that time was recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. The Dalai Lamas are believed to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and patron saint of Tibet. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who have postponed their own nirvana and chosen to take rebirth in order to serve humanity.

Education in Tibet

His Holiness began his monastic education at the age of six. The curriculum consisted of five major and five minor subjects. The major subjects were logic, Tibetan art and culture, Sanskrit, medicine, and Buddhist philosophy which was further divided into a further five categories: Prajnaparimita, the perfection of wisdom; Madhyamika, the philosophy of the middle Way; Vinaya, the canon of monastic discipline; Abidharma, metaphysics; and Pramana, logic and epistemology. The five minor subjects were poetry, music and drama, astrology, motre and phrasing, and synonyms. At 23 he sat for his final examination in the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, during the annual Monlam (prayer) Festival in 1959. He passed with honours and was awarded the Geshe Lharampa degree, the highest-level degree equivalent to a doctorate of Buddhist philosophy.