[vn-families] Thie^`n tho+? ddi va`o mo^.t so^' tru+o+`ng tie^?u va` trung ho.c o+? My~

[Pham, Quoc Binh]

Cha`o qui' vi.,

Trong ca^u chuye^.n du+o+'i dda^y, ho.c sinh lo+'p ba?y o+? tru+o+`ng
Ideal Academy o+? Washington, DC va` ho.c sinh tie^?u ho.c o+?
tru+o+`ng Emerson o+? Cali ddu+o+.c ho.c thie^`n tho+? va` ti?nh thu+'c\.

So^' tru+o+`ng a'p du.ng thie^`n tho+? va` ti?nh thu+'c dda~ nha?y
vo.t tu+` va`i tru+o+`ng ca'ch dda^y va`i na(m to+'i mo^.t tra(m
tru+o+`ng trong nie^n ho.c to+'i\.

Thie^`n ra^'t la` hu+~u i'ch\. Ba?n tha^n ca' nha^n to^i dda~
nghie^.m tha^'y ddie^`u na`y trong 2 chu.c na(m qua\.

Ngu+o+`i Vie^.t chu'ng ta co' gia ta`i cu?a Pha^.t to^? dde^? la.i
trong 2 nga`n na(m nay\. Cha(?ng le~ chu'ng ta la.i ddi sau ngu+o+`i
My~ sao\?

Nha^n tie^.n, ho^m nay la` nga`y 16.6 a^m li.ch\. Tu+'c la`, ho^m
qua tra(ng tro`n ne^'u qui' vi. chu' y' :-).

Cha`o

Vie^.t Li.ch: 4886, Pha^.t Li.ch: 2551, A^m Li.ch: 16.6 DDinh Ho+.i

Pha.m Quo^'c Bi`nh
http://vmdd.tech.mylinuxisp.com/buddhism/

-----------------------------------------------------
Source: http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/oped/ci_6493555

With meditation in schools, take a breath

Article Last Updated: 07/29/2007 05:39:02 AM PDT

'AT QUIET time we try to be as calm as we can," says Reko,
a seventh-grader at Ideal Academy, a Washington, D.C., charter
school that incorporates a 20-minute transcendental meditation
program into each school day. "We close our eyes and think of
our mantra so we can be relaxed."

In Oakland, students at Emerson Elementary School practice
techniques called "mindfulness" that have been adapted from
Buddhism. The children learn to follow their breath, watch their
thoughts and focus their attention by listening to the tone of
a Tibetan singing bowl until the sound is too faint to hear.

"Mindfulness makes me feel marvelous," says Curtis, a
fifth-grader at Emerson.

Few people doubt that Reko and Curtis  and thousands of children
at charter and other public schools  can benefit from a daily
dose of mindfulness or meditation. Scientists at the University
of Massachusetts established the effectiveness of meditation for
reducing stress and anxiety in the 1980s. And recent studies
at the University of California, Los Angeles, concluded that
kids with attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorders showed
clear improvement in concentration and cognitive abilities after
learning techniques similar to those used at the Oakland school.

These studies have lent credibility to a growing movement to
introduce meditation and mindfulness programs into the nation's
schools. The number of such programs has jumped from just a
handful five years ago to more than 100

at the start of the coming school year.

In Southern California, the David Lynch Foundation is sponsoring
start-up transcendental meditation programs at two publicly
funded schools  one in Inglewood and another in Sun Valley.

As the movement to bring mantras and Tibetan singing bowls to
public schools gathers steam, some activists who keep an eye
on church-state issues are crying foul.

"It's not the business of schools to lead kids to inner peace
through a spiritual process," says Edward Tabash, chairman of the
national legal committee for Americans United for the Separation
of Church and State. Tabash, a self-described secular humanist,
predicts an imminent court battle. "I can quite frankly see
a coalition between religious fundamentalists and atheists
challenging this."

Last fall, the Pacific Justice Institute, a legal advocacy
group for conservative Christian issues, launched an opening
salvo. The institute took up the cause of parents who objected
to a TM school program in Marin County, prompting the Lynch
Foundation to withdraw its support.

The common rallying point for any anti-mindfulness coalition
would be opposition to teaching practices that trace their
roots to Buddhism and Hinduism in public schools. Why should
mantras and meditation be allowed to slip past the formidable
barrier of legal precedent that has largely kept prayer out of
the schools for the past 50 years?

The short answer to that question: When they're stripped of their
Eastern cultural trappings, meditation and other mindfulness
techniques are not religious practices, so there's no reason to
ban them in public schools. Choral music comes out of Christian
church traditions, but no one objects to a school choir.

"What's religious about learning to follow your breath?" asks
Wendi Caporicci, a devout Catholic and the principal at Oakland's
Emerson Elementary.

George Rutherford, the principal at Ideal Academy, takes
a similar view of transcendental mediation, which he has
practiced for more than a decade. "I'm a Baptist, and my wife
has a doctorate in Christian education," he says, adding that TM
"is not a religion."

A federal district court came to a different conclusion in
1979. The court said TM couldn't be taught in publicly funded
schools in New Jersey because the practice  with its ties to
a specific spiritual leader  violated the establishment clause
of the First Amendment.

But in the intervening years, the medical study of TM and
Buddhist-derived mindfulness techniques has changed both
the practices themselves and attitudes toward them. The new
"medicalized" meditation and mindfulness programs seem more
likely to pass constitutional muster.

The Supreme Court already has weighed in on what counts as a
religious practice or belief. In United States vs. Seeger (1965),
the court determined that a conscientious objector who justified
his claim of exemption from the draft by quoting Plato, Aristotle
and Spinoza couldn't be compelled to serve in the armed forces
because his beliefs occupied a place in his life "parallel to
that filled by God." It would be hard to argue that meditation
has replaced religion for people like Rutherford and Caporicci.

No hallmarks of religious systems  doctrine, cosmology, ethics,
clergy, devotion to a deity or reverence for a prophetic teacher
  figure into these mindfulness and meditation programs that are
beginning to raise the ire of church-state activists. More to
the point, these programs teach skills  how to pay attention
and regulate the emotions  that many parents and teachers are
eager for children to learn.

Without Buddha, Brahma, bowing or incense, meditation and
mindfulness are about as religious as  well, breathing.

Are you breathing right now? Just for a few seconds, can you
follow your breath as it moves in and out of you? Do you feel
your belly rise and fall as you inhale and exhale? As you watch
yourself have this experience, do you realize that you've taken
a step back from your thoughts and emotions?

Congratulations  you've just aced the final exam for Mindfulness
101. That's it. Class dismissed.

Wait  one more question before you go. Are your dearly
held beliefs still intact? It will be the burden of any
anti-mindfulness coalition to prove that they're not.

Nick Street, a Soto Zen priest, is a fellow with News21,
a Carnegie-Knight initiative in journalism education at the
University of Southern California.