Monday, May 27, 2024

What is Education Today and Yesterday - Part one.

 

May You exist with the purity of a lotus in muddy waters!

A Buddhist saying that had stuck in my mind since when I first heard it said when I was in college in the 70s at the University of Wisconsin at Green bay. It was in one of the books that i had stumbled upon while shelving books at the University Library where i was doing my work study job as an assistant librarian. If i am not mistaken it was in one of Alan Watts works, The Way of Zen or was it The water Course Way? This Is It? Oh well it was when I first started my spiritual journey as a more serious pursuit of my life intentions. having gone through a divorce and the loss of custody to my son I was t the nadir of my life and came close to putting an end to it had it not for a friend whose love and compassion saved me from my foolishness. His name was Francis Wilson and was a medic during the Vietnam war. When I made his acquaintance he was working for the Green Bay Mental Home and was also a student at the University where i was. He approached me after my having given a lecture at one of the Interpersonal Communication Class on an invitation by the professor Jack Frisk who was became a good friend of mine after our encounters as student and lecturer. My talk was of my visit home to Malaysia as my final trip of my  course of study. I graduated with a BA degree through a self designed program a pioneer project carried out by the University of Wisconsin at Madison. After the two hour talk in front of some 90 students I was at the Rathskeller or the bar at the university where most unblued students hung out and there Francis Wilson and i became brothers after a lengthy conversation about life and what and where we have been.

Frank was also a Tae Kwon Do black belt instructor who ran a dojo in Green bay and knowing that i had some martial arts training in the Art Silat Gayung our friendship was sealed with me being involved in the dissemination of one of his student who he later told me was a hard head eager to hurt others type. Although I chastised me as it was meant to be a no contact sparring I should not have dropped the kid with one side swipe kick to his temple. Frank later told me that he was glad I taught the kid a lesson not to underestimate size and color and to curb his ego. As for me i felt the threat like it was an instinct that said that this kid was out to prove himself by hurting me and my strike was a spontaneous act of self preservation, of self defense. I am relating this event perhaps again for a reason and that is that i have on many occasions experienced this spontaneity in action especially when I gave up any form of control or expectation out of the outcome of this action. In this case the art and technique was inherent within me as i was an instructor at one time and had studied the Silat Seni Gayung to be recognized as a teacher among the Malays. This Art is alive within even though over time it was forgotten. In times of dire need the motions will arise from within and act. I remember a similar happening when I was employed at the H&H Ship Services on the San Francisco water front where I was faced with a life threatening situation and my body just reacted without any regard of the consequences, I have written of this episode in this Blog I am sure perhaps if it is of any interest one may refer back.   I am beginning to find that my blog lengthy as it is is like a book revelation or sorts. The stories are told to reflect over and over again of what did really happened in the past and what it had to offer in the form of a teaching ad reminder and so when reading this Blog you will find the stories being repeated over and over like the analogies used in the scriptures. Far be it that I am seriously claiming it to be so and most of what i have written thus far were written with random choices of subject matter. It is only just now that I had this realization and although I was reluctant to dare compare my writing style to that of the Words of the Lord in His Good Books, it was just a curious discovery and who in their right mind have got the time or would want to venture into making this a study. The Universities now adays are caught up into creating the best robots there is in the form of humanoid, research on literature and the arts has become a waste of money and time especially here in this country.

They keep telling me that life is a lifelong learning process and only those with inclination towards making it so will see the wisdom in this saying. Those who are born to lead a life of one experiment after another can stay on this path that is known by many names throughout human history and I call it by its simple name; self discovery. On this path nothing is left to chance and every stone is turned upside down in order to discover what is hidden beneath. This is what Mahatma Gandhi is said to have practiced throughout his life, he said,"Life is one long experiment." He was responsible for the Satyagraha Movement that was later taken up ny Delson Mandela in South Africa and Dr. Martin Luther King in the United States and Thich Naht Hahn in Vietnam. 

Satyāgraha (Sanskritसत्याग्रहsatya: "truth", āgraha: "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or "holding firmly to truth",[1] or "truth force", is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone who practises satyagraha is a satyagrahi.

The term satyagraha was coined and developed by Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948),[2] who practised satyagraha in the Indian independence movement and also during his earlier struggles in South Africa for Indian rights. Satyagraha theory influenced Martin Luther King Jr.'s and James Bevel's campaigns during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, as well as Nelson Mandela's struggle against apartheid in South Africa and many other social justice and similar movements.[3][4]    :Wikipedia.

Today Satyagraha is being manifested on campuses all over the world and the governments are at a loss at what to do other than resort to violence! Would it not be tragic if by chance a policeman violently taking a girl to the ground and hand tying her while his knee is pressed on her back, when he turn her over to discover that she is his daughter. Nah! God is not that cruel. Satyagraha is awakened and very much alive all over the world as ordinary people are awakened to the filth that they are being fed by the power that be, their very own elected leaders. The non - violence movement will lit up more social consciousness when believe in the children and stand by them in their battle against tyranny of any kind. This what education means, the ability to think wisely and with good intentions towards serving others for the benefit of the whole. It is time for the fathers to be fathers to their child and join in the movement towards achieving the goals of the young ones; they know what they are after even if you don't. Out of the feeling of Unconditional Love parents must take up their positions alongside their children on campuses to protect them if nothing else. Doing nothing is complicit to the violence your children face; and the child asked, "Where were you Dad, when they struck me down and lay their knee on my back like and animal?"


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