Understanding Education and Its Impact on Society : หน้า 140/164

Suzanne Jeffrey "Look at the difficulties within animals. You need to meditate to find out, to truly understand, that animals are humans who are trying to break free. In order to do this, you need to follow at least the first four precepts. Otherwise we will be self-destructing! We need to change ourselves not the world. To put it another way, in order to change the world, we need to change ourselves. "Of course, the problem of education is not just an American problem; it is a problem in all educational systems. All you need to do is look at the history of each country in order to understand what has happened to the moral behavior of the people within that country. And education is the primary source for the development of the people. The play of power and economy are also active in education, too. But in order to better each educational system, we must not have bias or prejudice. If so, then trust is lost. All bias and prejudice are based on four factors: (1) love, (2) hate, (3) fear, and (4) ignorance. If we have any of these four factors functioning in our education, we become biased, and the people become biased within the system. And so, it carries forward and we ultimately corrode the very system in which we are functioning. "When we think about education, we all seem to believe in the equality of opportunity – that is, that all people deserve to be educated equality – but when we apply bias or prejudice, we do not have equality of results. Perhaps we don't really believe in equality of results! And greed, of course, plays its role in this. Greed is definitely a standard within the system. "People still do not understand that we reap what we sow. They don't understand it, of course, because they do not see it in their lives, just as they don't understand that their economic crisis is because they overspend. We have been taught that credit is easy, and that somehow we will not have to pay. We always have to pay. That is the Law of Kamma. The Buddha did not make up the Law of Kamma, He simply re-discovered it … or, perhaps it is better to say, that He saw the Law of Kamma in action when He became enlightened, and then was able to teach it. If people meditated, they would see it for themselves and understand that we really do reap what we sow. But the children of today give us hope for the future. Of course, they have to sit down to meditate in order to understand it. "Poor economic investments lead everyone along the road to ruins. We use intoxicants, we enjoy going out in the evening, we go off to the latest entertainment, and we gamble. Those are all economic problems that distract us from finding out more about ourselves.