The Importance of Good Habits in Education : หน้า 26/47

CHAPTER 2 Furthermore, a good education system is essential in assisting the parent to continue to build the knowledge of the individual along the right path to further strengthen the fabric of human society in a way that is of benefit and diminishes human sufferings. Good community education leads to vibrant mental and physical health, good personal and social habits plus an enabled ability to source and absorb knowledge. With the right education the pupil will develop the ability to create boon and resist kilesa from an early age. DEFINITION OF HABIT A person is said to have a habit when a response, action or pattern of behaviour is repeated over and over, even though that individual may be unaware of this repetitiveness. Personal habits may fall into three categories: beneficial, harmful and innocuous. Innocuous habits may just be part of the individuality and personality of a person and of no consequence or impediment to realizing full potential as a good human being. However, when we consider bad habits compared to good habits the consequences play a crucial role in the individual’s development and potential. By their very definition, habits are very hard to change once established. Firstly, one has to be made aware of the habit and, secondly, the individual must have the reasoning and motivation to break the habit. For many, even with no reason and motivation, the craving or compulsion proves too much to overcome and the habit remains. There are many people who repeatedly try to give up a particular bad habit they have without success. Often, trying to give up becomes as much of a habit as actually achieving the goal, such is the power of bad habits. Bad habits are the manifestations caused by the intrusion of kilesa into our minds and are always destructive in one way or another. Good habits, especially if acquired during early development and at the appropriate stages in our lives, have the opposite effect to bad habits. They give us the discipline and willpower to overcome kilesa before it can take hold, even to the extent of avoiding many of kilesa’s numerous avenues of approach altogether. If we by habit refrain from harmful addictive and habit-forming practices and behaviour, then we will not suffer the consequences of those bad habits. The consequences TRAINING THE TRAINERS 50 --- CHAPTER 2 of our good and bad habits may affect us in this lifetime, but carry on with us into the next lifetime and so on. Giving into bad habits perpetuates the habit of suffering from one lifetime to the next and therefore should not be considered carelessly. Once a bad habit has taken hold, it will require exceptional sustained and focused effort based on right education and practice to defeat. Even when defeated, it will remain in the background awaiting a moment of vulnerability to overpower its victim once more. Only when the victim has full awareness of its presence and is armed with the wisdom within the precents and Dhamma will they be able to follow The Noble Path without fearing what is lurking in the shadows. The early stages of an individual’s life are influenced primarily by their home environment, the examples they are set by those around them and the standards of self-discipline imposed upon them. They are receiving directly and indirectly, habit-forming knowledge and education and are extremely vulnerable to kilesa during this period. Habits are easy to acquire or form, but difficult to break and should be formed only with the right guidance, right knowledge, informed awareness and enlightened respect for their consequences. The parent, guardian or teacher should seek to encourage good habits and make their pupils aware of their bad habits, giving them the support and guidance to eradicate or diminish bad habits whenever they become apparent. THREE ESSENTIAL VIRTUES IN DEVELOPING GOOD HABITS The student’s education is imperfect and critically flawed if it does not include the three essential virtues that must be practised in developing good habits, which are Respect, Patience and Discipline. The first of these three essential virtues is the respect we pay by acknowledging the goodness that exists in the environment, people, worthy behaviour, knowledge, objects, events and practices as truly embodied within the Dhamma. We reveal our respect with thoughts and physical displays of admiration and deference. Students must be encouraged not only to observe the goodness in others and things as described above but also to observe these goodnesses into