On November 6th, the students of the Children Dharma Class began their fifth lesson. Following the Sunday Dharma function at the main shrine, students gathered back into the classroom and started with the chanting of the Chinese Heart Sutra under the guidance of Teacher Jane and Teacher Lisa.
It was a combined class for both the Intermediates and Advanced students to learn the Chinese Heart Sutra. Students followed along with the chanting and it was pleasing to see some of the students such as John and Emmeline, were familiarized with the Heart Sutra. Student Bosco and Student Skylar had even taken on the challenge to lead two groups of students in learning the pinyin of the Chinese Heart Sutra. By doing this, they can have better pronunciations of the Chinese characters and be more familiar with the Heart Sutra.
After this, the class then went to the dining hall for their mid-class snack break. During this time, the students did not only eat and drink, but also learnt about important etiquettes such as not leaning on the tables when chanting the four mottoes and eating. Other than that, the students were also reminded to tidy up after themselves as they put the chairs back quietly.
Thereafter, the final half of the class was taught by Teacher Elaine. All students gave examples of doing the Three Acts of Goodness at home. After that, teacher Elaine introduced the students to the different types of rubbish. Students were very interested in the ways of classifying the rubbish into each category and with the ways of protecting our mother Earth by doing good deeds. For example, candy wrappers, cardboards and glass bottles can be placed into the recycle bin to reduce waste. At the end of the class, students also played a little game from the Auckland council website about “Can this recycle?”. Each student took turns in answering while Student Wish got full scores. He said that the game was very helpful for him to gain recycling knowledge so that he can use it in the future.