On the 7th of November 2021, the online children dharma class was taught by Leona, Allen and Thomas under the leadership of Manisha. 17 children participated in this class energetically.
Teacher Leona started this session with the chanting of “The Ode to Triple Gem” (三寶頌), letting the children to experience the beauty and the calming effect of chanting. Few students such as Zacky, Zoey and Emmeline also bravely took the challenge to practice chanting. After the chanting, Irene and Thomas showed the class their beautiful origami dragon from last week. Irene expressed that origami was challenging, and she appreciated the help from her mum in guiding her. Raymond, the dragon origami session teacher, which is also a student from the children dharma class, stated that he felt good when he was teaching origami because he could help his classmates understand origami better. This indeed proves that children dharma class is a platform for passionate young children to grow and learn.
Manisha continued the class with a 3D animated video, “A Fox and A Mouse”, which helped deliver the values of being kind and helpful. Zoey and Zhihan also proactively shared their thoughts to the class after watching the video. Then Manisha threw out an interesting question to the class regarding 3 acts of Goodness and 4 Givings (3G4G): “What is the example of Do Good Deeds, and how do you plan to do it?”. Students actively responded with help doing chores around the home and spreading kindness to the poor. Zhihan shared her thoughts of being environmentally conscious, like protecting the sea by collecting plastic waste, etc.
In the second part of the class, teacher Leona showed the class by sharing Bodhi Light Tales 32: Three Times Eight by Venerable Miao Guang. The students listened carefully to the story which describes Yanhui, one of the best disciples of Confucius. Yanhui learned that saving a man’s life is much more valuable than sticking to the truth and watching an innocent life fade away. Quote from Confucius, “though an ancient tree, one shall not stay under it, furthermore, do not act upon killing someone unknown.” The concept of this story was so intriguing that all students joined in the discussion. After answering Leona’s questions, Zoey summarised that when consequences are worse than sticking to the truth, we should tell a white lie sometimes.
To conclude, Manisha presented the scoreboard of every student who participated in this class and said she was so excited to see all students pay so much attention to this class with such a proactive attitude.