Youth Curriculum, 11-26-23
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Curriculum Overview
Touching the Earth is a practice developed by Thich Nhat Hanh to help us connect with the many different aspects of who we are: our blood and spiritual families, the country we live in, and all beings: animals, plants, and minerals. Youth read The Story of Buddha and Mara and discuss how other people’s unkindness doesn’t have to hurt us.
2023 Theme: Living Out Loud!
November Monthly Theme: Finding the Sacred and the Divine in Everything
Week 4 Value: Touching the Earth – Understanding and Compassion
Affirmation: I can practice everyday actions as a meditation
Message: I vow to develop Understanding in order to live peacefully with people, animals, plants, and minerals. I vow to develop my Compassion in order to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. –The Two Promises. In order to love, you need to understand because love is made of understanding. Meditation is looking deeply to understand the needs and suffering of the other person. When you feel that you are understood, you feel love penetrating you. –excerpt from the book Planting Seeds by Thick Nhat Hanh
Reading: We will learn about the Two Promises and read two stories about connecting with animals from the book Planting Seeds by Thich Nhat Hanh. We will create a “receiving” ceremony where each child will receive a Dharma name and a certificate to remind them of their promises. Before the ceremony, the children will be asked to describe their aspirations and why they want to receive their promises. After the ceremony, we will share how the Two Promises can help us in our lives.
Activity: We will fill out The Two Promises Practice Sheet from Planting Seeds, where we will write or draw how we will express Understanding and Compassion in order to protect and live peacefully with people, animals, plants, and nature.
Connecting: We will practice a deep form of communication by Bowing to each other and learning the various meanings of a bow. We will learn to bow in recognition of the awakened nature in each of us. We will discuss how it feels to give and receive a gift of a bow and invite the children to draw faces on each other’s thumbs and have the “thumb people” practice bowing respectfully with conversation or singing.