YAD Dharma Class - How to Introduce about Buddhism? II

March, 11, 2006

Learning Buddhism: Fun, Fun, and Fun

After the Chinese New Year, what have the young people in the temple been doing lately? We tired a new and interactive Buddhist workshop that is filled with knowledge sharing, continuous laughter, and even physical exercises!

As young Buddhist youth, we are always motivated to learn in creative ways. This is the reason Venerable Miao Qi (BLIA young adult division's instructing venerable) and the YAD initiated the Buddhism workshops I and II in March. Unlike the "one instructor to many students" teaching format, we had the "many instructors and many students" relationship. All participants were both teachers and students. Furthermore, we do not fix the workshop in a classroom. Why? Buddhism does not only apply in an academic setting, either. In contrast, Buddhism is applicable anywhere and anytime. Therefore the YAD Buddhism workshops set its locations throughout the temple to assist the participants to "live" in Buddhist teachings.

In each workshop, after an introduction from Ven. Miao Qi, we were split into four groups. Each group had a teaching assistant to guide the participants through the topic of the group. Our thought-provoking topics include Mahayana Buddhism, Humanistic Buddhism, the way of Buddhism, vegetarianism, and Buddhist offerings. All of our workshop materials are truly one of a kind. Sometimes the participants had to discover the lessons themselves, especially for those who were in the group "the way of Buddhism". This group was given cue cards to treasure-hunt in the temple for more clues of finding the ways to cultivate Buddhism. In order to collect the "stars", participants had satisfied many requirements, for example, they had to practice   building good personal relationship by saying compliments to reception desk's volunteers and they had to practice being tolerant by receiving beatings of a foam sword for one minute. Interestingly, participants were all smiling when they were being "beaten".  The audience, of course, were all laughing.

Each participant had the chance to complete two groups' tasks followed by a bigger group sharing to hear what other groups had learnt. What's next? It was the quiz time for the mingled groups. The quiz really pushed the workshop to its climax. After each question, the participants all raised up their feet (paper feet), hoping to get picked to give the answers. All in all, everyone had a fabulous time learning Buddhism.

Would you like to join us for the fun? Stay tuned to our e-mails. Also, YAD's sign-up forms are available at the Fo Guang Shan Temple and at www.bliayad.ca

Florence Fung