A Buddhist Philosophy of Education

A Buddhist philosophy of education is based on a Buddhist social philosophy. No society will manage education without associating it with beliefs in regard to justice, freedom and equality. The system of education will be one of the systems relying on the social systems.

Buddhism and Education

• Buddhist education should teach people to be good people and abandon any animal instincts and bad behaviors. Moreover, it teaches people the path to attain mental freedom.
• One of the way to carry out Buddhist education is to establish the Buddha as the primary philosophy and to derive an educational philosophy from that. The other way is to teach Buddhism in schools and institutions so as to enrich the youth with Buddhist teachings. This is a good way to train the youth to be good person and purify their mind with moral merits. But it doesn’t mean that we will make Buddhism as the basis of the system of education, but to reinforce the existing education system.

The Goal of Buddhist Education

• The critical goal of Buddhist education is to attain wisdom. Buddhism believes that the ultimate of wisdom is inherent in each person’s nature, stating that everyone has the potential to achieve wisdom. However, the majority are distracted by misunderstanding and misconceptions, therefore, are incapable of being aware of this kind of potential. In this sense, Buddhism aims to teach us recognize the intrinsic part of human nature.
• Buddhist wisdom varies from individual to individual. It is related to the degree to which one’s delusion is and there is no inherent difference among all human beings. Buddhism helps us remove delusion and regain the wisdom to remove confusions of individual potential and achieve happiness.
• Buddhism considers deep meditation and concentration as the crucial factors in order to attain wisdom. Buddhism teaches the way of meditation and the mindfulness of concentration.