Teaching Quotes - Page 49

People use the word "natural" ... What is natural to me is these botanical species which interact directly with the nervous system. What I consider artificial is 4 years at Harvard, and the Bible, and Saint Patrick's cathedral, and the Sunday school teachings.

People whose talents are not exploited become disenchanted and disruptive.

Those of us who have the duty of training the rising generation of doctors...must not inseminate the virgin minds of the young with the tares of our own fads. It is for this reason that it is easily possible for teaching to be too 'up to date'. It is always well, before handing the cup of knowledge to the young, to wait until the froth has settled.

The role of the teacher remains the highest calling of a free people. To the teacher, America entrusts her most precious resource, her children; and asks that they be prepared ... to face the rigors of individual participation in a democratic society.

Those who have no mental vigilance, Though they may hear the teachings, ponder them or meditate, With minds like water seeping from a leaking jug, Their learning will not settle in their memories.

Shambhala teachings say we all have the potential to accomplish our enlightened nature - our basic goodness.

There is no teaching to compare with example.

It's my life dream to be able to go and continue going to schools and teaching them about stretching and aerobics, cardio and strength training, because I want them to have a better life than I did. I don't want them to grow up to be me. I want them to be healthy. I want them not to go through eating disorders [like me].

I think, however, that there isn't any solution to this problem of education other than to realize that the best teaching can be done only when there is a direct individual relationship between a student and a good teacher - a situation in which the student discusses the ideas, thinks about the things, and talks about the things. It's impossible to learn very much by simply sitting in a lecture, or even by simply doing problems that are assigned. But in our modern times we have so many students to teach that we have to try to find some substitute for the ideal.

Worthy character is best forged from a life of consistent, correct choices centered in the teachings of the Master.

The teaching of the buddhas is: Find time and a place to remain unoccupied. That's what meditation is all about. Find at least one hour every day to sit silently doing nothing, utterly unoccupied, just watching whatsoever passes by inside. In the beginning you will be very sad, looking at things inside you; you will feel only darkness and nothing else, and ugly things and all kinds of black holes appearing. You will feel agony, no ecstasy at all. But if you persist, persevere, the day comes when all these agonies disappear, and behind the agonies is the ecstasy.

All human beings are born with unique gifts. The healthy functioning community depends on realizing the capacity to develop each gift.

A lot of education is like teaching marching; I try to make it more like dancing.

When we live our lives with the authenticity demanded by the practice of teaching that is also learning and learning that is also teaching, we are participating in a total experience.... In this experience the beautiful, the decent, and the serious form a circle with hands joined.

A disciple...can never imitate his guide's steps. You have your own way of living your life, of dealing with problems, and of winning. Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for yourself.

If teaching is reduced to mere data transmission, if there is no sharing or excitement and wonder, if teachers themselves are passive recipients of information and not creators of new ideas, what hope is there for their students?

A good teacher feels his way, looking for response.

Mentoring is a mutuality that requires more than meeting the right teacher: the teacher must meet the right student.

It's quite extraordinary to hear a supposedly learned person call the United States a leading terrorist nation, one of the leading terrorist nations in the world. It's false and very treacherous teaching.

To exclude religious teaching altogether from education... is a very dangerous and curious tendency. The result is to give paganism a new importance and influence.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

My time in prison only deepened my resolve against apartheid. Even while I was in prison, I fought against it, teaching my cellmates about white supremacy and how to fight against it.

I came out with a book called The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language. It's a book that describes how writing is a practice and how my teaching is part of that practice. I direct the writing and create books but underneath, there's always the river of practice happening. No good, no bad. Just do it.

INSTRUCTORS CAN impart a fraction of the teaching. It is through your own devoted practice that the mysteries of the Art of Peace are brought to life.

I started teaching myself, taking a breath or a moment that's not overreacting or having an explosion. It made me such a better person. Let alone a better mother, but also just a better human.