Teaching: success, or, an end to a fine beginning

Last Friday marked the final day of lectures at UM, including mine in Intro. to Buddhism.

The final days of the course centered on the questions of a new revitalization of Buddhism, a reintegration of the various sects and schools and divisions of the past thousand years, and a creative solution to the seemingly unique ills of life in the 21st century. Friday we reopened the question we began the course with: What is Buddhism? Change: Impermanence, Transformation – both of the individual and society.

It is can be a rather stirring topic: change? Why change? In our society we have people clamoring on about a new way, a new vision, a new direction, a new anything and everything. And we have people buying into it, realizing its shortcomings, and giving up. We have change-mongers and change-cynics, and a silent majority somewhere between them.

So what does Buddhism have to offer into this conversation? I urged my students that if nothing else they now should have a different perspective from which to see themselves and the world. Not everyone buys into Western norms, and not everyone who questions them is a Communist, Terrorist, or Hippy. So they now have a new perspective that seems to have held its own over 2500 years and a huge (and now global) geographic area, perhaps at last a secure foothold from which to look back upon preconceived notions of self and world.

This Buddhist perspective of change means opportunity for growth, for breaking through whatever labels we have heaped upon ourselves over the years, for reawakening our creative nature, for reaching out to help others once seen as too distant. All of this is fine and good in theory, but it must be experienced to hold any real meaning. Our course covered several contemporary figures: B.R. Ambedkar, Sangharakshita, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama for instance, all of whom are living examples of this opportunity in action.

This last lecture ended with poetry from T.S. Eliot, Milton, and Henry David Thoreau. All of this, I should add with gratitude, is by the design of (the real professor of Buddhism at UM) Dr. Alan Sponberg. The whole course, and my whole semester, would likely have been a disaster if not for both Dr. Sponberg’s tutelage over the years and his allowing me to adopt his whole, well detailed course plan and lecture slides.

I had hoped to find some additional bit of wisdom for the students in addition to my simply restating Dr. Sponberg’s, but, in the end it seemed enough. It had been an incredible semester. I had/have many wonderful, wonderful students. And even though there were those I wish had been more attentive and studious, I had no real ‘problem’ students. I could have mentioned all of this, but I’m shy and tend to ramble when I get personal. So I simply reminded the students that this was my first real teaching experience and thanked them for the opportunity. They applauded and it all gets a bit fuzzy after that.