Spirituality and Children

     During the meditation session tonight, the topic came up of whether or not children are enlightened beings. It was an interesting question,and there was a lot of talk about the originality of children: how they see things in fresh ways that adults don't; how they are able to spontaneously generate emotions at any moment; how they lack the filtering and judgments that come with socialization. It seems that there are characteristics of very young children that are close to wisdom,such as the ability to see things anew, without the stimulation or conditioning that drives people into fixated states of being. For example, I don't see too many very young babies competing for building blocks or trying to build the biggest or fanciest structure. Play, for children, often really means "play", as a kind of entertainment of different ideas. There is no self-consciousness, no sense that "I" or "mine" needs to be better than that of others.

   In a sense, I think that many adults hearken back to a time when they had an ability to just be, rather than trying to out-do themselves or those around them through an elaborate accomplishment of the mind. Descartes and Rousseau seemed to be two philosophers who elevated children as examples of truly enlightened beings. For Descartes, children possessed pristine rationality, which was then corrupted through a subtle process of socializing people not to question or inquire into their experiences too much. I suppose this happens everyday,when parents grow tired of children asking the "God" questions: why is the sky blue? I think Rousseau talks more about how children's natural sentiments are corrupted by faulty education, which in turn alienates children from their authentic feelings and puts them into an artificial world of abstract reason and social posturing. Rousseau's education of children is a kind of cultivation of the sentiments. as opposed to abstract reasoning.

    I find it interesting that both philosophers, Descartes and Rousseau, share an almost idyllic view of children, even though they come from quite different philosophical traditions and positions, Although I can recollect certain qualities of childhood such as spontaneity and sense of wonder, I wonder if one could ever base a society on the tenets of spontaneity and wonder alone. My thinking after today's session is that perhaps enlightened being might reincorporate the 'original' perspectives found in many children. However, the difference would have to be that the person who successfully does this needs to be fully socialized, to some extent. Most children, from what I can recall, do react spontaneously, but for whom? Usually it is in response to something coming from their own body, such as a want or a desire. But I do wonder, can children extend their notion of what happens to them to what happens to others? Can children differentiate their needs from those of others, including their parents? Based on what I have read from psychoanalysis, I would have to say that this is no easy feat. It is not easy for anyone to reach an understanding of other subjectivities besides their own, even though other beings make demands on the self from the day one is born. In fact, I think the value of education is to take all the spontaneity and curiosity of children and use it to discover the existence and validity of other beings.

Chan philosophy suggests that there are no separate "I" and "You" in mind. But I don't think this is the same as the child's undifferentiated view of itself and its mom, its environment and other beings. The latter is really an experience of the totality filtered through a single body, with its fears and desires, as well as attachments. Chan is a practice that leads out of the attachment to one's body, and this attachment is so subtle that it undercuts existence. How did one ever become born into a body to begin with? Chan considers that the body is not where the mind is located, but is rather a phenomena of mind itself. From my own perspective,I would say that the struggle to come to terms with the sense of body as 'the self' is one of the hardest struggles of all. Only when this is done can a cycle of enchantment and sense of wonder be completed in a matured perspective of the body and its place in a social world. Perhaps this is where a person starts to practice a spiritual path.