A Meditating School.

By Jessy James

“Good Morning students, let us meditate for a while...”

This is our meditation and yoga teacher, Mr Daniel, with his fresh morning voice through the intercom into all classrooms. The classrooms are silent now. Even the most lazy students have their spines straight, motionless but vigilant.

Mr. Daniels voice seeps from the speaker like the effortless drift of a feather. Then I hear a giggle from the backbench. It is Thinley meditatively attempting Mr. Daniel’s Canadian English. The giggles multiply. But some students are angry with Thinley for starting it. A front-row girl winks her mascara in confusion.

“ Just inhale and exhale, inhale the fresh air and exhale the stale air in a natural way, connect the energy of heaven and earth at your heart center …” Now even Thinley is in tune with the voice. Silence again.

This is how we have started practicing GNH infused education. When our school principal introduced the new system, I didn’t have a clue on how we could really infuse the idea’s into a highly competitive academic atmosphere. But now, like giggles give way to meditative breathing, GNH in Education is falling in place. When I started teaching in Bhutan almost seven years back, GNH was just a beautiful sight, like the crop of prayer flags on a far away hill across the Punatsangchu: I have always wanted to go there, but didn’t have the courage for the hike. GNH discussions with colleagues ended with unresolved arguments, but with a lot more understanding. It was intellectually enriching, but not very spiritually nurturing.

Now, as I meditate with my students, GNH pillars, domains and indicators become simple. Sonam, the father of a four-year-old, he is the grand old man of the class, carrying the responsibility of a family as he attempts to complete his Class XII. “Meditation, somehow, helps me to relax and concentrate more on my studies,” he said, and others agree. As a classroom, we are in the GNH relaxation mode, yet to move toward the realization phase, sometimes careful that our meditation doesn’t become another daily activity.

Though people look at it as a new idea it has been hidden within us unfold, untold and unaware of. Recently I happened to read a Times of India article on Sahyadri School, an educational institution in India based on the ideas of Philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, who Mahatma Gandhi and George Bernard Shaw considered as a teacher.

The article titled ‘In pursuit of education and happiness quotes the principal Mr. Amresh Kumar as saying, “When schools across the country uniformly aim at grooming kids for academic success, we groom them for happiness…”

In Bhutan, I am happy to be part of a similar experiment and for me the prayer flags on the hill across the Punatsangchu don’t seem too far away.