Page 10 - 普台之星03

Why Putai?

∣ 文 / 外語教師 Braden Rico ∣

“The act of sitting under a Bodhi tree in and of itself won’t turn one into a Buddha, so
what’s the big deal about teaching at a Buddhist boarding academy?” This question, along
with several other vexing thoughts regarding my motivation for change, danced in my mind
three years ago when I first contemplated leaving a good job in another locality to come to
Puli and join the teaching staff of the Foreign Language Department of Putai Senior High
School. I knew enough then about Buddhism to understand that, if the ultimate goal of the
practitioner is to achieve Bodhi mind, the mere act of being in close proximity with monks or
sages will not produce the desired effect. The several excursions I made in my halcyon days
to the Indian subcontinent, the land that spawned Buddhism, had already proven this to me
quite emphatically. In fact, as I recall, I did actually experience sitting under a Bodhi tree in
1984 in the town of Lumbini, Nepal, where Siddhartha Gautama is said to have been born,
so I am not just speaking figuratively! I’m still sometimes tempted to question the veracity
of my perspectives, but after two years and four terms of interacting with students, teachers,
and administrative staff here at Putai, I finally have some answers which may or may not
resonate with others, but at least they suffice for me. Here are my three principal reasons for
supporting the Putai Educational System:

The first is that this environment is a natural progression from my postgraduate
work in Global Studies in Education at the University of Illinois, which was research
into and promotion of international education. Despite global patterns of consumerism
and materialism the world is still a complicated place of religious and cultural diversity
and, since people of different cultures interact much more now than ever before, schools
absolutely do require curriculum to assist in the formation of thinking that can lead one
towards becoming a citizen of the world. Most people today, I hope, understand that the
ethnocentric cultural boxes of the 20th century no longer work in our globalized world and
we need pedagogy that emphasizes cosmopolitan perspectives and intercultural interaction

8 Why Putai? 為何選擇普台?