Presence of Heart

Some teachers I have met are hesitant on telling about their profession, probably because teaching is a low-paying job having insurmountable mental and financial ordeals. Others who majored in education have already abandoned their former profession, as they bear so much disgust in teaching. Some are more than proud of what they do, for they both play the roles of teachers and mothers among their students, most of whom are neglected at their homes. This rich variety of teachers have taught me about my own desire to teach. I have realized that I am both a teacher and a student, and in living the life of teaching, the path has more to teach me than what I can.

As a former student, I hated some of my teachers, to the extent that I promised myself not to become like them. That promise was somehow prophetic, because I was then steering my own journey to the world of teaching. I thought that one day I would see myself as a teacher looking forward to the welfare of my student; a welfare not just about what they learn from the class, but the welfare of how they learn them, which includes the joy, harmony and friendship brimming inside the classroom. Because of this, the teachers I used to abhor somehow taught me the greatest lesson I would ever be grateful forever: never just teach the lessons of the mind; always teach the lessons of the heart.

Dr. Leo Buscaglia, an Italian-American psychologist, is one of my greatest inspirations for the Communes. He became the foremost leader on teaching Love. In his book Living, Loving and Learning, he quotes the educator Leonard Silberman on his conclusion on the current education. That is, our education system succeeds in teaching students reading, writing and arithmetic, but fails in teaching them to become human beings. This reality has pushed one of Buscaglia's female student to become bright and brainy, only to end up killing herself. The tragedy ignited Buscaglia's desire to create and teach the Love Class, a free class that welcomes all students to explore the experience and meaning of Love.

I have been also asking the same question on why students learn a lot of things that turns out to be less practical in living one's life. It is common for a student to hate studying, since teachers and parents force them to get good grades, let alone to pass . I had learned algebra and trigonometry but I can't possibly use them to calculate my groceries. I had learned world history and literature, but they are less important to the story of my soul. Now as a teacher, I am oftentimes bothered by the fact that I have to teach the subject efficiently, to have the presence of mind; otherwise, I would lose the confidence of my students and eventually they might not learn at all. But in the 2-year process of continuous discovery, I have found out that more than the importance of the subject, it is the essence. If my students find laughter, joy, kindness, and surprise in each lesson we spend together, it is enough for them to get in touch with true essence of learning. They are not just developing the presence of mind, but the presence of heart.

I was then looking for any possibility on how to expand this new insight, presence of heart. After I heard one of my student saying the phrase "presence of mind," the word heart immediately replaced the word mind in my thoughts. I stopped wrestling with my faculties and trusted that the answer will come. And it did. It was no accident when I met Lolo Celes, a retired university professor, and homemaker Ms. Bel in the place of my solitude at the Makiling Botanic Gardens. Our small talk on life and Love became the synchronistic 20th Commune.

Lolo Celes, in his 9 decades of life, is enthusiasm in the flesh. He has condensed his teaching experiences into a soul-stirring insight. He echoed what Buscaglia wrote and what Silberman concluded, that as a teacher, one must begin teaching students to learn not just the subject matter, but to become human beings. "You must develop human beings to become part of the Creation. Creation is always a continuous process. If you teach them knowledge and skills, you must teach them greatly on the attitude, for it is the most important." He has empowered me with these simple words, which made me more confident in spreading the message of Love through the Communes.

One of the most quoted oriental proverb is this: "If the student is ready, the teacher will come." I'm still quite uncertain of the origins of this quote, but the last time I read this was from a book on I Ching, known as the Book of Changes, which contains 64 hexagrams used as a very unique Chinese oracle. At the time when I did some meditation for a particular hexagram, it turned out that the hexagram 8 bears the word "teacher," and states the same proverb. It bolted my insight into confirmation of my spiritual path: teaching. And just as I write this, I have learned that the same hexagram bears a timeless symbolism; hexagram 8 means "holding together," two words that sum up the meaning of the Communes. The soul of the student in me has become ready to learn, the time when the soul of the teacher within me has begun to teach. It is a wisdom that I am teaching no one but myself, and in the process, every person I meet, especially in the Communes, learns. Communing with each other is such an amazing way to learn Love, when each of us bares our own preconceptions, misunderstandings and innate knowing, and enables us to teach each other in the deepest presence of our hearts.