"Buddhist education" is a phrase that is inherently ambiguous. Does it refer to education encompassing Buddhist teachings, practices, communities, or history? Or does it comprise the peculiar methodology employed by the Buddha and Buddhist teachers?
This paper is not concerned so much with motivations, methodologies, techniques, styles, and forms of education. Rather, my basic question revolves around the question of authority and the means by which an individual is transformed from the uneducated to educated state. This transformation comprises the ultimate conversion from suffering to redemption, from ignorance to the destruction of ignorance and to the realization of final and authoritative Truth. In brief, it applies to the loss of imperfection and to the acquisition of the Summum Bonum through the individual's own efforts.
If this is indeed the case for educational transformation, what is the role of the Buddha as teacher and for any teacher who occupies the place of the Buddha vis-à-vis the auditor? Is there a special quality within those who receive, accept, and realize Buddhist teaching to cause the transformation that is striven after?
A clue rests in the use of the term "education" as opposed to the synonyms "instruction," and "training." "Education" implies the existence of knowledge that is already innate within the individual, thus rejecting the notion that individuals enter the world as "blank slates." "Instruction" implies a transfer of information from the knower to the learner, suggesting perhaps that the learner is a blank state when it comes to specific types of learning. "Training" implies discipline, practice, engaging in drills, becoming proficient through instruction and practice.
In a general sense, "Buddhist education" may suggest all three categories, but my purpose in the paper revolves around the transformative experience brought about through education, the role of the Buddha as teacher, and the capacity of the auditor and learner in actualizing the teaching.
