One afternoon in early winter after meditation class I strolled across the campus with a student who had recently transferred to our school. This naughty student, who had given people quite a few headaches, told me about the situation in her previous school. It seems that fighting, making trouble, drinking, taking drugs, threatening teachers and students with weapons, and dating have become part of daily life in the schools. It is almost impossible to hold a class quietly and peacefully. Students holler rudely in class and openly confront their teachers. The teachers must sometimes display the handguns they carry in order to warn students not to make trouble. And parents either don't care or are helpless to do anything. Or else, they harm their children's bodies and minds with their own abusive and violent behavior. The innate qualities of paternal kindness and maternal tenderness have been completely forgetten. How can our hearts not bleed with sorrow? Even if there are teachers who seriously care about teaching, they cannot maintain their stance for long. They are either forced to leave, or else they have to be fully armed every day as if going to the battlefield. This is the situation at the school in Ukiah, a small and simple town. Imagine the situation at schools in metropolitan areas. This girl, who often disturbs other classmates, came from a home for abused children. She said with a sincere look in her eyes, "I came to this school because I wanted to have a good education. Good education is very important." A call from the heart of an innocent child: hearing it evokes a myriad feelings!

'Education' is the most sacred word in the hearts of Chinese people. It represents a nation's long-term plans and the people depend it on for their existence. Consider the Venerable Master's incisive and thorough observation: "Education is the most fundamental and the most thorough national defense!" In this day and age, the significance of this statement is even more profound. For several decades, in order to bring happiness to mankind and peace to the world, and to awaken the lomg-dormant sense of morality and conscience in all people, the Venerable Master has spared neither blood nor sweat in his effort to nurture excellent character and scholarship in young people. Reforming education is one of the three great resolutions that the Master has made in his life. As the Master has said,

One goal of education is to select talented people. What kind of talented people? People who demonstrate intelligence and wisdom. As for those who are stupid, we should also make an effort to inspire their inherent wisdom. This is one of the goals of our schools.

I want to provide education not only to perpetuate the Buddha's wisdom, but also to perpetuate the wisdom of living beings.

Having received a wholesome education, students will know how to conduct themselves in society when they leave school in the future, they will be able to influence the entire society to reform its customs.

In the past, people studied in order to understand principle. Nowadays, people study in order to obtain fame and profit.

The Master cannot bear to see the future of mankind ruined by the ignorant indulging in the five desires. Thus he is making an earnest and compassionate plea.

The human race is nearing extinction! This will not be caused by earthquakes, natural disasters, or accidents, but by the fact that people have gradually forgotten and lost their morality and virtue.

This is the enlightened awareness of one who is wise, and whose compassionate mind is boundless. How can we ordinary, foolish people take it for granted? If people do not discipline themselves with virtue, they will eventually fall into an abyss of evil. The schools founded by the Venerable Master are named "Instilling Goodness Elementary School" and "Developing Virtue Secondary School" from this we can understand a little bit of the Master's earnest intentions.

I remember that in my childhood, people's lives were centered around farming. Getting fed and clothed were the goals of life that people sought after. Although the level of education was pervasively low, everywhere people were seen living in peace, content with what they were doing. Later, with the swift growth of knowledge and the rapid development of science and technology, children who wrote on the ground were no longer seen. Instead the talking computer dictionary has taken over. In a world filled with restless children, violent youth, broken and complex families, crime-ridden societies, and countries in which common rights have been suspended, even with the utmost affluence and civilization it is impossible to escape the whirlpool of nightmares. With the bankruptcy of education and the decadence of intellectual culture, fathers do no act like fathers and sons do not act like sons; people shamelessly resort to extreme means to satisfy their own purposes. Even nuclear weapons have lost their power. Social welfare is bogged down in the mire and cannot extricate itself. As the confused multitudes indulge in their desires, their greed is like a wild flood that crashes the life-saving dam. If we fail to deeply understand the grave illness caused by moral decadence and the corruption of virtue, then the end of the world is close at hand. That is what the Master righteously pointed out to people from all over the world at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris on his European Dharma-propagation tour in 1990:

The mistake we have committed in education is more severe than cancer, more serious than the disasters caused by the atomic bomb! Unwholesome education has invisibly killed those in our next generation. It has destroyed them, causing them to lose their basic human nature, forget their own souls, and no longer cherish their own lives.

A couple from a background of strict moral discipline feel reassured in sending their five daughters to Instilling Goodness Elementary School and Developing Virtue High School, because they know that the problem of dating among students is nonexistent here. For the past twenty years, the Master has sought to put an end to this bad practice which prevails in the modern world by advocating that male and female students be segregated and that they be taught to respect themeselves. He also advised the students that:

Girls should wait until they are twenty before they have boyfriends; and boys should wait until they are twenty-five before they start dating. That way, children will not be harmed. If you start dating too early, you will not be good students or good people. You should all be good people and good students, so that you will be able to do good deeds in the future. If you cut down young grain shoots before they are fully grown, they will just be useless stalks. In the future, if people develop emotional desire at an early age, each generation will be worse than the one before.

To prevent children from developing emotional desire too early, boys and girls study separately in the schools founded by the Venerable Master. That way, students can concentrate on their studies and become truly capable people in the future. Here, we must ask: while there are many educators with noble aims, profound principles, and great kindness and patience, how many of them can really shoulder the task of perpetuating the moral virtue of humanity, struggling alone despite the ridicule of people in the world? How many of us have the courage to undertake carrying out the Master's old-fashioned idea? Yet the Master is just that way. He has been crying out despite his fatigue and people's ridicule, hoping that people will soon wake up from their deluded dreams. From this we can see the real depth of the Master's character: he is true and sincere in everything he does and only thinks of benefiting all people while totally forgetting about himself!