Buddhism and Holistic Education
Abstract
This paper attempts to integrate the perspective of holistic education (a postmodern view of education) with Buddhist worldviews. It describes “the five dimensions of reality” that include objective reality, social reality, cosmic reality, infinite reality, and universal reality, referring to ideas derived from Mahayana Buddhist thought. Holistic education is defined as an attempt to explore the multiple dimensions of reality in our existence. It involves ideas such as “awakening” (bodhi) and “enlightenment” (satori) at its core. Therefore, Buddhism plays a central role in the development of holistic education by providing such concept as “enlightenment education” (Thurman).
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