As a kids teacher, father and Buddhist philosophy fellow I'm allays searching for opportunities to spread the the Buddha messages in a way or an other. In this short article I would like to talk about the Kung Fu Panda movie witch gives us great Buddhist teaching. I watched it so many times with kids and also big people and I never got bored! In the move, the Panda is called Po and his master is called Shifu.
If I should pick one teaching sentence in the all movie, it would be:
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called present.
What a valuable life lesson, the present moment is the only one and the best one to feel alive. We should accept the past, not fear the future and live in the here and now. Well, it is not easy but the path to worries and so to less stress and anxiety. Living fully in the present moment is a key to happiness. Kids understand that quiet well, adults a little less :-)
An other great sentence is:
One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
That means you can’t escape who you are and your destiny. Kids or when we where kids we was dreaming about a certain type of life but then the path was very different. And the more you try to run away from your destiny, the sooner you’ll meet it. It is a nice to say to little and big people: be yourself.
The movie is full of wise words and also common values (not only in the Buddhist philosophy) such as humility, Po’s humility is what enables him to succeed and become an amazing Kung Fu practitioner. Humans need humility and the ability to respect each others differences in order to leave in peace.
One other concept the movie brings up is: role models. All kids need to have role models and mentors in the form of their teachers, big brother-sister or/and parents. But it should not be their aim to become their mentors, rather learn what they can from them and then move on to their own path.
To finish, here is one other quote from the move:
You must believe!
Everything starts with a dream! The movie starts with Po dreaming to save the world with the incredible skills he’s learned from his Kung Fu training. Yet a dream but the simple fact he imagine it can make it become reality. Seeing our self succeed is the path to success, we are what we think.
Happy movie to all of you little and big people. Here is the official trailer:
