A Unique Approach to Reducing Teen Violence
One of the most important outreach programs offered by the Zen Center of Syracuse is its meditation for at-risk youth as an alternative to violence. Twelve Zen Center members go into agencies and after-school programs every week, teaching this inner discipline as a means of self-mastery. The young people begin to understand the ways in which thoughts, words, and deeds have far-reaching consequences. Through the meditation sessions, they learn skills necessary for conflict resolution, anger management, and self-esteem, and find what can become a lifelong practice for transforming fear and rage into compassion and gratitude. Meditation centers in other communities in the United States and abroad provide meditation for adults in prisons, but what we are offering is unique: meditation as a prison prevention program for at-risk youth.
Zen Center Youth Programs
1. We have been serving children at two South Side agencies, the Faith Hope Community Center and the Dunbar Center. This program began five years ago, with seed money from the Central New York Community Foundation, and then received a grant from the Gifford Foundation. The young people served at these centers have been eager participants and have gained self-confidence and anger management skills. We have been teaching children to understand their feelings of fear, uncertainty, and frustration in the non-judgmental, open-hearted atmosphere created by meditation, so that they can experience what it is like not to be driven by those feelings. They have learned to become more aware of other people's difficulties and to respond to confrontations and problems with more equanimity. The program consists of one-hour sessions once a week, including instruction in basic meditation techniques, gentle movement and stretching, discussions, and art work.
The results of the program are measured through the hands-on experience of all participants and the observations of the facilitators. Through youngsters' journal writing, art, and knowledge-based exercises, the facilitators can assess participants' understanding. The facilitators keep written journals of the learning progress in each class. The continuing personal development of the participants is noted as a measure of a successful outcome. There is also continuing communication with the agencies' administrators and staff to evaluate the lessening of aggressive behavior among those who participate in the meditation program. This provides an external evaluation of the program's success.
2. Meditation monthly at Elmcrest Children's Center is led by our abbot, Roko Osho Sherry Chayat, at one of the cottages housing girls ages 13 to 16. Staff members, including the director of Elmcrest, often participate as well. Roko Osho offers the first short meditation session as a healing one, inviting each participant to focus on a friend, family member, or oneself, someone who has been having a difficult time. Some stretching exercises are led mid-way, and the hour-long program ends with recitation of the Metta Sutta, a prayer for well-being. The girls are encouraged to discuss whatever is going on in their meditation and their lives, and they always express appreciation for the silence and self-awareness that occurs during the hour-a quietness that they rarely have in their tumultuous lives. Results of the program are measured by the girls' teachers and staff, who notice the way these sessions help reduce stress and angry outbursts, as well as increase self-awareness and mutual understanding.
3. "Inner Peace, Creative Expression: A Multicultural Course in Meditation and the Arts" brings well-known artists of color from the Central New York community together with young people in a unique art program held on Saturday afternoons at South Presbyterian Church and Cultural Center or on Sunday afternoons at the Zen Center. It is based on the development of mindfulness and attentiveness that is at the heart of creativity, and teaches the positive expression of emotions through art. Partially supported with two successive small grants from the Cultural Resources Council Regrant Program as well as the Gifford Foundation, the program is now in its third year, offering interactive experiences in the areas of quilting, drawing, painting, sculpture, poetry, and photography, guided by African-American and Onondaga artists. Providing such an intersection of multicultural creativity and meditative experience for young people, who for a variety of reasons often do not have the opportunity to work in a setting that emphasizes listening and awareness, is a gift we are uniquely suited to offer our community.
4. An urban ecology program for which we received funding from the Central New York Community Foundation and the Gifford Foundation, held in 2004-05, had as its goal to expose young people and their families to the many plants, animals and birds that live in the city, and teach them about their own impact on the environment, helping them understand that we share land with the myriad beings that make up the web of life. Many of these children and their families had little if any ecological literacy. Because the Zen Center's six-acre property runs along Onondaga Creek and includes undeveloped areas that provide homes for a variety of wildlife, we were uniquely suited as a site for ecological awareness. We collaborated with on-going programs and agencies like SUNY ESF, the Cornell Cooperative Extension, and area groups like Canopy and the various Onondaga Creek initiatives. Professional naturalists who are themselves long-time meditators led this program. This and the arts program have been incorporated into our new summer day camp, "Chop Wood, Carry Water."
The Zen Center of Syracuse began its first youth-oriented program focusing on the development of positive values and community responsibility in 1996, when it acquired its historic six-acre property, the Joshua Forman House, on West Seneca Turnpike in the Valley. Called Zen for Kids, it introduced youngsters to the basics of a meditative life in which all beings are cherished. Led by professional teachers who are members of the center, it included art, nature activities, short meditation periods, yoga, storytelling and chanting, and taught respect for self and others in the Buddhist context of appreciation and compassion. As the children grew older, a Zen Teens group formed. Now, with a new group of young children, we are planning to begin Zen for Kids once again.
