Our Philosophy of Kindness

The Dalai Lama said, “There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.’

We unpicked this quote and applied it to our own lives and our school environment - after all, kindness is a value we like to demonstrate as much as possible at St Catherine's. 

We developed some quotations based on kindness and then sent 'secret notes' around the room to share kindness with our peers and bring joy to everyone's days!  

Comparing Buddhism and Christianity - The Eightfold Path and the Ten Commandments 

TASK 1: Using the eightfold path and the 10 commandments, we wrote our own positive guide for life in a modern world on a fishbone. 

TASK 2: We cut up our fishbone, taking one commandment per group, and answered the following questions on post it notes. 

• Can you think of some real-life examples of your commandment?

• What might this look like in our school?

• How does your commandment link to the eightfold path?

• How does your commandment link to the 10 commandments? 

• How might someone from another/no faith interpret the commandment?

Bodhi Tree Prayers 

We studied the significance of the Bodhi Tree for Buddhists and how Buddha sat beneath the tree and meditated to reach enlightenment, which is a state of ultimate knowledge and wisdom. 

We considered how we are all on a journey to develop our own spirituality and wrote prayers to reflect upon the things we are thankful for and the things we hope to achieve.