Me time

By KS3 Group Entry (11-14) from Me time

At our Opening School Mass, during the Homily, Fr. Gates, our chaplain, encouraged us all to have some ‘Me Time’. He explained how often, we allow life to pass us by and do not take time to stop, pause and reflect.

When we returned to our RE class that week, we brainstormed various ways we could have some ‘Me Time’. One suggestion was ‘meditation’. A student in the class spoke about a news article he had read. He spoke about a group of 11 to 16 year old football players and their coach, who had become trapped in a cave after practice when it suddenly flooded because of heavy rain from a monsoon. 17 days later, the news broke that all 12 boys had their football coach had been rescued from the cave. Instead of screaming or crying, the group were sitting quietly in the dark, meditating when they were found. Their coach had spent several years as a Buddhist monk and have taught meditation techniques to the boys in the cave. We talked about how we would have coped in that situation, given most of us are a similar age. When our teacher looked into it, Stanford University meditation expert Leah Weiss, stated that the Buddhist meditation was probably crucial to keeping the group alive.

We were inspired by the Buddhist practice of meditation. We came across the practice of the mandala as a form of meditation. We learnt how Mandala designs are used in meditation to assist the person in reaching the point of becoming ‘one’ with the universe. The mandala is meant to represent everything we see in life. The sun. The moon. The universe. The circle of friends. As such, we felt it fitting for the display to reflect the colours of a rainbow. We really enjoyed having some ‘Me Time’ and also learning a little more about another religion.