Dhammavamsa wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 6:51 am
I know my country wasn't a Buddhist country (in fact, it is a Islamic country), what about other buddhist country like Thailand or Sri Lanka? How to instil their interest in Buddhism?
Hi,
Malaysia here too. A novice monk now. Also, a 32 year old youth. I think the current Buddhist youth groups are doing quite ok. Maybe you're not so exposed to the Chinese side. The university Buddhist societies have annual large camps together, of hundreds of university age youths. Youth related activities like Dhamma camps, Dhamma song singing, Dhamma quiz etc are standard ways of engaging youths.
Perhaps one of the thing is that Buddhist parents themselves have to read up a lot on how to present Buddhism, as it's marketed in the west too. Mindfulness, meditation, that means they should practise meditation too. And not be afraid to teach kids about the Dhamma when they are young. As you mentioned, reading books like the God delusion can help to act as antibody against the God based religions.
Engage youths in youth like activities, not so much in visiting monasteries to give dana to monks, then wait for boring chant, meditation and dhamma talks which they don't understand. Unless they are already into the Dhamma already.
It's also good to find young monks to be able to talk to youths about youth related topics in Dhamma talks. Eg. Sex and relationships (I have a ppt on that, on the ethics of it), Buddhism and Superheroes (another ppt), Physics and Buddhism (my specialty), etc.
Ultimately if you want to spread the Dhamma, you yourself have to keep on practise, upgrade yourself and be an example that others would want to follow. Following that advice, I had kept on upgrading to see many ways of marketing, engaging Buddhism to people.