Blessing Eleven:
Cherishing our parents
Cherishing our parents
D. REPAYING THE DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO OUR PARENTS
D.1 Expectations of Parents
Poor parents would rather put themselves in debt than to see their own children suffer. Considering seemingly little things like carefully and rationally will allow us to see through to the magnitude of the debt of gratitude we own our parents. Realizing how good one's parents are is a simple but necessary precursor to the repayment of gratitude to our parents — because it is not immediately obvious or easy to understand for every person.
There was once a man who, together with his brothers and sisters, had been looking after their mother throughout a constant period of two years nursing her and paying for her kidney transfusions at a cost of 20,000 per month. Such a cost was certainly quite difficult for all the brothers and sisters to bear, but if they could not pay then surely their mother would die. Because the mother was also suffering from mental-disease, as soon as she was stronger after the transfusion, she would complain continuously disturbing the sons and daughters looking after her in the middle of the night. Looking after the mother was an ordeal for everyone concerned and at the end of two years, the thought occurred to all the brothers and sisters that two years was enough. They thought that all their efforts were surely enough to repay their debt of gratitude to their mother. In actual fact, if their mother had thought the same thing of her sick sons and daughters early on in life, then surely none of them would have survived to the present day. Their mother would have used the last of her earnings to see her children well again and even have gone into debt rather than seeing her children suffer.
All parents have only five expectations of their children (in keeping with the five recollections of the Siṅgalovāda Sutta mentioned in the previous paragraph) — all of which point to ways in which children can handle the debt of gratitude they owe to their parents:
1. that their children will look after them in their old age;
2. that their children will perpetuate the good work for society they have already started;
3. that their children will carry on the good name of the family;
4. that their children will use the family wealth in a responsible way
5. when they pass away their children will perform funeral rites and continue to dedicate the positivity of good deeds for their parents.
The extent to which a child manages to do all five of these things varies from person to person — but in general you can categorize children into three types:
1. The child whose virtue exceeds that of his parents and who brings more prosperity to the family as during the time of his parents [abhijātaputta]
2. The child whose virtue equals that of his parents and who brings the same degree of prosperity to the family as was brought during the time of his parents [anujātaputta]
3. The child whose virtue is less than that of his parents and who brings less prosperity to the family than during the time of his parent [avajātaputta]
D.2 Service
Repaying to our parents’ goodness through service is divided into two parts:
1. Service when they are still alive: When they are still alive help them in their daily chores. Look after them when they are old, make sure that they are well fed, and care for them when they are not well. If they still have debts when they are in their old age then try to pay these debts off before they die. Serve them by making life more convenient (e.g. building an extra toilet for aged parent)
2. Service after their death: When they pass away host their funeral and habitually offer the positivity you generate as the result of your meditation for their benefit: (even if we transfer merit to them and they are unable to accept it we have still done our duty to the best of our ability like giving a car to someone who cannot use it or cannot use it immediately)
D.2.1 While parents alive
D.2.1.1 Honour
In order to show your respect for the pure intention which our parents have always shown us it is fitting to offer clothing, housing or medicine. Sometimes we might give a gift to our parents, not out of necessity, but in order to honour our parents. Sometimes out of their goodwill for us aged parents or old people will seem to be very fussy or critical because they have a lot of life experience (more than us). Sometimes they are really too fussy, but you need to be able to tolerate what they are saying and think that they still have that goodwill for you. If we are patient, we can learn a lot from their experiences. Also there may be some things we should keep to ourselves instead of burdening old parents. Old people are weak and cannot do much for themselves. Only their mouth is in good working order — so be patient when old people talk a lot.
D.2.1.2 Protection
Protect your parents from things that you know annoy them or tire them. If you can alleviate stressful duties which might fall upon your parents, you can help them to enjoy the last years of their life more and preserve their dignity.
D.2.1.3 Spiritual Ways of Repayment
All the above we are not enough to repay our debt of gratitude in all the ways above then does that mean that we have no way of repaying our gratitude? In fact the way which it is possible to repay our debt is though ‘internal support’ by giving them heaven as their afterlife destination.
1. inspiring them to faith in the Triple Gem and nurture them further to;
2. be generous and keep a baseline of morality
3. persuade them to listen to spiritual teachings: Some old parents are unable to go to a place where they can hear spiritual teachings for themselves but you can help the situation by reading them spiritual books to them or record a cassette of teaching for them to hear
4. teach them how to meditate
5. ordaining to pay debt of gratitude: In Thai culture especially, there is a tradition for sons to ordain temporarily at the age of twenty in order that the parents may gain merit from organizing their ordination. It is said that the sponsor of an ordination ceremony will gain half of the merit of the ordinand himself, therefore, as a dutiful son, finding the opportunity to ordain in order to repay one’s debt of gratitude to one’s parents, is an important part of cultivating the eleventh blessing.
D.2.2 When parents have already passed away
Even if your parents have already passed away, your duty as a grateful son or daughter is not finished. Apart from taking responsibility for organizing a fitting funeral, Buddhist sons and daughters will do meritorious deeds regularly and transfer the merit from the deeds for the benefit of their deceased parents.
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