Blessing Eleven:
Cherishing our parents
Cherishing our parents
G. ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES
G.1 Metaphor: Parents as God [Brahma]
Our parents have been compared to our “God” or “Brahma” because they exhibit towards us all the underlying virtues exhibited by a God, i.e. the four Divine Abidings [brahmavihāra]:
1. loving-kindness [mettā]: parents have the limitless wish that their children should remove themselves from suffering in every respect.
2. compassion [karunā]: the parents make every effort to diminish the suffering of their children, never neglecting their child
3. sympathetic joy [muditā]: whenever the child experiences success or happiness, the parents are sincerely happy on their child’s part
4. equanimity [upekkhā]: when the child has their own family and is able to look after its own affairs, the parents no longer interfere. If the children make mistakes, the parents refrain from saying “I told you so”, but give their opinion when asked for it.
G.2 Metaphor: Parents as one’s first Guardian Angel
The parents are the first people known to the child to offer their protection to the child in every way
G.3 Metaphor: Parents as First Teacher
The parents are the first people known to the child to teach and train the child, whether it be how to walk or talk or how to cultivate good manners.
G.4 Metaphor: Parents as Arahant
The parents are as the child’s arahant because they have four qualities:
1. They bring the child great benefit: The parents fulfill the challenging duty of caring for the child in every way — something it would be hard to find anyone else to do in their place.
2. They command respect but are endearing: protecting the child from all dangers, they also manage to bring gentle warmth to the child’s life.
3. They are the child’s field of merit: They have completely pure intentions towards their children, making them a worthy object for the child’s merit-making
4. They are worthy of being bowed to: a child should express his respect for his parents by bowing or saluting them.
G.5 Metaphor: Gold plate v.s Solid Gold
Just as you can tell the difference between a gold plated object and one that is solid gold by passing it through a flame, you can tell whether someone is truly virtuous by whether or not he cherishes his parents.
G.6 Proverb: Carrying one’s parents on one’s shoulders for 100 years
The Buddha taught that even if we were to carry our parents, one on each shoulder, for one hundred years, spoon-feeding them and allowing them to urinate and defecate on us, it would still be insufficient fully to repay our debt of gratitude to our parents.
G.7 Proverb: A skyful of parental praise
If we were to use Mount Sumeru as our pen and all the water of the ocean as our ink, even if we were to write the virtues of our parents in the sky until there were no place left to write, the mountain were worn down and the seawater dry, we would still not have reached an end of our parents virtues.
G.8 Ex. The monk who went on almsround for his parents (Mātuposaka Sutta S.i.181)
Normally when a monk has gathered food on his almsround, he must take his meal from that food first before passing the remainder on to any lay supporters. In the time of the Buddha there was a monk whose parents were so poor they had nothing to eat. The monk went on almsround and gave the parents first choice of the food he managed to gather. Later, he was criticized by other monks who reported his behaviour to the Buddha. The Buddha said that what the monk had done was correct and that in the case a monk’s parents needed food from his almsround, they may be served first and the monk himself take the remainder — an exception to the rule in keeping with the debt of gratitude even a monk should repay to his parents.
G.9 Ex. Kaccāni Jātaka (J.417)
After his father’s death, a young man devoted himself entirely to his mother, until the latter, much against his will, brought him a wife. The wife plotted to estrange mother and son, and the old woman eventually had to leave the house. Having given birth to a son, the wife went about saying that if the mother-in-law had been with her, such a blessing would have been impossible. When the old woman heard of this, she felt that such words showed that Dhamma must be dead. The woman went to a ceremony and started to perform a rite in the memory of the dead ‘Dhamma’. Sakka’s throne became heated and hearing her story used his powers to reconcile the old woman with her son and daughter-in-law.
The story was related to a young man of Sāvatthī who looked after his aged mother until his wife came. The wife helped to look after her mother-in law at first, but later grew jealous of her husband’s love for his mother and contrived to make the son angry with his mother. Finally she asked the man to choose between herself and his mother. The young man, without hesitation stood up for his mother and the wife, realizing her folly, mended her ways.
J.iii.422ff.
G.10 Ex. The Begging Bowl (traditional)
Once upon a time, there was a family where the mother and father were already old. The only son loved his father and mother and took good care of them running errands and helping in the house throughout his childhood. Then the son came of age got married and had his own children. Unfortunately, as soon as he got married he found that his wife’s love for his old parents was far less than his own. His wife chided him, “Don’t you love your own children? Looking after your parents wastes time that could be better spent earning a good wage — let your parents look after themselves.” At first he took no notice of his wife, but since his wife would complain and insist on this matter every day, eventually he forgot his debt of gratitude to his parents. He purchased a pair of clay bowls for his parents and instructed them, “Mother and father, from now on you must beg for a living,” and went about earning his own living as best he could. The son’s own children grew up to the age of five or six.
One day their father came home from work to find his children decorating a coconut shell with the finest of ornaments. He asked, “What do you think you’re doing with that coconut shell?” The children said, “We’re getting a begging bowl ready for you — to help you when you get too old to work!” Seeing his own children with the coconut shell, the father realized his own ingratitude and from that day forth invited his old parents to stay in his own home and looked after them in the best of comfort until the end of their days. This illustrates how powerful the parent’s influence on his child and shows that the child’s standard of good deeds comes directly from his parent’s example. The Lord Buddha taught that the debt of gratitude we owe to our parents is so great that it would be hard to repay that debt of gratitude within a single life-time. Thus it is one of the duties outlined inthe Siṅgalovāda Sutta and the Maṅgala Sutta to cherish our own parents especially in old age. By doing this we not only repay our endebtedness to our parents for giving us life — but we strengthen the structure of society to make it free from alienation especially for the senior citizens in society some of whom receive more comfort from their pet cats and dogs these days, than they do from their own sons and daughters.
G.11 Ex. Even Buddha must care for his parents
Even the Buddha himself devoted considerable time and effort to repaying the debt of gratitude he had to his parents. The Buddha spent the whole of one rainy-season retreat in Tavatiṃsa Heaven, through the might of his mental powers, in order to teach his late mother the whole of the Abhidhamma. His mother Queen Māyā had passed away only seven days after the birth of Prince Siddhartha.
G.12 Ex. The Abandoned Brahmin
Once, there lived in Sāvatthī an old brahmin who was extremely rich. He had four sons and when each of the sons got married, he gave him a share of his wealth. Then, he gave away half of his remaining property to them. Later, his wife died. His sons came to him and looked after him very well and they were very loving and affectionate to him. During the course of time, somehow they influenced him to give them the other half of the remaining property. Thus, he was left penniless. First he went to stay with his eldest son. After a few days, the daughter-in-law said to him, ‘Did you give any extra wealth to your eldest son? Don’t you know the way to the house of your other sons?’ Hearing this, the old brahmin got very angry and left the eldest son’s house for the house of his second son. The same remarks were made by the wife of his second son and the old man went to the house of his third son and finally to the house of the fourth and youngest. Thus, the old man was left destitute and taking a staff and a bowl he went to the Buddha for protection and advice. At the monastery, the Brahmin told the Buddha how his sons had mistreated him. The Enlightened One taught him some verses and advised him to recite them wherever there was a large gathering of people. The gist of the verses was as follows:
‘My four foolish sons are like ogres. They call me ‘father, father’ but the words come only out of their mouths and not from their hearts. They are deceitful and scheming. Taking the advice of their wives they have driven me out of their houses. So, now I have been reduced to begging. Those sons are of less service to me than this staff of mine.’
When the appointed day came for the Brahmins of Sāvatthī to hold their meeting and knowing that his sons would be there, the old brahmin also attended the meeting. Now at that time, the prevailing law dictated that “whoever ill-treats his mother or father and does not support or look after them shall be punished”. Many people in the crowd, on hearing the verses recited by the old brahmin, went wild with rage at the ungrateful sons and threatened them for neglecting their father. Then the sons realised their mistakes and knelt down at the feet of their father and asked for pardon. They also promised that from that day forth, they would look after him properly and would respect, love and honour him. They also warned their wives to look after their father well. Each of the sons gave him proper food and clothing. Thus the brahmin became healthier. So, he went to the Buddha and humbly requested him to accept two food-trays out of the four he was receiving every day from his sons. One day, the eldest son invited the Buddha to his house for alms food. After the meal, the Buddha gave a discourse on the benefits to be gained by looking after one’s parents.
The Buddha related to them the story of the elephant called Dhanapala, who looked after his parents. Dhanapala when captured pined for the parents who were left in the forest.
Dhammapadaṭṭhakathā, XXIII: 3
G.13 Orphan with a Debt to Pay (traditional)
There was once a woman of the streets who was with child. By profession she knew that if the child was born a boy, she would be unable to keep him. Her anxiety only increased day-by-day until at the end of nine months, her fears were realized. The newborn babe was a boy. Many times she took the baby to the river’s edge with the full intention to drown him and finish the whole business, but with tears in her eyes from having borne him in her womb for so long, she could not bring herself to do it. At the same time, she could not keep the child or else she would destroy her livelihood. She left him in a bundle by the roadside with the thought that there might be some chance of a compassionate passer-by seeing the child and adopting him. The first passer-by that morning was the abbot from the local temple on his almsround. He spotted the baby and afraid that he starve, took him back to the temple. The abbot guessed how the baby had come to be there but in the absence of anyone coming to claim him back, provided all the food, shelter, clothing and education the child needed to grow-up to teen age. The boy could run and play with the other children and do everything expected of him but he had a chip on his shoulder and would run and hide if any of the others teased him for not having a mother and father. The boy would blame his unseen parents for the predicament in which he found himself. One day the abbot heard the boy complaining out loud about the parents who had abandoned him. The abbot thought, “The time has come to talk to this boy about his life.”
“If someone were to give you a dollar, would you curse him?” the abbot asked the boy.
“Of course not,” replied the boy, “I should bow to that person, or at least thank him and I would not forget my gratitude to him!”
“And if someone were to come along and offer you a dollar for your life would you take it?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” replied the boy indignantly. “Do you think that’s all my life is worth?”
“Ten dollars then?”
“You must be joking!”
The abbot raised the sum to a hundred, a thousand, ten-thousand, a hundred-thousand and a million dollars, but the boy would not part with his life. Asked why, the boy replied, “even a million dollars is useless if you have no life left to spend it.”
“Well, what about if someone were to come along and offer you a dollar to cut off your right arm? Would you take it?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” replied the boy indignantly. “Do you think that’s all the integrity of my body is worth?”
“Ten dollars then?”
“Daylight robbery!”
The abbot raised the sum to a hundred, a thousand, ten-thousand, a hundred-thousand and a million dollars, but the boy would not part with his right arm. “Don’t you want to be a millionaire?” asked the abbot. The boy said, “Even a million dollars is no substitute for the loss of one’s physical integrity.”
“And if someone were to come along and offer you a dollar to cut off your little finger? Would you take it?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” replied the boy indignantly.”
Do you think you can put a price on part of the human body?”
“Ten dollars then?”
“Forget it!”
The abbot raised the sum to a hundred, a thousand, ten-thousand, a hundred-thousand and a million dollars, but the boy would not part with his little finger. Asked why, the boy said that even a million dollars could not replace the thing most precious to him — a healthy, human body.
“Just now you said that if someone gave you a dollar, you would thank him, bow to him and never forget your gratitude to him — yet your parents have given you your healthy, human body free, even the little finger of which you would not part with for a million dollars — how come you sit here cursing them for not having given you more?”
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