The 38 Ways to Happiness :- Looking After One's Extended Family (2)

Blessing Seventeen:
Looking After One’s Extended Family

B. IMPORTANCE OF HELPING ONE’S EXTENDED FAMILY
B.1 We cannot remain independent throughout life
Sometimes we are young and independent and we think that we could live self-sufficient in the world without having to take an interest in anyone else. If we think we are independent, often it will cause us to think that everyone else should make themselves independent too and as a result we may turn a deaf ear to the pleas for help of others who are in need.

The reality of the situation is that (in spite of the presence or absence of a welfare state) it is only for part of our lives that we can expect to be independent. If we are a child who is too young to look after himself or a senior citizen who is too old to look after themselves, or a wife who is heavily pregnant or if we get ill, all of a sudden we realize that we need to rely on other people too. In times of disaster, such as fire or a death in the family or criminal proceedings, again we have to turn to others for help. Also during the rites of passage of our life, whether we are starting our first business or getting married or having our first child then again, it is unlikely that we will have a very smooth right of passage without the help of those who are closest to us. Like the lone pine exposed unprotected to the wind we will soon be uprooted if we don’t seek the support and shelter of our friends and family. For some people these needs are just occurring from time to time. For others, the need may last for many years. And when the need occurs, the thing which causes people to suffer the most boils down to four main things: shortage of funds/ability to borrow things, shortage of encouragement, shortage of manpower/advice, lack of security. We already met these four needs in previous lessons, especially in the workplace. If we are able to understand the needs (entitled to) by each sector of our family, we will be better able to see the opportunities to help other members of our family in the things that matter to them.

B.2 Collective merit of a family needs unity
The important thing to understand about helping our extended family is that it promotes the unity and solidarity of our family and society at large. It allows the family or the society we live in to maintain a certain level of collective merit. However, if in a family or society there are a few troublemakers who do nothing to care for their extended family, they can destroy the good name of the family or the society and lead the collective merit of that society to break down — in the way a small number of Thai drug-smugglers have given the whole nation a bad reputation.

B.3 Making the world a more peaceful place
There are many international organizations campaigning for human rights and world peace — however the Buddha’s approach to creating peace was slightly different. He proposed that we should try to make everybody in the world into our extended family. If other people don’t share this philosophy, it doesn’t matter how many peace organizations come into existence, they will not be enough to solve the problems of world peace. We will not even be able to solve the problems of gang fights in the neighbourhood let alone world wars. The thing which really can help the situation are the minds of men who believe the other people of the world do be their true extended family. However, the Buddha didn’t say that if everybody in the world is an extended family it will give rise to happiness, he said that ‘help your extended family and it will bring its results’.

Thus if you come to the real reason for helping our extended family you will see that it is the basis of harmony/unity in society. It is the only value that will spread the feeling that the whole of the world is of the same family. To bring peace to the world you have to start with the smallest viable unit. You cannot start by making the world ‘out there’ peaceful. It is like someone who wants to build a large skyscraper. One might prepare many blueprints and designs but all this will come to nothing if you don’t take care of the quality of the building materials such as sand and cement then no matter how good your design is the building will soon collapse. However, if you concentrate on the quality of the materials, so that there is no dust or splinters of wood mixed up with the sand, you make a careful control of the size of gravel, you make sure that the steel is not rusted or bent, then apart from building an attractive skyscraper you will also build to last.

In the same way, if we want to build a society which is one of quality then we have to start with the buildings blocks of society which are the closest to us and that means our relations with our extended family.