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Hālo,
While reading “Difference Between Giving Up Valuables and Losing Interest in Worthless”, Lal writes about the Vinaya rule about taking care of one’s parents. Subsequently, I searched out and found the Filial Piety Sutta, “The Buddha Speaks about the Deep Kindness of Parents and the Difficulty in Repaying it.”
Recently having left a monastery premature to help care for my dad and reading this sutta, I’m eternally grateful to all “cogs” in the wheel that put this “repentance of transgressions and offenses” into action.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how much your parents have done and how you can make it up to them.
Much metta!
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Hello Donna,
Yes. We have to fulfill our obligations to others while working on our own spiritual development. So, it is always a balance. Things change unexpectedly and we have to do our best accordingly. As we fully well know, this is the anicca nature.Paying debts is a part of making progress too. In this life, we are mostly indebted to our parents, children, extended family and friends, etc in that order. In the next life, it will be different set, where we will pay debts to the next in line.
However, one thing that I have noticed is that when we do our best to fulfill our obligations, things seem to get better over time too. I think you made the right decision to leave the monastery to help your aging Dad. It is a meritorious deed. If you did not do that you could have been stressed out about it.
There is a story in the Tipitaka that I heard from a desana from Waharaka Thero. The parents of a bhikkhu became old and became helpless. The bhikkhu started to share whatever he received in his alms round each day with his parents. Other bhikkhus complained to the Buddha about this action. The Buddha actually praised that bhikkhu and approved his action.
There was also an instant where one bhikkhu became ill and became helpless with other bhikkhus avoiding him. The Buddha himself went there to take care of the bhikkhu and admonished the other bhikkhus of their misbehavior.
So, we should always try to live a balanced life. Things will work out at the end.
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Lal, ඔබේ කාරුණික වචනවලට ස්තුතියි!
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Yes, picking up the meanings quicker due to recognition. Chanting and the Pāli lessons at the monastery helped too. Had some interesting messages in Pāli during meditation.
It’s all such a twisting and turning ride…just like the Unalome that represents the Path. The unalome symbol represents the path to enlightenment. The spirals at the bottom are meant to symbolize the the rebirth process, circling in samsara. The back and forth are the shedding of the Sanyojanā and the straight lines is the moment one reaches enlightenment or Arahant stage. The dots at the end of the symbol represent death, or the moment we fade and never appear here in these 31 realms of suffering.
Sādhu, Sādhu, Sādhu!
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Lal,
…In this life, we are mostly indebted to our parents, children, extended family and friends, etc in that order….
I notice that one’s spouse ( the ‘other half’ responsible for the birth of those children) does not feature anywhere in all of this. He/she would be closer to parents/children yet not so far removed as extended family/friends, as the blood line gets weak with extended family, and with friends it is non-existent (as is the case with one’s spouse, for that matter.) Do I have this right?
Ever grateful
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Hello y not,
I missed the spouse! I may get into trouble with my wife.
It should be parents, spouse, children, siblings, extended family and friends, etc.Of course, this is not a set order. This is actually what I believe the order is for me. For another person, a close friend may come much closer, for example.
So, don’t take this order too seriously. Parents definitely come first, because they are the ones who gave us a chance to be born with a human body. There are billions of human gandhabbas waiting for a suitable womb. Killing a parent is an anantariya kamma and killing any other (except for an Arahant) is not. Of course, killing an Arahant comes under a different category based on Arahant‘s moral standing.
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