Repaying One’s Mother and Father

Monks, there are two persons that cannot easily be repaid.

What two?

One’s mother and father.

Even if one should carry about one’s mother on one shoulder and one’s father on the other, and (while doing so) should have a life span of a hundred years, live for a hundred years; and if one should attend to them by anointing them with balms, by massaging, bathing, and rubbing their limbs, and they even void their urine and excrement there, one still would not have done enough for one’s parents, nor would one have repaid them.

Even if one were to establish one’s parents as the Supreme Lords and Rulers over this great earth abounding in the seven treasures, one still would not have done enough for one’s parents, nor would one have repaid them.

For what reason?

Parents are of great help to their children; they bring them up, feed them, and show them the world.

But, Monks, if, when one’s parents lack confidence, one encourages, settles, and establishes them in confidence; if, when one’s parents are unwholesome, one encourages, settles, and establishes them in virtuous behavior (moral conduct); if, when one’s parents are selfish, one encourages, settles, and establishes them in generosity; if, when one’s parents are unwise, one encourages, settles, and establishes them in wisdom: in such a way, one has done enough for one’s parents, repaid them, and done more than enough for them.

(Reference: AN 2.33)

In this Teaching from Gotama Buddha, he shares a Teaching of how a Practitioner should have only the deepest respect and gratitude for their parents.

We are born into the world to parents who provide us care or needs to sustain life. In some situations, our parents may lack the understanding or ability to guide us in the way that we expect. The expectations we have of our parents, what they should be and how they should function as our parents, can cause us to be discontent and have a strained relationship at best.

It is important to understand that our parents gave us life. They brought us into the world and provided the care needed to sustain our life. These actions alone require tireless effort. This same Teaching can be applied to grandparents, non-biological parents, and the full range of caregivers who contributed to your up bringing and care from infancy to adulthood.

What Gotama Buddha is sharing here is that parents provide great help to their children to “bring them up, feed them, and show them the world”. The amount of work and effort involved in just clothing, feeding, bathing, and guiding children in the world is exhaustive. Our parents do not always have the training or wisdom to guide us in the way that we “want” to be guided. Our obligations and expectations of our parents can leave us feeling abandoned, left out, or unloved. But these are just the feelings and emotions we have assigned to the lack of our parents meeting our own obligations and expectations we set for them. This is most likely not how our parents actually feel towards us.

If a child can be appreciative of the fact that our parents went through extensive and exhaustive efforts to bring us into the world and sustain our life, the way we repay an unwise parent, is to, when we are ready, provide them encouragement in virtuous behavior, generosity, and wisdom. In this way, then we have done enough for our parents.

If we have gained wisdom and understanding that can help our parents to realize a better life, we need to find humble ways to share that wisdom with our parents and provide them guidance in these Teachings that will improve their life as repayment for the guidance they gave us as a child, and do so without attachment to the outcome.

Our parents are rarely going to meet the expectations we have of a “perfect parent”. If we eliminate the expectations (i.e. the attachments), and understand we have the parents we have and then be thankful for the life that they have given us, then perhaps we can eliminate whatever expectations we have and provide them unconditional “true love” that guides them in virtuous behavior, generosity, and wisdom.

This requires that we are learning and practicing these Teachings so that we can more readily provide the wisdom that our parents would need, to improve the quality of the mind based on our intimate understanding of The Teachings and how to practice them. We need to lead by example through a well established practice of these Teachings.

Detailed explanation on practicing True Love: Love Without Attachment is available in Chapter 15 of this same book series found in the book “Developing a Life Practice: The Path That Leads to Enlightenment” (Volume 1).

Is Hitting Children for Discipline Right Action?

If you grew up as a child being hit as discipline when you did not do the things that others wanted, the mind may be conditioned to think that hitting a child is the way to get them to do the things you want them to do.

In reality, hitting a child is not going to produce wholesome benefits but instead, create more problems.

As an adult, we need to share guidance and wisdom through teachings that help young people to learn and grow into wise decision makers. Hitting a child does not help a child learn the wisdom they need to make wise decisions. Instead, hitting teaches them anger, hatred, ill will, impatience, aggression, hostility, and fear. Hitting children is the way for an adult to release their own anger and aggression, not teach a child wisdom that leads to improved decision making by the child.

It requires much more wisdom from an adult to take their time to gradually and patiently guide a child through the process of learning about this world to make wise decisions. Hitting a child comes from our animalistic behaviors from the countless rebirths we experienced in the animal realm.

As an animal, we lashed out at others when they did not do what we want. We growled, clawed, bit, and attacked to get others to do what we wanted. It is through fear and intimidation that animals attempt to control other beings to do as they “want” and as they “desire”. An animal has countless cravings and uses fear to exert their influence over other beings.

But in the human realm, we are capable of acquiring wisdom and cultivating our mind to practice being peaceful, calm, and patient to actively guide others towards improved decision making. In the unEnlightened mental state, the mind is holding on to animalistic instincts in the mind from our previous animal rebirths that produce behaviors and conduct similar to that of an animal.

The Path to Enlightenment, among other things, is to shed these animalistic instincts, training the mind to be more human, producing wholesome human decisions that lead to wholesome behaviors, conduct, and results.

The short answer to this question is: No, hitting children for discipline is not Right Action and hitting children will not lead to Enlightenment. An Enlightened being would not hit anyone including children. An Enlightened being does not cause harm through their bodily actions.

But, if your mind thinks that hitting is the way to produce better results in others, that means the mind is still holding on to its animalistic instincts.

These same animalistic instincts of controlling others through aggressive behaviors will not be limited to just hitting children as discipline. The aggressiveness and hostility that it takes to hit a child will boil over into other parts of one’s life. The same controlling behaviors and conduct will result in one having difficulties in their relationships because their mind has not yet cultivated the needed wisdom of how to solve challenges through wholesome means so it will revert to controlling intentions, speech, and actions towards other humans as well.

Through observing how hitting others, including children, only produces unwholesome results (i.e. unwholesome Kamma), an individual can then become committed to deeply training the mind to acquire wisdom to solve their challenges through wise decision making rather than, aggression and hostility.

If a parent or caregiver were to choose to continue to raise their child through hitting, one is lacking the wisdom, moral conduct, and mental discipline to patiently guide their child. This is understandable if one grew up in an environment where hitting was the norm.

But, now the goal is to eliminate the constant cycle of animalistic instincts bringing the mind to produce wiser decisions. Through an individual training their own mind to acquire wisdom, moral conduct, and mental discipline, they can then patiently share their wisdom with their child so that their children can learn to make wiser decisions.

After all, as we age it will be our children who ultimately take care of us. Through our intentions, speech, and actions we are actively teaching our children in every moment. We are teaching them the wholesome and unwholesome ways of life. If we are impatient, aggressive, and hostile with our children, then we are teaching them to be impatient, aggressive, and hostile. That is what they are learning and that is how they will conduct their life. We should not be surprised that as we age they will treat us the same way we treated them. In our later stages of life, as they lack the wisdom they need to care for us in wholesome ways, we can predict they will treat us with aggression and hostility because that’s what we taught them as a child.

We can also predict that a child who is hit as discipline will lack the wisdom of how to make wise decisions in their personal relationships and will struggle - experiencing difficulties in solving the daily challenges that arise within their relationships. The parents or caregivers did not have the wisdom to share with the child that guides them in creating wholesome relationships, therefore, lacking those skills, they will struggle in this life.

Through us developing and enhancing our own wisdom of how to solve our daily challenges through improved decision making, we can impart this knowledge with our children so that they are prepared to make wise decisions within all their relationships, including with us as we age.

If we are polite, kind, friendly, and respectful while patiently guiding our children to learn the wisdom of how to make wise decisions, then as we age they will be more than interested and prepared to care for us in our later stages of life. They will have the wisdom they need to care for us in wholesome ways. And, they will have the wisdom to develop healthy and wholesome relationships with friends and co-workers throughout their life resulting in opportunities to improve their life.

Through you choosing to learn, reflect, and practice The Teachings of The Buddha in a way that develops your own wisdom, this will benefit your own life and the life of those close to you. You will be able to more readily share your wisdom with the next generation, cultivating that wisdom within your children and your community. If we respect our elders, our children will respect their elders.

We are going to be an elder at some point in this life and we are now teaching the next generation how to treat us as we age. If we treat them well, they will treat us well. To end the cycle of constant aggression and hostility while being impolite, unkind, unfriendly, and disrespectful starts with each of us individually. We do not need to wait for others to do anything. We can dedicate ourselves to this intensive work within our own mind and then share that with the people close to us as they have an interest to learn and grow.

It is our decisions that lead to certain results. It is our actions that produce all the results that we experience in this life. This is The Natural Law of Kamma.

If we produce aggression and hostility through impatient animalistic instincts that creates unwholesome behaviors and conduct, that is exactly what will come back to us as a result, it is our unwholesome Kamma.

But, if we make the effort and apply energy to shed our animalistic behaviors training the mind to be polite, kind, friendly, and respectful while practicing patience, then that is what will come back to us as a result, it is our wholesome Kamma.

The choice is always ours…choose wisely.