MJ11 - 38 Blessings - Filial Piety (12 of 39)

Last time you saw me,

We looked at blessing number 10,

Effective communication.

With the time I talk today,

We will continue our series on enlightened living with blessing number 11,

Cherishing our parents.

So with today's blessing,

We move from the third group on making ourself useful or setting oneself up in life to the fourth group of blessings,

Which contains blessings 11 through 14.

Nearly all of the blessings in the fourth group concern how we take care of our close family,

And therefore the grouping is sometimes referred to as harmony in the family life.

It precedes group five,

Which we will come to in four blessings time,

Which will reach toward becoming a pillar of society.

It goes without saying that harmony at home is something we have to get right if we are truly to serve society at large.

Many a person has been held back in their career because of conflicts in their family life.

This doesn't mean that it's compulsory to have a husband,

Wife or children to make our way up the stairway of the blessings.

But if one does have one's own family,

Then our duties to them must be fulfilled properly.

And unless we are cloned from an anonymous test tube,

Then even a confirmed bachelor or spinster can't avoid at some stage having had parents as part of their life.

Although there is an entire blessing dedicated to the cultivation of gratitude that comes in at about number 25,

With this blessing number 11,

We start to meet up with gratitude in the specific context of our parents.

Although rarity does not necessarily guarantee something being valuable,

It does say something about the difficulty of achieving it.

In terms of gratitude,

The Buddha pointed out in the Anguttara Nikaya that it is rare to find two sorts of people.

Firstly,

A person who is willing to initiate a favour,

And secondly,

A person to acknowledge a favour enough to be grateful and repay that favour.

As we shall see for this blessing on cherishing our parents,

We will characterise a parent as someone who has initiated great sacrifices for a child but has never done anything to help them.

We will characterise a child who cherishes their parents as someone who not only appreciates what their parents have done for them,

But who is grateful and tries to repay the favour done.

The practice of gratitude towards parents,

As we shall see later in more detail,

Basically moves through three stages of maturity.

Firstly,

Being able to appreciate our debt of gratitude to our parents or Tathagnyū.

Secondly,

Finding physical and spiritual ways to repay that debt of gratitude to our parents or Tathagmitthi.

And lastly,

Announcing the goodness of our parents.

Only when a child has been able to do all three of these duties can they have been considered to have cherished their parents,

According to the definitions of blessing number 11.

So today we'll look at the detail of how to become more aware of what our parents have done for us,

Before looking in more detail at the practicality of practising duties,

Which are often known in the Buddhist world as filial piety.

Up to this point in the blessings,

We may have had a hard time recognising in others the sort of goodness we would like to cultivate in ourselves.

We would have had a particularly hard time recognising virtues in ourselves,

Since it is much easier to perceive the virtues of others.

But at this point in the blessings,

Since everyone has parents and everyone has received benefit at the hands of their parents,

In theory,

More than for others,

Virtue ought to be easy for us to identify concerning our parents.

If we are able to recognise,

Repay and announce the goodness of our parents,

Our familiarity with such virtue will become all the stronger,

Allowing us to see the good in our parents and subsequently allowing us to tune in to the goodness in others.

This is why the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero called gratitude not only the greatest of virtues,

But the parent of all others.

So to clarify,

If we can be grateful to our parents,

That gratitude is such a fundamental virtue that it will be the foundation of any other virtues that we might like to develop.

The Chicken Soup with a Soul co-author Jack Canfield also said gratitude is the single most important ingredient to living a successful and fulfilled life.

Gratitude to our parents is such a fundamental virtue that in the olden days people used this as a benchmark for judging the character of strangers.

Sometimes we have to know someone for a long,

Long time before we can really say we know them in depth.

However,

If you meet someone for the first time and you find out that they neglect their parents,

You can be sure they are unlikely to have any interest in helping anyone less closely related.

It was said that 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 they cherish their parents.

If you recognize and repay the debt of gratitude you have to your parents,

Apart from gaining personal virtue,

You will also set a good example for your own children and,

In theory,

In turn,

They will want to take care of you in your old age.

Furthermore,

Many people meditate for many years without being able to make any progress.

Sometimes their mind has a continuous feeling of dryness.

However,

If they are able to shore up any conflicts they may have had with their parents,

They can take steps to rebuild the bridges in their old age.

This often creates a richness of mind which allows them to progress again in their meditation.

In our individualistic society,

It's sometimes easy to forget that we didn't get where we are today entirely by our own efforts.

To put it in rather transactional terms,

Our personal successes are the result of considerable investment of food,

Care,

Protection,

Training and teaching by others.

All these resources have come to us through the good wishes of others in society,

Intentions without which humanity would soon collapse.

It's not that people have helped us because they expect something in return from us,

But if we can find it in our hearts to express some appreciation,

Or find ways to repay the favours that they have done for us,

It would help to create an atmosphere of give and take in society instead of dog eat dog.

In some cases,

Sons and daughters merely fail to notice help received from their parents.

An example of this complacency is where you often hear teenagers complaining I didn't ask to be born or my parents owe it to me.

At other times,

However,

It's not just an oversight,

But it may be the result of certain historical movements or schools of thought that actively ignored or denied filial piety.

From what I've noticed,

There seem to be three examples of parental gratitude deniers,

Those following the selfish gene theory,

Those who believe in hereditary sin,

And those belonging to patrilinear cultures.

The first school of thought that denies owing anything to parents draws on the belief that,

In an evolutionary sense,

Parents are only kind to their children because they want to see their character and genes passed down to the next generation.

This view is even formulated into a genetic theory called the selfish gene from the book by Emeritus Oxford professor Richard Dawkins,

By which it's proposed that man is nothing more than a mechanism by which genes replicate themselves.

In such a case,

Parents don't show their kindness,

Their children out of compassion,

But out of selfish desire to propagate their own genes.

If such a theory were really true,

If you're walking down the street with four brothers who are all identical twins and with at least half of the same genes as yourself,

Then you would rather sacrifice yourself to a monster than let your brothers die in order to protect the majority of your genes.

Such theories have their limitations because they cannot explain why views such as antinatalism,

Which disrupt the replication of genes,

Might grow and spread in the population.

The radical outcome of this theory is that instead of thinking to repay their parents for all the good things they've received,

They think that they are repaying the gratitude to their parents by giving them grandchildren.

This logic is equivalent to borrowing money from a bank to open a new business and then paying back the loan to your customers.

Instead of thinking how best to cherish their poor parents,

Such children spend their time thinking how best to get themselves a boyfriend or a girlfriend to carry on the family line.

Second reason people might turn their back on kindness received from their parents is belief in hereditary sin.

Some philosophies of life,

Such as those advocated by the Unification Church or Munism,

Suggest that all the bad things in our life are passed down to us by our parents and therefore only by abandoning your parents and marrying into their religion can you escape from sin.

In fact,

It is not just the Unification Church but according to Janja Lalic,

This is a fairly common psychological technique used by cults generally to separate emotionally vulnerable people from their families.

The third reason people might turn their back on kindness received from their parents are cultures that value parricide.

In some Ugandan tribes where there's a tradition of patrilineal descent,

Even up to the 1960s,

Conjugal disputes commonly ended in the death of a young man's father was seen at the very least as a justifiable homicide and at worse,

An honor killing to demonstrate that a young man was brave enough to kill their own father and therefore tough enough to become chief of the tribe afterwards.

Although these may be rather extreme examples,

What I'd like to convey is that although it may appear easy to describe the kindness parents show their children,

Generally we don't dig very deep.

When Buddhists describe the debt of gratitude children owe to their parents as so colossal that even if you were to carry them on around on one's shoulders for the rest of one's life,

It would be hard to repay one's debt of gratitude to them.

It's easy to be glib and assume this to be an exaggeration.

To avoid getting too bogged down in the heavy narrative of indebtedness to one's parents,

It comes to us in the scriptures and to retain some liberty,

I would like to start off by retelling a Mother's Day sketch which I saw on YouTube.

It illustrates the most obvious part of kindness received at our parents hand,

Which is in the period from birth to adulthood.

Most people who go for a job interview have the expectation that any sacrifice of time,

Energy or ability that they give in their role will be recognized and remunerated.

But for the interview I'm going to tell you about,

The interviewees are going to be severely disappointed.

So the interviewer builds the job title as a personal assistant,

Where the main job is to care for a work associate.

The job has a range of responsibilities and requirements that are really quite extensive.

The first requirement for the job would be mobility,

As it is a job that requires that you stand up to work most of the time or really all the time.

You will constantly be on your feet or constantly bending over.

You'll be constantly exerting yourself to a high level of stamina.

This may be required for more than 40 hours a week.

In fact it may be necessary for 135 to unlimited hours per week.

This exertion will be required 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

There may be no breaks available and generally an employee has a legal right to 20 minutes of rest breaks if they work for more than six hours a day.

But for this job the right has been waived.

At this point you might want to phone up your union rep.

Okay so you are allowed to get lunch but only when the associate has done eating their lunch.

Ideally someone qualified for this job might have a degree in medicine and finance and the culinary arts and must be able to do a detailed risk assessment of anything that might be a threat to the life or health of their associate.

And the situations that you have a legal responsibility for may occur at any time of the day or night.

Since the associate needs constant attention sometimes you will have to stay up with the associate throughout the night.

You will need to help with the laundry,

Help with homework,

Help to make sure the associate is clean and goes to bed on time,

And that they brush their teeth.

The ideal candidate must be able to work in a chaotic environment and on vacations.

In fact Thanksgiving,

Christmas and New Year holidays will mean that the workload is going to go up.

Also a cheerful disposition is required at all times.

At this point you might be thinking that this interview is a cruel,

Sick and twisted joke.

And there's no company car.

You have to provide that for yourself and it needs you to drive a minivan.

You need to have a valid driving license and will be doing a lot of driving in fact to places like the supermarket,

Soccer games,

School,

Team meets and possibly the emergency room.

This position requires excellent negotiation and interpersonal skills.

And the trickiest part is really going to be the teenage years when you're going to be required to deal with hormonal rampages,

Teenage heartbreak,

Puberty and the talk.

Okay so let's cover the salary.

The position is going to pay absolutely nothing.

Yeah it's pro and you will be doing this job completely for free.

In fact you may need to take a second job to finance yourself to do this job.

So that we're clear this job doesn't pay actual money.

In the first year this whole pay will be in happy baby giggles and irresistible cuteness.

Later on in the job you might get some inside perks like pride and if you're lucky the occasional thank you.

Generally you won't be rewarded in any substantial fashion until the associate becomes a parent themselves and learns to appreciate you.

Oh yes and I hope you won't accuse me of being sexist.

Just for women the job requires a nine month unpaid internship.

So have you guessed what the inhumane and crazy job is yet?

Yes,

Parenthood and mostly motherhood.

Ironically at this time in the world although it has been going out of fashion somewhat the number of people currently holding this position adds up to about 43.

5 million people who manage to meet every requirement.

So all you associates do you now have a little bit more of an inkling about the sacrifices made by your personal assistant?

At least from the time you were born to the time you left home.

In Buddhism the parenting remit is generally summarized in terms of physical and spiritual care for a child.

More than any other species the physical requirements for parenting for humans exceed any other species in the mammal kingdom.

Providing food,

Shelter,

Clothing,

Education and medical care for offspring for many years after they are able to fend for themselves.

Parents often have to put themselves at risk or in debt in order to look after their children.

If you find a parent poaching or shoplifting 99 times out of 100 they are doing it only to put food on the table for their family.

If it was for themselves personally they would never take such a risk.

As for the spiritual side of parenting parents are also saddled with the task of being a good example to their children who will quickly catch them out if they say do what I say not what I do.

However in characteristic style Buddhists look back before birth to debts of gratitude we owe our parents that go back beyond what we can see with the naked eye.

It can be said that the nine month unpaid internship of pregnancy requires a huge number of sacrifices by the mother.

40 weeks of going for regular medical checkups,

Eating nutritious food while avoiding the temptation of spicy foods,

Drink and cigarettes,

Wearing loose clothes and having to rely on other people while also trying to avoid extremes of emotion that might upset the baby in the womb.

In fact Buddhists in their thankfulness to parents goes back even before birth to conception where it's thought that even if a child is put up for adoption at birth the fact that they are born human at all is already one of the biggest gifts that they have received from their blood parents because Buddhists don't consider human birth as an automatic entitlement.

It's only by the genes of your parents that you have escaped coming into this world as an ant or a worm or a squirrel.

So part of the filial duty I mentioned at the beginning of today's session was to appreciate what our parents have done for us.

Only if we appreciate that debt can we go on to repay our parents goodness or announce the goodness to the world.

This is why the Buddhist advice in the Sikh Lovata Sutta to children in relation to their parents which I'll come back to starts by recognizing as I have been supported by my parents.

So I would like to tell a short traditional story which illustrates the logic behind being thankful to our parents even those who do not care for us after we are born.

There was once a woman of the streets who was with child.

By profession she knew that if the child turned out to be a boy she would be unable to keep him.

Her anxiety on the increased day by day until at the end of the nine months her fears were realized.

The newborn babe was a boy.

Many times she took the baby to the water's edge at the river with the full intention to drown him and finish the whole business.

But with tears in her eyes from having carried him in her womb for so long she could not bring herself to do the deed.

At the same time she could not keep the child or else she would destroy her livelihood.

She compromised by leaving him in a bundle by the side of the road with the thought that there would surely be a compassionate passerby who would come and rescue the child and adopt him.

The first passerby that morning was the abbot from the local temple on his arms round.

He spotted the child and afraid for its welfare took him back to the temple.

The abbot guessed how the baby had come to be there but in the absence of anyone coming forward to claim him he continued to provide all the food,

Shelter,

Clothing and education the child needed to grow up into a teenager.

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 knowing whose parents were.

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 his parents who had abandoned him.

The abbot thought the time has come to talk to this boy about his life so the abbot started his conversation with the boy by asking him if someone were to give you a dollar would you curse him?

Of course not replied the boy.

I would bow to that person where these thanked them.

I would not forget my gratitude to them.

And if someone 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 so easily.

Asked why the boy replied even a million dollars is useless if you have no life left in which 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 and the boy said even a million dollars is no substitute for the loss of one's physical integrity.

But if someone 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 angrily.

Do you think you can put a price on a 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 then 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.

The abbot concluded just now you said that if someone gave you a dollar you would thank them,

Bow to them and never forget your gratitude to them.

Yet your parents have given you your healthy human body for free even the little finger of which you would not part with for a million dollars.

So how come you're sitting here cursing them for not having given you more?

So this was a story to illustrate how even if we have nothing to thank our parents for from birth onwards we still owe them a debt of gratitude because due to them we have a million dollar body that allows us to do all the good things we want in this world.

So to return to the subject matter for today we now consider some ways having realized the debt of gratitude we owe to our parents to actually repay some of that debt of gratitude.

Much of the logic of filial piety revolves around the unconditional nature of the relationship between a parent and their child.

This 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 kidney dialysis and a monthly cost of thousands of dollars.

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 dialysis she would complain and continuously disturb 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 the two years the thought occurred to all the siblings that two years was enough.

They thought that all their efforts were surely enough to repay the debt of gratitude to their mother.

In actual fact though if their mother had thought the same thing of her sick children early in their lives then surely none of them would have survived to the present day.

Their mother would have rather put herself in debt to see her children well again or rather than seeing her children suffer.

And this is the unconditional nature of the debt we are talking about between parents and their children.

Usually duty of care is not expressed as a length of time because unconditional answer to how long would always be however long it takes.

The leoparity within Buddhism is expressed more usefully in terms of five ways in which a child can help their parents especially to overcome the five sorts of fears that parents tend to have in their old age.

So again coming back to the Singulovada Sutta,

The way children should express their gratitude to parents should concentrate on alleviating those fears.

So the first way to practice filial piety is to support parents in their old age.

This first duty helps the child to cultivate right view while alleviating the parents fear of being abandoned in their old age.

The second way to practice filial piety is to carry on a parent's life's work assuming of course that the work they've been doing is wholesome and not running the mafia or something like that.

It is a duty which helps us cultivate patience,

Responsibility,

Knowledge and ability.

It alleviates the parent fear that their legacy will die with them.

The third way to practice filial piety is to keep up the honor and traditions of the family.

Whether it be something as simple as not passing a beggar on the street without helping in some way it will help us to become aware of the value of our family traditions and will alleviate the parents fear that the good name of the family will be lost after they're gone.

The fourth way to practice filial piety is to make yourself worthy of the family legacy.

It is a requirement that helps keep beautiful sons and daughters free of the six roads to ruin.

No parent in their right mind would want to pass on their inheritance to a child who's a drug addict.

If a son or daughter can make themselves worthy to receive the inheritance it will alleviate the parents fear of the family wealth being flitted away once they're gone.

The last way to practice filial piety is to make offerings dedicating merit to one's parents after their death.

It doesn't just mean organizing a lavish funeral or paying one's last respects but specifically to the Buddhist tradition of dedicating merit to a loved one who has passed away.

Certainly during the funeral rites but also regularly thereafter.

For what I've noticed especially from Thai and Sri Lankan Buddhists the family will congregate at a temple once a year to remember a late parent and dedicate merit.

Others more diligent than that might attend the temple every full moon day to do the same by sponsoring the chanting of the Dhammanayama Sutta in their late loved one's name.

Fulfilling one's duties in this respect will help the child cultivate right view and responsibility even after the passing of their parents.

In addition it will alleviate the parents fear that there will be no one to perform funeral rites and dedicate merit for them after they're gone.

Finally I should point out that this advice to children from the Sikhilevada Sutta should ideally come as part of a reciprocal relationship between a parent and their children where the parent has already fulfilled their duties in bringing up the child properly.

A subject which we will return to in more depth in the next blessing number 12.

The extent to which a child manages to fulfill their filial duties varies from person to person but in general you can categorize children into three types.

Children whose virtue exceeds that of their parents and who bring more prosperity to their family than during the time of their parents which in Pali is known as Abhichattaputta.

Slightly less diligent are children whose virtue merely equals that of their parents and who bring the same degree of prosperity to the family as during their parents time known in Pali as Anujataputta.

Lastly there are the children whose virtue is less than their parents and who bring less prosperity to the family than during their parents time known in Pali as Avachattaputta.

So in summary the way we can express filial piety towards our parents comes at two phases in their life when they are still living and when they have already passed.

When they are still alive we can help them with their daily chores,

Look after them when they're old,

Make sure they're well fed and care for them and when they are sick.

If they still have debts when they are in their old age then we can try to clear those debts before they die.

Appropriate ways to serve a parent might be by making their life more convenient for example by taking them to get fitted for a walking stick.

When they pass away we can organize their funeral and habitually dedicate merit for their benefit with the thought that even if they find themselves in a state where they are unable to receive the merit immediately it will be there for them until they are in a state to reclaim it.

The practicality of looking after parents when they are still alive boils down to honoring and protecting them which sounds a bit like the fourth commandment.

The sort of thing which might count as honoring our parents might be gifts of things like clothing,

Accommodation or medicine.

Sometimes we might give a gift to our parents not out of necessity but in order to honor them.

Sometimes out of their goodwill for us aged parents may seem fussy or critical because they have amassed a lot of life experience certainly more than we have.

Sometimes the fussiness is not all in our imagination.

Nevertheless out of respect we need to be able to tolerate their eccentricities with a sense of cheerfulness.

Old people have diminished strength and cannot do much for themselves.

Only their mouth is in good working order so we need to be patient when old folks tend to talk a lot.

In fact if we are patient we can probably learn a lot from their life experience.

Similarly there may be potentially irritating things that we should keep to ourselves instead of burdening old parents with them.

In terms of protecting our parents from the things we know might annoy them or tire them we can alleviate stressful duties which might fall upon parents and we can help them in this way to enjoy the last years of their life in full dignity.

Everything I've mentioned so far has concerned material ways of repaying the debt of gratitude to parents.

Nevertheless we should heed the advice of the Buddha that it is hard for us to repay our debt of gratitude in this way even if we were to serve our parents throughout their entire lives.

A more substantial way to repay a debt of gratitude to parents though which reaches beyond the grave is to give an aging parent spiritual support by encouraging them to perform wholesome deeds in their lives to prepare them to face death without fear.

Some parents may already be quite earnest practitioners of Buddhist merit-making activities in which case all we need to do is to facilitate their practice.

But for parents who are perhaps a little more reckless in their senior years it may be a great merit for a beautiful son or daughter to inspire them to faith in the triple gem and nurture them further to be generous keep the precepts and listen to spiritual teachings.

Some aging parents lack the means to take them to the temple whereby they would be able to listen to spiritual teachings for themselves in which case perhaps we can step in and bring them to the temple ourselves.

These days there are many spiritual books or audio channels from which they can also derive spiritual uplift and inspiration which we could perhaps help make available to them.

It can also be particularly helpful if you have a chance to teach them how to meditate and it is a well-known tradition in the east for beautiful sons to ordain as monks for a time to repay their debt of gratitude to their parents.

In Thai culture especially there's a tradition for sons to ordain temporarily at the age of 20 in order that the parents may gain merit from organizing their ordination.

It's said that the sponsor of an ordination ceremony will gain half of the merit of the ordinand himself therefore as a beautiful 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 11th blessing.

Often old people seem to be so interested in having grandchildren that having heirs seems to be the most important thing for family succession.

However whether they end up with one heir or a hundred is not the same thing as preserving a family legacy.

In fact the goodness of one's parents is better announced to the world if it shines through the example of the dutiful son or daughter.

Of course writing down their goodness in a biography as is often done in the Thai tradition of funeral books is one way of announcing a parent's goodness but rather than having lots of badly behaved grandchildren the actions of a son and daughter who outlive a parent speaks more loudly than words of a good upbringing.

In this connection even though the Buddha was a monk he still cared for his parents and he devoted considerable time and effort to this.

Through his supernatural powers he spent three months teaching the Abhidhamma to his mother Queen Meiya in one of the heaven realms although his mother had passed away only seven days after giving birth to him.

He also ensured his father had the chance to ordain and become enlightened.

Although before renouncing the royal palace the Buddha had a son called Rahula.

2600 years later however he is mainly remembered for his spiritual legacy not for his bloodline.

Furthermore for monks whose parents have become destitute after they have renounced the world the Buddha gave a special dispensation for monks to share their alms food with their parents to support them in their old age.

There is an assumption behind everything I've said so far that parents deserve to be cherished by their children.

I've even said that according to the Buddhist view even if a child is abandoned at birth they still owe something to their parents.

Nonetheless we have only really looked at the child side of the parent-child relationship today and it's possible that some parents may have failed to live up to their responsibilities to the child especially where in contemporary society there's been what has been described as a collapse of parenting.

There are some exceptional cases where a child has been so mistreated at the hands of their parents that they find it near impossible to imagine anything good about their parents.

In the case of abuse of any sort at one's parents hands it is important to make a separation between the good things that they've done for you and the bad.

You must repay our debt of gratitude for the good things and do our best to forgive the bad things without mixing them up or thinking one cancels out the other.

Sometimes a dutiful son or daughter knows that giving their parents money will only fuel them to do irresponsible things like let's say gambling.

In such cases children should still try to be supportive but give support in the form of food or clothing that they cannot exchange for cash and treat the parent with cautious respect like a person with a disease beyond their control.

If a parent has been incarcerated then we should still try to comfort them by visiting them in prison.

So for today I'd like to finish up with the story of how the Buddha helped an old Brahmin who had been abandoned in his old age by his sons once they had got married.

Once in the Indian city of Savatthi there lived an old Brahmin who was extremely rich.

He had four sons and when each of the sons got married he gave them a share of his wealth.

Later on he gave away half of his remaining property to them.

Later after his wife died the Brahmin's sons came back and looked after him with loving affection.

As time went on however somehow they influenced the Brahmin to give him the remaining half of his property leaving him penniless.

He didn't worry too much about this because he was able to go and stay with his eldest son.

However after a few days the daughter-in-law dropped a hint.

Did you give extra inheritance to your eldest son?

Don't you know the way to the house of any of your other sons?

Hearing this the old Brahmin felt ashamed 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 son.

Thus the old man was left destitute and taking a walking stick and a begging 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 Buddha taught him some verses and advised him to recite them wherever there was a large gathering of people and the verses went something like this.

My foolish sons are like ogres.

They call me father father but the words come out of their mouths but not from their hearts.

They are deceitful and scheming.

Taking the advice of their wives they have drifted me out of their homes.

So now I've become reduced to begging.

These sons are of less service to me than this walking stick.

When the appointed day came for the Brahmins of Savatthi to hold their meeting and knowing that his sons would be there too,

The old Brahmin also attended the meeting.

Now at that time the prevailing law dictated that it is punishable to ill-treat a parent by not supporting or looking after them.

Many people in the crowd or hearing the verses recited by the old Brahmin went wild with rage at the ungrateful sons and berated them for neglecting their father.

Only then did the sons realize their mistake and knelt down at the feet of their father and asked for forgiveness.

They also promised that from that day forth they would look after him properly and would respect love and honor him.

They also warned their wives to look after their father as well.

Each of the sons gave him proper food and clothing allowing the Brahmin to recover his health.

So he went to the Buddha and was able to donate to the monastic community two food trays out of the four he was receiving each 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 spiritual benefits of cherishing one's parents and related the incident to a similar past life story of an elephant called who also displayed filial piety.

So this session I have introduced to you blessing number 11 on cherishing our parents.

For my next session I'll move on to the 12th blessing on the topic of cherishing our children which explains how it can be a pathway of blessings to avoid raising little monsters.

Hopefully as a result of today's session you will now be a little bit more at home with the idea of filial piety and how to practice it.

So for today this is me Prat Nicholas Tanisro signing off for now so long folks and stay safe.