Ven. Sariputra, male disciple "foremost in wisdom," was filled with gratitude toward Ven. Assaji, who introduced him to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha (Buddhist-Network.com).
"Venerable sir!" the monastics replied.
"I will teach the distinction between a person without integrity and one with. Listen, pay close attention, and I will speak."
"Now who is the person without integrity? Such a person [lacking gratitude] is ungrateful and unthankful. This ingratitude and lack of thankfulness is advocated by rude people. It is characteristic of people without integrity.
"A person with integrity is grateful and thankful. This gratitude and thankfulness is advocated by civil people. It is characteristic of people with integrity."
{II,iv,2} "I declare, monastics, that there are two people who are not easy to repay. Who are these two? One's mother and father.
"Even if one were to carry one's mother on one shoulder and one's father on the other for 100 years, were to look after them by anointing, bathing, massaging, and rubbing their limbs even as they relieved themselves right there [on one's shoulders], one would never in that way repay one's parents.
"Even if one were to establish one's mother and father in absolute sovereignty over this great Earth abounding in the seven treasures [traditional Indian marks of wealth and prosperity], one would never in that way repay one's parents. Why is that?
"Mother and father do much for their children. They care for them, nourish them, introduce them to this world [as outlined in detail in the discourse to the householder Sigala, "A Brief Code of Buddhist Ethics."]
"But anyone who rouses:
- one's unbelieving mother and father, settles and establishes them in confidence (saddha regarding the Dharma);
- one's unvirtuous mother and father, settles and establishes them in virtue;
- stingy mother and father, settles and establishes them in generosity;
- deluded mother and father, settles and establishes them in wisdom
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