Happy Father's Day (cartoon)

Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Crystal Quinter, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

(FOX) The dysfunctional fathers of FOX TV, animated only. There are too many on sitcoms to fit.

Kids? Kids!

Today is the day we collectively honor our fathers. Fathers get short shrift in the parenting business. And while that is changing, kids' first word is still much more likely to be na, mama, or ya, then pa. One day soon infants will cry, papa papa papa, and men will regret getting into the whole child raising racket. It takes a village. But it was not always so. In the past, parents were respected and revered. Times have changed, particularly in the West. Asia is deteriorating due to Western hegemony but once was a great home of filial piety still found in traditional countries less affected by the industrial revolution and the rise of technology.

(Covalent Couple) Latino parents are fooken crazy!

(Off The Great Wall) Asian parents vs. Western parents! (Part II)

SUTRA: Father and mother

Asian parents, particularly fathers, are often misunderstood and mislabeled (chineasy.org)

Parents, even non-Buddhist ones, are the best! (chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com)

 
(AN 2.31-32) The Buddha taught: "I tell you, meditators, there are two people who are not easy to repay. Who? 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, and were to look after them by anointing, massaging, bathing, and rubbing their sore limbs, and they were to defecate and urinate right [on one's shoulders and one were to bear it with patience, acceptance, gratitude, and streaming rays of loving-kindness, even then] one would not in that way repay one's parents.

"[Even if] if one were to enthrone one's mother and father in absolute sovereignty over this great earth, abounding in the seven treasures, one would not in that way repay one's parents....

"But anyone who rouses unbelieving parents, settles and establishes them in confidence [in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha], rouses unvirtuous parents, settles and establishes them in virtue, rouses parents, settles and establishes them in generosity, rouses foolish parents, settles and establishes them in wisdom -- to this extent one, indeed, repays one's parents."

SUTRA: "The Layperson's Code of Conduct"
Ven. Narada Thera (trans.), adapted from Everyman's Ethics: Four Discourses of the Buddha (Wheel 14, Buddhist Publication Society) and edited by Wisdom Quarterly, Sigalovada Sutra

The Buddha, who knows and sees, extends his compassion to help by wisdom.

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The Noble Ones are a field of merit.

Sigala was the son of a Buddhist family residing at Rajagaha. His parents were dedicated followers of the Buddha, but the son was indifferent to spirituality and religion. Neither father nor mother could by any means persuade their son to accompany them to visit the Buddha or the noble ones to hear their ennobling Dharma (the path of practice that leads to enlightenment and nirvana for those who practice it).

The son thought it practically useless to pay visits to the enlightened community (Arya Sangha), as such visits might entail material loss if asked to make a donation. Sigala was only concerned with material prosperity; to him spiritual progress was to no avail.

Constantly he would say to his father, "I will have nothing to do with ascetics. Paying honor to them would make my back ache and my knees stiff [by bowing or kneeling]. I should have to sit on the ground and soil and wear out my clothes. And when due to conversations with them, after sitting, one gets to know them, one has to invite them [to a meal] and give them offerings, and so one only loses by it."

Finally as Sigala's father was about to pass away, he called his son to his deathbed, and inquired whether he would at least listen to his parting advice. 

Sigala answered, "Most assuredly, dear father!" he cried. "I shall carry out any order you may be pleased to enjoin on me," he added.

We're crazy, but at least were not Kardashians.

"Well then, dear son, after your morning bath 'worship the quarters.'" The father asked him to do so hoping that one day or other, while the son was so engaged, the Buddha or the monastics would see him and make it an occasion to teach an appropriate sutra to him. 

Since deathbed promises are to be remembered, Sigala carried out his father's wish -- not, however, knowing its significance.
 
Now it was the custom of the Buddha to rise from a few hours of sleep at 4:00 am and after experiencing nirvanic bliss for an hour to pervade the whole world-system with boundless feelings of loving-kindness called metta meditation.

It is at this hour that he surveys the world with great compassion to see what fellow beings he might be of service to on that day.

One morning Sigala came into the Buddha's perceptual field and brought into compassionate net. With his profound vision, the Buddha saw that Sigala could be shown a better channel for his acts of worship. He decided, "This day will I will give a discourse to Sigala on the layperson's Code of Conduct [for a good and prosperous life]. That sutra will be of benefit to many. There must I go."

Even if they defecated? Happy Father's Day!

The Buddha thereon went up to Sigala on his way for alms to the royal ringed city of Rajagaha (a capital rung by seven hills). Seeing Sigala engaged in the ancient Indian custom of worshiping the quarters, the Buddha delivered a great discourse which contains, in brief, the whole social and domestic duty of a layperson. More

Young Sigala came around to seeing what a miraculous teacher the Buddha was and how much his father loved him to set him on a course to hear the Buddha's Dharma, the path to enlightenment and freedom from all suffering.