Repaying our Parents (sutra)

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly translation (AN 2.32)

Come on, Dad. You, too, Mom! Get on up here on my shoulders. I'll carry you!

 

Shravana Kumar carries parents (Ramayana)

"Truly I say, meditators, there are two people who are not easy to repay. Who? Mother and father.

"Even if one were to carry one's mother on one shoulder and one's father on the other for a century, and one were to look after them by anointing, massaging, bathing, and rubbing their limbs, even as they defecated and urinated where they sat [on one's shoulders], one would not by that pay or repay one's parents.

"Moreover, even if one were to establish mother and father in absolute sovereignty over this great Earth, which abounds in the seven treasures, one would not by that pay or repay one's parents. Why is that? Mother and father do much for their children. They care for them, they nourish them, they introduce them to this world.

 

"But anyone who

• rouses one's unbelieving mother and father, settles and establishes them in conviction (saddhā, faith in the good),
• rouses one's unvirtuous mother and father, settles and establishes them in virtue (sīla),
• rouses one's stingy mother and father, settles and establishes them in generosity (danā),
• rouses one's foolish mother and father, settles and establishes them in wisdom (paññā)

-- to this extent, one indeed pays and repays one's mother and father."

Ven. Thanissaro (American monk Geoffrey DeGraff) summarizes: This sutra (AN 2.32) shows that the only way to repay parents is to strengthen them in four things: confidence (faith), virtue (morality), unselfishness (generosity), and wisdom (discernment). To do so, of course, we first have to develop these qualities in ourselves, as well as learning how to tactfully employ them in being an example to our parents who are our first teachers. As it happens, these four qualities are also those of a kalyana-mitta or "noble friend" (AN 8.54), which means that in repaying our parents in this way we become the sort of person who would be a noble friend to others in the world.