How to repay one's parents (sutra)

Mom, are you defecating? No, that's okay. I'll just wash this dress shirt. *Smiles*

"Meditators, I will teach about a person without integrity and one with integrity. Listen, pay close attention, and I will speak."

"As you say, venerable sir," they responded.

The Buddha then said, "Now what is a person without integrity? A person without integrity is ungrateful and unthankful. This ingratitude, this lack of (knowing what has been done for one) thankfulness, is promoted by rude people.

"It is just the sort of thing people without integrity do, whereas a person with integrity is grateful and thankful. This gratitude, this thankfulness, is promoted by civil people. It is just the kind of thing people with integrity do."

People in the world

{II,iv,2} "I say, meditators, there are two people who are not easy to repay. Who are these two? One's mother and father.

"Even if you were to carry one's mother on one shoulder and one's father on the other shoulder for 100 years, and were to look after them by anointing and massaging them with oil, bathing them, rubbing their limbs, even as they defecated and urinated right where they sat [on one's shoulders], one could not in that way be able to pay or repay one's parents.

"Even if one were to establish one's mother and father in absolute sovereignty over the whole of this great earth (every country and territory), abounding in the seven treasures, one could not in that way be able to pay or repay one's parents. Now, why is that?

"Mother and father do much for their children. They care for them, nourish them, introduce them to this world.

"However, anyone 

• who rouses one's unbelieving mother and father, settles and establishes them in confidence (saddha, faith, conviction),
• who rouses one's unvirtuous mother and father, settles and establishes them in virtue (sila),
• who rouses one's stingy mother and father, settles and establishes them in letting go (dana, generosity),
• who rouses one's foolish mother and father, settles and establishes them in wisdom (panna, direct knowing and seeing, discernment),

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

• See also: MN 110; SN 7.14; AN 4.73; Iti 106
• Ven. Thanissaro (trans.), Kataññu Suttas: Gratitude (accesstoinsight.org), edited by Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly