Sunday, June 15, 2025

Father, Son, and a 'difficult' relationship


Fathers’ Day — The Young Buddhist Editorial
For Father’s Day tell us a story about how a father-figure in your life has taught you a life lesson about Buddhism — whether it was intentional or not as is the case with most “dad” lessons.

Hallie Ewig and her hip hop gangster rap dad
Hallie Ewig (she/her/hers) University of Washington, Class of 2022: “For as long as I can remember, my dad has exclusively listened to hip-hop music. When I was little, instead of listening to pop artists on the car radio, he would play artists like Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., and Wu-Tang Clan from his iPod. I never really understood why he listened to music most parents would find “profane.” One time I asked him, “Dad, why do you listen to songs with bad words in them?”


He responded by turning up the volume and saying, “Just listen to the lyrics, Mika.” If you really listen to the lyrics, you can see that all of these Black artists are sharing a common theme intertwined with the swear words: systemic racism. My dad has been exposing me to Black oppression before I was even old enough to understand it.


He taught me that it is important to not only listen to others but to do so with compassion, and music is a great place to start. Even though we face our own racism as Asian-Americans, we must be compassionate to the struggles of others so that we can unite to overcome them together. Black men, women, children, members of the LGBTQ+ community, dreams, and futures [all] matter. They have always mattered, and they will forever matter. Thank you, Dad, for everything!” More: The Young Buddhist Editorial
The statue of the son (r/MadeMeSmile)
QUESTION
: 
It's Father's Day. How would a Western follower of the Buddha make use of this celebration?

How and why would a "modern" or "Western" follower of the Buddha's Teaching celebrate this day and use it to give gratitude to his or her father as one of his/her first gods and the other three gods?

Maybe readers would like to share also how you fulfill their personal duty to give others inspiration and ideas. This mean not being greedy but instead sharing possible merits you have. (Note: This question is given as a gift of Dhamma and not for commercial purpose or meant for worldly gain.) Source: Buddhism Stack Exchange

The Buddha’s Legacy as a Father

Ven. Rahula, the Buddha, and Ananda
The San Mateo Buddhist Temple warmly welcome all to join the community in person for its Family Dharma Service on Sunday, June 15, 2025. On the occasion of Father’s Day, Rev. Adams will share a Dharma Talk about the legacy that Sakyamuni Buddha left for his son Rahula and how the Buddha’s compassionate care for all beings was like the concern of parents for their only child. The Buddha's Legacy as a Father (June 15) - San Mateo Buddhist Temple

Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY
Do you love me, Daddy? - More than life itself.
Was Prince Siddhartha loved by his father? The story/allegory of the Buddha's life makes that clear, unless he was a narcissist trying to live through his child, as even many non-narcissists do. King Suddhodana doted on his beloved son, the prince and future chief of the Scythians/Indo-Sakas. He wanted for his son what he wished for himself -- world dominion, the role of "world monarch" (chakravartin). The Brahmin soothsayers said it would be so IF only the boy were pampered and kept from seeing the world as it really was. For the son so loved the world that he came back to save everyone.

A father with a father and wife
Sid married at 16 and had a son at 29. Realizing it was now or never, he set off on a quest.
In this anachronistic, Western-informed fantasySamsara (2001), beautiful Yasodhara rips selfish Siddhartha for daring to leave his family to pursue his own fame, glory, and good times.

The Buddha's loving father
It's sad to reflect that most Westerners do not know who the Buddha was, their heads having been filled up with popular misconceptions of a fat happy Budai or Herman Hesse's book Siddhartha (which the careful reader will note is NOT about the Buddha but another guy named Siddhartha) which tangentially touches on the story of the Buddha's life.

Hesse's novel mirrors Everyman's Tale, the Hero's Journey, based on the allegorical story of the Buddha's life in general. Some of the Buddha's life story is not even about this Buddha but previous ones the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) mentioned when teaching about previous supremely enlightened teachers (samma-sam-buddhas) who had arisen in this world.

Buddhist Madonna and Child
We forget that Siddhartha G. was a father because what are we all taught? That's right, that he abandoned the family (renounced the palace) for the easygoing life of a spiritual nomad, a wandering mendicant answering to no one with all the fun and palaver of going East on a spiritual quest. What could be more fun and full of good times? All that yoga and sitting around, no job, talking to other groovy hippies with long hair and beards on the Hippie Highway to Magadha and Bihar.

(Dalai Lama) Mothers are kind, and fathers
are left to be the unpopular tough ones.

The prince leaves his wife, Yasodhara (Bimba Devi), never meets his kid (Rahula or "Bondage"), says "fudge you" to the Ol' Man (King Suddhodana), not even a wave his mother-aunt (his mother, Queen Maya's sister, Pajapati Gotami)...right? Right? Wrong.

Scythian King Suddhodana with his son the Bodhisatta Prince Siddhattha Gotama
.
Thus We Heard (Bhante Piyananda)
Intention (cetana) matters. It is the basis of karma (deeds, actions). What was Prince Siddhartha thinking to drop out like that? (Where was he going to tune in and turn on?) We know from the ancient texts of the Pali canon that his wife knew where he was, how he was, and why he was doing it. So well did she know that she copied him. When he ate only one meal and slept on the ground and wore saffron, she took up these things. We impute to her how we would feel if we had been abandoned after giving birth, and this is completely wrong and misleading. The Los Angeles area monk Ven. Walpola Piyananda understands the matter so well that, together with Stephen Long, he tried to correct all the misconceptions in his book Thus We Heard - Recollections of the Life of The Buddha.

I'm hitting the road on a quest.
Siddhartha's intention, motivation, impulse to leave was to find "salvation" from suffering for everyone -- his father, his mother(s), his wife, his son, his family, his friends, his people, and all living beings, particularly the humans and devas. He didn't go to go forever. He went until he was successful. It took him seven years to do what he had to do (to accomplish what it means to be a "supremely awakened" "Buddha," which is different from an arahant or paccekabuddha). He had to attain full realization (maha bodhi), make known the path to enlightenment, which entailed preaching the Dhamma (Dharma exclusive to buddhas), and establish a Sangha (community) of successful practitioners, disciples capable of memorizing, chanting, and teaching that Dharma.

Mom, where's Dad? - That deadbeat?
As soon as he did that, he came back. How old was his son when he returned to Kapilavatthu (Gandhara, Afghanistan, Saka Land)? His son, Rahula, was 7. His former wife had not remarried even though she could have and was encouraged to. The family had not moved on -- his father having sent many messengers to bring his son back to rule the Sakas/Shakyas/Indo-Scythians and to find news of him. The only thing that had changed was that the son's son was now the prince. Rahula was now being raised to lead. The Buddha didn't think that was much of a legacy to leave his son. Instead, he gave him his grand inheritance worthy of a buddha: He had him ordain as a monastic, stayed by him, and brought him to enlightenment.

The moral of the story, the denouement?

King Suddhodana goes to greet the Buddha
Son Rahula became Ven. Rahula and enlightened. Wife Yasodhara became a nun (Ven. Rahulamata) and enlightened, the fiercest disputant in all the land able to debate anyone and win. Father King Suddhodana became an Aryan ("noble") disciple, attaining one or more of the stages to enlightenment. Mother Queen (Maha) Pajapati Gotami (Prajapati Gautami) became the world's first Buddhist nun and enlightened.

Many Scythians/Shakyian princes and princesses entered the Monastic Sangha and gained realization -- and the Buddha opened up that possibility to everyone, creating a Noble Sangha that was far larger than the Monastic Sangha we all imagine to be the "disciples" of the Buddha. It may have included 80,000 people, but it certainly included countless millions of devas. The Buddha is popularly known not only as the "Master Physician" but also as the "Teacher of Gods and Men" (of devas and humans).

Does that sound like a hippie on the Hippie Trail gallivanting around India with no job, doing nothing, leaving his wife, abandoning his son, sticking a choice finger in the direction of a loving and overprotective father and doting foster mother? The Buddha didn't forget his biological mother (Maha Maya) or even his previous mother in many lives (a woman the texts simply refer to as Mata along with her husband, Shakyamuni's father in many previous lives).

Now remember, young man, be a good father.
Wouldn't it have been better if he had stayed home, raised his son, tended to the householder life of the palace, been a dutiful son to his father, and made his mother proud? We wouldn't be talking about him now. He would never have become the Buddha, "the Enlightened One," in that life. But people, Westerners in particular, still want to bellyache, gripe, and air their grievances, full of wrong view, putting down the Great Teacher like they know better how a profitable life is lived.

No comments: