Happy Mother's Day, Buddha (video)

WARNING: Who is your mother? It is your current mother. The others were past mother so are not your mother. Do not cling even to your current, beneficial, wonderful mother. How much less to the others. Not every daughter will be a mother, but every mother was a daughter. Love your parents. Be grateful. Repay them with Dharma. Or (like, you know, if they were horrible) leave them be. This is what is best for you. Let them be what they will be. You don't own them. They don't own you. Do you owe them? Yes, very likely. If you refuse to repay them, okay then let them be. You are missing out on a rare chance because no ordinary karma is so powerful as what we do to or for our parents. They are like the Buddha for us, so valuable and extra-meaningful is what we do to and for them. That is how karma is. This is part of right view as the Buddha defined it. And because of wrong view, we suffer much. To not suffer, let us have confidence and believe the Buddha. Above all karmas is one karma: making an end of karma. And how do we do that? Awaken, know-and-see, and touch nirvana.

The Buddha's mothers (Mother's Day Special)

(Alan Peto) UNITED STATES. Mother's Day is a popular holiday, but is there a Buddhist equivalent? Did the Buddha ever speak of "mothers"? Yes, often! In addition to past lives, karma (actions) supporting his parents, he helped one of his closest disciples in a practice to help his mother who was reborn as a hungry ghost (preta). This became so popular among laypersons that there is a festival for it. We can also practice loving-kindness, compassion, and generosity for mothers right here and now. These are foundational Buddhist values that are perfect for Mother's Day (and every day).

Contact Alan Peto:  alanpeto.com/contact. Video disclaimer:  alanpeto.com/legal/video-disc...

Is the first video mockery? Whether said in jest or semi-seriously, it is nevertheless profoundly true. How long is samsara? That's easy to answer but, first, What exactly is samsara?

• Samsara is the "Endless Cycle of Rebirth," the spinning "Wheel of Life and Death," the "Revolving in the Ocean of Death, Suffering, and Rebirth" because every time one dies, one meets with rebirth -- and this has been going on since the beginningless past and will go on into the unforeseeable future.

Ah, in that case, who knows? A billion years?

Buddhist Mother's Day

(single_cell) Happy Mother's Day to all moms from the Buddha's moms (Maya and Pajapati) to God's wife, Asherah, to Jesus' mom Mary (Miriam) [both at one time or another being called the "Queen of Heaven"], to our mom, Eve of Eden (and the first female in the Agganna Sutta, the "Discourse on Beginnings [of Life on Earth]" (a.k.a. "A Buddhist Genesis") to the progenitor mother in science, also called Eve.

Beautiful Scythians/Shakyians of Central Asia

Hooray for moms! Can we agree that when we first began as a single cell, we were already composed of two halves embedded in a mother (or petri dish), cared for by a mother (or lab workers), and someone somewhere was a father, participating or not. Parents are very important because parenthood is karma. We are fortunate in having parents, but this fortune is not for nothing. We, too, have been mothers.

And samsara is so long, has been going on for so many billions of years and far longer than that, for aeons (kalpa) without discernible beginning, which is not to say there was no beginning but only to say that no beginning is visible, apparent, or sensible to our logic and assumptions about its nature. What is the nature of an answer that would fit the question? It must satisfy the question based on our other assumptions. So if we ask, "When did it all begin?" we are in no way prepared for the real answer. We're only hitting our head against a paradox of our own making.

• Single_cell, May 13, 2012; Alan Peto, May 7, 2022; Dhr. Seven (text), Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly