How to arouse a child’s filial piety?

Ask: How to arouse a child’s filial piety?

Answers:

Filial mind is the first in great many of conducts and it is a prerequisite to create the moral personality. Parents and children have natural endowments relationship. Obedient heart and gratitude are also an inborn character of human beings. If pious mind to parents does not exist, it is considered as woeful thing of human life. To arouse pious mind, the first thing to think is without parents, it  means without  our life. Mother has a 10 months pregnancy from which she suffers misery and cherishes our life. After giving birth, she breast-fed for 3 years and fed us. She loved us very much and took her confidential mind to bring us up. When we slept and urinated on bed at night, she will left us on dry place and lay in wet place. When we are sick, she feel more anxiously and wishing to get sick instead of us. Parents’ gratitude is high and wide more than heaven. Therefore, we have to obey our parents. Animals show gratitude to their parents’ nurture, even a human.

Besides, we should think that we will get old someday. We nurse our parents at present and help them get comfort of spiritual and material life. Our children see our attitude and they will support us like that in future. If we has undutiful action to our parents, our children will get impiety with us in future. For example, we are in a spacious and bright room and let our parents in a cramped and dark room. Our children will let us in the small corner of the house and ignore us in future.

 Moreover, filial piety is the great virtue and it can widen the largest intelligence to promote our successful career. Offering parents is equivalent of offering the Buddha; respectedly filial field will give the bumper crops. From past to now, the first criterion to select imperial minister is pious mind. The ones who obey to parents at home will be loyal and dedicate in the leading staff. If we take pious mind to expand to all beings, we will become sages and saints immediately. Like Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva when he was Quang Muc and his Brahmin daughter, by extending pious mind to his parents after which they got pitying vow and saving all beings.

In addition, filial mind is also standardize our behaviours. For example, when we have a thought of gambling, think of our body, skin and hair that are from our parents. If we gamble for fortune, our parents will be very painful. We can not do it because it makes our parents feel misery. We can not create more evil karma as killing, religion, illegally sexual deeds, delusion, which makes our parents avoid from others. Therefore, singe-minded pious heart is also standardize our behaviours. To help us become virtuous and intelligent man who can create great career in the society. Our parents will feel very proud of us and our family has also the honour. If we make mistake to do illegal things and are sent to jail, it really is an extreme impiety.

All the above methods help arouse pious mind. As people practice good karma, filial piety toward our parents is the first thing in three sources of blessing. We should obey and practise the Buddha’s teaching.

The lecturer : Thich Dai An

Tinh Van translated from : http://www.xiangke.com/memberWordAction!info.action?id=4161748

Translated into English by Nguyen Kha Vi.