The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

Buddhist Hour
Script No. 380
Radio Broadcast live on Hillside 88.0 FM
for Sunday 8 May 2005CE
2547 Buddhist Era


This script is entitled :
The mother child connection

We dedicate this script to all mothers. May they all come to follow the path out of suffering and find ultimate bliss and liberation from samsara. Happy Mother's Day.

Be kind to your mother is one of the first instructions a student is given at our Centre. Why is it that we recommend that persons do this?

The Law of cause and effect, or kamma states that any action on body, speech and mind results in future events.

Being kind to parents is a wise action. It makes merit; it is virtuous action because it is performed to someone who gave you life. With out their action of creating you and giving birth to you and rearing you, you would not be here today. It makes good causes to provide one with good conditions in future lives. Starting life with good conditions of good parents and stable family life provides the young being with the security needed for healthy development of mind.

Just as the relationship between soil in the ground and planted seed. Even the best quality oak seed will not grow to its full potential if planted on poor under-nourished soil. Just so is a good mother & father - they provide the nutrient of mind and body required for the child to reach it’s full potential.

Seeing the importance of good parents, we make the causes to have good mother and father. The causes are made by being kind, looking after and protecting your current mother and father, and being a good mother or father yourself.

The outcome of the kamma in the Pali language it is called 'vipaka'.

In one life, if your slander was to be directed at a person with ill-will or a 'killing' wish, in the next life it is conceivable that the person slandered may be born to be your husband or wife or born as your mother or father or sister or brother or school friend.

In rebirth, you could experience the hapless result of your former slander as an always-felt threat or have the illusion about your family (without base) that they were seeking to kill you.

Our old affiliation to our family, especially to our mother, is the stock of culture which we inherited from our past lives and we have continued to practice affiliation with our family, out of the habit of many lives, since we were born this life.

One of our members would like to share her experiences:

My childhood was difficult, my parents had substance abuse problems, there was alot of suffering. It sometimes made it hard to understand the teachings on the kindness of parents. I felt that my parents were not kind to me. Buddha Dhamma practice has shown me a deeper understanding of why we should be grateful to our parents. My parents gave me this precious human life. By giving me this life I have the opportunity to practice the Buddha Dhamma. My parents lives contain much more suffering than mine. Their strong habitual kamma prevented them from being better parents. I forgive them for not being perfect. I wish to become fully enlightened so I can help them. As a fully enlightened being I can truly repay the kindness of my countless Mothers.

Humans, like all mammals, are twice born.

We have one life, intra-utero, where we are fully dependent on our mother's food supply - we live like a parasite - taking everything and giving nothing except pain and discomfort and even death to our mothers.

Unless we have practiced well and long in past lives, we cannot generate a kind thought to our food supplier - our mother.

If we do show appreciation, it is most likely for the nutrient we receive intra-utero.
Our juvenile thought formations are selfish, because we do not seem able to generate a sense of gratitude or seem to manage to think well enough of what we could do to help our mother's well-being.

When we are born in the conventional sense, our other life commences post-utero, when we are unplugged from the umbilical cord giving us direct access to our mother's food supply.

If we are breast-fed, we still rely on our mother. Breast-feeding can be painful for some mothers.
However, we still demand immediate gratification of our thirst and hunger, and do not care if our food attendant is sick or tired.

In some lives, our food attendant may not be our mother.

In the Buddha-to-be's case, his mother passed away into a heaven birth when he was five days old, and he was breast fed by a wet nurse - another woman.

This is not viewed as tragic in the Buddhist way of thinking because his mother was spared all the human pain of fretting over the growing up stages of her child.

The Buddha-to-be's life as a child was uncomplicated because he was healthy in mind and body.
The King's palace was full of luxuries for his enjoyment. There seems to be no doubt he was much appreciated by his father, the King. He appreciated his educational opportunities and had gratitude towards his father and his efforts to educate him in the many skills thought suitable for a leader.

One of his cousins (Ananda) who shared his early education was, in later life, to become one of those responsible for recording his Teachings when he became Buddha.

In the palace, he was shielded from the sight of seeing sick, old or dead persons.

It is interesting to note that many persons have the merit from past lives to be reared in comparative plenty by world standards in Australia.

The weak form of the argument is that the mother is important in her own right; she has a limited time to develop her own life practice; and it is not sensible to expect her to stand by for the whimsy of the adult who wishes to act as a child rather than grow up.

The barrier to be faced is that some mothers are "naughty" in so far as they wish to keep their children in emotional immaturity to control them.

Obviously, there are many other cultural forms of this argument in between the strong and weak cases.

The Buddha goes on to say that it is very difficult to repay the kindness of ones parents, however if we assist them in developing their mind to wholesomeness, to make good causes for their future births, this is the least we can do.

In the Sutta Pitaka of the anguttara nikaaya i ruupaadii-ekaka vagga i, Samacittavagga the Buddha says:

" Bhikkhus, I say, you cannot repay two persons. Who are the two? It is mother and father. Bhikkhus, if you had borne your father and mother on your shoulders and lived a hundred years and meanwhile rubbed and massaged their bodies and they let loose urine and excreta, yet you have not returned the gratitude shown to you.

Even if you offer them all the wealth and make them rulers of the earth, even then you have not returned the gratitude shown to you, because they have done much more. They fed you when you could not walk and showed you the world.

If your mother and father did not have faith and you instilled faith in them, if they did not have virtues instilled virtues in them, if they were miserly, made them benevolent and if they were not wise, made them wise, you have shown gratitude to your mother and father, it is more than enough.

Help your mother increase her morality. Help your mother increase her generosity. Help your mother increase her wisdom.

Many persons find it useful to learn about the secrets of how to lower stress in their life about various things.

It is simple in theory - observe more precepts. But in practice, because habit is strong, it is not easy to live with extra precepts.

It is about the only means you have if you decide to alter your life style.
However, the good news is that when laypersons become more aware of the possibility of increasing the number of precepts they might apply to their own life, their minds gain a certain type of lightness.

The person having this mind, in Pali 'cetasika' has a pleasant, less stressful, feeling all night and day.
Why has Buddha Dhamma lasted so strongly over 2,500 years? The simple fact is that it works to relieve suffering.

The Buddha also uses the following verse in explaining how one should develop loving kindness towards all sentient beings in the Karaniyametta sutta - a discourse given to his monks who were having difficulty while trying to meditate in the forest.

MATA YATHA NIYAM PUTTAM AYUSA. EKAPUTTAMAN U RAKKHE, EVAMPISABBA BHUTESU MANASAM BHAVAYE APARIMANAM

The English translation of this Pali verse is: Thus as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life; even so let me cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings.

This great love that a mother has for her child, this is how one should develop ones mind towards all sentient beings.

Mother's have the greatest ability to guide their children out of suffering and similarly, children have the greatest ability to guide their mother's out of suffering. The mother-child connection is powerful.

How can we teach our parents wisdom? The prajnaparamitta - The Perfection of Wisdom is what we refer to. In the matter of teachings on precepts, they are superior to most of your parental teachings.

In the prologue of the longer version of the sutra, this line presents the Buddha as being immersed in deep samadhi while the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is absorbed in contemplating the meaning of the Perfection of Wisdom.

The statement is significant here in that the tradition insists that "a looking into" the nature of reality is not a matter of mere intellectual analysis but demands deep absorption so that awareness moves from the merely superficial to the profoundly intuitive.

In the Mahayana cosmology, "Prajnaparamita" (the perfection of wisdom) is a goddess who has been called "the mother of the Buddhas"; her presence here can be interpreted either cosmologically or etymologically.

According to the Prajnaparamita, even your mother, father or any other relative cannot do you as much good as your own properly directed thought.

Yet, the support of mother and father, the cherishing of spouse and children and peaceful occupations are some of the 37 Supreme Blessings as expounded by the Buddha in the Mangala Sutta.

It is noted that after the birth of Bodhisattva Goutama, his mother Devi Mahamaya passed away within the week and took rebirth in Tusita heaven.

She could never conceive again.

The Mahaprajapati Goutami who brought up Gotama was the step-mother of Gotama. The wife Yasodhara and the son Rahula attained the Nibbana during their lifetimes.

But the Buddha, out of compassion, spent three months in the Tusita heaven with a view to teaching His mother the Abhidhamma along with other Tusita gods and goddesses for their enlightenment, and came down on this day at Sankashya, a town in northern India.

When the next Buddha appears in this world, Devi Mahamaya will then take birth in this plane and, after hearing the words of the Buddha, will attain the Nibbana.

These are called Dhammata of the Buddha.

Generally, the Buddhist viewpoint holds that laypersons should cherish their mother and father and sibling family members.

The Buddhist discipline of practice is laid out to help us prevent disunity within our families. In this age where divorce is growing we see disunity as a common occurrence. Thus may we ask of ourselves to preserve and practice the Buddhist discipline in our daily lives in order to end all wars and dissension. This work begins within our own families.

There is a Buddhist proverb: "May all of you consider disunity a disaster and consider unity as safety for our lives. May you all be in accord and compromise with one another”. This is truly a Buddha's Teaching.

How ought we view our ancestors, our past mothers and others? Where are they reborn now? How can we help them today?

These things become known by persons who cultivate their minds.

By understanding at least a few of our own past lives and deaths before we were born human this life, we can learn the causes that brought us to this present condition, and gain an insight into that of our ancestors.

Whatever birth they have come to may they find peace.

There is a saying that, “A teacher for knowledge is easy to obtain, one for morality is hard to find”.

Nevertheless, in Buddha Dhamma there are teachers of morality simply because of the ten perfections that are needed to be cultivated, and the second of these perfections is sila in the Pali language, which is generally translated as morality in the English language.

The story of Buddha’s Ancestry.

The capital of the Sakes was the city called Kapilavatsu perhaps after the name of the great Rationalist Kapila.

There lived in Kapilavatsu a Sakya by name Jaya Sena. Sinahu was his son. Sinahu was married to Kaccana. Sinahu had five sons, Suddhodana, Dhotodana, Sakkodana, Suklodana and Amitodana. Besides five sons Sinahu had two daughters, Amita and Pamita.

The Gotra of the family was Aditya. Suddhodana was married to Maha Maya. Her father’s name was Anjana and mother’s Sulakshana.

Anjana was a Koliya and was residing in the village called Devadaha. Suddhodana was a man of great military prowess. He was allowed to take a second wife and he chose Mahaprajapati. She was the elder sister of Maha Maya. Suddhodana was a wealthy person. The lands he held were extensive and the retinue under him was very large. He employed he said, one thousand ploughs to till the land he owned.

He lived quite a luxurious life and had many palaces. To Suddhodana was born Siddhartha Gotama who was the Buddha to be.

The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines “Ancestors” as, “A person more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is descended; A forefather; A source, A precursor. A person who proceeds another in the course of inheritance. An animal or other organism from which another has evolved.”

Throughout the twenty years the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. has been an active learning Centre many Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. ancestors have contributed to the growth and prosperity of the Centre.

For this reason we give thanks to all those past ancestors who have helped the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. to continually develop and mother it to it's current stage.

The Buddhist scriptures traditionally refer to the eighty-four thousand illusions (misunderstandings), or causes of sufferings, that plague all living creatures, and also to the eighty-four thousand Teachings of the Buddha designed to combat these illusions through understanding things as they really are.

Certain types of infrastructure work chosen by our ancestors makes it now possible for suitable conditions to continue to arise at our Centre for the ongoing teachings of Buddha Dhamma.

Our Ancestors that practiced the Buddha’s Teachings of the Ten Perfections, the Five Precepts and the Noble Eightfold Path made it possible for persons in the present to hear the Buddha Dhamma in a suitable location.

Many human beings wish to improve and are willing to allot time and energy to work in return for rewards.

The Buddha taught the Ten Perfections as a method of self-development.
Morality (Sila) is the second Perfection of the Ten Perfections.

The Ten Perfections are:
1) To be generous (dana parami)
2) To be virtuous, moral (sila parami)
3) Not to be selfish or renunciation (nekkhamma parami)
4) To be wise (panna parami)
5) To be energetic (viriya parami)
6) To be patient (khanti parami)
7) Truthfulness (sacca parami)
8) Determination (adhitthana parami)
9) Loving Kindness (metta parami)
10) Even mindfulness (upekha parami)

Because of the karmic force of these ten perfections, Bodhisattvas will be born many times in the existence of Samsara to fulfill these parami or perfections until they attain enlightenment.

Samma Sambuddha is a fully awakened one or Lord Buddha who was self enlightened without any external guidance in the final life. One who wishes to become a Samma Sambuddha has to practice the ten parami or perfections in thirty ways to purify the mind. In a suitable time after completion of the necessary perfections, he will become Samma Sambuddha in this world. Only one Samma Sambuddha will appear in a given world system at one time. In the future Samma Sambuddha will be the Lord Buddha Maithereya, (Maitreya).

Samma Sambuddha has capacity to teach others to show them the Path of Enlightenment.

To begin our development, we develop loving kindness towards all sentient beings by meditating on the kindness of our mother and then extend this to thinking of all beings as having being our mother in past lives.

The relationship of mother - child is used by Buddhist practitioners to help them generate the wish to become enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings. She fed us and clothed us and as we grew up she taught us how to behave. She taught us everything she could and then paid for us to go to school. She encouraged our studies, even though we were ungrateful.

When we left home, she was heart-broken to see us go and wished she could have done more for us. Her wish for us is that we would be free from all hardships and strife.

Just as our mother has been kind to us in this life, in the long past through countless births, all the limitless sentient beings have been our mothers. They have all nurtured and cared for us in just the same ways as our present mother.

Due to ignorance, and the inevitable effects of unwholesome actions, some of our old mothers are in births of uninterrupted pain and suffering. Unwished for sufferings pour down on them like rain.

We, on the other hand, can do nothing but watch, like a crippled mother whose only son is drowning in the river.

The only way for us to be of benefit to our old mothers and repay their great kindness is to become fully Enlightened ourselves, not for the purpose of acquiring happiness for ourselves in this or any future life, but to be an unending source of Blessings to all mother sentient beings.

To recognise the need to become Enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings, one is guided to remembering the suffering you have experienced in this life and recognise that other beings also suffer. Your wish to be free from suffering both now and in the future is common to all beings.

Furthermore, although the suffering you experience seems unbearable, the suffering of many other beings is far worse. The self-cherishing mind is preoccupied with its own self-torment, and is totally blind to the suffering of others.

The possibility of obtaining a precious human birth is very small. It is likened to a blind turtle who lives on the floor of a great ocean. Once every 100 years, the turtle swims to the surface and then returns again to the ocean floor for another 100 years.

On the surface of the ocean floats a small ring driven by the wind and tide. The frequency in which beings obtain a human birth is less often than the time taken for that blind turtle to, by chance, put its head through the floating ring.

Furthermore, it is said that the number of beings migrating from birth to birth toward the lower realms is as many as the dust particles in the universe, but the number of beings migrating toward the higher births is as many as the dust particles that would fit on your thumb nail.

Many ordinary people who do not remember their past lives normally - any more than we remember living in our mother's wombs - have remembered them under hypnosis.

When hypnotised, they have given many details of past events and ways of life which historians have since verified as correct.

Buddhists argue that body and mind are quite different in nature. Each comes from a direct cause of the same nature as itself.

In the case of birth from a womb, for example, the direct cause of the body is the semen from the father and the egg from the mother. But the mind does not come from the parents. Its direct cause is that mind at the last moment of its previous life. The mind is one continuum. The body ages and dies, but the mind goes on to a new life.

Vu Lan is one of the most important Buddhist ceremonies in Vietnam. It is the commemoration of the time when one of Guru Shakyamuni's disciples asked him the whereabouts of his dead mother.

Through his clairvoyance, Guru Shakyamuni perceived that the mother had been reborn in a Narak Realm.

The disciple meditated on Bodhicitta, made supplication to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and she was reborn in a higher realm.

During this period, Buddhists remember the kindness of their parents and their duty to repay them by looking after all their needs.

This awareness is extended to all sentient beings and caged animals are liberated. The Vietnamese Government previously had the tradition of pardoning prisoners and releasing them on this day.

It is clear that Buddhist practitioners can do much to help their mothers. Kammic links formed between mother and child go beyond death.

We would like to read you a poem written by the Venerable Master Hsing Yun for the occasion of his Mothers funeral entitled: "Grandma passed away."

This raging fire tells me that
Mother, you have finished your journey right
You lived through the cruelty of war
And heart-breaking separation of your loved ones
But you are now sitting on the golden lotus throne
I now press this green button
Looking at the ocean of fire
Quietly I look back
To the love between a mother and her son
You had taught me to care for the common weal
You had taught me to be grateful even for a water drop
To repay others' kindness with all of my heart
Dear Mother
As I press this button
It isn't the end of human affection
But a continuation of our spiritual connection
Dear mother, thank you
For teaching me to have patience
Dear mother, thank you
For teaching my to have gratitude
Dear mother, thank you
For teaching me to love
My dearest mother
As I press this button
It isn't the end of human affection
But a continuation of
our spiritual connection

May you make the causes to have good Mother and father in your next lives.
May you help your mother increase her morality this life.
May the merits of this script be shared with all Mothers for their wellbeing and happiness.

This script will be prepared and edited by the Devas and Devattas of the Radio Team, The Devas and Devattas of Learning, Anita Hughes, Alec Sloman, Jessica Cook, Leila Igracki, Amber Svensson and Julian Bamford.

References:
1. Teachings by HH Sakya trizin 5th June 1988
2. BDC(U) Newsletter 10
3. BDC(U) Newsletter 3
4. BDDR Vol 2 No 2
5. BDDR Vol9 No 3
6. The Vast Cloud and the Immense Star

Document Properties
Word count : 4129
Paragraphs : 320


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