On Filial Piety

I am mostly western-educated, and I have had the skepticism about filial piety that people like me tend to have.

I once talked to a monk who talked about the debt of gratitude we owe our parents, and being an angsty teenager, I was immediately skeptical. I remember asking the monk directly "is it not possible for your parents to be such terrible people that they are not deserving of love and gratitude?". I didn't understand the answer very well, but I remember it was some form of "no". I still think it was a fair question. We often hear about parents who have committed unspeakable atrocities to their children, or raise them with such neglect that the children become a menace to the world. Do even those parents deserve gratitude?

Today I think the answer is clear to me. If I could talk to my teenage self, I would offer the following corrections to his world view.

Firstly, to be grateful to your parents does not always equate to being blindly obedient. It is to forgive them for the way they are, the karmas they have accrued, and the habits that they have. It's to see them the way the Buddha sees us: pure in essence and worthy of peace and happiness. If they seem flawed, it is because they have yet to find their best self. No human is free from the wheels of conditionality, their imperfections are simply the way things are. They are this way, because of the causes and conditions. Just like you. If you understand this, there is no reason to be upset with anything. Once you see their habits as a matter of collective suffering, and not a personal matter, you might begin realize you have the ability to guide them out of suffering.

Secondly, to be grateful to your parents is to be grateful for the causes of your birth. People who resent their parents, it could be said that they resent the cause of their existence. Causes and effects are inseparable. We are the causes, and we are the effects. We are what came before, and we are what comes after. To hate the cause of one's being is akin to hating the world. On the other hand, if you can feel gratitude towards the causes of your existence, you will be at peace with the world. I think that is why the monks all guide us towards gratitude. The moment you find the gratitude for your parents in your heart, that is the same moment you start to love the world.

Whether they are still here with you, whether they are close or estranged, I hope you can find it in your hearts to appreciate the very reason you get to experience this world. This is not a matter of obedience or authority. It's not that they are right just because they are older. It's not that they can do what they want just because they are your parents. Such things are irrelevant to me. It is simply a matter of how you view causality. To have gratitude for your preconditions is the key to being truly at peace with the world.