Buddhist Resources for Anyone's Mother's Day

In the gentle heritage of Buddhism, you can find beautiful resources for Mother's Day that you can enjoy and share with your mother, no matter what faiths you and she may have.

Thich Nhat Hanh: "A Rose for Your Pocket" and for Mother's Day

In his essay "A Rose for Your Pocket" (here), the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (more), one of the most prolific and engaging teachers in modern Buddhism, discusses mothers and motherhood, without using the word Buddha, typical of many of his teachings.

Also typical of Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings, "A Rose for Your Pocket" does not give us any startling new spiritual insights. My most vivid memory of this piece is not of such teachings as "If we accept growing up, we must accept suffering," but instead of his memories of his mother's cooking.

You might print the essay in an appealing font to share with your mother or send it to her in an email. It is easy to learn more from Thich Nhat Hanh. If you find any books on Buddhism in a book store, there will most likely be something by him. You can find many videos of him teaching by following this link to Google Video's search results (here).

A splitting headache and a thousand hands: a Buddhist image for Mother's Day

One of the most attractive figures in Buddhist traditions is known as Quan Yin (more) or Guan Yin or Kwannon (or even Avalokiteshvara - more). Quan Yin took a vow that she would not pursue her own enlightenment as long as any living beings were still trapped in the web of suffering. Her head split into eleven (the actual number varies from tradition to tradition) distinct heads, so that she could better hear the suffering of the world, and her arms split into a thousand arms, so that she could reach out to the all suffering beings.

A dance by a troupe from China, based on the compassion of Quan Yin with her thousand arms, can be seen in several videos on YouTube. My favorite is here. Watching the amazing coordination of the dancers, portraying Quan Yin, who hears the cries of the world, remember that they are deaf.

If your mother is Internet savvy, sure this video would bring a few minutes of peace to her computer... or to anyone's computer.

"Mother's Day for Buddhists"

Last year, I wrote an article "Mother's Day for Buddhists" (here) in which I discussed the ways that Buddhists could share the tradition of Mother's Day and the traditions of Buddhism with their non-Buddhist family members. This article, of course, is oriented more toward people who are not Buddhist who can enrich Mother's Day by drawing on Buddhist resources.

This is not an attempt to "convert" you to Buddhism or to question your own faith or spiritual path. I am simply sharing with you some very special resources for Mother's Day that happen to come from Buddhist traditions.

Why connect Buddhism and Mother's Day?

Many people in the West have the idea that Buddhism is a harsh, life-denying path. Watch a few minutes of a video of Thich Nhat Hanh (here) or of the Dalai Lama (here), and you will see that is not true. Buddhism is a path, perhaps not even a religion, of infinite compassion, literally feeling (-passion) with (com-), not just for our fellow human beings but for all sentient beings.

In his own teaching, the Buddha emphasized loyalty to one's parents, perhaps because his mother, Queen Maya, died in childbirth (or a few days afterwards, since the sources of information about the life of the Buddha disagree). Her sister, Pajapati, the Buddha's aunt, brought him up, and in later years, it was in response to her request that that the Buddha allowed for the formation of an order of nuns. A poem (here) attributed to her includes these lines: "I've been mother and son before; And father, brother, grandmother too."

"You Don't Have to Be Buddhist to Appreciate Buddhism"

I titled an index page of my articles about Buddhism and other resources "You Don't Have to Be Buddhist to Appreciate Buddhism" (here), with the subtitle, "Buddhism for Non-Buddhists." In my article, "How to Find Buddhist Texts Online" (here), I provide links to libraries of Buddhist works available for free.

May all beings be happy!