Mother's Day for Buddhists

Many people in the West who have chosen the Buddhist path see their relationships with their families suffer. Mother's Day is a great time to show your parents that by following a path of spiritual development that is different from theirs, you are not rejecting them.

The Buddha put a great emphasis on the importance of 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). The queen's 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.

It may be because he was so conscious of losing his mother and yet being consoled by the love of his adoptive mother that he took the example of the love of a mother for her child as the model of spiritual love that raises itself up to the ideal,

The Buddha taught in the suttas (the oldest Buddhist texts) that it is not easy to repay your father and your mother for your "precious human birth." In face, he specifies that even if you carried them on your shoulders for a century, taking good care of them, and allowing them to relieve themselves on you, you would still have a debt to them. That goes way beyond the rather vague Judeo-Christian commandment to honor your parents.

In one of the most repeated stories in the many volumes of Buddhist teachings, the Buddha tells of a young mother who turned to him for comfort after the death of her child, which she could not bring herself to acknowledge. He replied that there was a very simple remedy, mustard seed. Now, as we know from references in the New Testament, a mustard seed is a small, insignificant thing indeed, so she quickly brightened up at this news. The Buddha continued that this mustard seed simply had to come from a house where no one had died.

As she went into the town, people would gladly give her a few seeds, but when she asked if anyone in the house had died, she was not so lucky. Not one house in the town had been untouched by death. By nightfall, she had learned the lesson that the Buddha had not had to speak. She was not the only person on earth who had lost a loved one.

Love for the mother, in the context of the Buddhist belief in rebirth, extends to all living beings. According to the Lankavatara Sutra, in the endless cycles of time that are accounted for in Buddhist teachings, every living being has at one time or another been your mother or father, your brother or sister, your son or daughter. The Christian poet John Donne wrote, "Every man's death diminishes me." For a Buddhist, that is very limiting. Every death, according to Buddhist teaching, diminishes us all.

A bodhisattva is an enlightened being who vows not to leave the world of samsara, that is, birth, death, and rebirth, until all beings have attained enlightenment. There are many female bodhisattvas identified in different Buddhist traditions. One of the most famous is Guan Yin. In different traditions and languages, her name may be spelled as Kuan Yin or Kwannon. Her name means "hearing the cries of the world." It is said that as she heard these cries, her two arms were not enough to reach out to all those who were suffering, and so, she now has anywhere from eight to one thousand arms, and she is sometimes referred to as the Buddhist Madonna.

Buddhists very highly regard their mothers, as did the Buddha himself. In many predominantly Buddhist countries, there are days set aside especially to commemorate mothers. If you, as a Buddhist, find yourself having difficulty with your parents this Mother's Day, remember to show them the compassion that is such an important part of our tradition.

If you have questions about Buddhism that you would like for me to explore, please get in touch with me, and let me know.