In cultivating one's humanness, one should take the natural, spontaneous virtues of his heart and expand upon them to all of humanity and beyond into the cosmos. When one practices love for one's family, one's heart is awakened to commiseration, pity, compassion, care, and all the noble virtues. Because one's heart is awakened in this way, one can use these forces to have commiseration, pity, compassion, care for all others, friends and strangers.
Many people experience true love only when they first have children. This is the first time in their lives they understand sacrifice, undying and unconditional care, and are fully willing to suffer for their love.
When people become parents they also naturally begin to develop commiseration for both other parents and children in general. Because they can know fully the difficulties of loving and raising their own children, they naturally begin to have compassion for other parents who struggle. Because they fear their own children hurt, they naturally begin to have compassion for other children who struggle or are in pain. Becoming a parent not only brings one in union with one's children, but begins to put one in union with all other parents and children as well.
Parents who are cultivators should then take this natural commiseration and cultivate it, developing its depth and extending it to the world. Seeing every person as someone's child, they should ask themselves "how would I like someone else to treat my child in this situation?" Would I want someone else to lust after him/her? Would I want someone else to disparage him/her, or otherwise hurt him/her? Would I want someone else to convince him/her of foolish things? In doing so, cultivators naturally develop deep pity, strong ethical conduct, and great benevolence.
Those who truly love their husbands or wives should also ask themselves "how would I like someone else to treat my spouse in this situation?" Seeing every person as someone's spouse or someone's future wife or husband, they should inquire within themselves. Would I want someone else to lust after him/her? Would I want someone else to disparage him/her, or otherwise harm or hurt him/her? Would I want someone else to convince him/her of foolish things? In doing so, cultivators naturally develop deep pity, strong ethical conduct, and great benevolence.
Those who truly love their brothers and sisters should also ask themselves "how would I like someone else to treat my brother or sister in this situation?" Seeing every person as someone's brother or sister, they should inquire within themselves. Would I want someone else to lust after him/her? Would I want someone else to disparage him/her, or otherwise hurt him/her? Would I want someone else to convince him/her of foolish things? In doing so, cultivators naturally develop deep pity, strong ethical conduct, and great benevolence.
To love someone deeply means to care for them deeply. In caring for someone deeply, one's care becomes unconditional. To be unattached to conditions means to love someone without demand of conditioned things, first including physical appearance, then personality, lastly personal relation, and then completely unconditionally. When one masters these things, he sees his beloved in all others and cannot bring himself to harm others.
However, among the four types of familial love (spousal, parental, sibling, and filial), filial piety has a special place.
Why is filial piety special? Because filial piety is easily aspired toward, but most difficult to manifest. To bridge the gap between aspiration and practice demands such great self-cultivation, that anyone who can master filial piety can become a truly noble person in mind and heart.
Why is filial piety worthy of aspiration? Because our parents' love is far deeper and vaster than the world's oceans combined. A parent's love is so strong that a parent is willing to die and suffer eternally for the benefit of his/her children. A parent's love is so intense that every moment of a parent's life, awake or in slumber, is filled with the nagging anxiety of the possibility that at any given moment something horrible might be happening to his/her child.
When I was in college, I hadn't return my mother's phone messages in a long time. At one point she left me a message that said sadly, "I just want to hear your voice." Only years later did I understand what that meant. Even if the conversation is short and with little content, it's meaningful to the parent; my mother just wanted to feel that I was safe, alive, and well.
There is no human force in the world stronger than a parent's love. And if there is any justice in one's heart, one ought to at least attempt to return the great love and care to one's parents.
How is filial piety and love difficult to manifest? Because unlike parental love, filial love does not come naturally. Animal parents naturally care and sacrifice for their animal offspring, but the animal offspring never sacrifices its life for its mother. No animal can even recognize its own mother after a certain age. There is no biological origin for filial love. Filial love comes exclusively from a human heart.
How is the human heart capable of filial love? Because the human heart has gratitude. Only when one is grateful for the love another gives him, can he truly appreciate this love. One must be grateful for not only the material comforts that one's parents give him (such as clothing, housing, food, and the products of wealth), but the profound love of one's parents.
How is the human heart capable of filial love? Because the human heart has imagination. Though one may or may not yet be a parent himself, he can take his own experiences in loving others (his children or otherwise) and use his imagination to extend this understanding of love to that of his parents. Through this imagination, he attains commiseration and harmony with his parents.
How is the human heart capable of filial love? Because the human heart has justice. Because a parent's love is so valuable and rich, and given to a child without expectation or condition, a person with any sense of justice will attempt to return this love. When one is given something good, small or great, one feels that he/she should return the gesture. Why is parental love any different?
To master these qualities requires one to truly expand and deepen one’s heart. To sincerely embark on returning a parent’s love, one’s sense of gratitude and justice must be great. This sincerity then leads one to truly understand his parents love and to return this love.
As one masters these qualities, one benefits himself and others. As he becomes more grateful he becomes more happy in his life. With gratefulness comes a sense of richness, for when one treasures everything he has, he feels truly rich. With justice, one becomes more compassionate and seeks to return the goodwill given to him from anyone. Through imagination, one becomes more sensitive and understanding of the joys and sufferings of others, allowing him to become harmonious with them.
To appreciate one's parents fully, one must truly master gratitude and appreciation; sensitivity, understanding and wisdom; care, compassion and love. In mastering these qualities, he can extend these great virtues to benefit the world.
How can one return a parent's love in practice? To do this is full measure is nearly impossible. One can shelter, feed, and clothes one's parents, but this is not fully repaying one's parents, because this is not the essence of a parent's great love. A stranger, a government, an organization can provide shelter, food, and clothing. The essence of a parent's great love contains the unconditional care, neurotic anxiety, and willingness to die and suffer greatly. This love is extremely rare in the world, and what is truly valuable. These are the things that must be returned.
But, except for a theoretical few, one can only come close to returning in full this great love from one's parents. So how can one attempt to repay one's parents?
First, by sincerely attempting to repay this love in full. Even though such a feat might be impossible, one is not human if one cannot even attempt to try.
Second, by having children of one's own can one pay homage to one's parents. When one becomes a parent, he loves as a parent and begins to truly understand his parents. By giving his children the same or greater love his parents gave to him, he pays homage to the greatness of his parents’ love for him.
Third, one can teach one’s parents profound teachings that lead them to greater happiness. If one’s parents are deficient in morality, one should help them self-cultivate. If one’s parents are lacking in spiritual character, one should help them self-cultivate. For a son or daughter to help one’s parents in this way is extremely difficult, but very worthwhile.
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