Tiny Beacon of Light

Many of us are or have been fortunate enough to have loving parents who tried their very best for us. Others, unfortunately, have or had parents who were less than ideal or even abusive. As Buddhists, we believe that we are drawn to our parents because of karmic connections. After death and before our next birth, we are plunged into darkness. In that overwhelming confusion, we are pulled to our parents as if they were a tiny beacon of light piercing that darkness.

There are four reasons that we are drawn to and born to our parents : to repay a kindness, to have kindness repaid to us, to repay a debt, or to exact repayment of a debt.

The child who is well behaved when young and loving when grown, and who affectionately tends to the parents’ needs and wishes is repaying past kindness. The parent who tenderly cares for the infant and who does everything he or she can to provide for the growing child’s physical and emotional needs is repaying kindness to the child. The unselfish care of both the attentive child and the caring parents in these two examples is natural and freely given. The attention and nurturing continue as long as the kind ness from an earlier lifetime is yet to be repaid and the thoughtfulness yet to be returned.

On the other hand, the child who owes a debt to the parent may well spend a lifetime trying to please or provide for the parent. Although the parent may not acknowledge and may even put down the child’s efforts, the child will continue to repay the debt that he or she owes from an earlier lifetime. Whatever the debt may be, the repayment could be financial or entail physical effort, or it could take other forms.

The child who comes to exact repayment of a debt may cause the parent endless worry and pain by being disobedient or demanding. They may fall ill frequently or have an ongoing medical condition and need much attention and care from the parent.

Regardless of the reason we are born to our parents and regardless of their treatment of us, we still owe our parents an immense debt of gratitude. Even if our parents did nothing else for us, and most par ents do not fall into this category, at the very least they provided us with the physical opportunity to be born. For nine months, our mothers carried and nur tured us until we reached the time of birth. They then underwent many hours of pain to bring us safely into this world. For many of us, our parents looked after us for years, sacrificing their personal comfort so we might have better lives than theirs.

But if our parents did not care for and nurture us, and if all they did was to give us our body and thus our life, we still cannot repay our debt of gratitude to them. Without them, we would not be here today striving to learn how to be more compassionate, altruistic beings.

So whatever the reasons we were born to our parents, whatever the circumstances we grew up in, however we feel about our parents, our debt to them is immeasurable.