The Reverence of Parents in Buddhism : หน้า 162/207

In Buddhist teachings, parents are revered as Arunhatans in the family. They are the first teachers to their children. There is a Thai saying that at the parents’ feet are gateways to the heavenly realms. Thai children express their respect and show gratitude to their parents by bowing at their feet. In addition, in their old age, parents should be taken care of by their children. However, nowadays, old parents who are neglected have become a major problem in Thai society where Buddhism is the most common religion. Our ancestors taught that a person’s success depends upon how well he treats his parents to whom he owns his gratitude. Because their kindness is incomparable, if a person does not realize and appreciate this fact, he will not be gracious to others as well. Whoever neglects their parents, the gateway to the heavenly realms and prosperity will be shut. Our ancestors remind us of the following important issue. When we look back to our infancy, we could not help ourselves. But if our parents became tired of us and left us in garbage cans or along the roadside, we could never survive our own. Suppose we were to survive, we may have become homeless children who starved and had no future at all. Therefore, because of their help and acceptance of us into their family, our debt of gratitude to them is incomparable. Their kindness is beyond what we can repay. Think for a moment: they sometimes starved and sacrificed for us, so we could be fed. They struggled in every way to raise us into grown adults. For this reason, we must repay our debt of gratitude to them as best as we can. From the aforementioned scenario, if we think about becoming old or being future grandparents, of course, we will become senile and feeble. We may depend on our children for our every movement, even for our trips to the toilet. Our physical bodies will be worn down and this will cause us and our children to feel uneasy. Without gratitude and the true love our children have for us, we may become neglected. However, some are only patiently caring for their parents or grandparents with the expectation of an inheritance. How can we prevent this problem of ungraciousness to those worthy of our reverence? With great vision and wisdom, our ancestors had clear criteria for solving this problem. Primarily, parents must assign their children to be helpers in caring for their grandparents from the time they are little. As a result, they will automatically bear witness to their parents’ actions. In later life, they will treat their own parents in the same manner as they did with their grandparents. Also important, to effectively inculcate gratefulness in children, parents must have them participate in caring for their