The Mudita Parents Retreat: July 2013

What is the Mudita Parents Retreat ?

The format of the group is to meet for a Dhamma discussion and a short meditation session with our parents once a month to encourage our daily practice at home. This group was inspired after a discussion among some good friends (kalyana mitta) about our sense of responsibility of sharing Dhamma as children with our parents. As Buddha said it is the only way that we can repay our parents who have given us unconditional love and affection to help us to be what we are today. The purpose of this group is to further develop our mindfulness practice as a group, both parents and their children. The final goal is to liberate ourselves from this Samsara, the complete freedom from suffering, the ultimate bliss, the Nibbana.

Paying gratitude to parents: The words of Buddha

"I tell you, monks, there are two people who are not easy to repay. Which two? Your mother & father. Even if you were to carry your mother on one shoulder & your father on the other shoulder for 100 years, and were to look after them by anointing, massaging, bathing, & rubbing their limbs, and they were to defecate & urinate right there [on your shoulders], you would not in that way pay or repay your parents. If you were to establish your mother & father in absolute sovereignty over this great earth, abounding in the seven treasures, you would not in that way pay or repay your parents. Why is that? Mother & father do much for their children. They care for them, they nourish them, they introduce them to this world.

"But anyone who rouses his unbelieving mother & father, settles & establishes them in conviction; rouses his unvirtuous mother & father, settles & establishes them in virtue; rouses his stingy mother & father, settles & establishes them in generosity; rouses his foolish mother & father, settles & establishes them in discernment: To this extent one pays & repays one's mother & father."

— AN 2.32

"The Lessons of Gratitude", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.Access to Insight, 28 July 2012,http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/lessonsofgratitude.html . Retrieved on 27 June 2013.

The only true way to repay your parents

The only true way to repay your parents is to strengthen them in four qualities: conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment. To do so, of course, you have to develop these qualities in yourself, as well as learning how to employ great tact in being an example to your parents. As it happens, these four qualities are also those of an admirable friend (AN 8.54), which means that in repaying your parents in this way you become the sort of person who'd be an admirable friend to others as well.

-Thanissaro Bhikkhu

"The Lessons of Gratitude", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.Access to Insight, 28 July 2012,http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/lessonsofgratitude.html . Retrieved on 28 June 2013.

The Mudita Parents Retreat

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Pictures from the first session: The Four Noble Truths