Author Topic: A mother's love  (Read 15442 times)

bambi

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A mother's love
« on: July 01, 2012, 05:01:23 PM »
Long ago, in the hills of the Himalayas near a lotus pool, the Buddha was once born as a baby elephant. He was a magnificent elephant, pure white with feet and face the color of coral. His trunk gleamed like a silver rope and his ivory tusks curled up in a long arc.
He followed his mother everywhere. She plucked the tenderest leaves and sweetest mangoes from the tall trees and gave them to him. "First you, then me," she said. She bathed him in the cool lotus pool among the fragrant flowers. Drawing the sparkling water up in her trunk, she sprayed him over the top of his head and back until he shone. Then filling his trunk with water, he took careful aim and squirted a perfect geyser right between his mother's eyes. Without blinking, she squirted him back. And back and forth, they gleefully squirted and splashed each other. Splish! Splash!
Then they rested in the soft muck with their trunks curled together. In the deep shadows of afternoon, the mother elephant rested in the shade of a rose-apple tree and watched her son romp and frolic with the other baby elephants.
The little elephant grew and grew until he was the tallest and strongest young bull in the herd. And while he grew taller and stronger, his mother grew older and older. Her tusks were yellow and broken and in time she became blind. The young elephant plucked the tenderest leaves and sweetest mangoes from the tall trees and gave them to his dear old blind mother. "First you, then me," he said.

He bathed her in the cool lotus pool among the fragrant flowers. Drawing the sparkling water up in his trunk, he sprayed her over the top of her head and back until she shone. Then they rested in the soft muck with their trunks curled together. In the deep shadows of afternoon, the young elephant guided his mother to the shade of a rose-apple tree. Then he went roaming with the other elephants. One day a king was hunting and spied the beautiful white
elephant. "What a splendid animal! I must have him to ride upon!" So the king captured the elephant and put him in the royal stable. He adorned him with silk and jewels and garlands of lotus flowers. He gave him sweet grass and juicy plums and filled his trough with pure water.

But the young elephant would not eat or drink. He wept and wept, growing thinner each day. "Noble elephant," said the king, "I adorn you with silk and jewels. I give you the finest food and the purest water, yet you do not eat or drink. What will please you?" The young elephant said, "Silk and jewels, food and drink do not make me happy. My blind old mother is alone in the forest with no one to care for her. Though I may die, I will take no food or water until I give some to her first."

The king said, "Never have I seen such kindness, not even among humans. It is not right to keep this young elephant in chains." Free, the young elephant raced through the hills looking for his mother. He found her by the lotus pool. There she lay in the mud, too weak to move. With tears in his eyes, he filled his trunk with water and sprayed the top of her head and back until she shone. "Is it raining?" she asked. "Or has my son returned to me?" "It is your very own son!" he cried. "The king has set me free!" As he washed her eyes, a miracle happened. Her sight returned. "May the king rejoice today as I rejoice at seeing my son again!" she said.

The young elephant then plucked the tenderest leaves and sweetest mangoes from a tree and gave them to her. "First you, then me."


Such a touching story! What do you think?

bambi

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #1 on: July 02, 2012, 11:04:59 AM »
Our mothers in all lives are kind and loving for the effort that they pour onto us as their children.Who doesn't want to repay their kindness? Loving kindness to all beings without discrimination. We should not look at their physical or beauty but remind ourselves that they are beautiful from beginningless rebirths as our mother. They gave us lives and carried us for months, giving up their freedom and time just for us. Because she did that, we are here to be able to practice Dharma. Classic example of how Buddha, even as an elephant, realized how much His mother did for him from when He was born till he grew up.

Jessie Fong

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #2 on: July 02, 2012, 11:46:39 AM »
This fable not only talks about a mother's love but filial piety.

A mother will go through thick and thin to ensure the well being of her child, having his interests over and above hers.  The white elephant in turn showered his mother with his care and love.  While in the royal stable with so many things that he could not obtain in the jungle, he did not lose sight of the love and care that his mother had shown for him while he was growing up. He realised and understood that nothing could replace his mother.

Animals react to kindness because they have feelings too.  And they are capable to returning love and care.  In Buddha's previous life as the baby elephant, he was able to show love and kindness to his mother.

ratanasutra

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2012, 06:13:40 PM »
Mother love towards child is an uncondition love as she only want to do and ensure that all the things for her child are the best, comfortable and happy. Many of mother would exchange herself to the child when the child has to go through the pain of illness. Love from mother is wide andhe far than the ocean.

Mother's love is the first love and kindness which we receive in our life since the child still as a fetus in the mother womb. How many of us that realize that and do something to pay back her love and kindness? Its can be by physically to take care of her well-being, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. How many of us think about mother when we do a prayer and dedication? Did you do puja dedicate for your mother before? Did you really think about her future life and start something for her? Have you bring her to the temple so that she can see and make offering to the beautiful buddha staute? etc

One of the best way we can do for our mother is to guide her into spiritual path ie take her to temple, make donation, recite mantra, attend puja, retreat (if she her physical able to), introduce her to Dorje shugden, set up an alter for her, buy her a pendant to wear and encourage her to recite Dorje shugden mantra daily.

If we do as mentioned above when the time of death come, we will never regret about it.
 

bambi

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #4 on: July 03, 2012, 05:19:48 PM »
This fable not only talks about a mother's love but filial piety.

A mother will go through thick and thin to ensure the well being of her child, having his interests over and above hers.  The white elephant in turn showered his mother with his care and love.  While in the royal stable with so many things that he could not obtain in the jungle, he did not lose sight of the love and care that his mother had shown for him while he was growing up. He realised and understood that nothing could replace his mother.

Animals react to kindness because they have feelings too.  And they are capable to returning love and care.  In Buddha's previous life as the baby elephant, he was able to show love and kindness to his mother.

Oh yes. Filial piety! A mother's love cannot be compared to a father's love for she carried the baby for months and nurse the baby till she is able to take care of itself. A mother's love will never lessen even after we are adults. All they ever do is put their child 1st then herself. As such, there are 10 types of kindnesses that a mother have for her child.

The first is the kindness of providing protection and care while the child is in the womb.

The second is the kindness of bearing suffering during the birth.

The third is the kindness of forgetting all the pain once the child has been born.

The fourth is the kindness of eating the bitter herself and saving the sweet for the child.

The fifth is the kindness of moving the child to a dry place and lying in the wet herself.

The sixth is the kindness of suckling the child at her breast, nourishing and bringing up the child.

The seventh is the kindness of washing away the unclean.

The eight is the kindness of always thinking of the child when it has traveled far.

The ninth is the kindness of deep care and devotion.

The tenth is the kindness of ultimate pity and sympathy.

bambi

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #5 on: July 03, 2012, 05:21:39 PM »
For those who wants to know more :

The Filial Piety Sutra

The Buddha Speaks about the Deep Kindness of Parents and the Difficulty in Repaying it.

The Buddha told Ananda, "Although all of you are my foremost disciples and have been members of the Sangha for a long time, you still have not achieved far-reaching understanding. This pile of bones could have belonged to my ancestors from former lives. They could have been my parents in many past lives. That is the reason I now bow to them." The Buddha continued speaking to Ananda, "These bones we are looking at can be divided into two groups. One group is composed of the bones of men, which are heavy and white in color. The other group is composed of the bones of women, which are light and black in color."

Ananda said to the Buddha, "World Honoured One, when men are alive in the world, they adorn their bodies with robes, belts, shoes, hats and other fine attire, so that they clearly assume a male appearance. When women are alive, they put on cosmetics, perfumes, powders, and elegant fragrances to adorn their bodies, so that they clearly assume a female appearance. Yet, once man and women die, all that is left are their bones. How does one tell them apart? Please teach us how you are able to distinguish them."

The Buddha answered Ananda, "If when men are in the world, they enter temples, listen to explanations of Sutras and Vinaya texts, make obeisance to the Triple Gem, and recite the Buddha's names, then when they die, their bones will be heavy and white in colour. Most women in the world have little wisdom and are saturated with emotion. They give birth to and raise children, feeling that this is their duty. Each child relies on its mother's milk for life and nourishment, and that milk is a transformation of the mother's blood. Each child can drink up to one thousand two hundred gallons of its mother's milk. Because of this drain on the mother's body whereby the child takes milk for its nourishment, the mother becomes worn and haggard and so her bones turn black in colour and are light in weight."

When Ananda heard these words, he felt a pain in his heart as if he had been stabbled and wept silently. He said to the World Honoured One, "How can one repay one's mother's kindness and virtue?"

The Buddha told Ananda, "Listen well, and I will explain it for you in detail. The fetus grows in its mother's womb for ten lunar months. What bitterness she goes though while it dwells there! In the first month of pregnancy, the life of the fetus is as precarious as a dewdrop on grass: how likely that it will not last from morning to evening but will evaporate by midday!"

"During the second lunar month, the embryo congeals like curds. In the third month it is like coagulated blood. During the fourth month of pregnancy, the fetus begins to assume a slightly human form. During the fifth month in the womb, the child's five limbs- two legs, two arms, and a head- start to take shape. In the sixth lunar month of pregnancy, the child begins to develop the essences of the six sense faculties: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. During the seventh month, the three hundred sixty bones and joints are formed, and the eighty-four thousand hair pores are also complete. In the eight lunar month of the pregnancy, the intellect and the nine apertures are formed. By the ninth month the fetus has learned to assimilate the different nutrients of the foods it eats. For example, it can assimilate the essence of peaches, pears, certain plant roots and the five kinds of grains."

"Inside the mother's body, the solid internal organs used for storing hang downward, while the hollow internal organs used for processing, spiral upward. These can be likened to three mountains, which arise from the face of the earth. We can call these mountains Mount Sumeru, Karma Mountain, and Blood Mountain. These analogous mountains come together and form a single range in a pattern of upward peaks and downward valleys. So too, the coagulation of the mother's blood from her internal organs forms a single substance, which becomes the child's food."

"During the tenth month of pregnancy, the body of the fetus is completed and ready to be born. If the child is extremely filial, it will emerge with palms joined together in respect and the birth will be peaceful and auspicious. The mother will remain uninjured by the birth and will not suffer pain. However, if the child is extremely rebellious in nature, to the extent that it is capable of committing the five rebellious acts*, then it will injure its mother's womb, rip apart its mother's heart and liver, or get entangled in its mother's bones. The birth will feel like the slices of a thousand knives or like ten thousand sharp swords stabbing her heart. Those are the agonies involved in the birth of a defiant and rebellious child."

brian

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #6 on: July 03, 2012, 05:29:30 PM »
Mother's love is ever so compassionate. Even if you did anything wrong to her, she will always forgive you and will love you just the way you are. However bad that you will treat her, she will always be there for you. Even if there is an arguement, the mother will always forgives. Even animals as fierce as tigers do not eat up their own child.

However, if the mother love the child in a wrong way, meaning she gives in whatever the child would want or want to do, then it will back fire as the child will make more unbearable demands to the extend it became an expectation which in normal terms deemed as spoilt. It is very critical not to make your child being a spoilt brat.

Big Uncle

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #7 on: July 03, 2012, 07:50:33 PM »
The compassion of a Buddha and even a Bodhisattva is boundless and impossible for us to imagine or evoked with mere words. Hence, it is always described with the closest comparison to a mother's pure and selfless concern for her child.

The next step is to develop that kind of unaffected compassion towards all beings by coming to the realization that every being was our mother once and so we have to extend the kindness and concern of our mothers to everyone we meet. That's one method that we can repay the kindness and love of all our mothers.

If we develop that well, this love can arise spontaneously in us and the more spontaneously compassionate we become, the closer we get to enlightenment

Jessie Fong

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #8 on: July 04, 2012, 04:14:43 AM »
This fable not only talks about a mother's love but filial piety.

A mother will go through thick and thin to ensure the well being of her child, having his interests over and above hers.  The white elephant in turn showered his mother with his care and love.  While in the royal stable with so many things that he could not obtain in the jungle, he did not lose sight of the love and care that his mother had shown for him while he was growing up. He realised and understood that nothing could replace his mother.

Animals react to kindness because they have feelings too.  And they are capable to returning love and care.  In Buddha's previous life as the baby elephant, he was able to show love and kindness to his mother.


Oh yes. Filial piety! A mother's love cannot be compared to a father's love for she carried the baby for months and nurse the baby till she is able to take care of itself. A mother's love will never lessen even after we are adults. All they ever do is put their child 1st then herself. As such, there are 10 types of kindnesses that a mother have for her child.

The first is the kindness of providing protection and care while the child is in the womb.

The second is the kindness of bearing suffering during the birth.

The third is the kindness of forgetting all the pain once the child has been born.

The fourth is the kindness of eating the bitter herself and saving the sweet for the child.

The fifth is the kindness of moving the child to a dry place and lying in the wet herself.

The sixth is the kindness of suckling the child at her breast, nourishing and bringing up the child.

The seventh is the kindness of washing away the unclean.

The eight is the kindness of always thinking of the child when it has traveled far.

The ninth is the kindness of deep care and devotion.

The tenth is the kindness of ultimate pity and sympathy.




http://mothering.com/parenting/the-science-of-mother-love


A growing body of scientific evidence shows that the way babies are cared for by their mothers will determine not only their emotional development, but the biological development of the child's brain and central nervous system as well.

The nature of love, and how the capacity to love develops, has become the subject of scientific study over the last decade. New data is emerging from a multitude of disciplines including neurology, psychology, biology, ethology, anthropology and neurocardiology. Something scientific disciplines find in common when putting love under the microscope is that in addition to shaping the brains of infants, mother's love acts as a template for love itself and has far reaching effects on her child's ability to love throughout life.

To mothers holding their newborn babies it will come as little surprise that the 'decade of the brain' has lead science to the wisdom of the mother's heart.




A mother's love knows no boundary.  In fact, I think she loves us more than she loves herself for she will sacrifice for her children.

Nothing can compare to a mother's love, the person who carried you inside her, fed you, bathed you, brought you up - she gave you everything.

If only we could treat everyone like how we would treat our mothers (accepting that all beings have been our mothers before).

I don't think we could ever repay our mother's love.

lotus1

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #9 on: July 04, 2012, 12:17:23 PM »
A mother’s love to her child is beyond words can express. This is especially true for the first kindness of the 10 types kindness that a mother have for her child, i.e. the kindness of protection and care while the child is in the womb. Mothers have to go through a lot of discomfort, difficulties and even dangers to take care of her child and make sure the fetus is growing healthy in her womb.
The is also the reason as of why to develop the mind of Bodhichitta, we should first treat all sentient beings as our mother as we can relate better on our mother’s love to us.
Below are the sevenfold instructions on training the mind for bodhichitta:
1.   Understanding all sentient beings to be your mother
2.   Remembering their kindness
3.   Repaying their kindness
4.   Meditating on the love that comes from the force of attraction
5.   The great compassion
6.   Altruism
7.   Developing Bodhichitta

kris

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #10 on: July 17, 2012, 11:13:19 AM »
A mother’s love to her child is beyond words can express. This is especially true for the first kindness of the 10 types kindness that a mother have for her child, i.e. the kindness of protection and care while the child is in the womb. Mothers have to go through a lot of discomfort, difficulties and even dangers to take care of her child and make sure the fetus is growing healthy in her womb.
The is also the reason as of why to develop the mind of Bodhichitta, we should first treat all sentient beings as our mother as we can relate better on our mother’s love to us.
Below are the sevenfold instructions on training the mind for bodhichitta:
1.   Understanding all sentient beings to be your mother
2.   Remembering their kindness
3.   Repaying their kindness
4.   Meditating on the love that comes from the force of attraction
5.   The great compassion
6.   Altruism
7.   Developing Bodhichitta

Yes, filial piety is a very powerful tool, and the compassion a mother give to her child is beyond the description of words. Even the most evil of all criminals have a soft spot in their heart for their mother because of all her conditional caring and giving.

That's why I love the sevenfold instructions of training the mind for Bodhichitta. It just make so much sense. Since we have countless lives, and in each life, we have a mother, therefore we should have countless mothers, and as such all sentient beings are (at least) once my mother before. This "concept" has calmed my mind a lot, especially when people mistreat me.

Of course I am still a long way to great compassion... :P

pgdharma

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #11 on: July 17, 2012, 03:03:37 PM »
A mother means the world to a child. It is she who protects, nourishes and bestows her children with love and care. It is she who sacrifices many things in life to give to her children. A mother will protect her children with her life and it is important that children should take care and repay the kindness of their mother. A mother's love is priceless and unconditional.

In this case, even though the elephant had all the luxuries accorded to him by the King, yet he was still unhappy as he was not able to take care of his old age mother. His filial piety was stronger than all the good trappings in life and he remembered the kindness of his mother.

RedLantern

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #12 on: July 18, 2012, 10:07:51 AM »

A mother's love is a commitment of lifelong selflessness and cannot be measured.Her love is unconditional that there  are no words to describe.
Buddha stated that there are two people in this world that you will never able to repay,even if you were to carry them on your back and bathe them and clean them up after their increments,we still would not be able to repay our mother and father.That is because they gave us life,something we could not do on our own.
Buddha showed us even as an elephant ,he showered his love,kindness and respect for his mother who became blind due to old age.He didn't abandon her for luxury and repay her kindness.
Thank you for a beautiful and touching story,Bambi on filial piety.

buddhalovely

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #13 on: August 05, 2012, 07:16:27 AM »
An inspirational story on a mother's love

A little boy came up to his mother in the kitchen one evening while she was fixing supper, and handed her a piece of paper that he had been writing on. After his Mom dried her hands on an apron, she read it, and this is what it said:

For cutting the grass: $5.00
For cleaning up my room this week: $1.00
For going to the store for you: $.50
Baby-sitting my kid brother while you went shopping: $.25
Taking out the garbage: $1.00
For getting a good report card: $5.00
For cleaning up and raking the yard: $2.00
Total owed: $14.75

Well, his mother looked at him standing there, and the boy could see the memories flashing through her mind. She picked up the pen, turned over the paper he’d written on, and this is what she wrote:


For the nine months I carried you while you were growing inside me:
No Charge
For all the nights that I’ve sat up with you, doctored and prayed for you:
No Charge
For all the trying times, and all the tears that you’ve caused through the years:
No Charge
For all the nights that were filled with dread, and for the worries I knew were ahead:
No Charge
For the toys, food, clothes, and even wiping your nose:
No Charge
Son, when you add it up, the cost of my love is:
No Charge.

When the boy finished reading what his mother had written, there were big tears in his eyes, and he looked straight at his mother and said, “Mom, I sure do love you.” And then he took the pen and in great big letters he wrote: “PAID IN FULL”.

so_003

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Re: A mother's love
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2012, 07:35:19 AM »
Mothers love is genuine and unconditional. None of us would be in this world without a mother. My mother goes trough tick and thin with me along with her mother which is my grandma. Year after year we grow up and they grow old and then one by one we die. Time, Respect and Love are the least we can offer at this time.

The baby elephant could have ask for more things when the king ask "What will please you?". But the only thing that he wanted is to go back to his mother and care for her.

In todays world... There are articles in papers that says headline " a parents can take care of 10 children but not even one children can take care of the parent". Hopefully peoples mind will improve more and more.