We would like to wish all fathers a Happy Father’s Day!
Buddha taught us to cherish and honor our parents.
Possibly the most important thing the Buddha said about our parents is in AN 2.33. He said even if we were to carry them on our shoulders for 100 years, we cannot repay them, and that the only way to really repay them is to encourage faith, virtue, generosity, and wisdom in them.
Monks, I say that these two people cannot easily be repaid. What two? Mother and father.
You would not have done enough to repay your mother and father even if you were to carry your mother around on one shoulder and your father on the other, and if you lived like this for a hundred years, and if you were to anoint, massage, bathe, and rub them; and even if they were to defecate and urinate right there.
Even if you were to establish your mother and father as supreme monarchs of this great earth, abounding in the seven treasures, you would still not have done enough to repay them. Why is that? Parents are very helpful to their children: they raise them, nurture them, and show them the world.
But you have done enough, more than enough, to repay them if you encourage, settle, and ground unfaithful parents in faith, unethical parents in ethical conduct, stingy parents in generosity, or ignorant parents in wisdom.
In the Maṅgala Sutta (Kp5), the Buddha talked about blessings. Of course, parents are a blessing:
To support mother and father, to cherish wife and children, and to be engaged in peaceful occupation—this is the greatest blessing.
