法苑珠林 49.6

49.6

I have heard that filial devotion, loyalty, and respect surpass the virtue of Dong An, while rebelling against and disrespecting revered parents incurs guilt exceeding the treachery of Wang Ji. Therefore, though wood was not an actual mother, making offerings to it echoed across a thousand ages; though an ordinary person is not a holy monk, paying reverence shines beyond ten thousand generations. By principle, one ought to incline one's heart and bear them upon the crown of one's head, obtaining boundless blessings. How can one give rise to arrogance and pride, inversely breeding contempt and insult? Thus, establishing oneself and walking the Way spreads renown to later generations; fulfilling filial piety throughout one's life is truly the beauty of state-building. Thus we recall Zilu meeting with Kong Qiu, saying: 'When You served both parents, I constantly ate goosefoot and pulse, carrying rice on my back for my parents from a hundred li away. After my parents passed away, I traveled south to Chu, with a hundred carriages following me and ten thousand bushels of grain stored, sitting on layered cushions and dining before arrays of cauldrons. Yet I still wished to eat goosefoot and pulse and carry rice on my back for my parents, but could never do so again.' Whenever I am moved by these words, though they are gone, it is as if they were present. How can the kindness of parents ever be repaid? Their compassion is deeper than rivers and seas; our filial piety is like a drop of dust. Longing forever and weeping aloud, the pain pierces heart and head. Secular tradition says that nurturing us with milk gave birth to our physical bodies, and the kindness of a single lifetime is still difficult to repay; how much more so the Tathāgata's great compassion, which universally permeates and views all as an only child, pulling beings out of the three destinies, allowing them to depart from the four modes of birth forever, bidding farewell to the eight sufferings and perpetually directing them onto the three vehicles? Quietly contemplating the weight of this kindness, how can it be compared to the mundane? One's inner heart collapses as if burned and scorched; emotion cuts deeper than principle, more painful than the slicing of a blade. Venerating and respecting through kalpas, constantly offering rare delicacies, still cannot repay the kindness of an instant. Therefore, the Nirvāṇa Sūtra says: 'The Buddha possesses a single taste of great compassion, / pitying sentient beings like an only child. / Sentient beings do not know that the Buddha can rescue them, / and slander the Tathāgata, the Dharma, and the Saṃgha.'