Gratitude to Parents

Venerable Ajahn Sumedho

The following text is edited from a talk given by Ajahn Sumedho at Amaravati in October 1994 on a day that the Sri Lankan community had asked to have dedicated to remembering parents. It deals with cultivating the feeling that backs up the observance.

AMARAVATI again - a special day, an auspicious day. This morning many of you were here for the traditional offering and special dedication for our parents - those who have passed away as well as those who are living. On this day we are considering katannu kataveti, which is the Pali for gratitude. Gratitude is a positive response to life; in developing katannu, we deliberately bring into our consciousness the good things done to us in our life. So on this day, especially, we remember the goodness of our parents, and we contemplate it. We are not dwelling on what they did wrong; instead, we deliberately chose to remember the goodness, and the kindness that our parents had for us - even though in some cases, generosity might not have been there at all times. This is one day in the year for remembering our parents with gratitude and recalling all the good things they have done for us.

A life without katannu is a joyless life. If we don't have anything to be grateful about, our life is a dreary plane. Just contemplate this. If life was just a continuous complaint and moan about the injustices and unfairness we have received and we don't remember anything good ever done to us, and all we do is remember the bad things - that's called depression, and this is not an uncommon problem now. When we fall into depression we cannot remember any good that has happened to us. Something stops in the brain and it is impossible to imagine ever being happy again: we think this misery is forever.

In Sri Lanka, and throughout Asia, katannu kataveti is a cultural virtue; it is highly regarded and cultivated. Being able to support and look after our parents is considered to be one of the great blessings of life. This is interesting for those of us who come from a Western cultural background, because Western values are slightly different from this.

Many of us have had fortunate lives, but although we have been born in fortunate places we tend to take a lot for granted. We have privileges and benefits, and a much better life than a good portion of people in the world can ever hope to expect. 

I think back to when I was a child, and the way my parents devoted their lives to look after me and my sister. When I was young, I didn't appreciate it at all. As a child in the States, we didn't think about it, we took our mother and father for granted. And we could not realize what they had to sacrifice, what they had to give up in order to take care of us. It's only when we are older and have given up things for the sake of our children or somebody else that we begin to appreciate and feel katannu kataveti for our parents.

I think back to my father. He was an aspiring artist before the Depression in 1929. Then in '29 the Crash came and he and my mother lost everything, so he had to take a job selling shoes. My sister and I were born during the Depression, and he had to support us. Then the 2nd World War started, but my father was too old to enlist in the military; he wanted to support the war effort, so he became a ship fitter in New Seattle. He worked in a shipyard. He didn't like that job, but it was the best way he could help in the 2nd World War. Then, after the war he went back to his shoe business and became a manager of a retail store. Talking to him when I grew up, I found that he had never really liked that work either, but he felt that he was too old to find another profession. The sacrifice of his own preferences was mainly to support my mother, my sister and myself. 

I had a much bigger choice, much better opportunities. My generation had a whole wide range of possibilities available to us when we were young. However my parents did not have such opportunities; their generation had to get on with their lives and start work when they were still quite young. Both my parents were capable but they did not have the opportunity to develop beyond the ordinary way of making a living.

When I was at university in the 1950s, it was fashionable to study psychology. At that time the trend was to blame your mother for everything that went wrong in your life. The focus was on mothers and what they had done to cause ME to suffer now. I didn't realize then that suffering was a natural thing for human beings. Of course my mother was not perfect, she was not a perfectly enlightened being when she had me, so naturally there were things she could have improved on. But generally speaking, the dedication, commitment, love, and care were all there - and directed mainly to making the lives of my father, my sister and myself as good and as happy as could be. It was a dedication - she asked very little for herself. So when I think back like this, katannu, gratitude, arises in my mind for my mother and father. Now I hardly think of any of their faults which used to dominate my mind when I was young; they seem so trivial now, I hardly recall any. 

However, if we just go on with the force of habit and conditioning we remain more or less stuck with all kinds of things instilled into us - with habits that we acquired when we were young - and these can dominate our conscious life as we get older. But as we mature and grow up, we realize that we can develop skilfulness in the way that we think about ourselves, and in the way we think about others. The Buddha encouraged us to think of the good things done for us by our parents, by our teachers, friends, whoever; and to do this intentionally - to cultivate it, to bring it into consciousness quite deliberately - rather than just letting it happen accidentally. 

Having a day like this, when we deliberately think of parents with gratitude, is a way of bringing joy and positive feelings into our lives. This morning, taking the Five Precepts and offering the food to the Sangha as a way of remembering our parents with gratitude was a beautiful gesture. At a time like this, we should also consider expressing katannu to the country we live in, because usually we take this for granted. But we can remember the benefits, the good things made available to us by the state and society, rather than just emphasizing what's wrong or what we do not like. Katannu allows us to bring into consciousness all the positive things concerned with living in Britain. We should develop katannu, even though modern thinking does not encourage us to do so. This is not blind patriotism or national arrogance, but an appreciation and expression of gratitude for the opportunities and the good we derive from living in this society. This way of thinking then adds a joyous quality to everything: 'I deserve more than this. They didn't do enough for me.' That way of thinking comes from a 'welfare mind,' doesn't it? Although grateful to the Welfare State, we also recognize that it can breed complaining minds, minds that take things for granted.

So today is a day to develop katannu. Do not think it is just a day to be sentimental. Katannu is a practice to develop in our daily life, because it opens the heart and brings joy to our human experience. And we need that joy, it's something that nurtures us and it is essential for our spiritual development. Joy is one of the factors of enlightenment. Life without joy is a dreary one - grey, dull, and depressing. So today is a day for joyous recollections. 

About the Venerable

Venerable Ajahn Sumedho, an American by birth, became a Theravadan bhikkhu in Thailand in 1966. He spent ten years in North-East Thailand, training under Venerable Ajahn Chah, a master of the forest tradition of Buddhism. In 1976, Ajahn Chah was requested by a group of English Buddhists to consider sending monks to their country, to hep establish the monastic order there; he chose to send Venerable Sumedho.