Acknowledging Our Ethical Debts

The Debt to the Mother~The Debt to the Child

In a beautifully poetic text entitled A Rose For Your Pocket, the esteemed Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh asks us to consider whether we have loved our mothers enough and he reminds us of the debt we owe to our mothers, which is so great it quite possibly can never be repaid.

Thich Nhat Hanh. Photo by Red Wylie. Creative Commons License 2.0

When I think of my own mother, I am filled with love and gratitude for the care that she has always given me and my five siblings, and to our children, her eleven grandchildren. As my mother's child, the truth of Thich Nhat Hanh's message resonates deep within my heart. 

Thich Nhat Hanh's words apply to any primary caregiver who has nurtured a child when they were young. Indeed, The mother can be read a metaphor for the generous and nurturing earth that sustains us, and for The Great Mother, the source of all life, which is Spirit. 

Having acknowledged a debt to our mothers, we are then asked us to treat all others as we would treat our mothers. In this way, we are encouraged to recognize our ethical obligation to give back for the comfort, support and sustenance we have so generously been given.  

Four years ago, I had a personal experience that affirmed and expanded upon this notion of the ethical debt to the mother/other.

In this case, the debt that needed to be acknowledge was the debt owed to those who are the weakest, most vulnerable, and who have had (as yet) nothing to give.

Photo by Shobeir Ansari. Creative Commons License 2.0

Just prior to the adoption of our youngest son, I consulted my own spiritual mother, my Lama (whom I refer to as Mother Khandro). I had been experiencing feelings of fear and inadequacy as a potential caregiver for such a vulnerable child. I needed reassurances that I was doing the right thing by the boy we were about to adopt, as well as by the loving "foster" family he'd been living with. I also had concerns about the sudden change we were all about to experience as a family. 

The guidance Mother Khandro offered that day not only allayed all my fears but also taught me an invaluable lesson about the parent-child relationship and about the meaning of service to others. 

Mother Khandro told me that children come to us in this lifetime, seeking to be nurtured, for two reasons.  

Photo by John Eric. Creative Commons License 2.0

She explained that our children come to us (by birth or by adoption) because we have already spent past lives together and have prayed to be together again in this lifetime.

She also told me that during a past life—in our prior forms, within a relationship that was not necessarily a parent-child relationship—the soul who are now seeking our help to enter this lifetime must have performed for us a tremendous service. In some significant way, he or she had assisted us in moving forward along our spiritual path. And so now, it is our turn to provide them with our services and to nurture them as best we can. 

In other words, by providing our children with loving care, while they are in their most dependent, most vulnerable stages of childhood, we are in fact paying off a debt we have always already owed them.

This framing of the parent-child relationship is very different from what can sometimes be witnessed within our culture, where we parents can on occasion be overheard exclaiming regret or disappointment that—despite all of our hard work and sacrifice—our children do not ... what? Make the most of what they've been give? Behave in the way we have raised them to behave? Or appreciated all that we have done for them? 

Photo by Bradley P Johnson. Creative Commons License 2.0

Mother Khandro tells us that as mothers and fathers we owe a debt to our children, not the other way around; Likewise, Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that as grown children we owe a debt to our mothers.

In other words, we have an ethical obligation to fill our hearts with love and offer our service to those who have attended to our needs and to those who have come to us completely helpless,vulnerable and with nothing to give us but love. 

In every case, when we are face-to-face with the Other, we are in a position of humility and ethical obligation.* The services we offer are performed without expectation. Paying off debts means that we are owed nothing in return. 

Yet, the return and reward for our servitude will be beyond measure.

(*note: philosopher Emmanuel Levinas is another "Guru" who writes of our proximity to the other as a relationship of ethical obligation.)

For more, please see my other posts above or below, or on The Six Realms of Samsara. My books are available at My Author's Spotlight. Thank you!