Filial Piety is Key

Five ways one should minister to one's parents:

• Having supported me, I shall support them.
• I shall do their duties. 
• I shall keep up the honour and the traditions of my family.
• I shall make myself worthy of my heritage.
• I shall make offerings dedicating the goodness of my practice to my parents after their death.

- The Buddha (Sigalovada Sutta: Digha Nikaya 31)

My dad and mom are 76 year old and 70 year old, respectively. Both of them are retired and stay couple of blocks away from me. During weekdays, my children will be there from around noon till 7pm in the evening when they will be brought back home by my domestic helper.

Although it seems so wrong to have such thoughts, I know deep inside that the time will come for them to leave this world. As I think about impermanence of our life here, it saddens me to know that the time will come. There are times that I want to share with them what I have learned from Buddhism with the hope that they can be Buddhas themselves. They do listen attentively to me at times, but as the Chinese saying goes that they had "eaten more salt than me having rice" (or crossed more bridges than me walking on paths), usually my mom would share her personal views about the subject. Nevertheless, they are a contented couples with minimal desires on luxury items who believe in karma. I guess I'll have to share more stories and examples about karma with them with the hope that they will do more good and no evil.

Filial piety 孝  (beauty of Chinese character that the top is "old", the bottom is "son" put together) is an important practice we should all be aware of as it is something we must start with, after which follow by Compassion, Wisdom and Practice. This is because for someone who is disrespectful to parents (elders and teachers), it would be impossible to have the compassion and wisdom to execute the practice towards enlightenment.