PARENT AND CHILD RELATIONSHIPS
Another NATURAL RELATIONSHIP is that between PARENTS and OFFSPRING. Oh, what SUFFERING there is usually within these RELATIONSHIPS. The roots, naturally are IGNORANCE. What can one do to actively maintain or restore these RELATIONSHIPS?
First divorce yourself fully from RESPONSIBILITY. There is no NATURAL RESPONSIBILITY to maintain a CORRECT RELATIONSHIP if one does not exist. A father indeed may be the legitimate sperm giver, but that does not create an automatic bond. A child may indeed have many fathers in the true sense of the word if it is surrounded by persons who love, teach, and protect it with WISDOM. A mother may be the legitimate egg bearer, but this does not create an automatic unity between mother and child. The mother love which is EGOIST is not mother love, and a child may have many mothers, if they nurture it, care for it and teach it. The love of the child may be built on dependency and habit. This is not filial LOVE.
There was a case in CATALONIA some time ago in which children of a religious group called the Children of God had their children brutally seized by the authorities one night. Based on the concept of protecting them from inadequate abusive parents they were institutionalized. In proceeding litigation, the children when asked, "Who is your father, who is your mother"? could not respond. It was not that they could not identify the parents which had given them birth. They had so many TRUE mothers and fathers within the group that one could not be selected as THE FATHER.
Fortunately after years of separation and hardship the children were returned to the parents and all the absurd charges dismissed, the children having been found to actually be quite superior in both education and attitude. At least one, however, was so badly traumatized by this brutal experience that he had considerable difficulty in communicating until the loving, caring, RELATIONSHIP was reestablished.
What is the great secret to a CORRECT PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP? The reply is easy. Divorce from the ID, EGO, and SUPER EGO IDENTITIES, together with their DEMANDS, and the rejection of the EGO IDENTITY. In a CORRECT RELATIONSHIP there is mutual DISCOVERY of a NATURAL UNITY. This is the true base of learning. This is the true base upon a CORRECT RELATIONSHIP can be built. Parents cannot "LIVE" through their child vicariously, and it is incorrect to impose one's IGNORANCE and bias upon a child.
PARENTS and CHILDREN can experience LOVE for one another. What is this LOVE? If it is NATURAL and CORRECT one would expect it to be a biological signal, just as BENEVOLENT and UNIVERSAL LOVE are. That is exactly the case. PARENT-CHILD LOVE is the experience which comes from the CORRECT INTERACTIONS of the relationship. It is an error to believe that PARENT-CHILD LOVE creates or cements the RELATIONSHIP. If the PARENTS act CORRECTLY then LOVE automatically arises as a signal of the CORRECTNESS of that ACTION. When these CORRECT ACTIONS are present then the child will respond with CORRECT RESPONSES and will experience LOVE for the parent. This LOVE is the signal of PARENT-CHILD UNITY.
Now that is all very simple to understand, but in reality this seldom occurs. Most parents from the moment of the child's conception act completely EGOTISTICALLY, taking POSSESSION of the child as an object, albeit living, which they OWN. It is quite a subtle POSSESION, masked with a FALSE LOVE which is really the pleasure of POSSESSION. This is a GREEDY and harmful process, which results in the instant growth of IDENTITY responses in the child. A sense of being LOVED and CARED FOR is replaced by a sense of being VALUED, OWNED, and PROTECTED. This is not a NATURAL and CORRECT RELATIONSHIP.
Parents must face the facts. If their children have problems, in which the IDENTITIES are upermost, it is because the seeds of those IDENTITIES were placed there in early childhood by incorrect ACTION and a FALSE LOVE. Now parents everywhere will cry out, "MY LOVE was real. It is real. I feel it deeply." Is it really? Look at yourself. See the IDENTITY present in your apparent love and you will begin to change your ACTIONS, liberating your true love for the child. Self-sacrifice, dedication to the child, feeding it, clothing it, holding it, teasing it, or caressing it, does not indicate that LOVE is present.
LOVE is seeing the worthiness of the child, seeing its POTENTIAL UNITY with all things, setting it FREE from your own IDENTITIES, and ACTING CORRECTLY so that it can find the way which you may have lost. That is CORRECT ACTION, CORRECT LOVE.
With good fortune, you may then liberate the LOVE of your child, if it is not too late.
In the Scriptures, it is said that the SINS of the fathers will be passed on to their sons. This is not a form of NATURAL RETRIBUTION, it is the outcome of IGNORANCE, in which the parents pass on their own IGNORANCE to the children. Parents do this with good intentions. They want success, riches, and happiness for their child, but if they have failed to achieve a UNITY in their own lives through a lack of true understanding and through CLINGING and CRAVING, how can they really do anything CORRECTLY for their child, except help it find the path which somehow they have missed. In doing so they must understand that this path is not a path bound by the rules of the CHURCH, STATE, or the EDUCATIONAL SCRIBES.
Teach it instead the DHAMMA, the NATURAL LAW. Allow the child to discover itself and discover its own humanity, its own GLADNESS, COMPASSION, LOVE, and DELIGHT in UNITY with all things. This all occurs between birth and adolescence. The way is difficult, for we live in a JUNGLE of IGNORANCE. If you are vigilant, however, the path will be clear. Do not make the mistake of binding the child to this SOCIAL JUNGLE called SOCIETY, just because there appears to be no alternative.
SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS
Here too, LOVE is a signal of UNITY. If that bond of UNITY cannot be perceived then LOVE cannot be forced. In society you are supposed to LOVE your sisters and brothers of blood, but LOVE cannot be forced into social norms. Often brothers and sisters are quite different, but the UNITY exists if there is sufficient perception of common roots which are natural. It is true that in growing together, playing together, and learning together social links are formed. These forge trust and confidence, but this is not LOVE.
LOVE is so to speak, is the ACTION of perceiving UNITY within the processes of each Buddha Nature, before society begins to destroy the perceptual faculties. LOVE then, in the UNITY of SIBLINGS occurs ealy in the relationship, generally before the age of sixteen. If UNITY has not been established and expressed in this time then the tentacles of the IDENTITIES prohibit the discovery of that UNITY.
Looking into the Buddha Nature
The solution is obvious. If you wish to discover that UNITY and experience that signal of CORRECTNESS, LOVE, then first set aside your own IDENTITY, and then help your brother or sister do the same. If the task brings SUFFERING then clearly then you must decide if that price is worth paying. Do not be convinced by the social expectation that you SHOULD experience that LOVE, or the LONLINESS or SOLITUDE that you might feel. LOVE in UNITY can be found elswhere if you are open to its reception. You do not frantically have to search for it.