As in most Asian cultures, for the Tibetan people the idea of the mother as kind plays a central role in their way of life. As Buddhists, they have meditations for developing love and compassion for all “mother sentient beings”: given Buddha’s view that the essence of our being – our consciousness, our mind – goes back and back into countless past lives, it follows that all sentient beings have been our mother some time in the past. In the meditations, this is used to energize and inspire us to want to repay their kindness by helping them, benefiting them, loving them, forgiving them.
Upon hearing these ideas when I first became a Buddhist, I was shocked! Love all sentient beings: impossible! It’s hard enough loving just one. And, anyway, I thought, it’s absurd to think that all mothers are kind – in our world, it’s not uncommon to think she is the exact opposite.
Part of the problem is that we feel, “Hey, I didn’t ask to get born!” And there’s such a deep assumption within us that if my mother made me, she’d ought to be perfect.
Buddha’s view is very different. He says that our parents don’t make us: they kindly provide us with the egg and sperm that becomes our body, but our mind, our very being: that’s our own. We enter our mother’s womb fully programmed already, not with our parents’ tendencies but with our own: we bring them from previous lives – our love, our goodness, our jealousy, our being good at football; whatever. In a sense, Buddhism is saying that we actually create ourselves.
And not only that: we create the cause very specifically to go to this particular mother; it’s not a random event. We have strong karmic history with her and go running into her womb: karma is very personal.
I’ve been my mother’s mother countless times, and now it is her turn. She is repaying her karmic debts, if you like, both good and bad.
The experiential consequences of this are pretty powerful. We can begin to feel a sense of accountability for our own self, for a start. And we can learn to see our mother in a different light. She, too, has come into life with her own tendencies, her characteristics, both the good and the bad. She’s just like the rest of us: fearful, depressed, jealous, angry, loving, generous – the entire spectrum of the human qualities.
And the other thing is, when people do bad things to us, or don’t do what our attachment wants, we tend to see only the bad in them, which blinds us from remembering the good. So, stepping back and looking freshly at our mothers, we can begin to remember the countless small, vital things she must have done over the years: carried me in her womb, nurtured me, cleaned me, fed me, taught me. These are facts.
Even if she gave me away at birth: she didn’t abort me; I’m still alive. If someone saved our life, we’d never forget them. Same here, although this thought never occurs to us.
Also, I think it’s very sobering to look at what we even mean by the word “kind”. If the waitress in the café brings me an extra big piece of cake and gives me a discount, for sure I will say, “Oh how kind you are!” even if she did it just for the tip. But if she tries extra hard to help me but I don’t get what I want, I don’t think she’s kind at all. Our view of “kind” is very self-centred.
For sure, our mother has not been perfect. And she has used tough love on us, and we certainly didn’t think she was kind then. But real kindness is also wise – doing what’s right for the other even if they don’t like it – and takes courage.
And even if our dear mothers were not good mothers at all, as we become more accountable we can begin to have compassion for her, to forgive her, to love her.
Starting with our mother of this life, slowly we can begin to extend this to all mother sentient beings. One step at a time.