On TG week, a talk about gratitude, focusing on the very traditional practice of being grateful for our parents (no matter how they voted), and how it’s impossible to repay their offering of life to us. Except by bringing them to the Dharma. I told the story of the elder monk Sariputta going back to his mother’s house before he died, and teaching her in order to overcome her antipathy toward the Dhamma and bring her to Stream-Entry. After that, knowing she was established in the path, he could die knowing his debt was in this way repaid.
(You can read the full story of Sariputta and his mother, which is lovely, in this book: https://www.wisdompubs.org/book/great-disciples-buddha/introduction)
Talk: Gratitude, parents, conversion. With a bit at the end about how to talk about sensitive things at the holiday table. (11.20.18)