Radiant Yang by Let the Radiant Yang Shine Forth. Lectures on Virtue (2014)

Author:Let the Radiant Yang Shine Forth. Lectures on Virtue (2014)
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2015-03-10T20:57:48+00:00

III.2 Increasing Our Efforts To Foster Virtue In Children

The Dao of Compassion has many different aspects. We must not leave behind debts for our children to repay, but neither must we save up riches for them. This is the Dao of Compassion. In our role as parents, we must raise our children to be independent and cannot dote on them too excessively and drown them with our love. Generally speaking, once we have raised them to adulthood, given them an education, and enabled them to partake in society, establish a family, and have a job, our responsibility is finished.

At present, however, a great many parents do not know when they have fulfilled the Dao of Compassion. Many of them drown their children in love and are only able to spoil them with material things or money, rather than using their spirit to teach them by guidance or, even less so, using their own good qualities to guide their children (in the majority of cases because they don’t have any). Ultimately, they end up causing their children to cultivate all sorts of vile habits, too fond of delicacies but lazy in their actions, wasting their life with debauchery and drinking, doing whatever they please and committing countless sins. This situation is one in which the more deeply they love their children, the more deeply they harm them, to the point of pushing their children straight towards hell with all their might, but still thinking in their own minds that they are carrying out the Dao of Compassion to its fullest extent.

If you give your children a lot of money, is this really the Dao of Compassion? This is not necessarily compassion but most likely harmful to them. Because material wealth is the root of disaster, and without virtue, if you use it unwisely, you actually stir up a fire that will burn you.

As parents we must ponder very carefully how we can act in such a way as to truly benefit our children. We can use money to gather merit and do good deeds, to rescue people in difficulty and offer support in critical situations, to cherish the elderly and provide for the poor, to build bridges and repair roads, to overcome the self and guard the Dao, to build schools, to make our elders comfortable and take care of our young. When parents use their money to do these kinds of good deeds, this is what we call fostering virtue. When we provide a foundation for our children, this virtue blesses our children and grandchildren. This explains the following sentence: “Children don’t need to be forced; everything depends completely on responding to their parents’ virtuous actions.”

Rather, rely completely on the moral behavior of the parents to motivate them.”If you are of noble character, the Gods and ghosts will admire you, let alone your children. Nobleman Wang has said, “If the parents change, the children will surely change. What example the parents have set, the children will follow.” When your virtue is great, even the spirits admire you, and your children even more so.

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