Eshin Direct

“For warriors, taking good care of parents is fundamental. If people do not care for their parents, they are not good, even if they are exceptionally smart, well-spoken, and handsome.

“Let me explain. In the way of the warrior, it is essential to do it right from root to branch. If you do not understand the root and the branch, there is no way for you to know your duty. One who does not know his duty can hardly be called a warrior.”

It is an interesting concept that the Code of the Samurai proposes. It suggests that if one does not have familial duty to one’s parents, then how can one expect loyalty from someone that does not even respect their own flesh and blood. If there is no duty expressed to those who are your root, then how can one expect it to be given strongly to someone who isn’t a part of you.

The treatise even has the foresight to suggest that those who come from difficult and bad parents, that this devotion is all the more important. It is relatively more easy to be dutiful when your parents are good, caring, and loving than when your parents don’t treat you well. This hardship, and I am not suggesting nor is the text suggesting, that this is a license to go and abuse your children. It merely says that a person who has come from a more difficult family background and yet remains dutiful as a son or a daughter, has a stronger breeding of loyalty.

A person who is disrespectful to one’s parents cannot be relied upon in situations where the chips are down.

This chapter is a tough one for me. I considered myself dutiful to my parents yet whether I have always been is a matter for debate. I’ve been at odds with my brother once for being disrespectful to my father, and sometimes when I’ve wanted to speak out against something, my mother’s explicit instructions have held me back. In this, I do consider myself dutiful.

In taking care of my parents, I don’t know whether I’ve ever had the opportunity to do so. Given my father’s success, I don’t know whether I ever will be in a situation to take care of them financially. Both my father and mother are both very strong individuals and together they are quite formidable. I doubt they would even appreciate me doting on them in any way.

Yet, in other things, I could be considered less dutiful. My mother bore the brunt of my adolesent years, and even now, as an adult, it’s hard not to fall back into the cycle of adolescent and adult. My mother, who is infallible and she always seemed so to me, always makes sure that she repeats things to me and still gives me instructions like I was a child. Perhaps I should indulge her, because it is one of her ways in showing affection to me, but I can’t help but nip back verbally occassionally. Does this mean I’m not being dutiful?

For my father, I avoid arguing with him ever since I once tried to get my own way more forcefully than using simple reason. It was a shameful realisation that I was dealing with a man who had worked his way up a multinational company, dealt with CEO’s, and had bitten back at people bigger than me that barked a lot louder too. I think I did a lot of back tracking that day and I don’t think I was feeling especially dutiful that day either.

Likewise, I have developed a certain degree of apathy to my parent’s travelling. My father travelled a lot of the time that I grew up. I remember balling my eyes out when I was younger at my father’s frequent departures. Yet as I grew to adolescence and beyond, it became so much less of concern that at times I had no idea where he was or when he was coming back. His return wasn’t met with the great excitement that I had when I was younger and just became so common place. Some people’s fathers came back every night. Mine just happened to come back in a week’s time quite frequently. I think my apathy was a self-defence mechanism to not really deal with the trauma, worry or concern of my father being away. Even now when they travel, I sometimes don’t give it a second thought.

I’m not saying that I didn’t care about my parents. I’m just saying I could have been a little more concerned about their whereabouts and their well-being if I was doing my filial duty.

I think to better understand how I love my parents and behave in a dutiful manner that is familial, one has to understand my background. For those of you who know me, I was given up, for reasons unknown to me, by my birth parents and adopted by those people who I consider now to be my parents. People ask me about my birth parents and whether I would want to find them. I always answer that I wouldn’t and that they abandoned me so that they are the ones who severed the bond so I owe them very little. Even if I did, I would do it before my parents passed away since I’ve always felt adoptees cheat the pain of bereavement by indulging in a tenous “second chance” to fill the void. But I don’t think I will because for me the people who have had to put up with my shit for the last 25 years of my life are my parents.

My parents have expressed unconditional love to me that definitely equals and maybe far exceeds that of birth parents. My heated temper flares have never once resulted in them expressing a wish that they never adopted me. My actions have sometimes brought them headaches and shame that I don’t care to go into here but rest assured they were major. Yet, through it all, they have remained loving to me and supportive throughout it all.

I learned in one episode in my life that no matter who you are, if there is no bond of “blood” that anyone, anywhere can walk away from anything and anyone. Trapped in that abusive relationship? Walk away. You can. The power is within you to do so. Even close friends can walk away. One’s that you call brother sometimes have their own concerns that will always take precedence over you. But blood always remains.

So how can I talk about blood loyalty and familial duty when I turn my back on what is officially my blood and can’t claim blood descendence from my parents? Well, the text might suggest that I’m not being dutiful in a familial way. Even disregarding this, I still sometimes live in my own self-centered world and am not always mindful of my parents. I’m not proud of that but that’s the way that I am.

But I would offer a different take on the text and state that I do understand the familial duty and bond between my parents. Through my parents, I have learned unconditional love and know that this is what binds me to them. My parents are fallible, like any other person, and I am wont to argue with them if their wishes and thoughts don’t coincide with mine. I am not likely to indulge them on their whims just because they so. Chinese readers of this might be in shock horror at this statement.

To understand the statement, one has to understand that through them I have learned an unconditional love. It is a love that I return to them, even if I don’t agree with their actions, thoughts and even desires for me. I would stand by them, even if the world did not. They are the only two people that I would do so for, and through that my own family too is included in that. If familial duty is unconditional love, then I would consider myself dutiful familialy.

Familial duty is not expressed by my doting on their whims. It is expressed by being the person that they have brought me up to be. It is for me to excel at the opportunities that they have given me. By being the incarnation by which they leave their mark in the world, that is familial duty in what I have been brought up to believe and stand by. In this too, I am also being truly familial to my birth parents who I like to believe left me in someone else’s care because by doing so I could enjoy a better life. While they may have given me spark of life that I owe my existence to, the heart that beats my blood is one that has been cared for, nurtured, and shaped by my parents.

My familial duty is what is expected of me by my parents. And in that I try to live up to that ideal. The text has a certain truth about it but it does not suggest in definite terms a model for that familial duty. I think this is defined by your own family situation.

The parting thought I want to give you is to what extent are you being dutiful to your own parents? Blind obedience and respect might be a common model for parent child relationships, but ask yourself honestly, is that what your parents expect of you? The answer might be yes, but at least you have pondered the question. In my case, it is understanding what my parents have done for me and how can I best repay them in who I am.

Tags: Readings