【Description】
Confucius said, “Those who are not trustworthy will achieve nothing.” In other words, people who can’t keep promises can’t survive in society. Parents and family play an important role in teaching children integrity. Living with integrity is essential to manifesting happiness and success.
A simple anecdote from China’s Spring and Autumn Period goes thus: Zeng Shen’s wife wanted to buy groceries and her child was nagging to go with her. The mother said to the child, “Be quiet and stay at home. When I’m back, I’ll kill the pig to cook your favorite food.” She wasn’t being sincere; she said that just to brush the child off. When she came back, to her surprise, she saw Zeng Shen sharpening his knife. Suddenly nervous, she asked, “I was just kidding. Are you taking my words seriously?” Zeng Shen said, “If you lie to the child this time, he may never believe
what you say again. It’s best to keep your promise.”
In this dharma teaching, Grandmaster JinBodhi tells simple stories to illustrate truths about integrity. What are the consequences of losing mutual trust within a family? How should this loss be corrected? How should we conduct ourselves in our social lives? Come and learn!
【You will learn】
- The importance of integrity
- The right way to teach children
- How family members should deal with deception from each
【Featured aphorisms】
- Trust makes people happy.
- Sincere trust can correct habitual lying.
- You must keep your promises.
【Content】
Don’t judge too quickly whether someone is lying to you. Integrity is worth 10,000 pieces of gold. My mom used to tell me, “A promise for people is supervised by people; A promise for the divine is supervised by the divine.”
We Can’t Live Without Integrity
A book was recommended to me; the book tells the story of a father and his young son. The father put his son on the table. He bought 2 bags of fried chicken. He said, “Son, jump. I will catch you and give you the chicken. “Alright”, the boy said. So, the son jumped from the table and hurt himself badly. He cried loudly and his mom came over to check on him. “Dad said he was going to catch me, but he lied!” “Blame yourself for trusting me”, the dad said. The mom was very angry. “You call yourself a father?” “I am teaching our son; never trust anybody, parents included.”
To me, this is so wrong. I have no respect for the father. His son learned no wisdom, compassion or love from him, just suspicion. If you can’t trust anyone in the world, how are you going to be happy? The kid is going to have trust issues with everyone around him. How can he treat people sincerely? I
would rather be cheated than distrust everyone. At least, I want to feel sincerity within my family. I want to feel true love; that is real happiness. Family members should help each other. That is what I call a happy family. Don’t lie to your family.
Having someone you can trust is happiness, especially for children. Parents can be the reason for children’s trust issues. Take children’s homework for example. “Are you done with your homework?” This is a typical question asked by parents. “Yup, I am done.” The child wasn’t looking at his parent when answering. “You are lying, right? I won’t fall for that. You are too young for this trick.” “Why don’t you trust me?” The kid might even cry. The kid thinks, “I have done my homework, but my dad doesn’t trust me.”
Why? Because he was looking away for a while. Why did the kid do that? Maybe he played a game for a while after finishing his homework. That is not a crime, right? He finished his homework. He got whacked because his parent didn’t trust him. No trust exists between parents and children. After being beaten, children will have trust issues with their parents. To avoid getting punished, the kid will get better at lying. The kid will tend to lie or cheat in his future life. They don’t easily feel happy.
Trust among family members is important. Children can become full of lies or worse if their parents don’t trust them. I have done some thorough studies myself. I was quite shocked by my findings. When children are not
trusted by their parents for a long time, they will have concentration issues. They will find it hard to focus on whatever they are doing. What can this lead to in the future? Probably conflicts in marriage, or conflicts between parents and children. With troubled parents, all you get is troubled kids.
Trust is crucial. Don’t judge too quickly whether someone is lying to you. Sincerity is the best medicine for trust issues. Happiness is having someone who believes in you. That is at the family level. What about trust between bosses and workers, or a king and his people? What benefits can trust bring to a family, an enterprise or a small business? Happiness, wealth and more profit. Everything is possible with mutual trust. Trustworthiness is worth more than gold. Be a trustworthy person no matter where you are. You earn trust by telling no lies and being an honest person. Telling truth is always better than telling lies.
Also, don’t make empty promises. When you make a promise, make sure you honor it. Once you promise something, try your best to realize it. My mom used to tell me, “A promise for people is supervised by people; A promise for the divine is supervised by the divine.” Don’t make empty promises to Buddha. You said, “After you help my son, I will burn joss sticks, kowtow and build a temple for you.” After Buddha blessed your son, you did nothing. I am not sure how it feels to be remembered by Buddha for not keeping your promises.
Say, you operate an orchard with a partner; you promise to divide the profit with him. When you receive the profit, you don’t want to keep your promise. You tell him you only earn 5,000 while you have actually earned 10,000. No credibility at all. What could happen from this? You could lose a friend, or, at worst, your life. That is why keeping promises is important.