It started off with agreeing to translate the Filial Piety Sutra years ago.  However, it ended up on the shelf collecting dust as school got busier and things changed.  Funny thing, my sister along with Iris and many other bodhisattvas, began to complete the translation that remained dormant on our shelf for a few years.  It was finally complete and in time for Mother’s Day.  So, as a way of giving thanks, the chanting service at the temple was the Filial Piety Sutra with pinyin.  While chanting the Filial Piety Sutra, the atmosphere seemed quieter than usual.  The words from the sutra hit home.  We wept quietly to ourselves as we realized the greatness of our parents’ love and care.  Reading the words, tears of shame and gratefulness drop silently along the face.

After transmitting the merits to parents everywhere, the YAD entered and showed their thanks through singing two Chinese songs, one in Mandarin and another in Cantonese.  Although, most of us were what you would call “bananas”; using our hearts, we expressed our non-fluent Chinese into action and beautiful words.

It cannot be seen or touched.
You can feel it.
The feeling is great and inexpressible.
Everyday, it never ceases and continues to grow.
It is boundless,
Has no form and yet has form.
The giver is neither male nor female.
Yet the warmth remains limitless.
It is soft within the harshness,
And remains there even when you are 80.
You repay the giver with money.
But it does not accept.
You repay the giver with the greatest jewels in the world.
But it does not accept.
You repay the giver with nothing. 
It smiles and accepts.
You are now the giver.

- Campi Liu

It was a few months before Mother’s day when I did most of the translating of the Filial Piety Sutra.  I remembered the sutra sitting in the shrine when I came back from the trip to Taiwan.  Years ago, when my sister and I were much younger, Campi was asked to do the translation of this sutra, and a lady was kind enough to help us publish and bind it if we had finished it.  So we said okay to the task, and an agreement was made.  My sister started translating it bit by bit, searching for words that she already knew and translating those ones first, and then moving onto the other more difficult words.  Then after a few years, we had placed it somewhere and had forgotten it.  It all started again in Taiwan, when our YAD division went to Fo Guang Shan in Kaoshiung.  We stayed over at the ‘Ma Ju Yuen’ and I was bored at night, so I looked over the reception area, where all the books and flyers and signup forms were.  Just lightly skimming through, I noticed a small book, and picked it up.  To my astonishment, it was a copy of the Filial Piety Sutra!  When I opened it to take a look, it had pinyin in it!  I was so happy!  And that’s how and when I decided that I would finish that sutra when I returned home.  So during the weekdays, whenever I had a little bit of spare time, I would do a little bit of translating.  Then, I asked the venerable if she would want it if I finished translating the sutra.  She was very happy the idea.  So, March of this year rolled around, and I was still slowly working on the translation.  But because I cannot read Chinese, it isn’t as easy as you think it is.  Therefore, what I did was grab my friend Iris, and she read it to me as I copied down her words in pinyin the way I heard it.  After the pinyin of the Chinese words, we had to put the English meaning as well.  That was the hard part, some was just guessing from the way the words sounded when I said them, and others I had to ask my mom for help.  But I never realized how moving this sutra was until I did the English meaning.  It explained how much suffering your parents had to go through to take care of you, and most touching of all was when the Buddha himself, of all people, bowed on the ground in front of a pile of bones.  Sometimes I can’t figure the reason why I decided to finish this sutra, but now I think its not just because of the agreement that was made years ago, but because I remembered chanting it when I was a little kid, and my mom had explained the meaning of the sutra to me.  I really enjoyed listening to stories which had very simple meaning in a small colored comic book that I could actually grasp and remember.  Accordingly, I really wanted people to know about this sutra and it’s meaning as well.  The merit, which goes to their parents whom were so compassionate for them is well deserved.  Also, it is a shame sometimes, to not be able to read Chinese, and join a chanting ceremony that applies a sutra with no translation.  This is because personally I am happier when I find an English sutra that I can follow with, but I have gone through many ceremonies without and I’m still as content as I’ll ever be.   : ) 

          v v 
By: (‘.’) aka Carmen Liu