The Sutra on the Great Love of Parents.

The book i'm reading now Musashi while it's essentially about Miyamoto Musashi it also touches a lot on the spirituality and talks about the teachings of the Buddha. Anyway, in one of the chapters one of the characters was copying a Buddhist sutra and i found it to be very touching. It's really simple but really really meaningful. The book doesnt publish the whole thing and i haven't found the complete copy yet but here's a part of i

Thus I have heard
Once when the Buddha was on the Sacred Vulture Peak
In the City of Royal Palaces
Preaching to bodhisattvas and disciples
There gathered a multitude of monks and nuns and lay believers, both male and female,
All the people of the heavens,dragon gods and demons,
To hear the Sacred Law.
Around the jeweled throne they gathered
And gazed with unwavering eyes,
At the holy face

At this time the Buddha
Preached the Law as follows:
'All ye good men and good women,
Acknowledge your debt for your father's compassion,
Acknowledge your debt for your mother's mercy.
For the life of a human being in this world
Has karma as its basic course,
But parents as its immediate means of origin.'

' Without a father, the child is not born
Without a mother, the child is not nourished.
The spirit comes from the father's seed;
The body grows within the mother's womb.'

' Because of these relationships,
The concern of a mother for her child
Is without comparison in this world...'

'From the time when she receives the child in her womb,
During the passage of nine months ,
Going,coming,sitting,sleeping,
She is visited by suffering.
She ceases to have customary love for food or drink or clothing
And worries solely about a safe delivery.'

' The months are full,and the days sufficient.
At the time of birth, the winds of karma hasten it on,
Her bones are racked with pain.
The father,too trembles and is afraid.
Relatives and servants worry and are distressed.
When the child is born and dropped upon the grass,
The boundless joy of the father and the mother
Match that of a penurious woman
Who has found the omnipotent magic jewel.
When the child utters its first sounds,
The mother feels that she herself is born anew.
Her chest becomes the child's place of rest;
Her knees, its playground.
Her breasts, its source of food.
Her love,its very life.
Without its mother, the child cannot dress or undress.
Though the mother hungers,
She takes the food from her mouth and gives it to her child.
Without the mother,the child cannot be nourished...'

' The mother goes to the neighboring village to work.
She draws water, builds the fire,
Pounds the grain, makes the flour,
At night when she returns,
Before she reaches the house,
She hears the baby's crying
And is filled with love.
Her chest heaves, her heart cries out,
The milk flows forth, she cannot bear it.
She runs to the house.
The baby, seeing its mother approach from afar,
Works its brain, shakes its head,
And wails for her.
She bends her body,
Takes the child's two hand,
Places her lips upon its lips.
There is no greater love than this.
When the child is two,
He leaves the mother's breast.
But without his father, he would not know that fire can burn.
Without his mother, he would not know that a knife can cut off fingers.
When he is three, he is weaned and learns to eat.
Without his father, he would not know that poison can kill.
Without his mother, he would not know that medicine cures.
When the parents go to other houses
And are presented with marvelous delicacies,
They do not eat but put the food in their pockets
And take it home for the child, to make him rejoice...'

'The child grows,
The father brings cloth to cloth him.
The mother combs his locks.
The parents give every beautiful thing they possess to him,
Keeping for that which is old and worn.
The child takes a bride
And brings this stranger into the house.
The parents become more distant.
The new husband and wife are intimate with each other.
They stay in their own room, talking happily with each other.'

' The parents grow old.
Their spirits weaken, their strength diminishes
They have only the child to depend on,
Only his wife to do things for them.
But the child no longer comes to them,
Neither at night not in the daytime.
Their room is cold.
There is no more pleasant talk.
They are like lonely guests at an inn.
A crisis arises, and they call their child.
Nine times out of ten, he comes not,
Nor does he serve them.
He grows angry and reviles them,
Saying it would be better to die
Than to linger on unwanted in this world.
The parents listen, and their hearts are filled with rage,
Weaping, they say, " When you were young,
Without us, you would not have been born,
Without us you could not have grown.
Ah! how we'

It stops here in the book. I'll try to get the continuation.