As we grow older, we often find ourselves thinking more about our parents. And when we marry and become fathers or mothers ourselves, we are brought to reflect on them in new ways.
This time, I would like to focus especially on mothers.
I recall a scene from a drama: a detective breaks through a criminal's stubborn resistance by mentioning his mother back home. At that moment, the criminal's hardened heart softens. The word mother—in Japanese, ofukuro-san—strikes a deep chord in anyone's heart.
Yet on the other hand, there are children who shout "You old hag!" (kuso babaa) and even kill their own mothers. To call one's mother ofukuro-san with affection, or to scream kuso babaa in hatred—both of these feelings exist in everyone's heart. Human beings carry this duality.
Just as love between man and woman is always shadowed by hatred, so too love between parent and child contains extremes. Parents may feel unconditional affection for their children, yet it is not always evenly distributed. Many mothers in particular secretly struggle with the thought, "Why do I find this child so irritating?" even while loving them all.
Which side of this dual nature is real? I believe both are real—and at the same time, neither is.
Within us coexist the impulse to cherish father and mother, and the urge to curse the old man, belittle the mother, rebel against them, or even kill them. Likewise, within us coexist unconditional love for our children and the feeling that they are unbearably troublesome, leading us to treat them coldly. This is the dual nature of the human heart—real, yet not real.
Caught in this duality, the feelings between parent and child become entangled and produce many outcomes. All of it bursts forth because we have forgotten our true essence—from the side of the parent and from the side of the child alike.
For parent and child to connect through true love, each must come to know and feel their true self. When that happens, the indulgence of thinking "anything goes because we are family," and the one-sided domination of "you must obey me," begin to be corrected. And when correction takes place, the kind of extraordinary incidents we see now as social phenomena should not arise. Long before matters escalate, a brake will engage.
Because no one knows their true self, various circumstances become triggers, and the energy stored in the heart erupts. Between parents and children, as between men and women, energy explodes outward. We cannot prevent it beforehand.
Yet even through self-destruction, awakening can occur. You may say that if you destroy yourself, nothing is left—but in truth, we are formless. Even if we self-destruct, we do not cease to exist. No matter how much the world of form collapses, including our own, if in the midst of it we can feel the energy we have released and recognize our own mistakes, that is enough.
However tragic or cruel, everything exists so that we may come to know our own energy—that is, to come to know our very selves.