There are two people that we can never completely gratify in our life in this world. We can never completely please them. Do you know who they are? They are our mothers and fathers. Everyone wants to completely gratify their parents. How can we gratify them? There are three ways to do this.
The first way is to put our mother on our right and our father on our left, by washing their clothes and bodies, feeding them every day and making their beds every night. Even if we spend our whole life helping and caring for them we’ll never completely repay them because they are our benefactors and worthy of our respect.
The second way is to act like a king. As a king want to fully repay his parents and show them his gratitude, he give them all his money, gold, land and power which he belong to because they are his benefactors and worthy of his respect. Even if we do like this as a king, we’ll never completely repay them because they are our benefactors and worthy of our respect.
The third way is through Faith, Morality, Liberality, Concentration and Wisdom. We must encourage our parents to have all of these. If they don't have them then it is our duty to help them and encourage them in all these things. We send them our merits, bless them and pray for them, Even if they are passed way. If we can do this third way, we can show our gratitude to our parents as a part of gratitude towards them but not complete yet.
(The third way is that Saddhā=Faith, Sila=Morality, Cāga=Liberality, Sammādhi=Concentration, Pann̄ā=Wisdom: if our parents have no faith in believing truth, we should encourage them to have faith. If our parents have no morality in regarding their behavior, we should encourage them to believe in morality. If our parents have no generous act or liberality, we should encourage them to believe in giving or generous act or liberality. If our parents have no concentration, We should encourage them to have concentration. If our parents have no wisdom, we should encourage them to be wise or to have wisdom. If we can do this third way, we can show our gratitude to our parents as a part of gratitude towards them but not complete yet.)
Note: All the words I have written above are the words which came from the teaching of the Buddha in Anguttara Nikarya (One of the Buddha’s scriptures). I tried to summarize and translate them in to English. Saddhā, Sila, Cāga, Sammādhi, Pann̄ā mean faith, morality, liberality, wisdom in Pali language.
Translated by Thaw Ma
Thank you! Amituofo!