Con Gà Mẹ Dưới Cơn Mưa Và Tình Yêu Thương Vượt Qua Bản Năng

The sky over Phan Thiet suddenly unleashed a heavy downpour. Raindrops, laden and cold, struck the parched earth, forming muddy puddles. In the corner of a small rural yard, a mother hen huddled beneath a makeshift eave. She did not run to her coop but stood blocking the path, spreading her rough, rain-soaked wings wide.

Beneath those wings, three golden chicks pressed close together, chirping weakly. The mother’s feathers were soaked through, clinging tightly to her skin, causing her to shiver violently from the cold. Yet she remained steadfast, using her body as a shield against the icy rain. Her eyes were gentle and full of tolerance, seemingly forgetting her own bone-deep chill.

This act is a natural instinct, profound and intense. Animals, especially birds, possess an extremely high drive to protect their young. The mother hen does not need to think or be taught; she simply loves and sacrifices by instinct. Loving one's children is the easiest and most natural thing for any living being.

However, look behind the mother hen. There stands an old rooster, or perhaps her own mother, enduring the rain just a few meters away. The young mother does not glance back, nor does she intend to share her shelter with her parent. To her, parents are the past, separate individuals. Natural instinct points only forward—toward the future and offspring—rarely backward toward one’s roots.

This scene reminds us of many modern families. We devote our love, time, and money entirely to our children, ready to sacrifice everything for them. But when it comes to aging parents, many feel indifferent, even seeing them as a burden. Caring for parents is no longer spontaneous instinct; it requires training, effort, reason, and ethics.

Venerable Thich Chan Quang emphasizes that loving children is an easy instinct, but loving parents is a difficult virtue. To overcome natural selfishness, we must resist that instinct. We must remind ourselves of the debt of birth and upbringing, actively seeking ways to repay it. If we live solely by instinct, we become like that mother hen: loving our children deeply while forgetting our roots. Only through cultivating wisdom and heart can we balance love, expanding our compassion from our small family to our nation and humanity, transforming filial piety from a heavy obligation into a noble dignity.

The story uses the image of the mother hen shielding her chicks to contrast with social reality. Human nature instinctively loves children easily but often neglects parents. Spiritual practice is the process of using reason and ethics to transcend narrow, selfish instincts, extending love to those who gave us life, thereby elevating our dignity and accumulating blessings from merit.

Compiled from the dharma talk of Venerable Thich Chan Quang