Buddhism and the family

|THE DEN|

Buddhism has a complex and multifaceted relationship with family, family life, and family discourses. Buddhism focuses on a monastic path that involves renunciation of all family ties and follows the ideal model of the Buddha himself, who abandoned his parents, wife, and son to work toward the ultimate goal of Buddhahood. He left the comforts of his home to seek the meaning of the suffering he saw around him at the age of 29.

After almost six years of arduous yogic training, he abandoned the way of self-mortification and instead sat in mindful meditation beneath a bodhi tree. Therefore, many Buddhist texts are marked with strong renunciation and anti-family discourses, in which the family is portrayed as the primary source of attachment, deception, and suffering. Does it seem alright to you to abandon family and run away from the responsibilities in order to achieve detachment?