黃檗禪師出家後從未回過俗家，但內心非常記掛年邁的母親。五十歲那年，在一次參訪途中，不自覺的就往故鄉走去。母親因思念他，把眼睛哭瞎了，便在路旁設司茶亭，招待過往的雲水僧，並迎到家中為他們洗腳，除了表示禮敬，更希望藉洗腳認出左腳有顆大痣的愛子黃檗。
這一天，黃檗也接受了母親的招待，但他只將右腳給母親洗，之後又忍痛起程雲遊。母親從鄰居口中得知實情，瘋狂地追到大河邊，這時黃檗乘的船已經開動，母親情急跳到河裡，不幸淹死。黃檗在對岸見母親落水溺死，慟哭著說：「一子出家，九族升天；若不升天，諸佛妄言。」
說後即刻乘船返回，火葬母親，並作偈：「我母多年迷自心，如今華開菩提林，當來三會若相值，歸命大悲觀世音。」此時，鄉人皆見其母在火焰中升空而去。
孝順有三：一為小孝，甘脂奉養；二為中孝，光宗耀祖；三為大孝，度其靈識超昇。黃檗度母乃大孝中之大孝也！

Though Chan Master Huangbo never returned home after becoming a monk, he never ceased to worry about his aged mother. For her part, she wept so profusely that she went blind. Hoping to meet her son again, she set up a roadside tea stand for passing monks, and invited them into her home, where she reverentially washed their feet. She would know her son from the mole on his left foot. When he was fifty, Huangbo came upon his mother’s stand and let her take him home. But he offered only his right foot to be washed. When neighbors revealed who he was, she pursued him desperately to the riverbank. By then, he was on the farther shore, where he watched her slip into the river and drown. Weeping, he exclaimed, “One son renounces, nine clans of kinsmen ascend to heaven. If they do not ascend, the Buddhas are lying.” Then he rushed home to cremate his mother’s body, reciting this verse: “For many years, my mother’s mind was deluded. Now a flower blooms in the Bodhi forest. Should we meet again, we will take refuge in the great compassionate Avalokitesvara.” At that moment, the villagers saw his mother rise from the flames into the sky.
Three degrees of filial piety are 1. Basic: support parents cheerfully;2. Intermediate: bring honor to ancestors; and 3. Great: release the deceased loved ones from the cycle of birth and death. Liberating his mother was Master Huangbo’s act of great filial piety.

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