{"id":8801,"date":"2019-08-04T01:04:44","date_gmt":"2019-08-04T07:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/?p=8801"},"modified":"2019-08-04T01:26:50","modified_gmt":"2019-08-04T07:26:50","slug":"a-buddhist-story-for-troubled-times-grief-loss-and-heartbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2019\/08\/a-buddhist-story-for-troubled-times-grief-loss-and-heartbreak.html","title":{"rendered":"A Buddhist Story for Troubled Times: Grief, Loss, and Heartbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Most Christians will know the\u00a0Parable of the Mustard Seed, wherein Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as like a mustard seed in that it is tiny but grows into a great tree.<\/p>\n

Buddhism, too, has its Parable of the Mustard Seed, but here the story is quite different.<\/p>\n

Kisa Gotami<\/h3>\n

In the Buddhist<\/a> story a young woman -Kisa Gotami- follows a rather fairy-tale like path from birth in a poor family to a marriage to the only son of a wealthy family. She was not treated well by the wealthy family of her husband\u00a0until<\/em>\u00a0she bore them a son. Then she was accepted and respected. Things couldn\u2019t be better for her.<\/p>\n

But then, tragedy strikes. Her son, at just the age where he had begun to run around on his own, died.<\/p>\n

Distraught, she took up the child\u2019s body and searched for a doctor with the right medicine to revive him. She was laughed at and mocked by those who saw her until, finally, a man told her to go see the Buddha.<\/p>\n

She asked the Buddha if he could help her. To her delight, he said, \u201cyes, I can help you.\u201d\"kisa<\/p>\n

What he would need from her was just a simple mustard seed from the nearby village. In India, mustard seeds would be in practically every house as a common spice. She was elated; this would be easy. \u201cBut,\u201d the Buddha told her, \u201cyou must get the seed from a house that has not known death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Realization<\/h3>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d she thought, and went quickly on her way. At the first house she asked for the mustard seed and when it was quickly offered to her, she asked, \u201chas there been death in this house?\u201d The kind villager nodded and told the story of a lost uncle or cousin. The same happens at the next house, and the next house, and the next.<\/p>\n

As she traveled from house to house and heard story after story,\u00a0her sense of aloneness in her grief began to subside<\/strong>. \u201cNo house is free from death,\u201d she realized. She finally let go of her son, laying him in a forest nearby, and returned to the Buddha.<\/p>\n

The Buddha asked her, \u201cDo you have the mustard seed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDear teacher,\u201d She replied, \u201cI do not, but I saw\u00a0that the living are few and the dead are many.\u201d<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

Kisa Gotami Bhikkhuni (nun)<\/h3>\n

Kisa Gotami then joined the Buddha\u2019s order of nuns and gained complete and perfect awakening. One story of her post-awakening life has her encountering Mara \u2013 the devil in early Buddhism, a sort of personification of destructive doubt.\u00a0Alone in the woods one day he came to her and asked:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy now, when your son is dead,
\nDo you sit alone with a tearful face?
\nHaving entered the woods all alone,
\nAre you on the lookout for a man?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perplexed at first, she quickly realized who (or what) this was and replied:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve gotten past the death of sons;
\nWith this, the search for men has ended.
\nI do not sorrow, I do not weep,
\nNor do I fear you, friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cDelight everywhere has been destroyed,
\nThe mass of darkness has been sundered.
\nHaving conquered the army of Death,
\nI dwell without defiling taints.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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