Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed

Have you time, friend? I've a story I'd like to share.

There was once a woman from the city of Savatthi by the name of Kisa Gotami, known for her wisdom and kindness. Her many uncountable merits earned her, as a husband, the son of a nobleman, and she bore him a single child. In the dark of a storm, in a flash of lightning, with animals baying just outside her window, Kisa Gotami realized that her baby was not crying. Death had claimed the child in his sleep.

Kisa Gotami pleaded with God and the spirits, and with every devil by name, but none of them would answer her prayers. Thus, her dead babe in arm, she went out into the morning marketplace to find a medicine that could cure death.

"Please," she would plead to the merchants. "My son needs medicine. He's ill."

"Kisa, your son is dead."

But she would not hear their words. Thus she wandered the market, asking everyone if they knew a medicine for death. The woman the whole city once looked to for advice was now the center of everyone's pity.

"Gone mad, she has," some said. "She'll come to her wits," said others. "It may be kinder to kill her," said others still. Every single body in the city was moved by Kisa Gotami's sorrow.

She arrived with her dead baby to a certain apothecary and, once again, begged for a medicine with which to cure death. The apothecary, having been given warning of Kisa Gotami's coming, pretended to consider her question long and hard. Finally, he told her, "No. No, I don't have anything to cure death. But if anyone does, it would be the ascetic Gautama. He was a brilliant doctor before he retired, you know."

"Where can I find this man?" Gotami screamed, clutching her dead child.

"He is staying in the Jeta Grove, where they're building the monastery."

Gotami fled the medicine shop without another word. That same day, she rushed into the Jeta Grove, where the Buddha was lecturing a large assembly, many of whom knew of Kisa Gotami's plight.

Crying, reeking of death, and stained by the city, Gotami threw herself at the Buddha's feet, disturbing the lecture and laying her dead son flat on his back.

"Remove her," someone grumbled.

"Stay your tongue," came a reply. "That is Kisa Gotami. She can't be held accountable for what she does."

"Please," Kisa Gotami said, ignoring the murmurs about her. "I've been told that you once practiced medicine, and that you knew a cure for death. I beg you, sir, bring my son back to life. Please! My husband is amongst the city's wealthiest-I can pay you any fee."

A silence of pity spread through the crowd, and the Buddha looked on the distraught mother in silence.

"Please!" She cried.

Still the Buddha was silent.

"Do you know the cure or not? I beg you!"

"Yes," the Buddha said. "I know the cure for death."

A collective gasp went through the crowd, and the Buddha's closest disciples gave him a suspicious look.

"Any price," Gotami said, weeping. "Anything!"

"Very well," the Buddha said. "I require but a mustard seed-the other reagents I have. But it cannot be any common mustard seed. It must come from a family that has never known death. If you bring me such a seed, I will be able to prepare your cure."

"Oh, most generous doctor! Enlightened sage! Thank you! Thank you!"

"Ah-Leave the child," the Buddha said, as Gotami stood. "I can prepare the rest of the cure while you search."

For the first time in two days, Kisa Gotami traveled without the presence of her son's corpse.

When she was finally out of sight, the Buddha cast his gaze at the child's body, rotted, riddled with maggots and broken.

"Come, Ananda. We must cremate Kisa Gotami's son."

#

Kisa Gotami searched Savatthi with impeccable order, going from home to home, and asking everyone the same question. "Can you spare a mustard seed?"

"I don't see why not."

"Thank you! But-has your family ever known death?"

"Yes, Gotami. Only four months ago, my father passed. You were there, remember?"

#

"Yes, Gotami. My parents and their parents, and the brothers of them all are all dead and gone. I am alone in the world."

#

"Yes, Gotami. My son was slain in battle."

#

"...killed by wolves."

"...executed..."

"...drowned herself..."

"...fell from a partition..."

"...died from a cold..."

"I am the only one left of my family, Kisa Gotami." Kisa Gotami, battered and coated in filth, knelt in the mud of a long-due rainstorm and said to herself, "My son is dead."

Pellets of water battered her forehead and streaked the dirt down her face.

"My son is dead."

#

Kisa Gotami returned to the Jeta Grove and found the Buddha, sweeping wood-dust from the construction site.

"Kisa Gotami," the Buddha said in greeting.

"Blessed Sage," Kisa replied.

She was smeared over with the grime of the road, and old tears had carved paths through the dirt on her cheek. Despite this, the Buddha said, "Your wandering has done you well."

"Oh, Gautama, how selfish was my grief. I went from family to family, and pretended for two long days that there might exist some clan of immortals. Those wives alive in Savatthi who haven't already lost a son are bound to lose one someday. And if they never lose a son, then a son is bound to lose a mother. And how many parents lay buried beneath our feet!"

"Your observation is accurate in every way, Kisa Gotami. Neither those wise nor those foolish are immune to death. However great a father roars, he can never waken a dead daughter. However much a mother begs the gods, a dead son will never cry again. One by one, Gotami, we each die. This is but a greater disappointment among a thousand lesser ones, and just as a Sage does not mourn a broken pot, a Sage does not mourn death.

"Your tears painted trails down your face, once, Gotami, but those trails did not lead you to peace of mind. For four days, you suffered the elements as if you wandered a jungle instead of the heart of a great city. But your sorrow accomplished nothing for your son. Be prepared, Gotami, for you will suffer many other deaths in your time, and some day, your own. Destroy the attachment that causes your grief, and you will lead a better life."

Thus Kisa Gotami took her first step down the path of wisdom. And the Buddha finished sweeping the floor.

*Sutta translation by BartholomewKlick

One or Two Things

1
Don't bother me
I've just
been born.

2
The butterfly's loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and the black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes

for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze of the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower

3
The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things; I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now
he said, and now,

and never once mentioned forever,

4
which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.

5
One or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond, over the deep
roughage of the trees and through the stiff
flowers of lightning --- some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.

6
But to lift the hoof!
For that you need
an idea.

7
For years and years I struggled
just to love my life. And then

the butterfly
rose, weightless, in the wind.
"Don't love your life
too much," it said,

and vanished
into the world.

- Mary Oliver

I heard this poem last year during a Monday night class with Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.  Those last few lines have been lodged in my mind ever since.  "Don't love your life too much," says the butterfly.  This is the stinging message I feel like sharing with everyone since losing my boy. 

For me, the butterfly is a symbol of our impermanence.  With both its short life cycle and its metamorphosis, it represents a deep truth about the nature of reality -- that one thing always changes into another.  The butterfly is telling us not to grow too attached to things as they are because everything, even our suffering, is temporary.  In my grief, I also hear the butterfly shouting out a reminder not to let our lives pass us by.  This is the "idea" we need to "lift the hoof."  When we are touched by death, we see the preciousness of life.

When I look back on all of the stress, anxiety, and depression I've had in the past (and there was a lot of it), it all feels like dress rehearsal for what my family is experiencing now.  It all seems like small stuff.  While I wish I would have seen the preciousness of life back then (and skipped all of the years I struggled) I also think that going through all of that gave me some tools for navigating these waters now.  All of our experiences are our teacher.  

The "one or two things" seem to be hinting at the non-dual nature of reality.  Life and death, pleasure and pain -- these are inseparable and this knowledge gives life meaning... but this alone doesn't end our suffering.

The "sharp iron hoof" must be our human suffering -- the nagging feeling that something is wrong with our lives.  It's my understanding of the Buddhist teaching that we experience this dissatisfaction, or dukkha, when we deny the transient nature of reality -- when we grasp too tightly to things as they are -- and when we desire for things to be different. 

Maybe this poem is saying that by accepting the impermanent nature of reality, the sharp iron hoof at the center of our mind is lifted... that our suffering ends when we see that each fleeting moment is beautiful just as it is... and that we would be wise to realize this, to listen to the god of dirt saying, "now," before it's too late.