Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed By BartholomewKlick

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.By BartholomewKlick

ShadowEmotions

Underneath it all I believe that fear, as well as, any emotion can be a great teacher. I think I understand the higher possibility or spiritual dimension of fear. Fear can open the doors of compassion and what the Buddhist philosophy tells us over and over again is that we are interconnected with all things. Nothing is empty of its own being; it is in a constant flux of arising and falling phenomenon. If further explored one can reveal and understand the preciousness of the human life form and how rare it is to be born as a human. This is powerful for me to remember and very healing. Another wonder antidote to fear is the cultivation of compassion, which I find when I am practicing yoga and metta. I have experienced the power of transforming not the emotion itself, but my relationship to the emotion without repressing it.

The Meaning of Healing : A Personal Heuristic

As I reflect about healing and its meanings, I cannot help but reflect on my own life’s journey. I come from a place where my body has been poisoned by the environment, ravaged by cancer, and the western medical community. I can relate to the picture of Frida Kahlo with all the blood, sutures, and being put back together, but with missing parts. I will say that what enabled great healing for me during this time and since then is the psycho-spiritual line of development. I find great solace and equanimity in spiritual development because in general, development in psycho-spiritual is necessary to facilitate change in the biological, interpersonal, and worldly life; they are all interconnected with each other, helping the other along on the journey if you will.
My healing orbits around a spiritual sun. It is interesting because like the earth and the rest of the solar system, my orbit moves away from that sun or healing until I end up in darkness, the dark side of the moon. The great religious mystics often talk about in the absence of God you find God. The negation or absence of healing can bring a real driving force into the equation to journey on the path of healing or drive to manifest what is missing or to balance out. Therefore, balance is very important to health. When speaking of healing and the spiritual line, it is important to note that it does not, for me, mean religion, although there are some systems of religions that do have spiritual aspects within the dogma. I think healing and health surround acts and a life of altruism. Meditations, from many different religious traditions, create a way to practice compassion.
Healing for me is everywhere, all the time. It is not linear, outside of our concept of time, and there is no place for dualistic thinking there is movement and change involved. My own heuristic research of the meaning of healing uncovered a list of metta themes. The list is derived from the whole exploration and personal inquiry of the meaning if healing. The list is in no way exhaustive. The list is as follows: 1) Healing is relative and personal and turning towards the “ordinary” things with mindfulness and awareness can be the bedrock for healing. 2) Healing occurs in relation or interconnection with other. 3) Healing occurs in relation or interconnection with nature. 4) Healing is being with whatever is a rising. 5) Healing is evolutionary process on both the conscious and unconsciously. 6) Healing occurs on many levels mind/body/ spiritual component. I think interconnectedness is the key. Healing for the benefit for others is an over arching theme for me. Healing for the benefit for all sentient beings is selfless and ultimately an act of the compassion.
Healing is embedded with compassion. I remember reading about some scientific studies that the Dalai Lama was tracking involving one of his monks. The meditation practice of Metta (lovingkindness) was scientifically recorded as being able to create wellbeing in the practitioner. This practice can evoke the sense of wellbeing in oneself however; the practice really focuses on well wishing of others. In Buddhism, it is thought that humans are conditioned by ignorance and the illusion of a finite self. This is what causes disease and suffering. Its solution to the problem is to overcome the fundamental blindness of the ego and the realization that everything is interconnected. Therefore, health and healing for everyone on the planet is interconnected. In this light, why not cultivate this sense of interconnectedness though diligence and practice.
It is imperative for healing to foster a way of being present in ones one life so it spills out into the world. In regards to health, I love the holistic teachings of Buddhism and the Bodhisattva path in specific, which is meant to restore our vision, to elevate and transform the contours of the human condition. The HEALING Path is a journey towards Enlightenment, ceaseless process of advancement towards wisdom and compassion. The goal of this journey is eternally achieved and eternally in the process of being achieved.

The moon calls to me through the window like a secret lover longing for my embrace.

GoingToWalden

It isn’t very far as highways lie.

I might be back by night fall, having seen

The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.

Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.

They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:

How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool

To miss a day away in the cool country.

Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,

Going to Walden is not so easy a thing

As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult

Trick of living, and finding it where you are.
By Mary Oliver

ChangingEmotions

Paying attention to the flow of my emotional experience is quite a challenge. I attempt to practice mindfulness in my daily life. Satipatthana , or direct path to realization looks to the body and the experience within the body. Thoughts and feelings arise and with their coming into being there are feeling tones throughout the body. I do not know how many of these feeling tones are generated per minute, but I am sure that there are millions. This week it seemed as if I was experiencing the same feelings all week long, as if they were permanent and unchanging. These feelings and emotions were of sadness, anxiety and despair. However, I am sure I experienced many subtle feelings as well, everything from sadness to happiness and everything in between. What manifested the most this week was sadness, grief, frustration and anger. These feelings arose with thoughts about and fears of the unknown and financial stresses. I often walk around with these mind states. The emotions always have story connected to it and that story forms an illusion of permanence. I walk around in ignorance, and this we know causes suffering.
I find it curious that when I remembered to slow down during this week, I was able to experience emotions within my body. These feeling tones can be felt and investigated as objects of concentration. Emotions can lead to trigger mind states and mind states and thoughts can trigger or evoke emotions. Slowing down helps to stay embodied. All week I had to remind myself to come back home. I used the different techniques of yoga, breathing and meditation to come back. I have sat on a cushion and have done work around this. My states are often negative. Or let me reword that I notice my negative states more than I do the pleasant or neutral states, perhaps it is because I have so much aversion to what I perceive as unpleasant sensations that they become glaring. I believe I identify with the negative. The more I practice mindfulness, the more I am aware of my feeling tones within the body. I have to laugh sometimes when the same ones keep popping up over and over again, most of the time I ride the emotion or the story all the way to the end and I wonder how I got there. My ego and identity are embedded in to the story of my experience and I am so apart of my story that I find it difficult to change. I know intellectually that nothing is permanent, yet I forget all the time. I hold on to anger associated with a time and place in my life as if it were permanent. My ego holds onto anger, because it is looking for something to prove it is real or tangible and it is not. It is empty of its own being. I identify with cancer and childlessness. Cancer and hysterectomy at age 14 has left me such sadness that my heart could just burst. I am able to hold this space more these days, but I still see it ooze out into my relationships. The more I practice the more I can see the repeating thoughts, which generate feeling and body sensations. I often notice, and this week was no different, that I have a need to put on a happy, positive face.In general, I have no problem expressing my emotions. I wear my heart on my sleeve most of the time. However, I have learned that most people really do not want you to be authentic if what you feel and express is not “positive.” They only say they do, so it has been my experience that if I express more “negative” emotions people do not want to be around me. Therefore, I express happy thoughts. I am often guarded as not to offend. I monitor my thoughts; otherwise, I keep it to myself. That control only goes so far and I finally have to speak up or have “out bursts.”
I learned from a very early age that there is a distinction of what can be disclosed depends on the audience, and the emotion. So on top of experiencing a certain emotion, if I have an audience, I am also in the process of accessing the situation trying to figure what is all right to talk about. I find it quite tiring. So negative or darker thoughts are bad and happy positive thoughts are good and keep the peace. I do not walk around sad all the time. I have great moments of happiness and gratitude. The “good” thoughts are easy to disclose to others for me. It doesn’t matter who is around for that one. People like that.
I find that when I am around others who are really making an effort in mindfulness, I too become more mindful. If I am around people who are really scattered and not grounded, it takes more effort to stay grounded and centered. So for me I have noticed that sangha is very important. I need to be reminded that I walk around believing things are permanent, forming attachments and aversions. I find that this week when I was alone, I was more apt to be experiencing unpleasant emotions and feeling tones. Most of the time I could sit with these feelings with a holding and inquisitiveness, other times, I wanted to crumble up. The dialogue I have with myself often is unpleasant in nature. Like a mantra I will tell myself things that lead be to darker thoughts and emotions. This is why I sit and meditate every day, to learn to how to sit and move through these emotions without identifying myself as the emotions. They are passing clouds. I have to remember.

AllTheHemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.

Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting

While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.

Sufi Poet Hafiz