Kisa Gotami besieges Buddha in order to bring his dead son back to life. After she realized that death is everywhere, she learned Vipassana and was liberated. After her release, she helped many suffering women out of dire situations.
A Tale of Grief and Awakening
During the life-time of the Buddha, in the city of Savatthi, Gotami was born in a very poor family in the famous city of Savatthi in North India. Her name, meaning “Skinny Gotami”, hinted at her frail figure and the hardships she had endured throughout her life. she was married in a rich family there, but did not get any happiness that is expected in a rich family. As she had come from a poor family she was taunted all the time. Moreover, as she was childless, she had to constantly hear caustic and cutting comments.
The Grip of Sorrow
After a few years her fortune favored her. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. But the happiness of having a child did not last long. When the child was two or three years old, he died. The child was the cause of her respect and honor in the family. His death was unbearable for her. She became extremely unhappy. She started lamenting, holding the child to her heart. When people got ready to take the child to the cremation ground, she requested them to call in a good doctor who could bring her dead child to life by giving some medicine. But is there any medicine that can bring a dead person to life? People were at a loss as to how to console her.
Then a kind person suggested that she should go to the Buddha, who was very compassionate and also a great physician. He was dwelling in the Jetavana monastery at that time. Kisa Gotami, weeping and wailing rushes to the Jetavan Vihar, with the dead body of her child. She falls down on her knees and laid the dead child at the feet of Lord Buddha. She requests him to bring his son, back to life.
Kisa Gotami replies, 'I will do anything to bring my son back to life'
Lord Buddha says, "If it is so, I need you to go beg a pinch of mustard seeds from any household but it must be from a house, where no one residing in the house has ever lost a family member. Once you bring the mustard seeds back to me, your son will come back to life."
Lord Buddha, after seeing her state, says, "Kisa Gotami, I can bring your son back to life but you must do one work"
Seeing signs of hope, Kisa Gotami rushed back to her town. She goes from house to house, asking for mustard seeds. She knocks on the door of one of the houses and asks if she could get a pinch of mustard seeds. A person from the house offered to give her some mustard seeds. Before taking the seeds, Kisa Gotami asks whether there was any death in this house. He replies, He recently lost so and so just a few months ago. She goes to another house and learns that someone else has died in that household as well. Another house lost an uncle, and another house lost an aunt. She goes door to door, crying at every single house in the town, but gets the same answer. She was not able to find a house where they had not lost any loved ones to death. She gets so tired and finally comes to realize that death is inevitable; it is the law of nature. She goes back to Lord Buddha, tired.
The Path to Enlightenment
Lord Budha, then explains to her, 'Kisa Gotami, you were not in right senses when you came to me earlier. You were in great sorrow, due to losing your only, son whom you loved so much. I would not have been able to console you if I tried earlier. Thus, I sent you on this errand to make you realize that no one can escape death, this is the law of nature. Anything that has life, must end one day. No one can avoid death." Finally, Kisa Gotami realized that there was no one in the world who had never lost a family member to death. Now she understood that death is an inevitable and natural part of life.
She gave the dead body of her son and performed the last rites and went back to seek refuge in the path of the Buddha. She gets ordained and becomes the nun. Due to the accumulation of merits from her previous births, she became Srotapanna, and then Arahat. She taught Vipassana to many suffering women and helped them come out of it.
The Essence of Buddha's Words
Life is sometimes painful. Losing someone you love is always going to happen to everybody because this is called life. People come and go.
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