How to endure the pain of separation from someone you love?
Buddism and its philosophy have always been close to my heart. Not only the philosophy but I have learned so much from the stories from the life of Buddha himself. How many of them are true or merely folklore I won’t delve into that. I have always believed in learning and understanding things rather than caring about the source. So, here is a beautiful story from the lifetime of Buddha. Budda in his pursuit to spread Buddhism and its teaching would visit towns, villages and cities to disperse his knowledge among his followers and people at large. Once a lady named Kisa Gautami came running to the place of the temporary dwelling of Budda. She was carrying her son in her arms who had died. It was his corpse that she was carrying. Dismayed Gautami pleaded to The Buddha to bring back her child from Death. She must have heard tales about the miraculous power Of holy saints and thus must have come to Buddha with the same hope. First buddha tried to placate her and bring some sense into her, tried to convince her that death is inevitable and everyone who has taken birth will have to die. However the mother was so distressed by the death of her only child, she was not willing to accept the truth and kept on pleading to Buddha to bring her son back to life. The discerning Buddha not able to placate her agony, told her to bring mustard seeds from any house in the village where there has never been a death in the family. Enthralled the aggrieved mother ran from one house to another house in the village only to be denied mustard seeds from everywhere. The reason being that every home she went to, has suffered from
The tragedy of the death of a family
Members, not once but many a time. By the time she comes close to The last home of the village, She has come to an understanding that one who has come to this earth has to leave the world either later or sooner. Separation in life or death is inevitable. She returned to Buddha’s Ashram and sat close to his feet asking him to accept her as her disciple. From that time onward buddha started accepting female disciples. Kisa Gautami was the first woman who was accepted by Buddha as his disciple. She embraced Buddhism and became a great Buddhist saint
We as humans are agonized by separation either due to death or even in life. Death being the ultimate separation, the story teaches us that separation is meant to be and to accept it is the real truth.
