{"id":52,"date":"2005-06-09T09:54:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-09T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/grief-and-truth\/"},"modified":"2005-06-09T09:54:00","modified_gmt":"2005-06-09T16:54:00","slug":"grief-and-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2005\/06\/09\/grief-and-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Grief and truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interesting story from Killing the Buddha<\/a>, linked yesterday at 3quarksdaily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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A famous Buddhist story tells of Kisa Gotami, a young mother from the Buddha\u2019s clan whose baby boy died suddenly. Grief-stricken, she carried his corpse with her everywhere, wailing and wondering aloud why her child had left her. People pitied her, and eventually she was told to go to the Buddha for advice. When she reached his retreat, she demanded that the Buddha bring her boy back to life. Somewhat surprisingly, the Buddha agreed to do so, but first asked Gotami to do something. \u201cAnything, anything,\u201d she cried in desperate hope. The Buddha told her to go into the village and bring back a mustard seed from a house which had never known death.<\/p>\n

Kisa Gotami went from house to house, still clutching the limp body of her child, asking for mustard seeds. People readily agreed to give her one, but when she asked if anyone had died in the house, every time the occupants nodded sadly. In each house there had been some sort of loss\u2014a father, a sister, an aunt, a baby. As Gotami made her way through the village, she gradually began to understand that death was an absolute fact of existence, that no one escaped it, not in the meanest hut or in the palace itself. Finally, she took her child\u2019s body to the charnel ground and left it, returning to the Buddha to be ordained as a nun. Realizing that the Buddha never meant to resurrect her boy but was teaching her a more important religious lesson, she released her attachment and with newfound wisdom, committed herself to a life of spiritual awakening.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s a good story, although not without the usual shortcomings of the Buddhist-parable genre. For one thing, the protagonist is rather literal-minded; how many homes did she really have to visit before figuring out that death was universal? Also, “kill-the-Buddha” exhortations notwithstanding, these stories inevitably end up portraying the Buddha as a smugly wise man surrounded by rather simple folk (much like physicists’s stories about Feynman).<\/p>\n

Still, I like the story and its moral. But then, a little twist:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve read or been told this story dozens of times. Before, I always marveled at the truth of this tale, its brave acceptance of the way of things, the contrast between Jesus\u2019 improbable miracles and the Buddha\u2019s humble demonstration of a spiritual fact more important than the healing of flesh. I\u2019ve told this story more times that I can recall, confident in its correctness and value. But then Grandmother died, and without my knowing it, the story completely changed. The first time I read about Kisa Gotami again after Grandmother\u2019s death, I immediately thought, \u201cIf Buddha had played a trick like that on me, I would\u2019ve torn his goddamn head off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The truth is, I\u2019d much rather have Grandmother back than to acquire some sort of spiritual insight. I\u2019d eagerly trade in all my books and statues, my altar, and all the teachings I\u2019ve attended and blessings I\u2019ve received. If Jesus had been around handing out resurrections, I would\u2019ve surely picked him over do-nothing, it\u2019s-a-learning-experience Buddha. Hard-won religious understanding is a very poor substitute for the love and support of someone close to you. But whether or not it takes second place, it\u2019s all you end up with. Everyone is going to die on you, until the day that you die on whoever is left. So learning from the worst, immutable parts of life, or just continuing to revolve in painful ignorance, is the only choice we get. Buddha\u2019s story may have a disappointing punch-line, but that doesn\u2019t mean he wasn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s exactly right, isn’t it? In the midst of great grief, the overpowering sorrow that comes with an unexpected loss, you aren’t in any mood for pious teachings about inevitability and acceptance — you want a miraculous escape, a for-real deus ex machina<\/span>. Nevertheless, the miracles aren’t forthcoming. Wishing for them is both perfectly understandable, and ultimately fruitless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting story from Killing the Buddha, linked yesterday at 3quarksdaily. A famous Buddhist story tells of Kisa Gotami, a young mother from the Buddha\u2019s clan whose baby boy died suddenly. Grief-stricken, she carried his corpse with her everywhere, wailing and wondering aloud why her child had left her. People pitied her, and eventually she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}