The story of Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed shows how the Buddha used skilful means to help someone who was in a very difficult situation.

During the time of the Buddha, in the city of Shravasti, lived a young woman named Gotami who had been born into a very poor household. She was so thin that people called her Kisa Gotami, meaning Skinny Gotami. Kisa Gotami married very young and gave birth to a son, who she was very devoted to. One day, soon after her son had learned to walk, Kisa Gotami was out in the street with him when he suddenly tripped over and fell, and lay there motionless. Kisa Gotami rushed over to her son and tried to revive him; she tried everything she could think of, but nothing seemed to work. She was convinced that he had just been knocked unconscious, and that if she could only find the right thing to do he would soon recover. In her anguish and grief she was unable to see, or unable to take in and comprehend, that her son had died.

When she didn’t manage to revive him herself, Kisa Gotami rushed home and asked her relatives to help. They could see that the child was dead and tried to convince Kisa Gotami of this, but she was determined that his small limp body was still alive, and that there must be some medicine that could restore him.

Carrying his dead body in her arms she went along the street, going from door to door asking if anyone had the medicine that would cure her son. It was clear to everyone she asked that the child was beyond the help of medicines, and that poor Kisa Gotami was so distraught that she couldn’t accept the reality of her child’s death. They tried to help her as best they could, gently pointing out that medicine would be of no use, and that she must accept that the boy was dead and take him to the cemetery to bury him. But Kisa Gotami’s sorrow and anguish was so deep that she was unable to process what the townspeople were saying to her, and when they couldn’t get through to her, all they could do was to say that they didn’t have the right medicine, and that she should try somewhere else.

Kisa Gotami still wouldn’t give up, and continued on beyond her own neighbourhood searching for the medicine. Some tried to help and console her, some just thought she was mad and closed the door to her, and some even chased her away. But Kisa Gotami was determined to cure her son, and carried on asking door to door. Eventually she came to the house of one of the elders. The elder was very wise and thought, “This child is clearly beyond the help of medicine, but the mother is in great need of help. No medical doctor can help the child, but there is a great doctor nearby who will know how to help this poor woman.” So the elder said to Kisa Gotami, “Good woman, go and see the Buddha, the Enlightened One, and ask him whether he has any medicine for you.”

Kisa Gotami had heard about the Buddha, and had been deeply impressed when she had caught sight of him one day in the city, so she asked where the Buddha might be and quickly hurried there, still cradling her dead son’s lifeless body in her arms.

When she reached the place where the Buddha was staying, she went straight up to the Buddha and fell down at his feet, crying out to him, “Lord Buddha, I beg you, please give me the medicine which I need to wake my child from his sleep.” Straight away the Buddha understood Kisa Gotami’s situation and state of mind and said to her, “Good woman, I do have some medicine for you, but in order for this medicine to work you need to obtain a small quantity of mustard seed from a house in the city…”

“Oh yes, Lord Buddha”, burst out Kisa Gotami as the Buddha was still speaking, “I can certainly do that,” and got up to hurry away. Mustard seed was one of the cheapest spices available, and she knew that virtually every house in the city would have some.

But the Buddha hadn’t quite finished speaking. “Good woman,” he said, “you need to obtain this mustard seed from a house in the city where no one has died, and where no one has ever lost a loved one.” Kisa Gotami couldn’t see what difference that would make, but accepted the Buddha’s instruction and hurried away to get the mustard seed that she thought would cure her child.

Confidently, she knocked at the first door she came to and asked whether they could give her a small quantity of mustard seed. The occupants could see the state that Kisa Gotami was in, still clutching her son’s body, and willingly gave her the mustard see that she wanted. As she turned away in triumph to return to the Buddha she suddenly remembered the second part of the Buddha’s instructions, and turning back to the householder asked, “By the way, has anyone ever died in this house, or have any of you ever lost a loved one?”

“Yes, of course,” came the reply, “Our grandmother died a few weeks ago.” Kisa Gotami was disappointed and gave back the mustard seed, but thinking that she had just got unlucky at the first house, went on to the next one.

Again the occupants had some mustard seed, but again someone had died at the house, so she went on to the next one. At the next house the same thing happened. And again at the house after that. In her all-consuming grief Kisa Gotami was not about to give up, and continued on from house to house asking the same questions. At one house a father had died, at another it was a daughter, at a third it was a husband. After a while Kisa Gotami even stopped asking for the mustard seed, as everyone had that, and just knocked at the door and asked if anyone had died there, or had lost a loved one. It must have been a shock to the householders to have someone knock at the door and ask such a thing, but they could see that Kisa Gotami was very disturbed, and when they told her who had died there she quickly left them and went to the next house.

As the day wore on, the realisation that she wasn’t going to find a house that was untouched by death gradually seeped into poor Kisa Gotami’s mind, but still she kept asking. From door to door she went, but the outcome was always the same. She desperately wanted it not to be true, but her experience kept on showing her the reality of the situation. As she went on she also couldn’t help noticing just how many houses had lost a child, either at birth, or as a baby, or at any age as the child grew up. Child mortality was very high in those days.

As the daylight faded Kisa Gotami’s mind finally began to realise that she wasn’t alone or unusual in losing a child. She realised that the universe was not picking on her and singling her out for a special punishment. She realised that the death of her child didn’t mean that the universe had malfunctioned and was broken. This is just what happened: children sometimes died; and her tour of the city had shown her that it happened a lot. She was just one amongst many grieving parents, and she must do as they had done and take her child to the cemetery to bury him. Still feeling the pain of loss, but with a heart no longer disturbed by anger and denial, Kisa Gotami accepted the death of her son and lovingly carried him on his final journey to the cemetery.

After burying her son, Kisa Gotami walked back calmly through the streets to where the Buddha was staying. She smiled kindly at those from whom she had been demanding answers earlier in the day, but her demeanour was so different now that many of them scarcely recognised her.

Finding the Buddha again, Kisa Gotami went up to him and respectfully bowed before him, thanking him for his teaching. The Buddha asked her whether she had managed to get the mustard seed, and she replied, “No Lord Buddha, I have not. Mustard seed is easy to obtain, but a house untouched by death cannot be found.”

“Good woman,” said the Buddha, “when I said that I had some medicine for you, you may have thought I was promising to cure your son. But indeed, the medicine was not for your son, but for you. I can see that the medicine has done it’s work, and that you now see clearly that birth and death cannot be avoided, and are part of the reality of existence for each and every person, and for all living things.”

Then the Buddha recited this verse:
“People are heavily burdened by so many cares;
they are driven by concerns about children, wealth, possessions and reputation;
However much they may be attached to life, death comes to all,
Sweeping everything away just as a great flood sweeps away a sleeping village.”

Hearing this verse, and deeply affected by the events of the day, Kisa Gotami asked to join the Buddha’s community and was ordained as a nun. Many years later she was observing the flickering of the flame of an oil lamp in her monastic dwelling one evening, noticing how easily it could be blown out by the slightest draught, and had a deep insight into the fragile and impermanent nature of life. The Buddha came to her and recited this verse, comparing a life of confusion and ignorance to a life of understanding:

“A person who has not understood the nature of reality
May live for a hundred years,
But far more valuable is just a single day of life
For a person who has understood the nature of reality.”

Gotami took the Buddha’s teaching to heart and replied, “Thank you Lord Buddha for your great compassion. Better one day of understanding than a hundred years of ignorance.” The Buddha praised Gotami’s understanding, and to this day she is considered to be one of the Buddha’s foremost disciples.

***

Many years later, in the Japanese Zen Tradition, Great Master Dōgen wrote:

“Should you live for a hundred years just wasting your time,
      every day and month will be filled with sorrow;
should you drift as the slave of your senses for a hundred years
      and yet live truly for only so much as a single day,
you will, in that one day, not only live a hundred years of life
      but also save a hundred years of your future life.”

It is better to live the Life of Buddha wholeheartedly for a single moment than to drift aimlessly for many years. In living each moment wholeheartedly we save ourselves from countless years of future suffering, by not sowing the seeds of that suffering in this moment.

Sources:
There are many versions of the story of Kisa Gotami available online, including the following:

St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Global Justice Course, http://faculty.smcm.edu/jwschroeder/Web/ETHR1002/Global_Jutice_Readings_files/8.KisaGotami.pdf

Internet Sacred TextArchive, https://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/btg/btg85.htm

Buddhist Stories website, https://buddhiststories.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/kisa-gotami-and-the-mustard-seed/

The last verse the Buddha recites is based on Dhammapada verse 114, together with the story, from:

The Dhammapada, tranlated by Narada Thera, first published in 1963

The quote from Great Master Dōgen’s Shushōgi is from:

Kennett, Jiyu. Zen Is Eternal Life. Shasta Abbey Press, 1999.