- What a sermon is, and the questions in the “Before You Read” activity
- How Prince Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha, with every age and number the book gives
- The story of Kisa Gotami and the handful of mustard-seed
- What the Buddha teaches about death and grief, and the four pictures he uses
- Themes, the message, key lines and the old-fashioned language of the text
- The two modern texts on grief in the Speaking section
- Short answers to every “Thinking about the Text” question
1Getting Ready for the Chapter
1.1 What Is a Sermon?
A religious or moral talk, given to teach people how to think or live.
The “Before You Read” activity asks three things:
- Sermon vs lecture or talk: a lecture explains a subject; a sermon gives moral or religious advice. In daily speech the word can also be used as a joke or a complaint, for a long piece of advice nobody asked for, like “my mother’s sermon about getting my work done on time”.
- Words to look up: afflicted with, be composed, desolation, lamentation, procure, be subject to. All six appear in the chapter (see section 7).
- Two famous sermons: the Sermon on the Mount was given by Jesus Christ (general knowledge). The sermon at Benares was given by Gautama Buddha; it was his first sermon.
The chapter has three parts: a short life of the Buddha, the story of Kisa Gotami, and the Buddha’s words on death. The book says the text comes from Betty Renshaw‘s collection Values and Voices: A College Reader (1975).
2From Prince to Buddha
Gautama Buddha lived from 563 B.C. to 483 B.C. His birth name was Siddhartha Gautama, and he was born a prince in northern India. The book tells his early life in clear steps:
2.1 The Four Sights
Until about twenty-five, the prince had been kept away from all pain and sorrow. Then, while out hunting, he chanced upon (came across by chance) four sights, one after another:
The first three showed him illness, old age and death. These sights touched him so deeply that he left home at once to understand the sorrows he had seen.
A state of high spiritual knowledge, in which a person understands the truth about life and suffering.
2.2 The Bodhi Tree and the First Sermon
The book adds that this sermon shows the Buddha’s wisdom about “one inscrutable kind of suffering”. Inscrutable means something that cannot be understood. The suffering meant here is the grief caused by death, which no one can explain away.
3The Story of Kisa Gotami
3.1 The First Search: Medicine
Kisa Gotami had only one son, and the boy died. Grief-struck, she went from neighbour to neighbour with her dead boy, pleading for medicine to cure him. They only said, “She has lost her senses. The boy is dead.”
At last one man answered her differently. He said he had no medicine himself but knew a physician who had. When she asked who it was, he said, “Go to Sakyamuni, the Buddha.” (Sakyamuni is another name the text uses for the Buddha.)
3.2 The Buddha’s Strange Medicine
Kisa Gotami repaired (went) to the Buddha and cried, “Lord and Master, give me the medicine that will cure my boy.” The Buddha did not refuse. He asked for something that sounded very simple:
“The mustard-seed must be taken from a house where no one has lost a child, husband, parent or friend.”
The Buddha, to Kisa Gotami
First he asked for a handful of mustard-seed, and she joyfully promised to procure (get) it. Only then did he add the condition. Mustard-seed was easy to find; the condition was impossible.
3.3 The Second Search: Mustard-Seed
3.4 The Lights of the City
Worn out and hopeless, Kisa Gotami rested at the edge of the road. She watched the city’s lamps shine for a while and then go out, until the darkness of the night reigned everywhere. The lamps made her think of human lives: they too burn for a while and then go out.
“How selfish am I in my grief! Death is common to all; yet in this valley of desolation there is a path that leads him to immortality who has surrendered all selfishness.”
Kisa Gotami, thinking to herself
A valley of desolation is a place full of deep sorrow: here, the world itself. Her new understanding has two halves: death comes to everyone, so her loss is not special; and a person who gives up selfishness can still find a way beyond sorrow.
The two searches side by side
First search
- Asked for: medicine to bring her son back
- Asked: neighbours
- Their response: she has lost her senses
- She saw only her own loss
- Result: no medicine, and no understanding
Second search
- Asked for: mustard-seed from a house with no death
- Asked: house after house in the city
- Their response: pity, but every house had a loss
- She saw that every family grieves
- Result: no seed, but she understood that death is common to all
4The Buddha’s Teaching on Death
The last part of the text gives the Buddha’s words. The book does not say who was listening; it reports them simply as what “The Buddha said”. His teaching follows four steps.
4.1 The Four Steps of the Sermon
Every life ends
The life of mortals (beings who must die) is “troubled and brief and combined with pain”. Nobody who is born can escape death; after old age, death follows.
Death treats all alike
Young and adult, foolish and wise: all are “subject to death”. A father cannot save his son, and relatives cannot save one another.
Grief does not help
Weeping brings no peace. It makes the pain worse, makes the body sick and pale, and it never saves the dead.
The way to peace
Pull out “the arrow of lamentation, and complaint, and grief”. A person who becomes composed (calm) finds peace, and one who overcomes all sorrow is free from it and blessed.
4.2 The Pictures the Buddha Uses
The Buddha teaches through everyday images that any listener could picture. Learn each one with its point:
| Image | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Ripe fruits, “early in danger of falling” | From the moment of birth, every living being is in danger of death, just as ripe fruit can drop at any time. |
| Earthen vessels made by the potter that “end in being broken” | Every clay pot breaks one day; every life also ends. No one is made to last forever. |
| “like an ox that is led to the slaughter” | People are taken away by death one by one while their relatives watch and weep, unable to stop it. |
| “the arrow of lamentation” | Grief is like an arrow stuck in the body: it keeps hurting until it is pulled out. Letting go of grief brings peace. |
An expression of sorrow, such as loud weeping and crying over a loss.
The world is afflicted with (affected by) death and decay. That is why “the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world”. The terms of the world are its fixed rules, and the first rule is that whatever is born must die.
5Characters, Themes and Key Lines
5.1 The Two Main Characters
| Character | What the text shows |
|---|---|
| Kisa Gotami | A loving mother whose only son has died. At first her grief blinds her: she cannot accept the death and seeks medicine for a dead child. She is patient and willing, going from house to house twice. In the end she is thoughtful enough to see her own selfishness and accept the truth. |
| The Buddha | Wise and kind. He does not lecture a grieving mother or tell her she is foolish. Instead he gives her a task that lets her find the truth herself. His sermon uses simple pictures from daily life. |
5.2 Themes and Message
- Death is universal: everyone who is born must die; no family is spared.
- Grief can be selfish: thinking only of our own loss makes us forget that others suffer too.
- Learning by experience: the Buddha’s method works because Kisa Gotami discovers the truth with her own eyes, not from his words alone.
- Peace through acceptance: calm and peace come from accepting death, not from endless weeping.
Death comes to all, so instead of drowning in grief we should accept it calmly; that acceptance is the only road to peace of mind.
5.3 Key Lines and Their Meaning
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| “She has lost her senses. The boy is dead.” | The neighbours think her grief has driven her out of her mind, since no medicine can help a dead child. |
| “Alas! the living are few, but the dead are many.” | Every family has lost more people than it has living members; death is everywhere. |
| “Death is common to all” | Kisa Gotami’s discovery: her sorrow is shared by every household. |
| “the dead are not saved by his lamentation” | Crying cannot bring back anyone who has died. |
| “he who has overcome all sorrow will become free from sorrow, and be blessed.” | The final promise of the sermon: conquering grief leads to freedom and blessing. |
6Thinking about the Text: Short Answers
- First search: she asks the neighbours for medicine to cure her son. She does not get it, because the boy is already dead and no medicine can restore life.
- Second search: she asks for a handful of mustard-seed from a house where nobody has lost a child, husband, parent or friend. People offer seed, but she finds no house without a death, so the condition is never met.
- What she understands: that death is common to all and that she was being selfish in her grief. Yes, this was exactly the lesson the Buddha meant her to learn.
- Why only the second time: the first time she thought only of her own son. The Buddha’s task made her listen to the losses of every family, so she saw for herself that death spares no one. He changed her by experience, not by argument.
- Selfishness: usually it means caring only for oneself. Her grief was natural, but she was “selfish” in the sense that she thought her loss was the only one and forgot that everyone suffers the same way. So her view is fair.
7Thinking about Language
7.1 Old-Fashioned Words in Modern English
The story is more than two thousand years old, and the text keeps an old style. In current English:
| Old style (from the text) | Modern English |
|---|---|
| give thee medicine for thy child | give you medicine for your child |
| Pray tell me | Please tell me |
| Kisa repaired to the Buddha | Kisa went to the Buddha |
| there was no house but someone had died in it | someone had died in every house |
| kinsmen | relatives, family members |
| Mark! | Look! / Pay attention! |
7.2 Joining Clauses with a Semicolon
When no joining word like and, or, but, yet or then fits, two clauses can be joined with a semicolon (;). The book’s example: “She has no interest in music; I doubt she will become a singer like her mother.” The second clause gives the speaker’s opinion on the first.
The Buddha’s sentence joined by two semicolons, broken into three simple sentences:
- There is not any means by which those who have been born can avoid dying.
- After reaching old age there is death.
- Of such a nature are living beings.
The single sentence with semicolons has the better, flowing rhythm when read aloud; the three short sentences sound broken.
8Speaking: Two Modern Texts on Grief
The book asks whether the Buddha’s ideas still help us today. It gives two recent texts to compare.
8.1 The Two Texts
I. A Guide to Coping with the Death of a Loved One
- Martha lost her husband of 26 years to cancer a month ago; she cannot sleep well.
- Anya, 17, lost her grandmother; she stays in her room crying and does not feel like eating.
- Grief is a natural feeling after any loss or major change.
- Common feelings: sadness, anger, guilt and self-reproach, anxiety, loneliness, fatigue, disbelief.
- To help: reach out, be patient, and show you care, but accept that some people will not share their grief.
II. Good Grief, by Amitai Etzioni
- The writer’s wife died in 1985 when her car slid off an icy road.
- His son Michael, 38, died suddenly in his sleep, leaving a two-year-old son, Max, and a wife expecting a baby.
- He says there is no set form and no “right” way to grieve.
- A relative’s saying comforted him: “We are not to ask why, but what.”
- The family finds comfort in doing things for one another.
All three texts agree that loss is a part of every life. The Buddha asks us to accept death calmly and give up grief; the modern texts accept that grief is natural and say that caring for one another is what helps us through it.
The Writing task offers three topics for a page each: teaching someone a new or difficult idea, helping each other through hard times, and seeing oneself as unique or as one among billions.
9Words to Know
| Word / phrase | Meaning (book’s glossary) |
|---|---|
| chanced upon | came across by chance |
| enlightenment | a state of high spiritual knowledge |
| sermon | religious or moral talk |
| dipping places | bathing |
| inscrutable | something which cannot be understood |
| repaired | (a stylistic use) went to |
| valley of desolation | an area which is filled with deep sorrow |
| mortals | those bound to die |
| afflicted with | affected by suffering, disease or pain |
| lamentation | expression of sorrow |
| procure | get, obtain (from the Before You Read box) |
| be composed | be calm and in control of one’s feelings (from the Before You Read box) |
- Gautama Buddha, 563 B.C. to 483 B.C.; born Prince Siddhartha Gautama, northern India
- 12: scriptures; 4 years later: married a princess, a son; 10 years royal life
- About 25, while hunting: sick man, aged man, funeral procession, monk begging for alms
- Wandered 7 years; peepal tree; enlightened in 7 days; Bodhi Tree = Tree of Wisdom
- Buddha = the Awakened or the Enlightened; first sermon at Benares, on the River Ganges
- Kisa Gotami: only son dead; asks neighbours for medicine; “She has lost her senses”
- A man sends her to Sakyamuni; the Buddha asks for mustard-seed from a house with no death
- “the living are few, but the dead are many”; no such house exists
- City lights flicker and go out; “How selfish am I in my grief! Death is common to all”
- Sermon: life brief and painful; ripe fruits, earthen vessels, ox to slaughter; wise do not grieve
- Pull out the arrow of lamentation; the composed find peace and are blessed
- Speaking: Martha, Anya, seven feelings of grief; Etzioni’s “Good Grief”: ask what, not why
- Can I list the four sights that changed the prince?
- Can I explain the names Bodhi Tree and the Buddha?
- Can I compare Kisa Gotami’s two searches?
- Can I explain why the Buddha set an impossible condition?
- Can I explain the ripe fruit, earthen vessel and arrow images?
- Can I say why Kisa Gotami calls herself selfish?
- Can I rewrite the old-fashioned phrases in modern English?