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People should treat each other with mutual respect, only then can they live harmonious, blissful and healthy lives. I often say that we must “respect life”. Apart from having mutual respect for each other, we must also nurture a heart of great love that encompasses all, and show equal love to all life, even the smallest of creatures.
Most people tend to love only the ones who are related to them in some way; this is the type of mundane love that the common man knows. The Buddha taught us to open our hearts wide and love all living beings. Yet in practice, this is easier said than done. This is because loving only our blood relations is our habitual tendency as mundane beings, and this arises from our attachment to (our love for our loved ones).
Treasure the present as death is inevitable in life
In the Buddhist canon, there was a woman named Kisa Gotami, who was the offspring of a once wealthy and distinguished family that had fallen on hard times. A rich youth was taken by her beauty and asked her father for her hand in marriage. However, as Gotami’s family was too poor to afford a dowry, she was despised by her husband’s family and even the servants looked down on her after her marriage. Thus, though she was the young mistress of a wealthy family, her status was nothing but lowly.
Soon after, Gotami became pregnant and she hoped that it would be a boy so that her status in the household could be elevated. Fortunately, her hopes were answered and she gave birth to a baby boy. She thus earned the respect of the servants and her family, and for a period after that, lived in blissful happiness.
Yet in a cruel twist of fate, an illness took the life of her child when he was just a year old. As a distraught Gotami carried her dead son around, pleading with others to save him, she was told that apart from the Buddha, no one else could do so.
Gotami sought out the Buddha and desperately begged him to save her son. With great compassion, the Buddha told her to calm down and said that he would teach her the method in answer to her request.
On hearing that there might be a way to bring her son back to life, Gotami soon calmed herself and listened attentively to the Buddha. The Buddha spoke: “Go and request a mustard seed from a family that has not had a death in the household, and your son will be saved.”
“Getting a mustard seed should be easy!”
Gotami was filled with hope and she set off making her rounds from house to house. Yet, on every door she knocked upon, though the residents did not lack mustard seeds, there was not a single household that had not experienced a death in the family before.
In great disappointment, she returned to the Buddha and told him: “Venerable Buddha, a mustard seed is easy to get, but I cannot find a family that has not experienced a death in the household!”
The Buddha answered her calmly: “Yes. In life, there is death, just as there is birth. We can never get all that we desire in life. Your karmic affinity with your son has come to an end. Why do you wish for the impossible?”
Hearing the words of the Buddha, so profound in its depth of meaning, Gotami finally found peace in her heart. She came to the realisation that life is filled with suffering caused by one’s desires (and attachments), and also that one’s karma must run its course. Then, she sought refuge with the Buddha and became a member of the monastic community, attaining the reputation of “Foremost in Diligence” among the Bhiksunis (Buddhist nuns).
We have no control over life and death, so we should treasure the people around us when they are alive. When the time comes for their passing, we must learn to let go, for death is but a natural course of life.
It is also important for us to care for all living beings with love and to cherish our affinities with others. Only then will we lead a blessed life.
Source: Tzu Chi Taiwan
Translated by the Tzu Chi Singapore translation team
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