This text is written in an old-fashioned style, for it reports an incident more than two millennia old. Look for the following words and phrases in the text, and try to rephrase them in more current language, based on how you understand them.

• give thee medicine for thy child
• Pray tell me
• Kisa repaired to the Buddha
• there was no house but someone had died in it
• kinsmen
• Mark!

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
So the world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world. “Not from weeping nor from grieving will anyone obtain peace of mind; on the contrary, his pain will be the greater and his body will suffer. He will make himself sick and pale, yet the dead are not saved by his lamentation.

1. Why do wise people do not grieve when there is a death?
2. Can our weeping or grieving have any benefit?
3. Given the meaning of the word ‘lamentation’.



 

Kisa Gotami again goes from house to house after she speaks with the Buddha. What does she ask for, the second time around? Does she get it? Why not?

How do you usually understand the idea of ‘selfishness’? Do you agree with Kisa Gotami that she was being ‘selfish in her grief ’?

Describe the early life of Siddhartha Gautama.

What moved Siddhartha? Why?

Why did Siddhartha go out into the world?

How did Siddhartha get enlightenment?

Or

How did Siddhartha become the Buddha?

What did the Buddha do after getting Enlightenment? Why?

Why did the Buddha choose Benares to preach his first Sermon?

When her son dies, Kisa Gotami goes from house to house. What does she ask for? Does she get it? Why not?