Journeys to the Buddha I KISSA GOTAMI

(This is a fictionalized dramatic account of Kissa Gotami’s conversation with the Buddha just before she was given realization of the truth. It is based on some fact, as are the other two pieces in this series of monologues, but differs from the traditional tale in a few ways.)

Kissa Gotami was the woman whose young child had died in her arms, and unable to accept death, wept inconsolably to the gods for the resurrection of her child. Finally, she was brought to the Buddha who, knowing her inability to accept death, and would therefore continue to suffer, instructed that she should get a handful of mustard seeds from a house that has had no death, and bringing these to him, he would perform the miracle she was pleading for.

Scene: Throughout, there is no change of scene. There is only one light shining on the actor. There may be changes to this light depending on the mood of the “action”. We can take it that this light emanates from the Buddha, who is invisible to the audience. This is a conversation between the protagonist and the Buddha. Kissa Gotami enters hurriedly, almost frantic with joy. In her hand, she clutches a handkerchief. As she quickly bows to the Buddha, she is almost in tears, so filled with hope and joy she is. And yet, there seems to be a look of fear and distance in her eyes.

Kissa: O revered master, here they are, here they are… I have finally found what you need for the miracle. I have the mustard seeds here… here… from a house untainted by death! Please, please, perform the miracle now… now! I have done what you asked of me… I went begging at every threshold at every house… asking for these mustard seeds. (She trembles as she holds up the bundle.) Every house I went to… every wife and mother I could beg from… when I asked for the mustard seeds were too happy to give them to me… but when I told them about the condition… about your condition, O lord, that their house must not be contaminated by death, they shook their heads… some began to cry, some shouted at me… some even cursed me, saying I was a fool… like a donkey with no understanding… but here they are, O revered master, mustard seeds from a house where there has been no death. Take them quickly, O true master, perform your wonderful miracle, and give my child back to me…

Buddha (unheard): O Kissa, these mustards seeds come from a house that has not seen the sorrow of death?

Kissa: No, compassionate master, revered teacher of humanity, that beautiful but pale lady of the house told me that her hearth and kitchen had not been sullied by the pollution of death. Imagine my joy… when she told me that. Hers was the last house but one in the village that I had gone to. She was glad to be of help when I told her about this condition. She looked so pure and radiant, so distant and beautiful, so quiet and peaceful. I thought I saw her round eyes fill with tears but then she gave me such a soft gentle smile, I was sure she was heaven sent - like an angel, O master, to grant me my wish. As she moved to the small earthen jar to get me her unsullied mustard seeds, I saw that her kitchen was clean, and simple… the house was quiet… it was so peaceful there, with her.

Then I saw, under the huge kitchen table, tucked away in a corner, a basket, a crib for a baby, with a rag doll all bundled up under a blanket. The red blanket caught my eye, and the big eyes of the rag doll… she saw me looking… and it was on the tip of my tongue to ask her where her child was… but she smiled at me, and gently patted her stomach… O master, I was so filled with happiness for her. And yet, I was reminded of my child taken away from me – a wave of sorrow welled up within me – but then I remembered that this was the angel who would help me get my child back, and my sorrow turned to laughter. Her wonderful mustard seeds would allow you to perform the miracle. O master, what joy, what immeasurable joy came over me… I kissed her hands, my tears mingled with my gratitude, and took these seeds from her hand, her angelic white hand. When I left her house, she stood there smiling softly, like an angel from the far heavens come down to grant me my heartbreaking wish… so here they are, O compassionate lord, take them, perform your miracle… let me hold my child, my darling, sweet, sweet child, all warm and soft against his mother’s breast… O please…!

Buddha (unheard): Kissa…

Kissa: Yes, master…

Buddha (unheard): Do you really think the dead can return to life?

Kissa: The dead cannot return to life, master, but you, you with your special divine powers, you who have understood the secret of life, gained the wisdom of the ancients, communed with the heavenly beings, you can perform this miracle… You told me you could… with these mustard seeds that you have asked me to find. O master, have pity on me, on this poor mother whose heart is breaking for the child she loves so much. He is my only child, O sweet master. How I had longed for him. Longed for a child like him… and the divine masters had blessed me with this sweet child. O master, you have not seen my child – his eyes sparkle with the light of laughter, his cheeks silken and rosy… each time I suckled him, his tiny hand would play with my hair, and the light of joy from his eyes I would drink, filling my thirsty heart. O master, if you had seen him, you would immediately know that this child of mine is worthy of saving, worthy of your miracle, worthy of bringing back to life… for he would fill the world with sunshine and laughter… he would fill my life, my empty life, with warmth and light, chasing the darkness away.

O master, it is a pity that you cannot see him as I can see him. O master, have faith in a mother’s love. I have faith in you… have faith in my love. I have faith in you, O master. Unlike my husband who has lost all hope, who perhaps thinks I am mad, mad to come to you like this… pleading for my child to be given back to me… what is a mother to do? My husband has no faith, O master, he just sits in a corner, and cries… he cries until he has no more tears to cry… But my heart is an unending river, O master, an unending river of tears that flows and overflows each time I think of my child, each time I see someone else’s child… I have asked all the wise people in the village. They told me no one could help me except you. You, O Buddha, compassionate one… you who can hear and understand our sorrow… they brought me to you.

My husband told me it would be no use… but then he has no faith… he does not understand how a mother feels. He just goes about doing things as if nothing has happened… but I can’t! My heart is breaking, even now… can there be nothing to remove this pain in me? And yet it would not break because it is held together with a thin thread of hope, and faith, that you can give me back my child…

Buddha (unheard): Put the mustard seeds on the ground.

Kissa: Put the mustard seeds…? [She puts them on the ground.] I have done so, lord.

Buddha (unheard): Look at these seeds closely, Kissa. [She looks at them, then looks up questioningly, and looks at them again.] Think of the pale and beautiful lady who gave you these seeds.

Kissa: The pale and beautiful lady who gave me these seeds? Yes, my lord, I remember her very well – that pale angel whose radiant face of peace fills me with hope. She is with child, may your blessings be showered upon her and her child to come, O master, just as you will shower your blessings upon me and my child to return. You ask me to think upon her – I see her so clearly in my mind, standing there, next to the kitchen table, beautiful, radiant, pale… thin… a little bit frail… her collarbones showing… her dress hanging from her shoulders loosely… and her eyes wide with wonder… but somehow distant… like she was caught by surprise or something… something she keeps seeing before her… something she keeps remembering… and she was leaning against the table when I spoke to her about the mustard seeds… she had looked away for an instant… her thin frame trembling a little… then she turned to me with that beautiful smile, her eyes wide, soft…. and wet… so happy she could help me.
[Pause for five beats]
She turned towards the table, to get the jars of spices set against the wall. She turned as if she couldn’t move her left leg properly – she was leaning against the table with her left hip. As she reached over the table to get the jar, I noticed the boniness of her hips under her dress… and then, she picked up the skirt of her dress to wipe the dusty jar… it was very dusty… like it hadn’t been opened for a long time… then I noticed her very thin legs, pale and frail. It was then that I saw the little brown basket with the red blanket, with the rag doll, a toy for a child, sewn lovingly by a mother’s hand… no… no, it was… it was a rag doll that wasn’t finished. It had a face but no body, no stuffing… just a face with two big round eyes… but no life… incomplete, unfulfilled, just a beginning, a promise unfulfilled… [pause for five beats – the realization begins to fill her] She told me she was with child; that her child was coming!… [Her sobs are stuck in her throat]. She saw me looking at the doll, and as I was about to ask her, she smiled… distantly, sadly… and put her hand on her stomach… aaaahh!… [Kissa gives in to the full realization of her own delusion and weeps].

An unborn child does not die! [She looks into the light, shakes her head slowly at the total improbability of what she has just said, begins to crumble.] It died in her womb… incomplete, unfinished, a promise unfulfilled… [She weeps] these mustards seeds have no power in them… she gave them to me believing that her child never died… she had never even held her child… O master… she lied to me! How could she do that? And me in such pain and sorrow! She lied to me… a child died in the womb is a child dead… how can it be otherwise? O she was a lying angel, to have given me such hope, and now, all my hopes are gone… [Quietly] She lied to me; she was lying to herself; a child died in the womb is a child dead… her house had been sullied by death… these mustard seeds… [She also realizes that she has been lying to herself] O master, please… take my life so my child can live… [She weeps, and then pauses, a thought going through her head] Where will the soul of my child go? Who will take care of him? My poor helpless child! Will the gods help him? Will the saints come to his aid, hold his little hand for me, so he will not be afraid, so he will not fall? Will there be someone kind to hold him, like I do…? Why should I live when I have nothing to live for?

Buddha (unheard): Your strong attachment to your child binds you and blinds you, Kissa.

Kissa: O master, why talk you of attachment when it is a mother’s love that makes me feel this way – I want to be bound to my child! I am bound to my child by my love. If the gods do not know this, surely that one God knows this. That one God who created the whole universe, all the universes, surely he knows of a mother’s love! Where does this love come from if not from God? Is my son not of my flesh and blood, nurtured in my womb, and then suckled at my breast with tenderness and love – are these things not real? My love does not blind me, it’s my tears that blind me! Why so cruel? To give, and then, to take away… to let me taste the sweetness of love, of living, and then, to drown me in the bitter sorrow of death, of dying…?

You speak not of God… you speak only of sorrow, illness, decay and death… you speak not of hope and desires fulfilled… you speak only of desirelessness, of non-attachment. What’s the use of talking about suffering when you know that is our lot anyway? Now I come to you with the hope that you, a great master, will remove my suffering… and you cannot even do that… You’ve asked me to fetch those mustard seeds, I have begged frantically from everyone there is, and I have brought them… but now they won’t work. They won’t work, you can’t work your miracle because there is no such thing as no death. Death comes to all. Those who have life will die. Those who breathe will decay and die… and there is no escape from this… from this life of tears, of pain, of loss, of dying, of constantly dying every day. Even as we live, each moment each day, we die… we live towards our death. Nothing can stop it!

But how cruel? To give us laughter, momentary joys, unlasting, impermanent doses of sweet happiness that disappears too soon into nothingness, and replace it with… Moments of joy that make us believe that this will last, that life will last, that good fortune will ever be with us… it never lasts… nothing lasts… how cruel, to knock us this way and that until we know not what to do… until we go mad… until we give up… and die!

[Pause. She looks into the light.]

O master… I see your light, I feel the gentle warmth from your radiant face… you give me peace. How did you find it? Is this what it is? That you are called Siddhartha, the one who has achieved, because you have found peace? Will this peace last? Does this mean you will suffer no more? Are you beyond the vale of sorrow we call life? If I follow your footsteps, follow the path you talk about, will I come to where you are now? I have nothing left to hold me… and I do not want to return to where it will always end up the same.

[Pause. Suddenly she looks up, resolute, and then, softly…]

I have finally found what I need for a miracle – my soul and my willingness to follow you… Here I am, here I am… perhaps, you will perform your miracle on me… O revered master, may I follow…?

THE END