No one wants to think about the dreaded times when we will suffer great loss, but grief comes to everyone. In the Parable of the Mustard Seed, a young woman was so crazed about the death of her little son that she carried her dead child from house to house, demanding medicine for him. One sympathetic soul directed her to the monastery where the Compassionate Buddha taught.
“It is wise of you to have come,” the Buddha said. “Here is what you must do. Go to each house in this city, one by one, and collect tiny grains of mustard seeds. But you must only take seeds from houses where no one has ever died.”
Filled with gratitude, the mother set out immediately, asking at every door, “Is this a house where no one has died?” “Oh no,” said each owner, “the dead from this house are beyond counting.” On and on she went, but the answer was always the same — every family had been touched by death. Finally she under-stood: “There is no medicine for this but the acceptance of it.”
Sometimes there is no cure except the knowing.