Ans. She asks for medicine to cure her son. She doesn't get the medicine because there is no medicine to bring the dead back to life.
2. 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?
Ans. She asks for a handful of mustard-seed, but doesn't get any. The Buddha had asked her to bring the seed from such a house only where no death had ever taken place. Kisa Gotami could find no such house. That is why she couldn't bring the seed as desired by the Buddha.
3. What does Kisa Gotami understand the second time that she failed to understand the first time ? Was this what the Buddha wanted her to understand?
Ans. She now understood that there could be no house where there had never been any death. She also came to understand that death was the common end of all. There could be no medicine that could bring the dead back to life. The Buddha wanted her to understand this very fact of life.
4. Why do you think Kisa Gotami understood this only the second time? In what way did the Buddha change her understanding?
Ans. Kisa Gotami now understood the real importance of what the Buddha had said. Now she understood that there could be no house where death had never taken place. Thus the Buddha was able to change Gotami's understanding of the meaning of death.
5. How do you usually understand the idea of 'selfishness'? Do you agree with Kisa Gotami that she is being ‘selfish in her grief '?
Ans. “Selfishness' usually means thinking of oneself only without caring for the interest of others. We can't say that Kisa Gotami was selfish in her grief. She was only ignorant of a hard reality. In her grief, she had forgotten the fact that the dead can't be brought back to life. The Buddha made her realize this fact in a very subtle and convincing manner.
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