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

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!

Write a page (about three paragraphs) on one of the following topics. You can think about the ideas in the text that are relevant to these topics, and add your own ideas and experiences to them.

1. Teaching someone to understand a new or difficult idea

2. Helping each other to get over difficult times

3. Thinking about oneself as unique, or as one among billions of others.

You know that we can combine sentences using words like and, or, but, yet and then. But sometimes no such word seems appropriate. In such a case we can use a semicolon (;) or a dash (-) to combine two clauses.

She has no interest in music; I doubt she will become a singer like her mother.

The second clause here gives speaker's opinion on the first clause.

Here is a sentence from the text that uses semicolons to combine clauses. Break up the sentence into three simple sentences. Can you then say which has a better rhythm when you read it, the single sentence using semicolons, or the three simple sentences?

For there is not any means by which those who have been born can avoid dying; after reaching old age there is death; of such a nature are living beings.

When her son dies, Kisa Gotami goes from house to house. What does she ask for? 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'?

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?

Why do you think Kisa Gotami understood this only the second time? In what way did the Buddha change her understanding?

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?