It has been said that grief is love, it’s all the love we want to give but can not give. The grander the love, the deeper the grief. And because parental love is grandest of all, grief for a child becomes a bottomless well of pain, sorrow, and despair. This is a theme of a famous Buddhist “Parable of the Mustard Seed,” a version of which is included in an anthology Teachings of the Buddha edited by a renowned meditation teacher and writer Jack Kornfield.

Once upon a time, there lived a girl called Gotami, but because her body was very skinny and tired easily she was called Kisa Gotami or Skinny Gotami. When she grew up, she married, going to the house of her husband’s family. Being a daughter of a poverty-stricken house, she was treated with contempt. Only when she had given birth to a son was she accorded the respect she deserved. But that son, running hither and thither, while playing met his end. Overwhelmed by grief, she thought:

Since the birth of my son, I, who was once denied honor and respect in this very house, have received respect. These folk may even seek to cast my son away [into a charnel ground].

Taking her son on her hip, she went about from one house door to another, saying, “Give me medicine for my son!”

Whenever people encountered her, they said, “Where did you ever meet with medicine for the dead?” So saying, they clapped their hands and laughed in derision. But hearing their words, Kisa Gotami had not the slightest idea what they meant. A certain wise man saw her and thought she must had been driven out of her mind by grief for her son. With compassion and kindness, he told her to see the Buddha who lived at a neighboring monastery. If anyone had a cure for the breathless body in her hands, it would be him. Upon meeting the Buddha, Kisa Gotami said, “Oh Exalted One, give me medicine for my son!” To which he replied:

You did well, Gotami, in coming hither for medicine. Go enter the city, make the rounds of the entire city, beginning at the beginning, and in whatever house no one has ever died, from that house fetch tiny grains of mustard seed. [They will cure your son.]

“Very well, revered sir,” she said and glad of mind entered the city and went about from one house door to another, saying, “The Buddha bids me fetch tiny grains of mustard seed for medicine for my son. Give me tiny grains of mustard seed.” But she found no house where death had not claimed a family member. And finally, she understood: in the entire city this must be the way. The Buddha, full of compassion for the welfare of mankind, must have seen. Overcome with emotion, she carried her son to the burning ground and cast him away into the fire. Then she uttered the following stanza:

No village law, no law of market town,
No law of a single house is this —
Of all the world and all the worlds of gods
This only is the Law, that all things are impermanent.

Another version of the “Parable of the Mustard Seed” is included in the album Ghosteen by Nick Cave. In the track “Hollywood” he retells the story in his own words as a way to process the tragic death of his son.

PARABLE OF THE MUSTARD SEED
from Ghosteen by Nick Cave

Kisa had a baby but the baby died
Goes to the villagers says my baby’s sick
The villagers shake their heads and say to her
Better bury your baby in the forest quick

Kisa went to the mountain to ask the Buddha
My baby’s sick! Buddha said, don’t cry
Go to each house and collect a mustard seed
But only from a house where no one’s died

Kisa went to each house in the village
My baby’s getting sicker, poor Kisa cried
But Kisa never collected one mustard seed
Because in every house someone had died

Kisa sat down in the old village square
She hugged her baby and she cried and cried
She said everybody is always losing somebody
Then walked into the forest and buried her child

Complement the “Parable of the Mustard Seed,” an integral part of Teachings of the Buddha, with the art of jisei, a Japanese death poem, and then revisit symbolist painter Gustav Klimt’s art meditation on death and life.

A few days ago I sent a newsletter about how to read spiritual books where I quoted Mortimer Adler who wrote, “The problem of reading the Holy Book — if you have faith that it is the Word of God — is the most difficult problem in the whole field of reading.” When translated into Buddhist terms, the Holy Book stands for the Triple Basket (Pali: Tipitaka), and the Word of God stands for the Word of the Buddha (Pali: buddhavacana).

When noting how to approach a “canonical” or “holy” text, Mortimer Adler also wrote that we “have to find it true in one or another sense of ‘true'” and that we essentially “read without freedom.” However, life is full of paradoxes and contradictions and so there are exceptions to exceptions and active reading questions do apply to Buddhist scriptures. So writes Buddhist Monk Venerable Sumedho Thera in the introduction to the Long Discourses of the Buddha (Pali: Digha Nikaya):

Even though Pali scholars have produced quite accurate literal translation of the Pali Canon, one often feels the lack of profound insight into these remarkable scriptures. The Suttas need to be studied, reflected on, and practiced in order to realize their true meaning. They are ‘Dhamma discourses,’ or contemplations of the ‘way things are.’ They are not meant to be ‘sacred scriptures’ which tell us what to believe. One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience with them. Then, and only then, can one insightfully know the Truth beyond words.

What follows is the best English translation of the Basket of Discourses (Pali: Sutta Pitaka). It represents the Tipitaka’s middle “basket” and contains the four main collections (Pali: nikayas) of the Buddha’s teaching. These collections are regarded as canonical by the Theravada school of Buddhism which is found today in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, and until recently quite strong in Laos and Cambodia. It is now also well established in Western countries.

1. Digha Nikaya: The Long Discourses of the Buddha

The present work offers a complete translation of the Digha Nikaya, the Long Discourses of the Buddha, the first of the major collections in the Sutta Pitaka or “Basket of Discourses” belonging to the Pali Canon. These suttas reveal the penetrating wisdom of the Buddha and include teachings on mindfulness (Mahasatipatthana Sutta); on morality, concentration, and wisdom (Subha Sutta); on dependent origination (Mahanidana Sutta); on the roots and causes of wrong views (Brahmajala Sutta); and a long description of the Buddha’s passing away (Mahaparinibbana Sutta); along with a wealth of practical advice and insight for all those on the Buddhist spiritual path. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

The Digha Nikaya is largely governed by the aim of propagating Buddhism within its cultural milieu. Its suttas attempt to establish the supremacy of the Buddha and his Dhamma over their competitors on the Indian religious and social scene. Thus, the first sutta of the Digha Nikaya surveys the philosphical views that the Buddha flatly rejected, the second repudiates the teachings of six contemporary teachers, while many of the following texts pit the Buddha in debate against brahmins and members of other sects; other suttas serve the purpose of glorifying the Buddha and demonstrating his superiority to the gods, the nature spirits, and the ascetics and contemplatives who traveled over the Ganges plain.

2. Majjhima Nikaya: The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha

The Majjhima Nikaya is the second collection of the Buddha’s discourses found in the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon. Its title means literally the Middle Collection, and it is so called because the suttas it contains are generally of middle lenght, compared with the longer suttas of the Digha Nikaya, which precedes it, and the shorter suttas making up the two major collections that follow it, the Samyutta Nikaya and the Anguttara Nikaya. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

Naturally the greatest number of discourses in the Majjhima are addressed to the bhikkhus — the monks — since they lived in closest proximity to the Master and had followed him into homelessness to take upon themselves his complete course of training. … But in the Majjhima we do not meet the Buddha only in his role as head of the order. Repeatedly we see him engaged in living dialogue with people from the many different strata of ancient Indian society with kings and princes, with brahmins and ascetics, with simple villagers and erudite philosophers, with earnest seekers and vain disputants. It is perhaps in this scripture above all others that the Buddha emerges in the role ascribed to him in the canonical verse of homage to the Blessed One as “the incomparable leader of persons to be tamed, the teacher of gods and humans.

3. Samyutta Nikaya: The Connected Discourses of the Buddha

The Samyutta Nikaya is the third great collection of the Buddha’s discourses in the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon, the compilation of texts authorized as the Word of the Buddha by the Theravada school of Buddhism. Within the Sutta Pitaka it follows the Digha Nikaya and Majjhima Nikaya, and precedes the Anguttara Nikaya. The word saṃyutta means literally “yoked together,” yutta being etymologically related to the English “yoked” and saṃ a prefix meaning “together.” In this collection suttas are yoked or connected together. And what connects them are the topics that give their titles to the individual chapters, the samyuttas under which the suttas fall. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

Because Samyutta Nikaya brings together in its major samyuttas the many abstruse, profound, and delicately nuanced suttas on such weighty topics as dependent origination, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the factors of the [eightfold] path, and the Four Noble Truths, it would have been perfectly suited for those disciples of intellectual bent who delighted in exploring the deep implications of the Dhamma and in explaining them to their spiritual companions. The second type of disciples for whom the Samyutta Nikaya seems to have been designed were those monks and nuns who had already fulfilled the preliminary stages of meditative training and were intent on consummating their efforts with the direct realization of the ultimate truth. Because the suttas in this collection are vitally relevant to meditators bent on arriving at the undeceptive “knowledge of things as they really are,” they could well have formed the main part of a study syllabus compiled for the guidance of insight meditators.

4. Anguttara Nikaya: The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha

The Anguttara Nikaya is the fourth of the four major Nikayas making up the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon, the collection of texts that Theravada Buddhists regard as buddhavacana or “word of the Buddha.” This work is arranged according to a scheme in which the number of items in the suttas of each successive part increases incrementally over those of the preceding part. The collection contains eleven nipatas or “books” named simply after their numerical basis: the Ekakanipata, the Book of the Ones; the Dukanipata, the Book of the Twos; and so forth up to the Ekadasakanipata, the Book of the Elevens. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

Because the short suttas that explain the [Buddhist] philosophical “theory” and the main methods of training found their way into the Majjhima and the Saṃyutta, what remained to be incorporated into the Aṅguttara were short suttas whose primary concern is practical. … It would be unrealistic, however, to insist that a single criterion has governed the compilation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, which includes material from the Vinaya, lists of eminent disciples, cosmological ideas, and odd registers of terms that defy easy categorization. What can be said with confidence is that a broad survey of its contents would show a preponderance of texts dealing with Buddhist practice. Their subjects range from the basic ethical observances recommended to the busy layperson, through the pillars of mind training, to the highest meditative state, the samādhi or concentration of the arahant.

5. In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon

In the Buddha’s Words includes selected discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon — in modern terminology his “greatest hits” from all the Nikayas mentioned above (and more). Divided into ten thematic chapters, In the Buddha’s Words reveals the full scope of the Buddha’s discourses, from family life and marriage to renunciation and the path of insight. This collection allows even readers unacquainted with Buddhism to grasp the significance of the Buddha’s contributions to our world heritage. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

Though his teaching is highly systematic, there is no single text that can be ascribed to the Buddha in which he defines the architecture of the Dhamma. The purpose of the present book is to develop and exemplify such a scheme. I here attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of the Buddha’s teaching that incorporates a wide variety of suttas into an organic structure.

To learn more about this particular anthology, complement with Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi on uncovering the structure of the Buddha’s teaching and three kinds of benefits that it brings.

What is the purpose of meditation? Have nothing on our mind? Think of something specific? Find a pleasant feeling to hold on to? Be blank and see what comes next? We can’t help but feel utterly lost in all these questions at the very start of our meditation practice. If we’re to make progress and gain better understanding, we need to turn directly to the source — the Buddha himself who famously said:

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it,
Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

These first two lines of the ancient scripture point to the mind as the focal point of the Buddha’s teaching. The mind alone is responsible for our awareness of the external reality and of our body. The mind alone is the source of all the good and evil that arises within and befalls us from without. Hence the path to salvation can be found by turning inward, into the recesses of our own minds. Only through a change within will there be a change without. And mindfulness meditation is one of the most important Buddhist practices that facilitates that change writes Buddhist monk Nyanaponika Thera in his book The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: The Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness.

The decisive essence of the Buddhist meditation and mind-doctrine has retained its full power and validity and remains unimpaired by any change of time and of scientific theories of the current age. As such, Nyanaponika Thera writes, it teaches us three things:

to know the mind, — that is so near to us, and yet is so unknown;
to shape the mind, — that is so unwieldy and obstinate, and yet may turn so pliant;
to free the mind, — that is in bondage all over, and yet may win freedom here and now.

All the implications of the Buddha’s healing message as well as the core of his meditation and mind-doctrine are included in the admonition “Be mindful!” that pervades the Buddha’s great sermon on the Foundations of Mindfulness (Pali: Satipatthana Sutta). As such, Nyanaponika Thera writes, mindfulness is incorporated in the Buddhist mind-doctrine in the following ways:

Mindfulness, then, is
the unfailing master key for knowing the mind, and is thus the starting point;
the perfect tool for shaping the mind, and is thus the focal point;
the lofty manifestation of the achieved freedom of the mind, and is thus the culminating point.
Therefore the ‘Foundations of Mindfulness’ (Satipatthana) have rightly been declared by the Buddha as the “Only Way” (ekayano maggo).

The Heart of Buddhist Meditation remains one of the best classic introductions to the key Buddhist practice and a must-read for new practitioners.

“I never use the word mindfulness, except when I explain why I don’t use it,” spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle likes to mention during his talks. “There is nothing wrong with mindfulness … but to me mindfulness implies that your mind is full.”

If you follow (and love) Eckhart Tolle, then you know about his peculiar sense of humor which makes any otherwise heavy topic light and enjoyable — a quality that very few possess — and what makes him one of the most beloved spiritual teachers of our time. Instead of “mindfulness,” the term he likes to use is “present moment awareness” or simply “presence.” So how did mindfulness become the “mindfulness” as we use it today? Are there mindfulness alternative translations that we don’t know about? This is one of the questions Jeff Wilson explores in his book Mindful America: The Mutual Transformation of Buddhist Meditation and American Culture. He writes:

Today “mindfulness” is well established as the preferred translation of [the Pali term] “sati” … Sati literally means memory or remembrance. In its usage as a technical Buddhist meditation term, it usually also implies awareness, attention, or alertness. References to it can be found scattered throughout the Indian Buddhist canons and their commentaries, and naturally also in translations of these texts into various Asian languages.

So how did mindfulness become the preferred translation for sati, and what phases can we we detect in the usage of the terms “mindful” and “mindfulness,” particularly in the United States? Jeff Wilson offers us the following seven mindfulness alternative translations:

1. Ascertainment of Truth

In 1853 the British Methodist missionary Robert Spence Hardy, one of the pioneering figures in the English-language study of Buddhism, defined [sati] variously as the “conscience, or faculty that reasons on moral subjects; that which prevents a man from doing wrong, and prompts him to do that which is right” and as “the ascertainment of truth.” This definition hardly carries any of the usual sense of memory, though it does relate to the idea of awareness as the faculty of discerning the reality.

2. Watchfulness or Well Awake

In 1870 F. Max Muller, one of the most important of the 19th century Orientalists, allowed his translation of the Dhammapada to appear in a book by Henry Thomas Rogers. Muller translated sati variously as “watchfulness” and “well awake,” again neglecting the sense of remembrance.

3. Correct Memory

In 1871, Henry Alabaster, an employee of the British Consulate General in Siam (Thailand), rendered the seventh step (samma-sati) of the Noble Eightfold Path as “correct memory.” This errs to the other side, failing to indicate what is being remembered or that remembrance relates to the activity of meditation.

4. Right Memory

One of the most influential English-language Buddhist texts of the late Victorian era was Col. Henry Steel Olcott’s Buddhist Catechism, first produced in 1881 and reprinted innumerable times since. … [In it] Olcott did not use the word “mindfulness” …. Instead, he rendered the seventh step of the [eightfold] path as “Right Memory.”

5. Intent Contemplation

The first significant American translator of Buddhist texts was Henry Clarke Warren, a reclusive scholar associated with Harvard University. In 1896 he published a version of the Mahasatipatthana Sutta in his Buddhism in Translations … But Warren chose not to translate sati as “mindfulness.” Instead, where later translators would talk about the “four foundations of mindfulness,” he used the term “four intent contemplations.”

6. Right Self-Discipline

In 1907 Paul Carus, editor of Open Court Press and another of the towering early American interpreters of Buddhism, described the seventh step of the eightfold path as “right self-discipline.”

7. Intent Meditation

The Pali Text Society produced its own, fuller translation of the Mahasatipatthana Sutta in 1910, which soon superseded Warren’s version. Translated by T. W. Rhys Davids and his wife Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys Davids, it continued his earlier precedent of using “mindfulness” for sati, which now had become his preferred translation. Thus what in 1886 he had called the “four intent meditations,” he now called the “Four-fold Setting Up of Mindfulness.” The other authors of the Pali Text Society followed his lead.

Beside these interesting facts about mindfulness alternative translations, Mindful America is a fascinating and enlightening read in its totality. Chapter 1 of the book examines some of the mediating forces that have brought mindfulness to the United States. Chapter 2 looks at the ways in which mindfulness’ traditional Buddhist context is eroded away, a process necessary for it become more available for a wider secular audience. Chapter 3 examines how mindfulness has been taken up by the medical and psychology industries as an important new tool for their own ends. Chapter 4 is concerned with how mindfulness moves further into the mainstream of American society. Chapter 5 explores the marketing strategies and how mindfulness is used to make money in connection with various products, including mindfulness itself. The final chapter looks at the moral aspect of mindfulness: for many Americans, mindfulness provides a sense of values and a way to not only reconnect with the sacredness of life but also to potentially save the world itself.