ould give
her back those she loved who had died. She clothed herself again and
tied up her hair, and went cheerfully and asked at the first house,
'Give me a pinch of mustard-seed,' and it was given readily. So with her
treasure in her hand she was going forth back to the Buddha full of
delight, when she remembered.

'Has ever anyone died in your household?' she asked, looking round
wistfully.

The man answered 'Yes,' that death had been with them but recently. Who
could this woman be, he thought, to ask such a question? And the woman
went forth, the seed dropping from her careless fingers, for it was of
no value. So she would try again and again, but it was always the same.
Death had taken his tribute from all. Father or mother, son or brother,
daughter or wife, there was always a gap somewhere, a vacant place
beside the meal. From house to house throughout the city she went, till
at last the new hope faded away, and she learned from the world, what
she had not believed from the Buddha, that death and life are one.

So she returned, and she became a nun, poor soul! taking on her the two
hundred and twenty-seven vows, which are so hard to keep that nowadays
nuns keep but five of them.[1]

This is the teaching of the Buddha, that death is inevitable; this is
the consolation he offers, that all men must know death; no one can
escape death; no one can escape the sorrow of the death of those whom he
loves. Death, he says, and life are one; not antagonistic, but the same;
and the only way to escape from one is to escape from the other too.
Only in the Great Peace, when we have found refuge from the passion and
tumult of life, shall we find the place where death cannot come. Life
and death are one.

This is the teaching of the Buddha, repeated over and over again to his
disciples when they sorrowed for the death of Thariputra, when they
were in despair at the swift-approaching end of the great teacher
himself. Hear what he says to Ananda, the beloved disciple, who is
mourning over Thariputra.

'Ananda,' he said, 'often and often have I sought to bring shelter to
your soul from the misery caused by such grief as this. There are two
things alone that can separate us from father and mother, from brother
and sister, from all those who are most cherished by us, and those two
things are distance and death. Think not that I, though the Buddha, have
not felt all this even as any other of you; was I not alone when I was
seek