The Prince Monk Gautama, known in all the lands of his fathers as possessor of great wisdom and insight, was one day preaching to a gathered congregation of laymen, monks and nobles when from the nearby village a widow came and clasped his feet, weeping piteously.
     Her name was Kisagotami, and she was clutching a body laid in straw.
     “My Lord, my Lord, you must help me!”
     “Calm, Mother, calm. Please, tell me your distress.”
     “My son, my son is dead. Here’s his body. My Lord, death is only a sickness. Only a sickness. I know you can cure it. Please, have mercy.” And he smiled at her, and said,
     “Mother, I will. Calm, calm. But first, find me a white mustard seed from a house that has had no dead passed through.”
     So she ran through the village with her shawl in hand to borrow that handful of seed, but whither ever she went, all had some or other of their families who had  died in the house, and so she could not accept the mustard seeds that they offered her.
     At last empty handed and empty of heart, she returned to the Buddha.
“Oh Buddha, I understand now. There is no place without death, and I understand that it must come to all.”
     “Sadhu, sadhu. The flower fades and perishes; it is the course of things. No man or daeva can raise the dead. Understand this, accept it, and you will be enlightened,” said the Buddha, but did not embrace her, for that was not his way. In the sight of all she placed a bundle of straw on a funeral pyre, and before the congregation the Buddha declared that she had made great gain in wisdom.

                                                           *

     When she was calmed, and past the mourning of her son, the widow began to gather wood, straw and clay. When asked, she said that she was building a house for her dead boy.
     Most of the villagers thought her maddened by mourning, and left her be; with her own hands she made that house. It was small, and sat next to the old house, and not a good house, for she was not a builder by trade. It let in the wind and the rain through breaks in the clay, and its thatch was sparse, but by its shape and the intention with which it was made, it was a house.
     The widow, having built the house to the best of her powers, placed the wrapped corpse of her son in it, which she had preserved with herbs and salt, and she planted white mustard seeds beside him. When they broke through the soil, they were small and stunted because of the lack of sun and the poor earth, but she treated them as though they were good and the very best of plants.
     She lived her days alone at the door of that house, weaving baskets, watching the plants, sweeping away the lizards, ants, and other vermin, that there might be no death in that house.
     After three months, the plant gave seed. It was small, no higher than five handspans, with few leaves and little shade, and was too small to nest any bird save the smallest, but to her it was the tree of life. She harvested the tiny crop of white mustard and brought them to the Enlightened One. She came to him, haggard, worn, and so bone thin that only the Enlightened One recognized her.
     “Teacher, be kind to your disciple.”
     “Mother, you are welcome to me.” She presented her crop of mustard seeds, carried in white cotton, and laid hold of his saffron, unable to speak for her love and longing. The Buddha saw, and was overcome with pity, and knelt to the old widow, saying,
     "Mother, you are wiser than I, and your faith in me has summoned the mustard seed. It is not for me to return your son to you. I must break my promise. I am sorry.”
     At this the light went out from her eyes, and her cry was no longer a widow’s weeping, but that of an emptied soul. She began to pash the ground with her hands, then her head with all the strength of her back, dashing it against the rocks. No one dared to stop her; all shied, for she was worshiping Death, and it had possessed her.
     It was the Buddha, the Enlightened One alone, who rushed to her, and clutched her to him, drawing her back to human sorrow, to a widow’s weeping as the red of Death bled into his stainless cassock.
      Kisagotami’s great love won hearts it had not sought to win, that of the Buddha, many of the bhikkhus, and the people, and they prayed for her peace, that the noble motherly bond should no longer cause such grievous hurt. But certain of the disciples muttered among themselves how such things are a result of her own bad karma, and need not be pitied, and how the Buddha was wrong to break the vows he had laid down for his disciples, in both being so disturbed by emotion and in touching a woman with so much familiarity. The Enlightened One knew their thoughts, and his heart was troubled, sorrowed more than if he had been unable to stop Kisagotami. He chastised them, saying,
     “How heartless! Have I taught you nothing? My disciples, have mercy on your master, and learn.
     “What are vows but aids to the cultivation of mindfulness, equanimity and loving-kindness?
     “I had full command of myself; in fullness of mind I moved to her aid, where your instincts made you flee from her.
     “I was not shaken by her deformed appearance, but saw her as she is, a sentient being in pain; did you?
     “My loving-kindness sullied me, but saved a woman; yours saved only your vows, a dead rule, in her place.
     “Bhikkhus, I am ashamed of you.”
     And the bhikkus were so ashamed that they did not record the latter part of this story.