BEFORE YOU READ
Activity
Use a dictionary or ask for your teacher’s help as you discuss
the following questions in groups.
1. What is a sermon? Is it different from a lecture or a talk? Can
this word also be used in a negative way or as a joke (as in
“my mother’s sermon about getting my work done on time…”)?
2. Find out the meanings of the words and phrases given in
the box.
afflicted with be composed desolation
lamentation procure be subject to
3. Have you heard of the Sermon on the Mount? Who delivered
it? Who do you think delivered a sermon at Benares?
GAUTAMA Buddha (563 B.C. – 483 B.C.) began life as a
prince named Siddhartha Gautama, in northern
India. At twelve, he was sent away for schooling in
the Hindu sacred scriptures and four years later he
returned home to marry a princess. They had a son
and lived for ten years as befitted royalty. At about
the age of twenty-five, the Prince, heretofore shielded
from the sufferings of the world, while out hunting
chanced upon a sick man, then an aged man, then chanced upon
a funeral procession, and finally a monk begging came across by
chance
for alms. These sights so moved him that he at
once went out into the world to seek enlightenment
concerning the sorrows he had witnessed. enlightenment
He wandered for seven years and finally sat a state of high
spiritual knowledge
down under a peepal tree, where he vowed to stay
Reprint 2025-26
, until enlightenment came. Enlightened after seven
days, he renamed the tree the Bodhi Tree (Tree of
sermon
Wisdom) and began to teach and to share his new religious or moral
understandings. At that point he became known as talk
dipping places
the Buddha (the Awakened or the Enlightened). The
Buddha preached his first sermon at the city of bathing
inscrutable
Benares, most holy of the dipping places on the River
Ganges; that sermon has been preserved and is given something which
here. It reflects the Buddha’s wisdom about one cannot be
inscrutable kind of suffering. understood
Kisa Gotami had an only son, and he died. In her grief
she carried the dead child to all her neighbours, asking
them for medicine, and the people said, “She has lost
her senses. The boy is dead.”
At length, Kisa Gotami met a man who replied to her
request, “I cannot give thee medicine for thy child, but I
know a physician who can.”
First Flight
And the girl said, “Pray tell me, sir; who is it?” And
the man replied, "Go to Sakyamuni, the Buddha.”
Kisa Gotami repaired to the Buddha and cried, “Lord repaired (a stylistic
and Master, give me the medicine that will cure my boy.” use) went to
The Buddha answered, “I want a handful of mustard-
seed.” And when the girl in her joy promised to procure
112 it, the Buddha added, “The mustard-seed must be taken
from a house where no one has lost a child, husband,
parent or friend.”
Poor Kisa Gotami now went from house to house,
and the people pitied her and said, “Here is mustard-
seed; take it!” But when she asked, “Did a son or
daughter, a father or mother, die in your family?” they
answered her, “Alas! the living are few, but the dead are
many. Do not remind us of our deepest grief.” And there
was no house but some beloved one had died in it.
Kisa Gotami became weary and hopeless, and sat
down at the wayside watching the lights of the city, as
they flickered up and were extinguished again. At last
the darkness of the night reigned everywhere. And she
considered the fate of men, that their lives flicker up
and are extinguished again. And she thought to herself, valley of
“How selfish am I in my grief! Death is common to all; desolation
yet in this valley of desolation there is a path that leads an area which is filled
him to immortality who has surrendered all selfishness.” with deep sorrow
The Buddha said, ‘‘The life of mortals in this world mortals
is troubled and brief and combined with pain. For there those bound to die
Reprint 2025-26
Activity
Use a dictionary or ask for your teacher’s help as you discuss
the following questions in groups.
1. What is a sermon? Is it different from a lecture or a talk? Can
this word also be used in a negative way or as a joke (as in
“my mother’s sermon about getting my work done on time…”)?
2. Find out the meanings of the words and phrases given in
the box.
afflicted with be composed desolation
lamentation procure be subject to
3. Have you heard of the Sermon on the Mount? Who delivered
it? Who do you think delivered a sermon at Benares?
GAUTAMA Buddha (563 B.C. – 483 B.C.) began life as a
prince named Siddhartha Gautama, in northern
India. At twelve, he was sent away for schooling in
the Hindu sacred scriptures and four years later he
returned home to marry a princess. They had a son
and lived for ten years as befitted royalty. At about
the age of twenty-five, the Prince, heretofore shielded
from the sufferings of the world, while out hunting
chanced upon a sick man, then an aged man, then chanced upon
a funeral procession, and finally a monk begging came across by
chance
for alms. These sights so moved him that he at
once went out into the world to seek enlightenment
concerning the sorrows he had witnessed. enlightenment
He wandered for seven years and finally sat a state of high
spiritual knowledge
down under a peepal tree, where he vowed to stay
Reprint 2025-26
, until enlightenment came. Enlightened after seven
days, he renamed the tree the Bodhi Tree (Tree of
sermon
Wisdom) and began to teach and to share his new religious or moral
understandings. At that point he became known as talk
dipping places
the Buddha (the Awakened or the Enlightened). The
Buddha preached his first sermon at the city of bathing
inscrutable
Benares, most holy of the dipping places on the River
Ganges; that sermon has been preserved and is given something which
here. It reflects the Buddha’s wisdom about one cannot be
inscrutable kind of suffering. understood
Kisa Gotami had an only son, and he died. In her grief
she carried the dead child to all her neighbours, asking
them for medicine, and the people said, “She has lost
her senses. The boy is dead.”
At length, Kisa Gotami met a man who replied to her
request, “I cannot give thee medicine for thy child, but I
know a physician who can.”
First Flight
And the girl said, “Pray tell me, sir; who is it?” And
the man replied, "Go to Sakyamuni, the Buddha.”
Kisa Gotami repaired to the Buddha and cried, “Lord repaired (a stylistic
and Master, give me the medicine that will cure my boy.” use) went to
The Buddha answered, “I want a handful of mustard-
seed.” And when the girl in her joy promised to procure
112 it, the Buddha added, “The mustard-seed must be taken
from a house where no one has lost a child, husband,
parent or friend.”
Poor Kisa Gotami now went from house to house,
and the people pitied her and said, “Here is mustard-
seed; take it!” But when she asked, “Did a son or
daughter, a father or mother, die in your family?” they
answered her, “Alas! the living are few, but the dead are
many. Do not remind us of our deepest grief.” And there
was no house but some beloved one had died in it.
Kisa Gotami became weary and hopeless, and sat
down at the wayside watching the lights of the city, as
they flickered up and were extinguished again. At last
the darkness of the night reigned everywhere. And she
considered the fate of men, that their lives flicker up
and are extinguished again. And she thought to herself, valley of
“How selfish am I in my grief! Death is common to all; desolation
yet in this valley of desolation there is a path that leads an area which is filled
him to immortality who has surrendered all selfishness.” with deep sorrow
The Buddha said, ‘‘The life of mortals in this world mortals
is troubled and brief and combined with pain. For there those bound to die
Reprint 2025-26
