How Siddhartha Could Leave Yasodhara

Imagine you are in a house with the person you love more than anyone else in the world. Your newborn child is with you. The person you love has an illness that is not yet serious, but which in time will kill him or her. You know that at some time your child will succumb to the same illness.

You are sure there is a cure for the illness, but you are not sure exactly what it is or how to find it. If you stay in the house, you know you will have to watch helplessly as the person you love slowly dies of the illness. You know that your child and everyone else in the house will also die if you remain there.

But if you leave this person and your child with the other people in the house who will lovingly care for them, and you go to find the medicine, you will do even more than end this terrible illness. You will provide them with a way to live without ever being ill again, without ever suffering again.

What would you do?

Stay and watch everyone you love suffer?

Or go find the medicine.

Comments

[veli]

Dear Venerable Wuling,

I just notice it's 7:10am and I stayed up through the night (without feeling any tiredness) browsing websites searching for ways to gain wisdom, until seeing this article in your blogs.

I'm experiencing the similar situation now. (as I described in my past mails)
It's very sad watching my love people suffering from their mistakes caused by selfish and ignorance, I want to bring them Buddhism - the medicine, but I'm not a good person yet to talk to anyone.

What else I can do besides chanting?