Angelina Tran - Some Child for Thought (Buddhist Story)

 While at the Buddhist temple mourning or while reading the Lotus Sutra I remember hearing or reading this story about a family in the desert. This family consisted of only a mother, father, and their newborn son. The family was walking in the desert and had run out of food and water and were looking to their newborn son as possible food. Out of grief, the family did decide to eat their newborn son and continued walking through the desert crying, beating their chests, and shouting “Where have our newborn son gone?” I remember being so dumbfounded by their choice and could not understand why they would eat the son out of the family. In various movies and dramas I have watched it was always the idea of “save the children”, sacrifice everything for the child, or if a partner were to be killed they would want their partner to kill them. Thus, the fact that the parents ate the child was very mind boggling but it started to make sense after some thought. One analysis of the story was that the parents had no choice and that the child would pass away without both of the parents taking care. This analysis would then also play into the fact that since the child was eaten that we should view food as the same value as our own child. It makes sense now, as every chicken or fish we have eaten did have a family, was a child at one point, and was very much alive. The food we eat just as the child could have had a whole life ahead of them and something may have valued them as their own family. However, as we ate the food, just as the parents ate the child, the animal was taken away from the family. It is quite the morbid story, but many messages and themes can be taken from this story. That is, it is similar to the story with the woman realizing, after taking Buddha’s quests, that she is not alone when she lost her child. It is not exactly the same message but the idea remains how we should remember we are not the only living beings on this planet. There could be many sacrifices happening around the world that if we do not just ask or experience the extremes we will never be able to grasp the feeling of losing together. The loss remains but the fact that the family was still together in a way and the woman met many mothers who have experienced the same loss, both are able to continue on with their lives. 


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