“ The Dalai Lama mentioned the famous buddhist story of the woman who had lost her child and was inconsolable in her grief , carrying her dead child throughout the land , begging for someone to help heal her child . When she came to the Buddha , she begged him to help her . He told her he could help her if she would collect mustard seeds for the medicine . She eagerly agreed , but then the Buddha explained that the mustard seeds needed to come from a house that had not been touched by death . When the woman visited each house in search of the mustard seeds that might heal her son , she discovered that there was no house that had not suffered the loss of a parent , or a spouse , or a child . Seeing that her suffering was not unique , she was able to bury her child in the forest and release her grief .”
- by Douglas Abrams from The Book of Joy with the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu