Tonight, our home became a classroom for one of the hardest lessons the Dharma has to offer.
My eight-year-old son, Maison, lost his first pet—a beloved leopard gecko named Miley. She had been eggbound for a while. Despite two trips to the veterinarian this past week and a successful procedure to remove the egg, the infection was simply too far gone. It was too little, too late. Tonight, Miley passed away.
Watching your child face the finality of death for the first time is a heavy thing. Maison was distraught. In his grief, he asked me several times if there was anything we could do to bring her back to life. He already knew the answer, but his heart was searching for a loophole in reality.
To help him hold this impossible weight, I shared with him the story of Kisa Gotami.
The Story of Kisa Gotami
In Buddhist tradition, Kisa Gotami was a young mother who lost her infant son. Crushed by grief, she refused to accept the death, carrying her child’s body from house to house, begging for medicine to bring him back. Eventually, she was directed to the Buddha.
The Buddha, looking upon her with deep compassion, didn't argue with her. Instead, he gave her a task:
"Bring me a handful of mustard seeds," he said. "But they must come from a house where no child, spouse, parent, or servant has ever died."
Relieved, Kisa Gotami went from door to door. At every home, people were willing to give her mustard seeds, but when she asked the vital question, the response was always the same: “Alas! The living are few, but the dead are many. Do not remind us of our deepest grief.”
By the end of the day, "Skinny Gotami" realized the bitter, universal truth. Every house had tasted death. Her grief was not a solitary island, but part of the shared ocean of human existence. This realization of Anicca (impermanence) eventually led to her own awakening.
Chants in the Garden
It is a beautiful story, but as any parent knows, it is a devastatingly hard lesson for an eight-year-old to learn in real-time.
Maison cried bitterly as we buried Miley in the backyard. My heart broke for him. In that moment, Zen practice wasn't about stoic detachment; it was about leaning entirely into the raw sadness of the present moment.
As we laid her to rest, I chanted the mantra of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva (Jijang Bosal). I chanted for Miley, wishing her a peaceful transition, but I also chanted for Maison—asking that the sharpest edges of his hurt might be diminished, and that his heart might find a way to integrate this wound.
The Truth of Anicca
Let’s be honest: life is short, and it hurts deeply to lose a creature you love. There is no bypassing that reality. But my hope for Maison is that this early encounter with loss becomes a foundational teaching.
May this backyard burial be a seed of wisdom for him. May he learn, even at this young age, that impermanence is not a punishment, but the very nature of life. And as he grows, may he learn not just to tolerate this truth, but to embrace it—knowing that it is the very fragility of life that makes every shared moment, and every creature we love, so incredibly precious.
Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā. Rest in peace, Miley.
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