Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up

by Jerry Colonna

She then recounted the story of the woman who, having suffered the unbearable heartbreak of the death of her child, was asked by the Buddha to go to every household of those who had not suffered heartbreak and collect a mustard seed. “Of course,” she smiled gently, “the woman came back to the Buddha empty-handed.” The point wasn’t for me to make small my suffering by comparing myself to others. The point was to lean into the universality of the suffering. “I’d like you to add a practice to your meditation,” she answered. “Please consider all the children—yourself included—from the past, present, and future who have, are, and will suffer equally. Send them love.” I began doing that, opening my heart to exactly that searing, piercing pain—the universal pain of children who do not feel loved, safe, or that they belong—and I sat still with all our suffering.