Cattāri Brahmavihārā

Do you remember when disease came to your village?

Of your family, you were the only one to survive.

You were just a girl. For years you begged for your food.

Then a nun took you in.

You told her your story, and she held you while you wept.

Then she told you her story, and you wept with her.

Her name was Patachara.

You went everywhere she went, and soon left behind all that she left behind.

When you were young, you learned what it was to be truly alone.

Now you know for yourself.

This freedom is something altogether different from that.

—Chanda, Therigatha (Poems of the First Buddhist Nuns)