ZEN STORY
A farmer comes up to the Buddha asking advise:
‘Buddha, I
am miserable. I don’t think my wife is
faithful, and my children don’t respect me.
We haven’t had rain and my crop is failing. My dog growls at me when I come home and I am
getting old and my bones ache. Please
tell me Buddha what I can do to free myself of my troubles?’
The Buddha
answered. ‘Nothing.’
The farmer
becomes indignant, ‘You are the Buddha, you are suppose to have such great
answers. What do you mean, Nothing?
The Buddha
lays his hand on the farmers shoulder and says, ‘We all have 99 problems. When you solve the one at the top, another
takes its place at the bottom. We will
still have 99 problems.’
The Four Noble Truths:
1. We all have problems
2. If we obsess with our problems we will live in discontent.
3. If we accept our problems and move on we can avoid discontent.
4. The Eight Fold Path is a way to move toward a more wholesome attitude, past discontent.
the Ol'Buzzard
