The 84th problem

Have you heard of the parable of the 84th problem. Once a farmer approached the Buddha to get some advice to address a host of problems he had to face. There was the problem with the weather affecting his crops, being either too wet or too dry. His wife though a good woman was constantly nagging him. On top of that his children seemed ungrateful and his neighbours were spreading rumours about him He looked up expectantly for solutions only to be told by the Buddha that he couldn't help him because life itself is filled with 83 problems. The farmer in dismay asked of what good then was Buddha's teachings. Buddha said he could however solve the farmer's 84th problem? The farmer asked what that was to which the Buddha replied, "the 84th problem is: You don't want to have any problem".

Today I visited my aunt who is 97 years of age. After a month's illness she was reduced to an unrecognizable half of her normal self. Extremely frail and unable to eat she seems to be near the end of her very long journey. I reflected on her lifetime of almost a century from what I know and what I had heard from my deceased mum. Life has thrown various challenges at her as a child and as a mother, only settling somewhat towards old age. I saw all the things happening in her life like the reeling of a motion picture. Yet I have always remembered her taking things in her stride. Even now lying at home in the hospital bed which seem large for her thin and feeble body, her face does not have the slightest semblance of any struggle.

The image of her shifting slightly in discomfort and half conscious of our presence lingers and it seems to me my aunt has always known Buddha's parable of the 84th problem instinctively all her life.