The 83rd Problem

Do you know this parable about the Buddha? I can’t remember where I first came across it, but it is described here: https://www.marziahassan.org/blog/buddha-and-the-farmer-with-the-83-problems, which itself adapts the story from Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen.

Essentially the parable is that we can’t get rid of our problems, we can only tackle our resistance to problems. We can only work on our acceptance that we will always have problems in our life, and that we must do our best to live our lives nonetheless. As soon as we rid ourselves of one problem, another moves up into its place, from the infinite number life presents us with. If I was someone who gets tattoos (I’m not), this might well be one of them. Not the whole parable of course! But maybe just “The 83rd problem”.

That could be on one arm, and on the other, something that sums up another parable worth remembering, from the film Soul (Pixar, 2020). It goes something like:

There’s this story about a fish.

He’s swimming around, and passes an older fish, and says, “I’m looking for this thing they call the ocean.”

“The ocean?” the older fish says. “That’s what you’re in right now.”

“This?” the young fish says. “This is just water. What I’m after is the ocean.”

The film really makes the point clear – and I recommend watching it, even if you’re an adult. You’re always living life for some perfect point in the future, when you have achieved everything you wanted, and can put your feet up and relax and bask in the glow of satisfaction. But that point never comes; you are never satisfied with what you have achieved, there is always more dissatisfaction waiting at the top of that hill; dissatisfaction that can only be fixed by a new aim, a new achievement to be obtained. Once you begin to spot this pattern, it has less hold over you. But it’s tough. And I’m constantly falling into it.