The 84th Problem

[JonW]

Once a farmer went to tell a wise man about his problems. He described his difficulties farming - how either droughts or monsoons complicated his work. He told the wise man about his wife - how though he loved her, there were certain things about her he wanted to change. Likewise with his kids - yes, he loved them, but they weren't turning out exactly how he'd wanted.
When the farmer was finished listing his woes, he asked how the wise man could help him.
The wise man told him that he was unable to help.
The farmer was incredulous. "What do you mean?" he said. "You're supposed to be a wise man."
The wise man replied, "It's like this. All human beings have 83 problems. That's a fact of life. Sure, a few problems will disappear now and then, but others will soon arise to take their place. So we'll always have 83 problems. Every last one of us."
The farmer was indignant. "Well," he said, "you're a fat lot of good. What's the good of all your wisdom if that's all you can say?"
The wise man replied, "My wisdom cannot help anyone with their 83 problems. But maybe it can help with the 84th problem."
"What's that?" asked the farmer.
"The 84th problem is that we don't want to have any problems."

And, of course, it's the 84th problem that causes us more trouble and grief than all the other problems put together. We constantly fight with the 84th problem or we try pushing it away.
What happens if we just let it be?

[FeeHutch]

Right, bare with me because I am having a bad brain today. I will try and write this in a way that makes some sense

Accepting there will always be problems is quite liberating, because I don't think anyone has lived ever who hasn't encountered problems of some sort or another.

Quite often I hear people describe a problem and then seem embarrassed by it. Trying to deny a problem doesn't make it go away but accepting it does reduce it's emotional hold in my experience. We often hear people asking why something has happened to them. These days I think 'why not'. Trying to impose our own expectations and sense of rights and justice on the rest of the world just doesn't work. All we can change is our reaction to them.

[BioSattva]

..and then there is that whole thing about labelling something as a problem when it could be labelled differently.

I was doing standing yoga outside today and a wasp buzzed up into my face - I felt a wave of tension shoot through me as my mind said: "Wasp! Danger! Serious problem!" .... and then my body, not wanting to feel this unhealthy wave of tension bubbled up a re-labelling strategy which went: "Not yet a serious problem, you can chill". It went from being a danger/problem to a non-danger/problem.

Dunno what I would have done if it had actually landed on my face though!

I was pretty happy that my bodyscan practice had come through for me - I got stung on the forehead by a wasp as a kid. Often something seems to be a problem due to our relationship with it - often all it can take is a relabelling - a good example often used by people is changing a problem to become a challenge, or a failure to a step closer to success.