The story of the zen farmer

 There was a farmer once with a modest estate and just one work horse. One day his son didn’t lock the door and the horse ran away. The farmer was a man of few words and also wasn’t rattled easily. “Oh well,” was all he had to say. His friends and neighbors were surprised about his tepid reaction. The horse was in its prime and probably worth half of his modest estate. Still the farmer seemed fine with the developments.

 

Then good news came that the horse was found in a different town and the son went there to fetch it. “Oh well,” was all you got out of the zen farmer. Sure enough, the good news was followed by bad news. The son broke a leg as he was riding home. “Oh well,” was once again the zen farmer’s commentary. War broke out, and the king’s order was that all young men had to enlist. His son was exempt though due to his broken leg.

 

Equanimity of mind is to see through the workings of life as is. Every “good” news contains the seeds of the bad, just as every “bad” news will bear something positive in the future. That’s the nature of the transitory world we live in. The “oh well” philosophy does not imply a stoic mindset where we burry the pain. It also doesn’t imply a perfect foresight of things to come or a trust in life’s fairness. It’s simply an acceptance of the good and the bad.

 

Shakespeare allegedly once said that nothing is good or bad, only thinking makes it so. Likewise, the perception of “good” and “bad” is an attribute of our self identity. Let’s face the good with the bad and see what happens to the doer, the perceiver, the schemer. That’s equanimity of mind, which coupled with alertness and the passion to look through the mind-generated illusions may propel us to the wisdom of the story’s zen farmer.