In my opinion, its a rather ironic story. Even though at first when I read it, it sounded sad but it ended with something good. The farmer is definitely an optimist who doesn't take things for granted and every time something happens, he feels that it was not just meant to be bad, it is for something better. Ahh.. Yes.. While reading the story, it is my perception of how the story should be and how the villagers have wrong view towards the farmer. But the farmer is patient without looking at it in a negative way.
I found a nice story to share :
THE BUDDHA once told a story about a young man who was a trader and had a beautiful wife and baby son. Sadly, his wife fell ill and died, and the man poured all his love into his little child, who became the sole source of his happiness and joy. Once while he went away on business, bandits raided his village, burned it to the ground and captured his five-year-old son. When he returned and saw the devastation, he was beside himself with grief. He found the charred corpse of a small child, and in his desperation, he took it for the body of his son. He tore at his hair and beat his chest, and wept uncontrollably. At last, he arranged a cremation ceremony, collected up the ashes, and put them in a very precious silk pouch. Whether he was working, sleeping or eating, he always carried that bag of ashes with him, and often he would sit alone and weep, for hours on end.
One day his son escaped from the bandits, and found his way home. It was midnight when he arrived at his father’s new house and knocked on the door. The man lay in bed, sobbing, the bag of ashes by his side. “Who is it?” he asked. The child answered, “It’s me, daddy, it’s your son. Open the door.” In his anguish and confusion, all that the father could think of was that some malicious boy was playing a cruel trick on him. “Go away,” he shouted, “leave me alone.” Then he started to cry once more. Again and again, the boy knocked, but the father refused to let him in. Finally, he slowly turned and walked away. The father and son never saw one another ever again.
When he came to the end of his story, the Buddha said, “Sometime, somewhere you take something to be the truth. But if you cling to it too strongly, then even when the truth comes in person and knocks on your door, you will not open it.”
What is it that makes us cling so strongly to our assumptions and beliefs, so strongly that we miss the truth and ignore reality altogether, like the father in the Buddha’s story? In the Buddhist teachings, we speak of ‘One Ground, and Two Paths’. By this, we mean that, even though the 'ground' of our original nature is the same, the buddhas recognize their true nature, become enlightened and take one 'path'; we do not recognize, become confused, and take another. In that failure to recognize, that wasteland of unawareness, we invent and construct a reality all of our own. We make what is in fact a wrong view into our view, the view that shapes our whole lives, and colours our entire perception of everything. Wrong views, according to the Buddha, are the worst, and the source of all those harmful actions of our body, speech and mind that trap us endlessly in the cycle of suffering known as ‘samsara’.
