One day, a husband visited the wiseman carrying a bowl.
He greeted the monk and said, “Revered monk, help me. I am troubled.”
“What ails you, my friend?”
“I had a fight with my wife last night, while she was making this stew. She must be so angry at me that this morning she died, leaving me this. I’m afraid of the curse she’d put on the stew. What should I do with it?”
“The stew is not cursed,” the monk said calmly.
“I’m very sure it is! You don’t know my wife, her anger is three mountains of landslide. Do you think it’s normal for someone to die just like that?”
“Very well. Do you not want to eat it?” asked the monk.
“If I eat it, it will kill me. If I throw it away, the curse will seep through the earth to my water.”
“I see. Then give it to me.” The monk took the stew from the husband and ate the stew right then and there.
“What have you done? Now you would be cursed, oh Monk!”
“Don’t worry about me. You can go home and forget the stew.”
The husband offered his thanks and returned home.
The next day the husband returned to the monk. “I should not have let you eat the stew!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Last night I realized the stew was my wife’s legacy, even cursed it was MINE.”
“It was a very good stew,” replied the monk, nodding his head.
“Then you see my problem. You should not have eaten it and advised me better. Now I don’t know what her last stew was like and I’ll feel guilty for the rest of my life,” accused the husband.
“Calm down. I know your curse very well. I have a solution.”
The husband leaned forward eagerly and nodded for the monk to continue.
“Your wife’s curse is for you to think of her as you eat her stew, and all the stews in your future. Indeed I have this curse. For no other stew will compare. If you want the curse, all you need to do is to eat her stew and think of her.”
The husband thought for a moment, saw sense in it and replied, “But I have no one to cook me a stew anymore, least of all her stew.”
“You can learn to cook. Perhaps you will find her recipe in your house, or perhaps you will try until you can match it. I will help you. If you bring me your stew I can tell you whether you’ve succeeded. Since I have the curse, I remember exactly how it tasted.”
The husband prostrated and exclaimed, “Thank you, oh wise monk. You have given me hope anew. I shall do as you say.”
Everyday the husband cooked a stew and offered it to the monk.
After 33 days the monk said, “You’ve done it. The curse has left me, it is completely yours now. You don’t need to come back with your stew.”
Another monk walked by at that point, and after the husband left asked, “What was that all about?”
“Solving problems. He was in need of a curse, and I was hungry.”
The other monk laughed and asked, “Then why did you send him away for good?”
“We should not be greedy! Besides, I got sick of stew.”
