Be A Lake
The old Master instructed the unhappy young man to
put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. "How does it
taste?" the Master asked. "Awful," spat the apprentice.
The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt
and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when
the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man said, "Now
drink from the lake."
As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the Master asked, "How does it
taste?" "Good!" remarked the apprentice. "Do you taste the salt?" asked the
Master. "No," said the young man.
The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said,
"The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life
remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the 'pain' depends
on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can
do is to enlarge your sense of things ..... Stop being a glass. Become a lake!"