BE A LAKE

he Master instructed the unhappy student to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. 'How does it taste?' the Master asked.

'Awful,' said the student.

The Master then asked the student to take another handful of salt and throw it in the lake. The two walked to the nearby lake and when the student swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man said, 'Now drink from
the lake.'

The student did so and the Master asked, 'How does it taste?'

'Good!' remarked the student.

'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!'