Be a Lake

The Master instructed the unhappy young man to put some salt on a glass of water, and the drink it.

"How does it taste?"

"Awful!" spat the apprentice.

They walked in silence to a nearby lake, where the Master asked him to take another handful of salt and throw it in. After he had swirled the salt into the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."

As the water dripped down the apprentice's chin, the latter asked, "How did it taste?"

"Good!"

"Did you taste the salt?"

"No."

The Master sat beside this troubled youngster, took both his hands, and said: "The pain of life is pure salt, no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same.

"But the amount of 'pain' we taste depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing to do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake!"

Sent to Starmag by Mohamed Ismail