A favorite Zen parable…
The apprentice was always complaining and his aging Hindu master grew tired of his complaints. So one morning he sent the apprentice to get some salt. When the apprentice returned, the 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?” asked the master. “Bitter,” spit the apprentice.
The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same size handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, 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?” “Fresh,” remarked the apprentice. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the master. “No,” said the young man.
At this the master sat beside this serious young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, explaining gently:
“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. 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.
How big a container do you choose?