The Unhappy Young Lady

The old Master instructed the unhappy young lady to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. "How does it taste?" the Master asked. "Very bad" Said the lady.

 

The Master then asked the young lady 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 lady'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 lady.

 

The Master 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!"