May 25, 2012:  After a challenging week, this
story came my way...exactly, as needed.  I did
a quick watercolor sketch based on memories
of sitting by Lake Ontario, water of my birth,
to serve as a visual reminder of this parable:

An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, so one morning the master sent his apprentice for 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
drink it.  "How does it taste?" the master asked.
"Bitter," spit the apprentice.   The master
chuckled, and then asked the young man to take
the same amount of salt and put it in the lake.
The two walked in silence to a nearby lake, and
once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in
the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the
lake."  As water dripped down the young man's
chin, the master asked, "How does it taste?"
"Much fresher," remarked the apprentice.
"Do you taste the salt?" asked the master.
"No," said the young man.

At this, the master sat beside the young man
who so reminded him of himself and took his
hands, offering,   "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 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."