The Handful of Salt – A Buddhist Story 🧂
One day, a middle-aged man came to see the Buddha, his face full of anger and pain. He said:. “Master, I have tried my best to be a good person. I endure, I help, I sacrifice for my family and my friends. But in return, I only receive misunderstanding, selfishness, and betrayal. Why is my life still so full of suffering even when I try to be good?”
The Buddha smiled gently. Instead of answering directly, He told the man:
“Take a handful of salt, put it into this glass of water, stir it, and then drink.”
The man did as he was told.
After drinking, his face twisted: “It’s so salty and bitter, I can’t drink this, Master.”
The Buddha then said: “Now take the same handful of salt, and throw it into that lake over there.” The man followed His instruction.
The Buddha spoke again: “Now scoop up a bowl of water from the lake and drink it.”
After drinking, the man was surprised:
“This water is not salty, Master. It still tastes normal.”
The Buddha asked:. “It’s the same amount of salt, so why is the glass of water unbearably salty, while the whole lake is not salty at all?”
The man thought for a while and replied: “Because… the glass is too small, but the lake is very large.”
At that moment, the Buddha gently said:
“Suffering, misunderstanding, betrayal… in your life are just like that handful of salt. No one can live without tasting such things. The problem is not how much ‘salt’ life gives you, but whether your ‘heart’ is like a small glass… or like a vast lake. If your heart is too small, clinging tightly to every wound, then just a little salt is enough to make your whole life bitter. But if you expand your heart, grow understanding and compassion, then those pains still exist,
but they are no longer enough to break you.”🔥
The man was silent for a long time.
He put his hands together and bowed:
“Master, now I see…. All this time, I kept blaming life for being too salty, without realizing that my own heart was too small.”
🍁Meaning of the story:
Suffering is a part of life; no one can avoid it.
The important thing is the capacity of our heart:
The narrower our heart, the easier we suffer over everything.
The wider our heart, the easier we find peace in the middle of difficulties.
If you want to suffer less, don’t just ask life to give you less “salt”.
Learn instead to make your heart as wide as a lake. 🌿
