A student came to his spiritual master in a state of despair. The student said, “My life tastes bitter and the pain I am experiencing feels completely unbearable.” The spiritual master handed the student a cup of water and poured a big handful salt in it. He then gestured for the student to drink it. The student took a big sip of the water, but immediately spat it out saying, “Ahh! It’s so salty I cannot drink this!” The teacher smiled, took the student by the hand to a nearby river and said, “Pour the water in your cup in the river and put this handful of salt in the river.” The student followed the instructions of the teacher. Then the spiritual master said, “Now fill your cup with the water from this river and take a sip.” The student obliged. The master asked, “And how did this salted water taste?” The student said, “Sweet and refreshing.” The master then said, “Pain is like this handful of salt, it doesn’t go away. You can’t change the salt, but you can change the container. When the container of your mind is small and hyper-focused on yourself, the pain you experience can feel too bitter to bear and pain transforms to suffering. But when you put your pain in the context of the collective, it widens the container of the heart and the pains of this life move through you without poisoning your peace.
*Attributed by some sources to Ajahn Chan
A Spiritual Reflection on the Story:
The student came to his spiritual master with a grief too devastatingly heavy for him to carry. The wounds of hurtful words, the blows of heartbreak, the memories of trauma that had compounded inside of him were suffocating his peace. We learn in this story that we are not defined by what happens, but by how we carry the events of our life. Just as it’s not the substance, but the vessel of containing that determines if pain becomes suffering, it is our interpretations that determine if we live life as if it’s for us or against us.
“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”
—Albert Einstein
When we see Allah as a loving and generous Creator who wants the best for us, we frame the difficulties and blessings of life relative to that truth. Pain is a part of our human existence. Pain only becomes suffering through over-identifying with it, self-centric interpretations, and resisting what is. In other words, the suffering of the student was not a function of the salt, the metaphor for pain, but in the limitation of the vessel of containing.
“Allah does not burden a soul beyond what it can bear.”
—Qur’an 2:286
Allah does not give us more than we can bear, rather we suffer because we try to carry the vastness of life in the limited container of our minds. Our thoughts imprison us within the walls of why me, mine, me, and I. Your life was not meant to be lived through the limitation of your cup-sized self, but through the ever flowing river of your soul, that soul that is connected to all life. What often feels like too much, is a widening, a breaking open of your limited perceptions. It is a reminder that Allah sees you “And He is with you wherever you are.” (Qur’an 57:4)
Pain becomes unbearable only when we think we are carrying our sorrows alone. But when we remember that Allah is with us, and the river of collective consciousness of created beings is with us too, it has way of expanding both our hearts and awareness. As the Prophet ﷺ reminds us, “The greatest reward comes with the greatest trial. When Allah loves a people, He tests them. Whoever accepts it, Allah is pleased with him, and whoever resents it, Allah is displeased with him.” (Ibn Majah & Tirmidhi) The breaking of our limitations is not a punishment or act of Divine abandonment, but rather one of profound and sacred Divine proximity.
The existence of pain in life doesn’t change, but when the heart surrenders to something bigger than itself it awakens to a deeper dimension of awareness. In the expansion of our container, what was once devastating can become a doorway to the unveiling of a more compassionate and empathetic soul in sha Allah.
Oh Allah, help us remember that You are always with us, accompanying us through the ups and downs of this life. Oh Allah, help us widen our container by turning our hearts to You. My beloved Lord, help us to see beyond the outer forms and to receive the inner meanings behind what You have written for us to experience. Oh Allah, please allow the pains we experience to become pathways of profound change and purification. In Your beautiful and majestic names we pray. Ameen
In prayers of light upon light,
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