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Once upon a time a Zen master was addressing a gathering of people. All the people were listening to his discourse with great interest. He was answering the questions asked by them. But among those people, there was one young man gathering, who was sitting quietly and silently but he was not focused on the discourse of the Zen master and was lost in thoughts.
The Zen master took notice of that man on the very first day but did not say anything, but when this went on for 4 or 5 days, he called the young man and asked, you are sad all the time, you sit alone and keeps thinking. You do not even pay attention to my discourses. What is the matter? Is there any problem? The young man said hesitantly, sir something has happened in my past. Because of which I am troubled. I do not understand what to do?
The Zen master was very wise. He called the young man at his place n the evening. When the young man reached at the Zen master called him inside and made him sit. Then he himself went to the kitchen and started making lemon water. He deliberately put more salt in the lemon water. The Zen master came out of the kitchen and give a glass of lemon water to the young man and said take it, drink lemon water. As soon as the young man look a sip of the glass in his hand, his mouth became strange due to the taste of excess salt. Seeing this the Zen master asked, what happened? Do not you like the taste of lemon water? The young man said, no sir, it is not like that. There is just a little too much salt in the lemon water. The Zen master said, oh I see, then it is useless. Give me the glass. I will throw it.
The Zen master extended his hand to take the glass from the young man. But the young man refused and said no sir, just salt is too much. If you add some more sugar in tit then the taste will be fine. Hearing this, the Zen master became serous and said you are right my friend. Now understand this too. This lime water is your life, excess salt dissolved in it is your past bad experience. Just like salt cannot be taken out of the bowl. Similarly those bad experience cannot be separated from your life. Those bad experience are also a part of your life. But like we can change the taste of lemon water by adding more sugar in it. Similarly, to forget the past bad experiences. One has to mix sweatiness in life. That is why you need to add some more sweetness to your life now. The young man understood the point of the Zen master and decided that now he will not be trouble by the past experiences.
If we see our lives then we will find that often in our life, we keep sad by remembering the bad memories and experiences of the past, thus, we are not able to pay attention to our present and even spoil our future somewhere. Past is gone and what had happened cannot be rectified. You will only hurt yourself by remembering past.
Past is the place to learn from, not to live in. You need to forget the past and make new sweet memories today. Bring some sweet and happy moment in your life only then there will be sweetness in your life.
