Empty the Cup

To learn you'll have to be willing to unlearn

An academic once visited a Zen master in order to learn about Zen.

The master served tea. As he poured, the cup began to overflow.

The professor said nothing, and the master continued to pour.

Eventually, the academic said, “The cup is full. No more will go in.”

And the master replied:

“Your mind is the cup of tea. It is overflowing with ideas and preconceived notions. How will you learn about Zen if you’re not willing to empty your cup?”

The mind is a reservoir of ideas. We live, learn and store away the knowledge for the future. Most of the time, this process serves us well. Sometimes, however, it prevents us from learning a new way of doing things.

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YOUR CUP IS OVERFLOWING

“This is how I do things.”

“It’s worked before.”

“Because I know.”

As creatures of pattern recognition, we take all of our learnings and apply them to the specific fact pattern in front of us.

Most of the time, that process works well.

Sometimes, though, the rigidity of all those stored ideas can prevent us from growing even more.

How busy is your mind? Your life? How much more can you fit in it?

Our past can be inflexible.

Our accumulated knowledge can make us overconfident.

So what can we do about it?

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EMPTY YOUR CUP

With humility, acknowledge that you may not know something.

Allow yourself to be a beginner again.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Accept the fact that you don’t know what you don’t know.

And explore the situation in front of you as a child would — with curiosity and wonder.

Life is one big LEGO set. Explore it with a sense of wonder.

On this cold and rainy evening, may I offer you some tea?

Before I pour, please empty your cup.