A Cup of Tea
Nan-in received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he could restrain himself no longer. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup", Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
A Cup of Tea
Nan-in received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he could restrain himself no longer. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup", Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
This is a koan that I've been studying the past couple of days. It's profoundly simple and profoundly complex at the same time, as most Koans are. I feel that I am that professor - wanting to learn and yet so full of my own thinkings, my own tea.
I can see what is in my cup and I can see that, if I hang on to my tea, I cannot welcome the new, healing teachings that I want to embrace. They ring as true to my ears as a meditation bowl, but I can hear the tone in my ears, not yet my soul.
It's hard to let go of what you've been holding onto for so long - even if it's hurting you. I see where my current thinking and life laws are damaging me, I can see that they are unhealthy and I'm even able to see when I am nurturing those negative behaviors and beliefs, I can see when I have done something that takes me a few steps back. That is major progress, knowing these things about myself. This is HUGE. This is the first step to emptying my cup.
1 comment:
Do you have the same problems I have? I am seeking like you are for answers, for something more. Yet, sometimes in looking for answers in new places, it seems a betrayal to the teachings we grew up with. Embracing other 'religions' and ways of thinking that are different than the Christianity we were raised in, causes me to hesitate because it somehow feels like a 'betrayal' of 'God'.
That was part of my problem with Dad and Cynthia. We were raised to believe there is only 1 God and you should have no other idols before me yada,yada,yada. Now he's praying to gods and goddesses of Earth and Sun and wind and what have you. It felt like a betrayal to me.
Ok, enough preaching. Sorry to take up so much room and time. Good luck.
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