Emptying Our Cup

This is a re-post of sorts, with some things excluded (such as the “Bathroom Duty” that was assigned to me at the time this was written…

As I go through many of life’s little curve balls, I’m learning a few things. I can always learn how to deal with something old in a new way. I’m learning to see the difference in what I can control and what I can’t. What is worth my energy and what isn’t… I had been given a book to read some time back when I was really struggling with a few personal things in my life at the time and the following really stayed with me.

All of us need to know more about ourselves and the world around us in order to better learn how to deal with the many adversities that life always seems to throw at us. We need to understand our lives as they fit into the universe as a whole.

“The meaning of life” is that it has no meaning at all.

All that we can be certain of are the observable facts of existence.

We remain a culture that is beset with worries.

Ironically, many of the things that people worry about or consider to be major problems are simply the result of viewing life through the filter of an invalid belief system.

If we first learn exactly what things are in fact actually open to our ability to control (and therefore worthy of our thoughts and concerns) and which ones are not, our lives suddenly become far less problematic.

The need to prove a particular point of view correct, supersedes that persons’ desire to seek truth.

A person as such effectively shuts himself/herself off from experiencing anything new or different about the subject at hand.

While we would rather that disagreements not disrupt our day, they are never the less indispensable to the growth and well-being of the planet upon which we depend for our very existence. People as such, their minds are made up on specific subjects well in advance, and therefore, they are quite unmoved and unaffected by the view points of other individuals however accurate or well reasoned such positions may be.

Disagreements or arguments often serve to sow the seeds of understanding and to cultivate fresh ideas and concepts from the garden of our mind, resulting in new insights, concept relationships, and spiritual awareness.

These people thereby lay the foundation for dogma – a position of close-mindedness that will stifle and eventually choke out any possibility of true learning.

Bruce Lee points out the fallacy of such close mindedness with one of his favorite stories;

It was obvious to the master from the start of the conversation that the professor was not so much interested in learning about Zen as he was in impressing the master with his own opinions and knowledge. As the Zen teacher explained, the learned man would frequently interrupt him with remarks like “Oh, yes, we have that, too” and so on.

Finally, the Zen teacher stopped talking and began to serve tea to the learned man. He poured the cup full, then kept pouring until the cup over-flowed.

“Enough!” the learned man once more interrupted. “The cup is over-full, no more will go in?”

“Indeed, I see,” answered the Zen teacher. “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. If you do not first empty your cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?”

The need for an empty cup, or an open mind, shall serve as our meta-physical starting point. Let us assume for the moment that we do not have all the answers. Let us begin with a blank slate, with no pre-conceived ideas, biases, opinions, or prejudices that will influence our judgment or impede our attempt at acquiring a new understanding on the ways of the world.