Empty Your Cup to Receive True Wisdom
Empty Your Cup to Receive True Wisdom
Intellectual knowledge only gets you so far on the spiritual path.
A spiritual seeker, weary from his long journey, arrived at a remote cave high in the mountains where a revered master lived. Bowing low, he spoke with reverence.
“Master,” the seeker said. “I’ve traveled across distant lands to find you. For years, I’ve devoted myself to understanding the path to liberation. I’ve studied the scriptures, memorized sacred texts, and meditated upon the teachings of countless sages. Now I come to learn what only you can teach.”
The master, a figure of calm serenity, said nothing. Instead, he motioned for the seeker to sit and placed a teacup before him. With deliberate movements, the master filled the cup with tea. The seeker watched, eager to hear the master’s wisdom.
But as the tea rose to the rim, the master did not stop pouring. Soon, the hot liquid overflowed, spilling onto the table and dripping onto the seeker’s hands. Alarmed, the seeker cried out, “Master, the cup is full! No more can fit!”
The master finally looked up, his eyes gentle but piercing.
“And so is your mind,” the master said softly. “It is overflowing with what you think you know. You have come with a full cup, but unless you empty it, nothing more can be added. To truly understand the path to liberation, you must first let go of all that you cling to.”
The seeker, humbled by the lesson, lowered his gaze, realizing that the knowledge he sought required more than intellectual understanding—it required an emptying of the self, an openness to the unknown.
I can’t tell you how many books I have on my Kindle. I also have many books on my bookshelves, and I’ve even given away more of them after moving several places. So many of my books were perfect for a particular moment in my life, yet I had to let many of them go so that others could enjoy them.
Some of them I still cling to, such as my collection of books by Thomas Merton. Some books I’ve had for years but haven’t read. I bought them because I felt I “should” read them. After all, they’re considered “spiritual classics.” Yet when I come across a slice of wisdom from another, I hastily snatch a sample of it for my Kindle. Perhaps I did buy it, only to be disappointed by the cumbersome writing. I confess I have a thirst for knowledge.
You must empty your mind.
When I’m not reading a juicy spiritual book or engaged in a spiritual project, the gremlins will easily tempt me away. Oh, they’re really good. Sometimes I fill my mind with the news. I’ll watch CNN or MSNBC and yet be so angry. My lower self will try to come up with a counterpunch to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s ignorant jibe about women being childless (she’s such an asshole—whoops, sorry). Then I’ll look for more torment on YouTube, filling my mind with all of the catty discourse that fills our political arena these days.
When your mind is full of all these petty thoughts, how do you make room for anything spiritual? You have to discipline yourself. You must turn it off. This is your ascetic practice. You must empty your mind.
Even though the gremlin of lethargy just wanted to remain on the couch and watch more angry name-calling, something deep inside me said, “Get off the couch.”
And I did. I unrolled my yoga mat and did an old Bryan Kest power yoga video that first got me hooked on the physical yoga practice.
That’s really the point of a physical yoga practice. You use the body to get out of the lower, overly curious mind. You tune into your body and tune out the noise from the external world that wants to infect your mind. By the end of the practice, my cup was empty.
That’s when I return to my book, any book, to recalibrate my mind. Sometimes it’s a matter of reading one line, one paragraph, to remind me that life is much bigger than the so-called “problems” I encounter.
Having so many books in my midst isn’t so much about learning anymore. Instead, it’s about remembering. Perhaps I don’t need to read that next book when so many that I’ve already read speak the same truth. It’s just described in another way.
Nope, there really aren’t any “new” ideas in terms of spirituality that haven’t already been written centuries ago. It’s basically about filling your cup each day with what you need to handle the present circumstances, then emptying your cup if or when the tea gets cold.