Attitude is Everything, So Empty your Cups

Post Date:January 05, 2010

There is a famous Zen story (although I have seen it told as a Taoist parable as well) about a young Scholar, who has decided that he should visit with a Zen Master and declare his wishes to be the Master’s student.  When the young scholar arrives at the Master’s hermitage, he tries to impress him with the intricacies of his knowledge of Zen.  The Master listens patiently and invites the scholar to have some tea.  The young man sits down and continues to prattle on about how much he knows about Zen, while the Master pours tea into the scholar’s cup until it overflows and even then the Master continues to pour.  Finally, the scholar notices and yells “What are you doing?”  To which the Master responds, “How can I teach you anything when you are already so full?  You must first empty yourself of what you think you know, otherwise any teaching will be like this tea spilling onto the table and floor.”

We experience so much of the world like the young scholar—unable to encounter anything as unique, beautiful, and for the very first time because we are in the way.  We bring our expectations and values and filter everything through that frame and opportunities to truly experience something are lost.  Master Suzuki, the great 20th Century Zen Teacher, recognized this problem and encouraged people to cultivate “Beginner’s Mind.”  That is, we should approach everything as if we are encountering it for the very first time.  In that respect, we cultivate the wonder of a child’s outlook.  Unfortunately, we all too quickly “grow up” into our Egos and lose the freshness that generates astonishment.

It is important to emphasize “Beginner’s Mind” since so many people come to meditation or T’ai Chi like the young scholar.  They have read books.  They have seen DVDs.  They have worked with other teachers.  Or, they have devoted time and energy to other body practices such as Yoga or hard-style martial arts. And since T’ai Chi shares qualities with Yoga and other martial arts, often those individuals think that they are already “advanced” and knowledgeable, when in reality, they are so full that there is no room for any other teaching or any other experience except for that which has been preconceived.  In other words, there is no room for T’ai Chi!

After all, T’ai Chi is not yoga.  T’ai Chi is not Kung Fu or Karate.  T’ai Chi is based on entirely different philosophical, spiritual, and even medical principles.  To overlook the unique qualities of T’ai Chi and to filter it only through ones experience of Yoga or Kung Fu or Karate or anything else, for that matter, is akin to erroneously thinking that a college degree in Psychology is the same as a degree in Engineering.  While a person learns important tools through attaining a college diploma, the content level of expertise is not the same from discipline to discipline.  All of us would agree that given the choice between driving our car over a bridge built by someone with a degree in Psychology and one built by an engineer, we would choose the one built by the Engineer. The same applies to the philosophy and practice of T’ai Chi as well, and to see only the rudimentary similarities with other disciplines is to overlook what is amazing about T’ai Chi in and of itself.

When we bracket ourselves off in this fashion—creating a fortress of our ego—nothing is experienced beyond our Ego.  What a small world our egos inhabit—and what an even smaller view of the world our egos offer us.

One of the most important lessons in meditation and T’ai Chi must be to expose the small world that we create and inhabit, and to go beyond such a finite world to one of infinite possibilities.  We must empty our cups.    To do so requires an attitude as open as the sky and not as small as if one is peering at the sky through a key hole.  Only then will we learn real freedom. 

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