Spill the tea
Forgive the 80s cartoon reference again. I have a fond nostalgia for them. Count yourself lucky that I haven’t broken out the Knightmare memes yet…
I have always found this time of year good for reflection. Life slows down at Christmas. There’s the eager anticipation of a chunk of time off (if you’re lucky). Catching up with friends and family. Eating too much late night cheese. Regretting those extra few glasses of port that you drank the evening before.
We approach the end of the year, another discrete pocket of time, and we ponder what we set out to do and if we achieved it. We take a reverent moment to remember those that didn’t make it. We feel gratitude for those who did.
For me, Christmas is an unburdening. An emptying of the sack and a period to psychologically recharge.
When I’m gazing at the twinkling, mesmeric lights of the Christmas tree, my mind wanders to an old proverb about when the scholar Tokusan came to the Zen master Ryutan to talk to him about the dharma (or the nature of reality).
Tokusan was an arrogant scholar, and thought he knew everything there was to know about the nature of things. He asked Ryutan to teach him the ways of zen, and when Ryutan replied, he constantly talked over him. Interrupting the master with his own ideas and opinions and stories about himself.
As they were talking, Ryutan served Tokusan some tea. He filled the cup and, when the tea had reached the brim, he just kept on pouring. Spilling tea across the table, onto the floor, and finally all over the scholar’s robes.
The scholar leapt up, crying “Stop! The cup is full already? Can’t you see?”
“Exactly,” the master replied with a smile. “You are like this cup - so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in. Come back to me with an empty cup.”
Speaking for myself, I know that I need to have a purge of my tea cup every now and then. It’s easy to get caught up in the intoxicating aroma of our perceived knowledge. The ego loves to aggrandise and bolster itself. Look at how good I am! See how far I’ve come!
In this state of thinking, like the tea cup, we become full and oblivious to new ideas. Forgetting there is always more to learn. More ways in which we can grow. We think we’ve reached the pinnacle of personal wisdom.
As human beings, we’re riding the crest of an ever crashing wave. Behind us the entirety of our experiences. In front of us, all the new experiences that are yet to come. If we lock ourselves into this cage of our own hubris, we miss the opportunity to learn, to change our perspective, to become something better. We become fixed and concrete. Both the unstoppable force and the immoveable object.
Instead, we must see ourselves as an unfinished sculpture that can never be complete - only constantly refined.
So this Christmas, empty your sack and let go of what you think you know.
Much love
