What's in your cup?

Thinking again about our ability to learn and expand, I question what we already carry within us, the knowledge that has a potential to reduce our ability to take in and assimilate, just by being there. My teacher asks us to "empty our cup" before entering the Dojo. What are we to empty, one may ask.


Here is a famous Zen story about that:

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), 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 no longer could restrain himself. "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?"

When in learning and study we should remember to actively make room, so we can take in something new. Holding on to what we already know will be in our way of what we are yet to learn. As one approaches a lesson, a class, a Dojo or a school, a moment of emptying the cup, shedding off the day's energies and moods, will clear some new soil, preparing for new seeds to be sewn, allowing fresh knowledge to take root.