First, Empty the Cup
Not a drop more fits into a cup already full. To receive new tea, you must first empty the cup.
Is my belief that I already know blocking, wholesale, what I might newly learn?
📝Reflection
A scholar came to a Zen master seeking enlightenment, yet he ceaselessly displayed his own knowledge. The master poured tea. Even when the cup was full he did not stop but kept pouring, and the tea overflowed. Startled, the scholar cried, "The cup is overflowing!" The master replied: "Your mind is full like this cup — how could it hold anything new? First, empty it." This parable shows that the greatest enemy of learning is not ignorance but the conceit of "already knowing." Meeting something new, we cut and judge it by our existing knowledge, leaving no room for the new to enter. The true learner knows how to empty the cup: setting down the thought of knowing for a while, listening again with the mind of one who does not know. Emptying is itself readiness to receive. The one who learns most is the one who empties the cup most often.
🌱Apply It Today
Before hearing someone's view today, say inwardly once: "Let me empty the thought that I already know, and listen." The more familiar the topic, the more so.
This verse is read as universal humanistic wisdom, not religion — no faith is promoted, and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.
