Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)
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?"
How does man empty their cup? By creating an open mind unfettered by distractions and preconceived notions, ideas, perceptions and beliefs. These are intricate to human existence (literally cannot be emptied so the symbolism is whats important here) yet must be put aside in order for the mind, the person, to receive and accept the changes that come from new things and an open mind that is empty to receive and to encode into the human mind. In truth empty here may actually indicate a willingness to accept things regardless of our preconceived notions, etc., and allow for change.
Often perspective karate-ka and martial artists come to the dojo with preconceived notions as to how things are and this comes more from the entertainment media then from historical factual documents. Movies, television and the Internet heavily influence our society. Often these venues contain false or dramatic renditions of things when true facts and completeness tend to shine a brighter light on what is reality vs. what is fictional.
To accept things as they really are in life takes great strength and intestinal fortitude to allow such an open mind or to empty the cup - to empty the mind and make room for enlightenment.
In the karate and martial arts communities you will hear that the empty cup is about the "beginner's mind." As seen from the above Zen story it is about removing things that tend to take us out of the present moment and into the past and/or future.
Martial arts and karate practitioners tend to get caught up in monkey business, i.e., the monkey mind is that emotional mind that reacts to non-reality and tends to be colored toward fictions rather than non-fictional truth/facts. It is that mind that tends to lead toward social conflict and violence. It hides us in comfort over allowing us to gain a stronger, broader and deeper understanding of karate and martial arts and therefore life itself.
If we remain steadfast in a traditional mind-set and mind-state we lose the ability to let our minds decide, accept and change. We fail to recognize our inability to see and hear what we don not know what we do not know.
Emptying our cup, our mind, allows is to see and hear and feel that which can, could and may reshape everything we know, we think we know and what we believe.
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