The empty Cup

The student approaches a master and says please teach me. He sits himself down upon the ground in front of the master and the master says.

“Let me pore you some tea, so the master carefully takes the teapot and begins to pour hot tea into the cup, the tea rises up to the top of the cup and yet the master keeps pouring until the hot tea runs over the lip of cup, the master keeps pouring and and the tea pours out and over onto the tray and onto the ground. The disciple becoming uncomfortable with this process, says “master the tea is flowing over” the cup is full“

The master says “yes” it is. “I am the teapot, the tea is knowledge and you are the teacup”

Tell me what is the lesson:  The disciple contemplates and then answers  “unless I am able to  empty myself, empty my mind and my heart, how will I be able to receive the knowledge, I must let go what I know and empty myself, my ideas my opinions my ways of being, to allow myself to filled”

An already full cup can not retain anything.

In becoming a shamanic we need to be empty ourselves to receive from spirit from nature, the bounty of information, guidance, knowledge and wisdom. We must let go of all our preprograming our thoughts and ideas our preconceptions in order to allow the new in.

When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before. – Henry David Thoreau

Be a empty cup a chalice to receive, this is the nature of the search for the Holy Grail, the Grail is an chalice, waiting to be filled. We must go on a quest, to let go and empty ourselves, let go the old the known to embrace the unknown. Die in order to be reborn.

The is known as being the empty cup, or being in Chalicity in the state of the chalice.

Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting something go every day. – Zen Proverb

Shamanism requires us especially to be that empty cup, when we are out in nature, let go let be. When we journey or close your eyes in order to hear, die in order to live.