Ido Kihon Unit

Yellow – Purple Homework 2

Short answer portion:
A Zen parable written by Bruce Lee with a short follow-up by Shannon Lee:

A learned man once went to a Zen master to inquire about Zen. As the master talked, the learned man would frequently interrupt him with remarks like, “Oh yes, we have that too,” and so forth. Finally, the Zen master stopped talking and began to serve tea to the learned man; however, he kept pouring, and the tea cup overflowed. “Enough! No more can go into the cup!” the learned man interrupted.

“Indeed, I see,” answered the Zen master. “If you do not first empty your cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?”

The “learned” man can’t truly take in anything that the Zen master is saying because he is simultaneously comparing and judging the information against his own. In other words, he’s not really listening. His cup (his mind) is too full of his own point of view (measuring and evaluation everything the master has to say) to let anything else in.