🍵 a little zen tea parable
💆🏼♀️ clearing the cobwebs
Good morning and happy Friday everyone🤍! I wanted to start this week’s post with a little Zen parable:
Once, there was a Zen master known for his wisdom. People traveled long distances just to sit with him, hoping he might offer guidance on life and the path to enlightenment.
One day, a scholar arrived at the temple.
“I’ve come for you to teach me about Zen,” he said.
The master welcomed him and listened politely. But as they talked, the scholar kept interrupting. Every thought the master shared was quickly met with the scholar’s own opinions, stories, and theories. He was eager to explain what he already knew, but he didn’t pause long enough to truly listen.
After a while, the master quietly suggested they share some tea.
He placed a cup in front of the scholar and began pouring. The cup filled to the top—but the master kept pouring. Tea spilled over the rim, onto the table, then dripped to the floor, eventually soaking the scholar’s robes.
“Stop!” the scholar exclaimed. “The cup is already full. Can’t you see?”
The master gently smiled.
“Exactly,” he said. “You are like this cup—so full that nothing more can be added. If you want to learn, you must first empty your cup.”
As winter begins to thaw, we often get an urge to open the windows for fresh air, clear out our closets, do a deep clean, and delight in making room for all the new beginnings the season gives us🌸!
“Spring cleaning” is such a well-known ritual, but have you ever applied it to your mind? I feel like I’ve been consuming so much lately that my brain has become that teacup: overflowing so that there’s no room for what really matters.
Letting our brains rest (whether through walks in nature, meditating, simply lying down with our eyes closed, or even sleeping) is finally being recognized in science and some social circles as an essential part of progress itself versus a “reward”.
Even athletes know that the body must have recovery days in order to let muscles grow, yet I’m always seeing people in my exercise classes run out of the room to skip the last 10 minutes of recovery stretching. It goes without saying that knowing something and practicing it are two very different things.
There are countless other excuses why we won’t set time aside to let our brains “restart”: many of us who have grown up with hustle culture still feel guilty in doing so…or have learned through our phone habits to always be stimulated…therefore we may have forgotten how to even start to go about resting and feel uncomfortable in doing so! But don’t worry, the more you practice and prioritize it, the easier it gets!
And if a clear, peaceful mind is not enough to motivate you, many studies have proven that it’s often the times we let our minds fully relax (you’ve probably experienced “shower thoughts”) that we have those “eureka!” moments!
So let today’s post be the permission you may need to have some spring cleaning for your brain💆🏼♀️ Whether it’s for 5 minutes or 5 days, consciously de-stimulating your brain will help get you in the habit of clearing the mind’s cobwebs and make room for peace…something I think we all could use a little more of these days🤍.
