A Japanese Zen master once hosted a prominent professor interested in discussing basic Zen concepts. The professor went on and on about his impressions and ideas while the master prepared tea. Once the tea was ready, the master began serving. He poured the professor’s cup to the brim and kept pouring. The tea overflowed onto the table, but he continued pouring. The professor was dumbfounded and cried, “The cup is full. Nothing else will go in!” The master looked kindly at the professor and said, “You are full. Your thoughts, opinions and theories are overflowing. How can I teach you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Many of us come to this table today filled with our own thoughts, opinions and beliefs about most things, including religion, life, politics. We have been taught to think certain ways, believe certain things. A lot of what we’ve been handed was formulated in another time and culture far removed from where we sit today. The world we live in is dramatically different from first century Jerusalem and has little resemblance to the culture and experience of ancient Israel and its prophets. But the reality of human life is pretty standard. Our basic needs remain the same and how we satisfy those needs hasn’t changed much. We still need love, seek comfort and security, deal with anger, resentment, greed. We still have hope, fall into despair, search for meaning, feel afraid.
Fear drives many of our decisions. Fear drove record numbers of people to vote in Tuesday’s midterms. Fear drives hateful vigilantes to our southern border, drives the call to ‘nationalism’ and the rise of populist movements, and fear increases the fundamentalism in every major religion. Fear also keeps our cups full of our own ideas and our own view of the world. It helps us maintain a sense of control even when—especially when—control is not in our hands at all. (more…)
