“Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you wisdom unless you first empty your cup?”

“1. A Cup of Tea Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure 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 could no longer 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 up?”

“Do you know how helpless you feel if you have a full cup of coffee in your hand and you start to sneeze? ”

“For you the cup isn't half full or half empty, you're always topping it up.”

“If you expect to reach the goal of perfection, never look at the cup as being half empty, see it as being half full.”

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”