When I packed my bags for college, my big sister gave me a book to put in my suitcase. It was beautifully bound and just the right size in my hands.
I carry the book with me still, two decades later. The very first story in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a university professor who came to inquire 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 no longer could 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 cup?”
Conflict is the professor’s teacup, full of judgments, diagnoses, opinions, attributions.
If, in your next business conflict conversation, you could empty your own teacup, I wonder what you might notice that had no room for you to notice before.
Conflict Zen® by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at ConfictZen.Lenski.com.
Love this story! Thanks for sharing. I’m going to use it in presentations to model opening yourself up to continuous learning through online conversations.
Miguel
Miguel, that’s such a terrific use of the story and I can see how the imagery of the story would really stick with those you’re presenting to!
Tammy
Tammy,
What a beautiful story! I would like to copy it to my blog, is that okay with you? With backlinks of course. Peace to you,
Ellen
Hello, Ellen, and welcome to Conflict Zen. By all means share the story, as it’s not mine to own and I encourage others to pass it forward. I appreciate you taking the time to check in with me about it!
Nice post. Among other things, this story is about “beginner’s mind” and humility. One cannot learn if one is so puffed up with his preconceptions. Also, a good teacher has all the attributes of a good student because, if the teacher is overly proud, the student will resist. When knowledge is shared with humility it is easily digested even if the student is a little prideful.
This is a great story. I have heard a ‘slightly’ different version but essentially the same.
I think one of the things we learn from this tale, besides our own opinions and preconceptions blocking us from learning from others, is also that often the what appears to be logic as far as we are concerned can sometimes lead us to be inflexible when dealing with others. I guess that is essentially the same as being full of our own opinions but I choose to read between the lines.
It is a great story.
Thank you
@thefutureisvegan, yes, I agree! I’ve written about beginner’s mind before and about letting go of preconceptions – these ideas all co-mingle.
Peter, glad you enjoyed my version of the old story. In my work, I see the kind of rigid thinking and approaches to problem-solving you’ve hinted at — and one of my particular joys is helping unlock that for folks.
Thanks to you both for stopping in and taking the time to comment!