Empty Your Tea Cup

Taken from Andrie Wongso's 18 Wisdom

First Lesson, it's title is "Empty Your Tea Cup"



There is a story about a king, he was a wise person, kind, and pay more attentions to his people. The King and the Queen, have one and the only child that will be the heir of their kingdom.
Because the king pay too much attention for his people, the responsibility to teach and monitor the heir's growth just belong to the Queen.

Unfortunately, the heir grow as the arrogant person and disrespect to people around him.
Upon the heir attitude, the King was worried about the future of the kingdom. So, the king call his son, and told him, "My Son, If you want to be the king of this kingdom, you must go to the hill and learn about one year from the teacher I have chosen for you". The heir has no other choice except to receive his father decision. But, deep in his heart, he think that one year in the hill is not worthed compare with the glamorously life he will has in the future.

Since the beginning he arrived in the hill, he doesn't give a respect to his teacher. He never heard what his teacher told him. He answered the teacher's questions as he wanted. He only play and do what he want to do.

One day, the teacher invite the heir to have a tea. The teacher poured the tea into the heir's cup. When the tea cup has already full, the teacher poured tea continuously until the hot tea injured the heir hand. Responding the teacher action, the heir was very angry and shout to the teacher, "Hey man, why do you pour the tea continuously even the cup is already full. How can a man like can be my teacher?"

Perceiving the heir's shout, the teacher said, "The heir, human mind is like a cup. If it is alreafy full, it can not receive and absorb any information. So, in order to learn and absorb new information, it must be emptied. If your mind already full of the other things, it will not absorb any informations given to you".

So, readers, we must have known that kind of philosophy, but we often forget it. By this simple illustration, I hope we can remind ourselves to make our mind ready to receive any information.