Your Teacup is Full

Once long ago, as the story goes, there was a respected Zen master whom people traveled near and far to seek guidance from. He rarely turned anyone away if their pursuit was the wisdom of Zen.

One day, a professor came to visit the master.

“I’ve come to ask you to teach me about Zen,” he said.

“Open my mind to enlightenment.”

His tone sounded more like a demand than a genuine question.

The Zen master smiled and suggested they discuss it over tea.

When the tea was ready, the master poured the professor a cup. He kept pouring as the tea rose to the rim — spilling over the edge, across the table, and onto the professor’s clothes.

Finally, the professor shouted:

“Enough! You’re spilling the tea everywhere. Can’t you see the cup is full?”

The master stopped pouring and smiled.

“You are like this teacup,” he said.

“So full that nothing more can be added. Come back to me when the cup is empty. Come back with an empty mind.”

The master’s lesson points to something we all understand but don’t always practice: before anything new can be added, space has to be created first.

If your cup feels full:

• Where could you create more room?
• Where might you loosen your grip on familiar patterns or assumptions?

And once space is created: What do you want to put back into it?
If that isn’t clear yet, that’s part of the process.

HILS-1 was designed to support the work of creating space — stepping back from habits and assumptions that no longer serve.
HILS-2 builds from there, focusing on what you intentionally choose to strengthen and how you sustain it when things get challenging.