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*** Empty Your Cup
By
Keith A. Shaw, President, Mind Body Spirit Central.com and SelfGrowth.com Official Guide To Motivation |
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Bruce Lee, the legendary martial artist, once told a story about a highly-educated man who went to a Zen teacher to ask and acquire knowledge about Zen. As the Zen teacher began to explain things, the man would frequently interrupt with remarks like, "Oh, yes, we have that too…”
Finally the Zen teacher stopped talking. He began to serve tea to the man. He poured tea into the cup until it was full, and then kept pouring until the cup overflowed. "Enough!" the man once more interrupted, "No more can go into the cup!"
“Indeed, I see," answered the Zen teacher, "If you do not first empty the cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?"
And this is exactly how many of us live our lives. We sometimes carry so many preconceived notions, “baggage”, prejudice and negative clutter in our minds from our past experiences that it makes it difficult to add any positive and empowering thoughts.
These could be things that happened years, months or even a few days ago. These are the negative messages and thoughts that you continue to replay when you are discouraged, disappointed or off track. Examples of these could be: not having enough money, your mental image of yourself, not having the support of others, my boyfriend / girlfriend / husband / wife left me, and so on.
You must remember that your mind is like a garden. You can either lovingly and intelligently cultivate and water it everyday or allow it to run wild. Whether you decide to cultivate it or neglect it something is going to grow in your mind. If you plant no useful seeds, i.e. thoughts, then an abundance of useless weeds will grow, and will continue to grow until your “garden” is overrun by them.
Just as a gardener cultivates his garden plot, keeping it free from weeds and growing flowers and fruits, you can begin to tend the garden of your mind; weeding out all the wrong, useless and negative thoughts, and cultivate toward perfection the flowers and fruits of proper, useful and positive thoughts.
I have always said that “Within your mind, you have the power to create your own heaven or hell.”
Empty your cup. Rid yourself of old outmoded thinking. Open your mind to the endless possibilities that can only be born of positive and empowering thoughts.
Copyright 2008 by Keith A. Shaw and Mind Body Spirit Central.com, LLC. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, audio or video recording or otherwise – without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Author's Bio
Keith A. Shaw, President of http://www.MindBodySpiritCentral.com Headquartered in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, Keith is an authority on motivation, success, self improvement, health and wellness.
He is the author and creator of "The Power Of Thought", and "The Power Of Concentration" Motivation and Success Systems, along with "The Power Of Serenity And Peace" Spirituality and Happiness System. These systems have helped women and men around the world to achieve more in life than they ever dreamed possible. These systems are available at www.mindbodyspiritcentral.com, as well as www.barnesandnoble.com, www.abebooks.com and others.
He also authored and produced "The Power Of Qigong" Health And Wellness Systems (available on DVD) for increasing your health, wellness, energy, mental power and more.
Keith is also the Motivation Guide for SelfGrowth.com and a featured expert for Success-Avalanche.com.
You can sign up for Keith's monthly newsletter at http://www.MindBodySpiritCentral.com.
He graduated from The College Of New Jersey and Rider University with highest honors.
Additional Resources covering Motivation can be found at:
Website Directory for Motivation
Articles on Motivation
Products for Motivation
Discussion Board
Keith Shaw, the Official Guide To Motivation
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