Life, a cup of tea

The inspiration for this article came after the author was playing with a small girl a while ago. The girl, about four years old, was playing with a plastic set of teacups and invited the author to have tea. Surely most of us have done this before in some way or another, and we know exactly how it plays out.

When a toddler invites you for tea, tea is what you are having.

It does not matter how empty the cup is, we pretend to love the tea, and we play with passion! When the 'tea' is too warm, we pretend to be upset, and when we taste the 'tea' we pretend to be delighted. When the child knocks over the teapot, we pretend to be annoyed. It is all a great play!

In the end, when the game is over, we leave the table and walk away. That's it, there is nothing more to it. It is fun. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Attachment and desire

The question we want to ask ourselves is, why can we do this with the child, playing out this tea party, but we cannot apply the same mindset to the other areas of our lives? 

When playing with a child, do we generate attachment towards the 'tea'? When we leave the table, do we feel miserable because we have to part from this 'tea'? No, we don't impute the idea of happiness on the tea, do we? We don't impute happiness on the tea, because we know that it is not real. In the same way, we do not desire more tea, wishing we had more and really getting emotionally involved with these thoughts. We simply don't do this.

Yet, we spend our lives desiring an idea we have of someone of something, torturing ourselves mentally and physically, because of the attachments and desires. In pursue of these desires, we make ourselves and those around us miserable, causing so much suffering.

Now sure, some of us may say that life is definitely not like pretending to have a tea party with a toddler. We feel that there are real emotions, real goals, real things that we need to do. Accounts to pay. Promotions to chase. Families to support. Real responsibility, we feel.  

When we check up, we can ask ourselves, what is it that makes anything more real than the cup of tea we are having with the child? What makes it more believable? When we investigate, we shall realize that it is only the idea of it that makes it more real. We make this idea more real, by feeding it with emotions and by clinging to it.

It is solely up to us to decide how we feel about any idea. 

An empty cup of tea

It would surely be unreasonable to simply expect ourselves or anyone else to wake up one day and say that life is just one big tea party and then act accordingly. Our minds have been conditioned for such a long time, that we need to re-condition the mind before we experience a different reality. For this, we have meditation.

Through meditation, contemplating, and resting on a conclusion, we can meditate on emptiness. Not emptiness as it is generally misunderstood to be nihilistic, but the emptiness of all mental phenomena, including this illusion we have of a separate self.

When we meditate on emptiness, we realize that the cup of tea that we share with the child has exactly the same emptiness as any other object. The pretend-to-be cup of tea is just as real as anything else. It is all the same, it shares the same emptiness. How we experience it, all depends on the state of mind we apply to it. It depends on the perception.

The more we meditate on the emptiness of the mind, the more we shall realize that nothing is completely solid, existing solely and truly from its own side. Everything gets manifested into existence from the same emptiness and it dissolves into this same emptiness too. As the Heart Sutra goes, "...form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Form is no other than emptiness, and emptiness is no other than form..."

Now, understanding emptiness does not mean that we stop having tea parties with toddlers. Just as we passionately play with the toddler as if it is completely real, we can participate in life too, as if it is completely real. We can be passionate, experience emotions, laugh, cry, all of this while understanding that it is all part of a beautiful play. We do not need to shy away from reality because it is simply a mirage. Nor do we have to get entangled as egos and lose ourselves in this play, forgetting that we can take the mask off at any time.

It is a Cosmic play, and we are all attending. It is purposeless, and at the same time meaningful. It is empty, but it is incredibly full. Full of its own emptiness.

Understanding the emptiness of the cup of tea, we can enjoy it to its full capacity. No attachment, no desire, just a cup of tea, as it is. 

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Understanding Emptiness - 06 July, 2020

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