just like old chao chou an honest offer for all: have a cup of tea. but here i am once more a lone tea cup overflows
i am perhaps more proud of this Poetry than i should be, especially in context.
The first three lines play inside of a Koan:
Once, Chao Chou asked a monk,
“Have you been here before?”
The monk responded, “Yes, I have.”
Chao Chou said, “Have a cup of tea.”
Later, Chao Chou asked another monk,
“Have you been here before?”
The monk replied, “No, I haven’t.”
Chao Chou said, “Have a cup of tea.”
The head monk of the temple had been observing this, and said to Chao Chou, “Whenever Your Reverence asks a monk, ‘Have you been here before?’ whether they say ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ you say, ‘Have a cup of tea.’ What’s the meaning of this?”
Chao Chou answered,
“Head monk! Have a cup of tea.”
the haiku form draws from this koan, but on reflection, I came to another similar koan, and caught myself:
NAN-IN, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912)), 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 cup 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?"
and here i am, coming to empty my cup, finding it only ever more full. One cannot simply call for the world we want to see without also placing oneself in to that reality. Tea-ism is positioned as a community, a culture, but it is also a lens that people do not look through often enough, especially at their selves. At my self.