Use the things…

This Cup Is Already Broken

by Ajahn Chah

“You see this goblet?” asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”~ version by Mark Epstein (from Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective)

I stumbled accross this lil gem today. For me it's really valid. I had a beautiful porcelain tea cup, given to me by someone who helped to shape my life. It sat on a shelf, out of harms way for about eight years. I knew if I used it, I would break it. I'm not great with delicate things.

Then one day I just decided it was too beautiful to not be used. I have to tell you, tea never tasted better than in that cup. I knew that at some point it would be broken.

Suprisingly it wasn't at my hand. A simple accident. It had survived a year.

Interestingly enough it broke at a time that I had just started to dabble in making mosaics.

So I wasn't that crestfallen, I knew something beautiful would come of it's demise.

and it did.

It felt like a an anaolgy. Something beaitiful ends, something beautiful takes it's place.