4 Sticky Metaphorical Lessons Buddhist Monks Use to Teach Important Principles to Their Disciples

9 min readDec 1, 2020

The fireflies are sparkling
And even the mouth of a frog
Hangs wide open.

In Japan, the Firefly has become philosophical. Zen Buddhists and philosophers have identified a similarity between the firefly and the core concept of Zen: the brevity of life. This Haiku by Kobayashi Issa — much like the frog — left my mouth hanging wide open too. It beautifully captures how we’re supposed to spend our limited time on this planet.

We’re often saddened by the thought of death. However, Zen does not think of life’s transience as tragic. Rather, it implores us to be eternally grateful and joyous to have been allocated a few brief moments in a universe that is 13.8 billion years old. Rather than being saddened by the brevity of life, we must learn to celebrate it to the point that we ourselves sparkle — much like the firefly.

This is just one of many metaphors that Buddhism uses to share important lessons. Because normal life lessons are slippery, often, they go in one ear and are out the other. Lessons that use metaphors as a vehicle, on the other hand, have a unique ability to anchor themselves in our minds. Metaphorical lessons are sticky.

Buddhist monks knew this, which is why they often use metaphors to teach their disciples important things. In this article, I want to share four of such lessons with you. Well, five if you include the Firefly one too. I hope you like them!

Empty Your Cup

There was a Japanese Zen master named Nan-in who lived during the Meiji era . During his days as a teacher, he was visited by a university professor curious about Zen.
Being polite, Nan-in served the professor a cup of tea.
As he poured, the professor’s cup became full, but Nan-in kept on pouring. As the professor watched the cup overflow, he could no longer contain himself and said, “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
Nan-in turned to the professor and said, “Like the cup, you are too full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

In real life, we all behave like this professor. We assume we know everything. When someone tells us something, we’re too quick to say ‘I know!’ We have a huge blind spot when it comes to finding our lack of knowledge or abilities. In the field of psychology, this cognitive bias is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Since we’re unable to find flaws, a sense of illusory superiority is created that does us more harm than good.

However, when we’re truly able to recognize our lack of knowledge, only then can we gain more knowledge. Perhaps, the smartest and most knowledgeable man in history — Socrates — said, “I know that I know nothing.” And that is something I’ve observed in my life too. I used to believe I know everything. But as I’m learning more, I’m starting to realize how little I actually know. It’s a blissful paradox.

And all of this serves as a good self-awareness exercise as well.

Do I think I know a lot?
Am I quick to say “I know!”
Am I afraid of being proven wrong?

If our answers to these questions are in the affirmative, it might be a sign that our cups are too full and it’s time to empty them. And this also serves as a good metaphor to use when we’re stuck in life.

For instance, I’ve been having a lazy October so far. Even though I thought I knew everything there is to know about productivity, my knowledge failed me. And luckily, I read this story a few days ago. I decided to empty my cup and went looking for some new productivity knowledge. It helped me a lot.

So there are two fronts that we should all work on. One — to maintain a default state of an empty cup rather than a full cup. Two — to develop a keen eye to recognize when our knowledge fails us and immediately empty our cups in search of new wisdom.

The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness. — Bruce Lee

Wash Your Bowl

A monk said to Jōshū, “I have just entered this monastery. Please teach me.” “Have you eaten your rice porridge?” asked Jōshū. “Yes I have,” replied the monk. “Then you had better wash your bowl,” said Jōshū.

The metaphor behind this story is insanely deep. I’ve read this story before, and I always thought that it simply tells us that we must wash our dishes. But no. I found it’s true meaning (and it blew my mind) when I read this Zen Koan’s explanation in a book called The Gateless Gate. It goes like this.

The monk eating the porridge is described as the present moment. However, after he’s done eating his porridge, the uncleaned bowl represents another present moment which is still affected by the past. When Jōshū — a senior monk — asks the newbie to wash his bowl, he means that one must wash the past off of their present. That one must always keep a clean bowl — a present unaffected by the past.

Our past can be quite a prominent source of suffering for us. We regret what we did do. We regret what we didn’t. We hold on to people’s past mistakes and hold grudges against them. We hold on to our own past mistakes and beat ourselves up. But learning to let go of our past — to wash our bowls — will enable us to live happier lives.

I don’t wash my dishes. However, I do wash my protein shaker. And I know that it’s a bit of a stretch, but when I do that, this Zen Koan pops up in my head. And now I’ve learned to use those 45 seconds of self-reflection to actively let go of the past — to forgive myself and others.

Letting go of the past is not something we can do just once. We must do it every day. And this metaphor serves as a good daily reminder to do that. Whenever we wash our dishes — or if not dishes, anything — we can make it a habit to dedicate those few moments to actively let go of our past. This will enable us to live the present moment fully.

Be a Bamboo

The Bamboo tree is a prominent metaphor in Zen literature. In his book, Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds discusses the many important lessons that Zen masters have extracted from the bamboo. I’d like to discuss a few here.

Bend But Don’t Break

One impressive thing about the bamboo in the forest is how they sway with even the slightest breeze. Even though they’re hard and firm, they move with the wind with their trunks firmly rooted in the ground. And when the wind is gone, the bamboos bounce back to their normal position. Like the bamboo, we too must build emotional resilience in life.

Resilience is a quality that allows us to be knocked down by the adversities of life and come back stronger than before. To build emotional resilience, psychologists suggest us to be optimistic and see failure as a form of helpful feedback. If we can develop our muscle of resilience, we’ll be much more capable in dealing with the downs of life.

Find Wisdom in Emptiness

If we cut through the trunk of a bamboo tree, we can see that it’s hollow. This hollowness gives the bamboo many of its special qualities. Metaphorically, the hollow trunk of the bamboo reminds us to let go of our preconceived notions, and be open to new ideas. It’s a lesson similar to emptying our cups.

Commit to Continuous Growth

Bamboos are among the fastest-growing and tallest plants of the world. This is because bamboos keep growing continuously. And if we too as the bamboos commit to continuous growth, we can lead incredible lives. The Japanese concept of Kaizen also tells us that it’s steady and incremental growth of as little as 1% can lead us to excellence and leaps and bounds of growth may not even be necessary.

Be a Turtle

One day Mr Turtle and Mr Fox met in the forest. Mr Fox thought, “I’m going to have good food today.” And Mr Turtle thought, “Oh my goodness. My enemy is out there. Shall I run? But I’m not fast enough.” So he went inside his shell instead. Mr Fox paced round and round Mr Turtle but eventually, he got tired of waiting and went away.

The fox represents all our troubles. Fear. Anxiety. Loneliness. Etcetera. And more often than not, our standard solution to deal with our troubles is to not deal with them at all. We prefer running away. But what we fail to realize is that we’re turtles. We’ll never be able to outrun our troubles. The foxes are way faster and will always catch up.

When we’re troubled, we try to distract ourselves. We binge-watch. We hang out with our friends. We try to drink our troubles away. However, these are effective only temporarily. Our troubles always claw their way back. The only true way to overcome our troubles is to go inside — like a turtle. And by going inside, I mean nothing more intimidating than practising mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a state of open, active attention to the present. Its benefits include lowering stress levels, reducing harmful ruminating, and protecting against depression and anxiety. Research even suggests that mindfulness can help people better cope with rejection and social isolation.

There are countless mindfulness practices you can engage in. Discussing them is beyond the scope of this article. And there are several mindfulness applications like Headspace or Calm. You can use any or all of them to help elevate your life. Explore for yourself and find out what works best for you. Just ten minutes of mindfulness a day can really take your life to the next level. Don’t deprive yourself of that.

To Sum Up

Metaphorical lessons are much more powerful than their normal counterparts. Having known this, Buddhist monks often used metaphors to teach important lessons to their disciples. Here are four of them.

We’re often too full with our preconceived notions. We believe we know everything. Our cups are too full, and this hinders our growth. However, to learn more, we must learn to empty our cups.
The past is a source of suffering for all of us. But just like washing our bowls, we should also practice washing off the past off of the present moment if we’re to live happily.
Like the bamboo, we must learn to bounce back when life pushes us down. We must also commit to continuous growth.
We often try to distract ourselves when we’re troubled. However, distractions work temporarily at best. The only true way to overcome our troubled is by going inside, like a turtle.

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