My Cup Is Empty: The Lessons of Water

6 min readJun 6, 2020

When in the search for meaning the phrases “Empty your cup” and “flow like water” comes to mind. What do they mean? Well, the latter was a quote I believe came from Bruce Lee and it was a part of his unique mindset. He used the analogy of water becoming apart of what contains it and can be used to demonstrate adaptability. In this article, I want to spend time on both these ideas as concepts of mindset with some of my own examples and tie them together in some way.

Lessons of Wu Wei

The ancient philosophy of Wu Wei was one of the pillars of Bruce Lee’s knowledge and he brought it to life with spectacular examples of expression through martial arts. I’m pulling from the teachings that he spent his life learning. Although it is not a complete belief, it is part of Taoism and is probably the most easily separated concept from that religion. Wu wei can have the meaning of ‘non-action’ in some of its translations. Its the way of neutrality or more harmony of all things that exist. To most its an abstract idea but is elemental and needs no assistance yet it is a life-force that resembles Stoicism. It is also an idea that Bruce likened to water, this was something that he said during an interview in 1974;

“Be like water because it is soft. resilient, and formless. It can never be snapped.”

What that quote meant for Bruce was the challenge of being formless and adaptable rather then being rigid and resistant like a rock in the water. What happens to the rock? It loses its rough edges and gets overpowered anyway and lets the contours of the water meander to infinity. As a little bit of a juxtaposed example I’ll use a bible quote to expand on this idea;

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”- Psalm 23:5

Although, this is a passage from the bible it demonstrates the universal power of nature and the need for spirituality and the ultimate stability that it can provide. It also proves how available the world is to us as human’s and at any point we can seek the wisdom that nature provides.

Trust yourself before trusting others

The problem today in varying degrees is that a lot of people join groups and want to fit in to a mold that may not fit them. Yip Man was one of Bruce’s great teachers and probably got him to think as a philosopher would. Although, Bruce had the support of teachers, from a young age he sought out information from a lot of reading. He had books on philosophy and martial-arts he used and learned from. He maintained his need to learn. Here’s how he thought of being a student in his own written words;

“Instead of learning to depend on themselves for expression, they blindly follow their instructors, no longer feeling alone, and finding security in mass imitation. The product of this imitation is a dependent mind. Independent inquiry, which is essential to genuine understanding, is sacrificed.”

What can be gathered from this is the need to question and not believe one form of philosophy and mindset as a student. Thus, independent inquiry equals independent thought.

Action Of Non-Action

“My style? You can call it the art of fighting without fighting.”

This was a response a character Bruce was playing gave in response to an opponent in the movie, Enter The Dragon. Intuitively, I would say that this is Bruce Lee’s mission statement, not just for his character but for how he would meet any of his challengers in real life. It’s Bruce’s own version of taking action and implementing Wu Wei. Another translation of Wu Wei is ‘action of non-action’.

If you have seen Enter The Dragon the scene played out in a way that made the challenger with his might and intimidation being a part of his mindset; was the only way he could bring a challenge to any opponent. As they proceeded toward the actual location where the tournament was to take place, all challengers were traveling together to get to this destination. All Bruce did was persuade his challenger to get on to a smaller boat and take it to a secluded location on the island. Once the challenger got on to that boat he was pushed out to sea and instantly eliminated as a fighter in the tournament. It is a classic case of the water flowing over the rock. And not mention it all took place at sea.

The Meaning Of The Cup

The two states of being are as follows; your cup is overrun with water, or it is always needing to be refilled too soon and then it is always empty. It can be an illustration of mental bandwidth for the purpose of this article and will be explained more fully later. For example, and for context — let’s say that you are working a regular job and it is particularly unfulfilling. In which case, you are in a constant search for meaning. This is an example of a cup that is not overflowing but, is not quite empty. This could also be symbolic to living paycheck to paycheck and trying to conserve limited amounts of money. In this state it is never possible to see consecutive steps ahead, rather, it's a form of over-accountability to one’s affair’s which is noble and should not be seen as wasted time because even then you are learning about your nature. It's a midway point and there is nothing wrong with it but, it's just a midway point and is not the end point, of course.

Expansion Versus Contraction

How does Bruce Lee’s philosophy of water and the metaphor of filling your cup and its three states all connect? On one level you can use water as the resource upon which you enjoy in a cup, it is a literal resource. On another level, a cup filled or being emptied is a state of mind and the mental bandwidth a person may want or need to get better at life. The water knows how to bend anything or anyone to its will.

Water can also expand and contract in order to go where it's needed. For example, in tarot card reading the cup of suitors is an analogy for relationships. It’s describes a cup and the water within it as vitality and emotional openness — the more full the cup, the more emotionally available each person is to one another. In that sense a relationship can be helpful in the expansion of many things — energy, happiness, mental fortitude and an appreciation for life. In contraction, it could mean the lessening of these values and emotions.

Conclusion

Maybe what these ideas come down to is the endless cycle of progression and our attempts to understand those ideas and confine them. Living life requires you to engage with what’s around you at some level, but, you can always decide at what level to engage with it. All of nature has lessons for humanity, and one of them can be learned from water and how it interacts with other elements.