Don't Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is The Beginning & End Of Suffering

CHAPTER 15
CREATING SPACE FOR MIRACLES
“Today I make space for miracles. I recognize that it's not how big a
miracle is that's important but how much room I create for it.” — Kyle
Gray
The Story of the Zen Master and a Scholar - Empty Your Cup
Once upon a time, there was a wise Zen master. People traveled
from far away to seek his help. In return, he would teach them and
show them the way to enlightenment. On this particular day, a
scholar came to visit the master for advice. 
“I have come to ask you
to teach me about Zen,”
the scholar said.
Soon, it became obvious that the scholar was full of his own
opinions and knowledge. He interrupted the master repeatedly with
his own stories and failed to listen to what the master had to say.
The master calmly suggested that they should have tea.
So the master gently poured his guest a cup. The cup was filled,
yet he kept pouring until the cup overflowed onto the table, onto the
floor, and finally onto the scholar’s robes. The scholar cried, 
“Stop!
The cup is full already. Can’t you see?” “Exactly,”
the Zen master
replied with a smile. 
“You are like this cup — so full of ideas that
nothing more will fit in. Come back to me with an empty cup.”
It is ironic how much could be written about nothing. That’s what
space is: nothing. When we study the Universe and quantum
physics, we realize that everything comes from nothing. Therefore,
the great spiritual masters call this The Great Nothingness. For there
to be creation, there must first be space. The same is true for our
own minds. If you want something new to be created, such as new
thoughts, then you must first create space so that you can receive
new ideas that can change your life. Just like the teacup, if your mind

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is completely full of old thinking, it is impossible to have any new
thoughts come into your mind to create the change you seek.
The way we can create this space is through non-thinking. As
soon as we stop our strenuous efforts to think, we immediately
create space where new thoughts and ideas can enter our minds.
Questions that challenge our current way of thinking are also a great
way to create space in our minds.
All the magic happens in this space of nothingness. For instance,
great athletes go through intense periods of training, but the best
athletes know that they need an equally intense period of rest
afterwards to stay in peak performance. It is during this rest period
that they recover, build muscle, and become stronger. This space
they create for themselves through rest is where everything they
wanted from the workout manifests.
When Thomas Edison was confronted with a particularly
challenging problem, he would sleep in his chair while holding a steel
ball in each of his hands. Eventually he would slip into a deep
enough stage of sleep where the ball would drop, wake him up and a
solution to his problem would pop into his mind. Everything comes
from nothing, and Edison understood this concept of creating space
for new thoughts to enter his mind instead of attempting to effort his
way into solving problems with his old way of thinking. He knew that
old thinking was not going to give him the solution to his challenges.