Veronica Snedaker, Rev.

My mother recently gave me a cup. It has JAPAN stamped on the bottom. I think it is a pretty common design, I’ve seen it often in second-hand stores. It’s unusual as cups go only because it has two layers; an inner layer which holds your hot liquid and an outer layer which keeps your hands away from the heat, a handy innovation in a handleless cup. There are nine heart-shaped cutouts in the outer layer; the hearts are upside down and there are three sets of three each. Through the cutouts you can see the inner cup with its somewhat paler glaze.

It is interesting to me that my mother never offered me the cup before. She has had it for years, part of a set of cups with a matching teapot. She gave me the teapot and most of the cups years ago, when I got my first apartment. That set went away to the second-hand store some time back, when I found that my life did not include tea parties. For some reason, she kept this cup; it was larger than the others but I don’t know what special purpose it had originally. Anyway, she kept it and has used it as a water glass for some time.

But she gave it to me recently, with the air of someone delivering something really unusual and special. And it is, for the bottom has dropped out. That is, the bottom of the inner cup has separated from its walls, and now rests on the bottom of the outer cup. It is now ‘useless’ … as a cup.

Now, my mother is 100 years old, and she does not give up her things lightly. They have deep value to her, because they ground her in her past, when she was able to walk easily and could keep her life organized and she could remember people’s names and stories. They ground her in certainty and provide her with a framework that her present capabilities do not. So I try to take everything she gives me with grace, even though I can’t imagine using it or even liking it.

Ajahn Chah is reported to have told a story about a water glass. While holding up a beautiful, expensive glass given him by a devoted lay student, he told his audience, “It is already broken. If you see it as already broken, you won’t be sad when it does break, and you can use it freely and with gratitude, without worry that you might lose it and its valuable qualities.” It is a great lesson in impermanence and non-attachment.

And now my mother has given me a cup. A cup that is—literally—already broken.

Today, to write this note, I’ve taken the cup outside to see it in direct light so that I might better describe it. It is quite lovely and I understand why the style was so popular. The beauty of the glaze and its color is apparent only in the sunlight, at least to my eyes; I may never before have seen it so illuminated. And my power of description is not up to the task so you must go with your imagination rather than a further, inadequate word-picture from me.

And it is, still, already broken.

As with so many things my mother gives me, I get two gifts: the gift of the object itself, and the gift of deciding how best to employ it. Often that decision takes the form of, how can I most respectfully dispose of this item? But the broken cup, the cup with the bottom fallen out … I put it on my altar, where it, along with the Buddha and a portrait of my master, receives my bows twice daily.

After a few days I knew what it was for, and I cut up a piece of paper into small slips. On each slip of paper, I wrote a name, a name from my personal merit list. They sit in the cup, and receive my bows of form and of gratitude, and share in the merit of my daily practice. And they offer back to me too, the great power and resilience and true-heartedness of the people who are in need of merit, that is, all of us. That true-heartedness flows and sometimes explodes like lava from a volcano, merit and blessings exploding from the bottom of the bottomless cup, the cup that is, and always was, already broken.