To savor something new, 

we need to let go of the old.

Picture in your mind a cup filled with tea. It’s your favorite Earl Grey. But today, you feel like trying another tea, one that a friend is raving over, the Dragon Pearl Jasmine. Both teas are really good, but you experiment. You mix them together. The result? A very strange tasting brew. 

Learning Buddhism is like this. 

If we try to take in new teachings when our “cup” already holds another, the diverse teachings will become muddled. We’ll end up trying to combine different forms of meditation and find that we cannot master any of them. Study different teachings and we’ll find that while both have the same goal, we need to take different paths to reach it. Listen to different teachers and we’ll get confused with teachings explained in different ways. Even when equally good, the practice and the teachings lose their potency when combined.

Sometimes, we need to clean the cup—let go of former ideas and notions—to purely appreciate that which is new.