More Tea

I've just gone for a walk to post a letter. The postbox was at some distance but that was a good thing because it helped me to reach my 10,000 steps today. (There was some doubt as I was far short when I got home and the new season of Grace and Frankie is out and that would usually have me glued to the TV until way past midnight.

But I only watched one episode while wolfing down my dinner, followed by 3 episodes of Big Bang Theory and then I decided to post my letter. And what do you know? It gave me exactly the number of steps I needed

But I'm not here to talk about tgat. I'm here to share yet another story from my book of tea which I have been reading every day religiously. 

One story a day.

No more. No less. 

And here it is. Tea to Last Lifetimes (by Aaron Fisher)

One of the most amazing experiences of my life happened when my whole family, including my very aged grandfather and great uncle, came to visit me in Taiwan. I took the whole group to see a tea master. The eight of them sat around the table chit-chatting about how exotic the tea room was, with its walls and walls of tea, waterfalls, and bonsai trees. Eventually, my teacher passed me a sly grin and reached behind him to a jar of very old pu-erh tea. Brewing the deep and dark liquor - - leaves ancient and wise, connected to the spirit of Nature -- changed the entire atmosphere of the room. Within minutes, it was enshrouded in a deep and peaceful silence, only the waterfall singing in the background. For the next two hours, I sat with my family in complete quiet, connected to one another as never before: never in my entire life before that day had my family and I ever sat in quiet; never had we been so close.

My mother wept with joy; my grandfather cried too, saying later that he felt the presence of my then recently departed grandmother. The power that tea can have -- the life-changing presence and connection that it may offer when prepared in the right environment -- became clearer to me than ever before. I share this experience, so personal, to show that one need not be a saint, a meditator, or even a tea lover to experience the profundity of what a tea ceremony steeped in the Tao can offer.

In this day and age, loud and cluttered, a drop or two of quiet emptiness is forceful enough to make the average person weeo. Nothing is needed more. When we study the history of tea, we find such sweeping statements as "for thousands of years tea was medicine to Chinese people," as if this somehow approximated a description of the largest part of man's relationship with this majestic plant. Authors often begin where the brush first touches paper, feeling more comfortable standing on historically verifiable ground. It takes a greater affinity with the Leaf to approach the much larger substrata of prehistory. Sure, it's true that tea was "medicine" for thousands of years before it was ever a commodity, social pleasure, or hobby. But that word, at least in English, is a bit misleading. It was "medicine" in the way that Native Americans used that word: "healing" or "with spiritual presence/power." 

In the beginning, tea was eaten and steeped by aboriginal shamans who used it to heal, to inspire meditation and to commune with divinities. Some of the earliest references to tea are as offerings to spirits as part of rituals to communicate with them. Slowly, over time, the steeped leaf became an essential brew in the life of Taoist mendicants. These hermits sought out wild bushes, claiming that tea was an ingredient in the "Morning Dew", which was the elixir of life and key to immortality. They drank tea for health, to clarify the mind, and to promote meditation as well as transmission from master to student. 

From martial arts to mathematics, the tradition of student and teacher sharing tea continues even today. If the student brews the tea and the master accepts, it is also an acceptance of the student into the lineage. More poignantly, when the master brews tea and presents it to the student there is a direct transmission of what Eastern mystics believe to be an ineffable wisdom, only available to experience. What could be more symbolic than the master brewing his mind into a bowl, which the student then consumes, taking that wisdom into himself? 

When Buddhism first came to China, it was heavily influenced by indigenous shamanism and Taoism. Anthropologists call such blending of beliefs "syncretism", suggesting that newfound systems never completely replace the old ways, but rather blend, forming new traditions. No doubt, the first Buddhists arriving from India and Tibet were served tea by the local Taoist masters, and found much concordance in their mutual appreciation for quiet, meditation, and completion through Nature. Very soon after, tea was incorporated into the lives of the burgeoning monasteries. In fact, every single tea mountain in China is also home to a famous monastery. Sometimes the monks brought the trees, for they were indeed the first farmers; but more often, they built their monasteries on mountains where wild tea bushes grew. Tea drinking, offerings, and ceremonies were recorded as part of their monastic code, and such an essential part of the Buddhist life that when Japanese monks first came to the mainland to study and carry Buddhism back to their homeland, they couldn't do so without also bringing knowledge of tea -- production, preparation, and even seeds and saplings to plant. They said, "The taste of tea is the taste of Zen, and there is no understanding of one without the other." 

Primarily, it was in the Tang dynasty that the royalty and literati were first introduced to tea during their visits to monasteries. They wished to take tea home and perhaps recapture the quietude that had transformed them on the mountain. Slowly, tea was commoditised, heralding new farming techniques, trades and eventually tea houses, private brewing for pleasure and all the other well-documented migrations of tea throughout Asia and beyond to the West. No matter what reason you've found a love for tea, it is important to remember tea's heritage, which is ultimately Nature itself; passing beyond the Buddhist to the Taoist and their steaming bowls, past the early shamans, we come at last to eons of simple trees in the forests of southern China, silent and undisturbed by man. 

To many it may seem almost like a fairy tale that those Taoist mystics cloudwalking around ancient China were able to find a sense of oneness, transcendence and connection to the universal energy when today people all over the world drink tea all the time and never get close to those sensations. My experience with my family that day proved to me that it doesn't take much for us to find a sense of tranquility and completion through tea: just provide a quiet space with a bit of respect for tea and people can change. I'd say it was strange if I hadn't seen it happen so many times. In an age of flurrying activity, some ancient stillness is needed more than ever. Rather than sweeping your tea into the hustle and bustle of your normal workday, why not try taking time to slow down and have a cup of quiet? Aren't you a part of the same world those sages dwelt in? When asked to share a tea memory, I found myself passing through the experience I had with my family to the realisation that I was connected to the same world all those who have ever practised Cha Dao were connected to. Sharing in an ancient tradition of Cha Dao, I share all my elders' tea memories as my own. As you drink your tea, are you too feeling as they felt? Do the forests not soothe your soul in the same way? Perhaps we need not ask. A sip is enough. Our breath warmed, we return to the mountain hermitage of the heart.