Wisdom in a Teacup abounds; all we have to do is hold each cup with mindfulness. The absolute simplicity of adding water to a leaf while being totally present, brings with it poetry, depth, ritual and meditation.
Wisdom in a Teacup is never further away than your next pot. And the joy is, it is not only wisdom that awaits you, tea somehow softens the hardest day, quietens the din, calms vexations and focuses the mind.
Sages through the ages have offered much Wisdom in a Teacup. A little of that wisdom…
- Though I cannot flee from the world of corruption, I can prepare tea with water from a mountain stream, And put my head to rest. ~ Yeda Akinari
- There is no need to have any special attitude while drinking except one of thankfulness. The nature of tea itself is that of no-mind ~ Popchong Sunim (1)
- One of the shining moments of the day is that when, having returned a little weary from an afternoon walk, I exchange boots for slippers, out-of-door coat for easy, familiar, shabby jacket, and, in my deep, soft-elbowed chair, await the tea-tray… How delicious is the soft yet penetrating odour with floats into my study, with the appearance of the teapot! What a glow does it bring after a walk in chilly rain. ~ George Gissing
- Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things. ~ Saki (H. H. Munro)
- A crisis pauses during tea. ~ Terri Guillemets (2)
- The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism … for it expresses conjointly with ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness; it is economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of proportion to the universe. ~ Kakuzo Okakura (3)
- If you have one teapot
And can brew your tea in it
That will do quite well.
How much does he lack himself
Who must have a lot of things? ~ Sen No Rikyu
Tea is the most celebrated of beverages, not only because there is Wisdom in a Teacup, but also for tea’s ability to make a small moment great, to bring reverence to the mundane, to bring each sense to sparkling life, and to show there is beauty in the day’s simplest tasks should we choose to see it. ~ GreenWitch Tea
(1) Popchong Sunim (2) Terri Guillemets
(3) Kakuzo Okakura (4) Tea Meditation
4 Comments. Leave new
I really love feeling apart of something so real ,and poetic as the pholisofies and deep cleansing gratitude, at tea. Other times I zone out sip happily in my bubble! Im going to read some more, and enjoy each new discovery!! I ran today and it came out of a musing during my morning tea!! I can run now!! A couple hundred feet at a time, made 400 meters!
Tyvm!!!!!!!!
Greetings Mark, I’m so with you! Tea’s main magick for me, is it’s ability to make everything else just fade away… Love meeting kindred tea drinkers ~ many blessings…
Sandra that’s brilliant… that you are running!!!! And that it came from a pot of tea, I love it!!! Enjoy each step and each sip! I look forward to hearing how it all goes :-))
i love this blog! that feeling of sitting down somewhere special with a cup of green tea, you just feel everything go away. and feel at peace.